608 ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS

D. Thus, it is reassuring to see that student leadership still exists
and that this University and its friends have established the Milford
Whitehill Seminars to provide full and formal recognition of the
vital contribution made by student leaders to the intellectual life of
the college community.

1. As a teacher of law, I found that dialogue was the most satis-
factory instrument for learning, challenging the instructor as
well as the student.

2. So I will confine my formal remarks to serve as a frame and
focus only — and then turn the seminar over to you and your
questions.

3. While I share your interests in all the great issues confronting
our nation today, and I am most willing to discuss them with
you — this is the age of specialization and my specialty is State
government. While I share all Americans' concern over Vietnam,
the threat to the dollar, foreign policy and domestic peace, the
only problems on which I can speak with any expertise and act
with measurable effect are those confronting Maryland.

II. The major problem confronting Maryland is the major problem
challenging every state with a large urban center. It has been said
so often that it has become a cliche — the problem of America today
is the problem of its cities.

A. However, for all its validity, this is a dangerous generalization
for it invites oversimplification and a monolithic approach to solu-
tions.

1. Harvard political scientist James Q. Wilson best summarized
the fallacy of this generalized approach when he wrote: "Speak-
ing of urban problems has real dangers for it lends to the sub-
stitution of effect for cause and thus the misdirection of re-
medial action. " Although there is general agreement as to the
evidence of urban problems — blight, poverty, pollution and
traffic congestion — Wilson correctly cites that "slums and bums
and cars are not the causes of problems, they are the symptoms,
and if we tear them down or clear them out or ban them from
one place, they will inevitably reappear somewhere else. "

B. Genuine resolution, and urban renewal rather than removal,
depends upon the accurate identification of root causes.

1. Essentially, problems fall into two broad categories — structural
and social.