936 ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS

all the "mea culpas" in the world will not move us forward; all the
admissions of guilt by a present generation cannot alleviate the guilt
of past generations. The focus must switch from negative to positive.
Guilt immobilizes and fear polarizes; let us search for a new unity
based on strength which energizes.

This is not to say that many conditions in the slums of America
are not intolerable, for they are; or to say that we can tolerate them,
for we cannot. This is to say that we cannot and will not tolerate
violence; that there is no excuse for lawlessness, no justification for
individual irresponsibility.

If we reward violence, violence will soon supplant law as the ac-
cepted instrument to achieve social change. Yet if we deny that just
grievances exist, we destroy society just as surely by blocking effective
outlets for change. Prevention, not repression, must be our end; the
law, not counter-force, must be our means.

In a recent editorial in the Saturday Review, Norman Cousins
wrote: "The attack on violence requires not just superior counter-
violence but a spirited and morally imaginative upgrading of our
entire way of life. "

America could do well to take heed and heart to the Greek Youth
of America's theme — Go Forth, because the cure for our nation's
malaise lies in a new orthodoxy. What is new orthodoxy? It is to
reaffirm our traditional values within the perspective and the po-
tential of the twentieth century. What is new — our challenges in
a highly mobile, densely populated, computerized environment that
tends to overwhelm the individual, and our resources — all the means
available to an affluent and technologically advanced society.

What is orthodox? Our democratic political values, government by
law and the consent of the governed, individual rights and individual
responsibilities — values we adhere to because they endure — values
that are orthodox not because they are dogmatic but because they are
dynamic.

The first step toward the new orthodoxy is to restore the individual
to his rightful place, to reemphasize the individual's important role
as a citizen. Individual initiative and private enterprise, in most cases,
can be more effective than government. In resolving the economic
problems of the ghetto this means black capitalism, Negro ownership
and management of commercial enterprises. In resolving the social
problems of our cities, it means individual effort where groups such