Hobart College - Echo of the Seneca Yearbook (Geneva, NY)

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True knowledge, as all knew, poor humanities stu- dents not so well as bright mathematicians, was to be found in Science. The X-RAC, the RCA color camera, and the urani- um reactor represent scientific developments which are hallmarks of sacred Progress. The generation was star- tled at times and would inquire, Progress to what? The failure of the leaders to provide a satisfactory answer led to great despair and indifference. Pile generation thumbed its nose in contempt at smug truths of science, smug churchly certainties, was bored with relativism and too tired to make existential leaps and began to live without thinking. The generation hooted at selective service in “The Girl He Left Behind,” deified James Dean because he smiled at nothing, and, looking into a mirror, espied itself, in long hair, a snarling smile, poor, tender, rebellious—Elvis Presley. Leading, hoping, a gem, once uncut: the mature J. Robert Oppenheimer. Made one of us by a certain un- fortunate “incident;” a fool confessed. Inspired by Mr. Murrow, “Oppy” was the Dean of academicians; Au- thor of sin, he made amends but he did not capture the imagination of the decade. As he passed, it seemed as if a serpentine whisper sadly pursued him.

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A decade adrift found its heroes and its symbols in driven, pessimistic but good men, in Joe Friday of “DRAGNET” and in James Dean of “Rebel Without C » ause. Sgt. Friday, sombre, quiet, followed criminals to the thudding dum-de-dum-dum thematic mood music of TV’s most popular cops-and-robbers program of 195.3. Old values, shaken by two wars, and the rise of a new ideology, promised deep changes. A profound longing arose that this generation which had come of age in a moment when dreams of a technological utopia were within grasp, in a nuclear tragedy, and die by self- execution. Human viciousness, multiplied by technology, was the unaccountable which threatened the future of man- kind. Joe Friday spoke with the monotone of a ticker- tape and a generation of scientific-minded viewers agreed that this was the way the world ran. The message of Sgt. Friday was that in the age of misery one might from time to time smile weakly. The old moral America kept the old moral values, but cynicism and relativism confronted the youth of the citadel of democracy. New men rose to power while the arch-symbol of youth and handsome liberal success perished in prison. The decade still adrift, was not without propulsion as the forces of revolutionary change besetting the civilization grew. The rift between old values and the unmapped luture and its strange values widened. The Selective Service Act brought grim news to spec- ulative heads who would have preferred alter five decades of war to talk awhile yet. They would like to discuss the dark vision of communism, its forbidding and malevolent character. It was now a time of trou- bles, worse than anytime in the past. Many events of the ’50’s were analogous to the 20’s. But, the condition of all thought was nuclear warfare, which distinguished this decade’s troubles Irom its kin in other ages. A handsome young student of the ,30’s, philosophical, liberal, revolutionary, delivered a nation in the 50’s from its pharoah. Gamel Abd-el Nasser became the beloved of F.gypt, of the uncommitted peoples from Tokyo to Cairo, of the Arabs, and told the world his moving story behind the July Revolution in the “Phi- losophy of the Revolution.” What was the aim of thi-s proud Egyptian? What did he mean to this generation of Americans? He was good of course, although a bit anti-semitic; he was going to do something for the Egyptians. We were for that. Events were taking shape: the good, the just were, as when America was young and revolutionary, winning. The smile of Nasser was a good smile like Eisenhower’s: old moral America glowed in reassurance of itself and we lent a hand. There was the case of a certain smiling, handsome prisoner whose serpent cry could scarcely be heard as it hissed into the corners ol the decade. But one day, the toothy Nassar sprouted horns and fangs, and the faintest tendency to a clipped moustache, and an inspired generation watched the s-s-s-s of the west poison Nasser. The generation was delt a handsome blow. 24 r

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In the spring of ’54 two friends of Senator Joe Mc- Carthy, vomited up by the decade’s apparent need to examine the content of its sewers, showed two unhappy themes. Schine, neanderthalic, looks the neo-barbarian that the decade idolizes. Cohn is the tongue-lolling jackei, smart, preying, opportunist, handy with a switch- blade. Both are unmasked. But the near-hero, handsome McCarthy, is both together, moving on for power over principle, drifting from investigation to investigation, until trapped by his own coils. The kiss of death came unawares. A landing gavel expressed retribution: Hennings, innocents, “softies,” servants.