Reference no: EM133649857

Document 1: Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), The Sharon Statement 1960.

In this time of moral and political crisis, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths. We, as young conservatives, believe: That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual's use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force; That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom; order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice; That when government ventures beyond these lawful functions, it accumulates power which tends to diminish order and liberty; . . . That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, ant that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs; . . . That the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties; That the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with, this menace.

Document 2: Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), The Port Huron Statement 1962.

We are the people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit. . . . Freedom and equality for each individual, government of, by and for the people-these American values we found good principles by which we could live as men. As we grew, however, our comfort was penetrated by events too troubling to dismiss. First the Southern struggle against racial bigotry compelled most of us from silence to activism.

Second, . . . the proclaimed peaceful intentions of the United States contradicted its economic and military investments in the Cold War. . . . The convention moral terms of the age, the politician moralities-"free world," "people's democracies"-reflect realities poorly if at all, and seem to function more as ruling myths than as descriptive principles. But neither has our experience in the universities brought us moral enlightenment. Our professors and administrators sacrifice controversy to public relations; . . . their skills and silence are purchased by investors in the arms race. We would replace power rooted in possession, privilege, or circumstance by power and uniqueness rooted in love, reflectiveness, reason, and creativity. As a social system we seek the establishment of a democracy of individual participation [so] that the individual [can] share in those social decisions determining the quality and direction of his life. . . . A new left must consist of younger people. . . . [It] must start controversy throughout the land, if national policies and national apathy are to be reversed.

1. From Young Americans for Freedom, The Sharon Statement, 1960. In Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History 3rd Edition (Boston: W.W. Norton, 2012), 790.

2. From Tom Hayden et al, The Port Huron Statement, 1962. In Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History 3rd Edition (Boston: W.W. Norton, 2012), 791.

Questions:

1. What are the main differences and similarities between the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)?

2. How do these documents reflect differing notions of freedom among student activists in the United States during the 1960s?