THE CAMPAIGN: The Confrontation of the Two Americas

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in a California that was luminous with opportunity, even in Depression days. The Nixons worked hard and suffered, but always there was opportunity through discipline. Sheltered but driven, he was molded by the society of merchants in which he developed.

Out in George McGovern's prairie, the dreams faded in the '20s. Mitchell would never be Detroit. For some reason—climate, falling farm prices, no jobs—people left South Dakota. Instead of the sunny optimism that glowed through the hard years in California, there was little more than grasshoppers and blizzards in answer to the prayers of country parsons. They were people who felt overpowered not only by the elements but by other men. McGovern saw it from the front pew, saw it when he hunted rabbits over the parched countryside. Always there were the Scriptures ringing in his head—someone worse off to be helped, someone more unhappy to cheer.

Nixon went after personal achievement and material success. Life became a contest where the strong and persistent endured, the controlled and clever won the field. Each person looked out for himself and his, worried about his own life more than his neighbor's. Horatio Alger may have entered McGovern's life, but not nearly so much as the apostle Peter. If there was endurance and struggle and self-improvement, it was often related to other people or grander designs. In those small towns of Depression days the churches taught history through the Bible and the music that came out of musty pump organs. There was the faint whiff of adventure from the missionary letters. So McGovern went out to serve people and to understand the world a little better.

Neglect. Not much has really changed in the two men since they both went off to war. They learned their arts, studied their legislative and political crafts. But Nixon sees the world as an arena of individual initiative, where each man is expected to do all he can within his abilities. His nation, he still insists, is a place of almost limitless opportunity where hard work and brains can bring a man wealth or power, which translate very easily with Nixon into happiness. George McGovern still sees the world as a place of natural cruelties, where strong men are supposed to help others before themselves.

In the world of the presidency, Nixon believes that the people can pretty much run themselves if left alone. A spirit of laissez-faire—to the point of "benign neglect"—suffuses his thinking. Thus a major purpose of Washington is to guard against too much governmental encroachment. It is ironic that under Nixon, the Government has imposed economic controls and grown bigger than ever. But he believes that he has stirred more initiative in the courthouses and state capitols.

In a more missionary spirit, McGovern would use government as a moral force to create equal rights, to give to the poor, to provide jobs for the jobless, food for the hungry, security for families that cannot compete, medical care for the old and the very young. He sees government as the problem solver. His view is fundamentally domestic, concentrated on the problems around him that he can see and hear and understand. The foreign scene tends to intrude only in cases like Viet Nam, which he feels is a moral outrage that has depleted the nation's resources.

Nixon, in his preoccupation with personal

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