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To some extent, Wasps are presiding over the dissolution of their own dominion, and they are proud of it. In a book he wrote four years ago, The Protestant Establishment, Sociologist E. Digby Baltzell criticized upper-class Wasps for establishing a caste system in many places. Today, he gives them credit for being neither "arrogant nor insensitive. They are the least prejudiced people as far as intermarriage is concerned. Catholics are much more prejudiced and Jews are the worst of all." The great assimilating Presidents of this century—the two Roosevelts—were quintessential Wasps.
The well-bred Wasp who rebels against the snobbishness and starchiness of his background is an almost classic figure in American life. Prominent Wasp families have contributed to the ranks of the current youthful revolutionaries.
Ultimately, Waspism may be more a state of mind, a pattern of behavior, than a rigid ethnic type. Some non-Wasps display all the characteristics normally associated with the most purebred Wasps. Consciously or not, they are Waspirants. Many people were surprised to learn that Edmund Muskie, who talked and looked like a Down East Yankee, was actually of Polish descent. Edward Brooke, who was successfully promoted for the U.S. Senate by civic-spirited Wasps, has all the attributes of a well-bred Wasp, as does Whitney Young Jr. One doesn't have to be white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant to be a Wasp in spirit. The Wasp aura is created by the right education, style, social position, genealogy, achievement, wealth, profession, influence or politics.
Thus Roman Catholics like William Buckley, Sargent Shriver and Ted Kennedy are pushed toward Waspdom by their associations, professions and life styles. Though German Jewish, Walter Lippmann is still a Waspirant. His clubs (Metropolitan, Cosmos, River) and his influence on opinion give him undeniable Wasp power. Wall Street Dynasts John Schiff and John Loeb may qualify, if they want, as honorary Wasps. So may Walt Whitman Rostow, who has been a top aide of Lyndon Johnson and beats most Wasps at tennis.
"The perfect candidate," wrote Harvard Professors Edward Banfield and James Wilson, "is of Jewish, Polish, Italian or Irish extraction and has the speech, dress, manners and the public virtues—honesty, impartiality and devotion for public interest—of the upper-class Anglo-Saxon."
A Sense of Public Service
Ironically, it was a member of a Roman Catholic dynasty, John F. Kennedy, who added new luster to Wasp ideals. He was such a model Wasp with his dry humor, his laconic eloquence and his lack of sentimentality, that he set a style which encouraged many authentic upper-class Wasps to take heart and to run for political office. John D. Rockefeller IV was one. He was followed by George Bush in Texas, William L. Saltonstall and John Winthrop Sears in Massachusetts and Bronson La Follette in Wisconsin. "In previous times, you had to be born in a log cabin to be elected to office," notes John Jay McCloy, who has been called the board chairman of the U.S. Wasp Establishment. "Now, to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth often means you have a distinct advantage. This would seem to indicate that the tradition of the Adamses, Elihu Root and Henry Stimson is perhaps even greater today."