5. #em#Are We Getting Our Share of the Best?#/em#

5. Are We Getting Our Share of the Best?

R. Smith Simpson

The following is excerpted from a 1962 article in the U.S. government’s Foreign Service Journal.

My initial surprise was to find among the candidates an abysmal ignorance of so elementary a subject as the geography of the United States. Few could even place accurately the principal rivers: one with so descriptive a name as the Ohio was not infrequently identified as being “somewhere west of the Mississippi.” Few could name the principal seaports, and, of course, any requirement demanding such detailed familiarity with this country as identifying the states comprising the “wheat belt” or the “corn belt” was completely beyond the average candidate’s depth.

As to elementary economics and social data, most could only guess at the population, labor force, and gross national product of their country. Many did not know what constituted “gross national product.” They had no clear idea as to the principal products of their country, nor as to its exports and imports. They could name a few of each, but had no notion of their relative importance and had given no thought to the role of imports in the American economy.

As with elementary geographic and economic aspects of the United States, so with historical, sociological, and cultural. Americans abroad are asked a great many questions about their country. How did the United States acquire the Panama Canal? What is its status now? Who started our war with Spain (or Mexico) and what came out of it? When did our labor movement start and where does it stand now? How does a Jimmy Hoffa get control of a powerful union? What were some of the reform movements in American history? What became of them?

A good half of our candidates could answer such questions with only the thinnest recital of facts; many could not discuss them at all. Some could not recall ever having heard of the Populist movement; few knew its connection with Woodrow Wilson’s “New Freedom.” Asked if he knew anything about the Progressive movement, one candidate replied, “Oh, yes, that was LaFollette’s movement.” To the question, “Where did LaFollette come from?” he could only reply vaguely, “Somewhere out West.”