Cult of the Aged Leader

Why does the United States, a country that traditionally prizes youth, idealizes it, insists on it in top jobs, now find itself with superannuated leadership in the most critical area of national life? The facts are these: the ages of men running the government are at an all-time high. Dwight Eisenhower, 68, will shortly become one of the oldest Presidents in American history. The over-all average of the Cabinet he brought with him was 14 years over the pre-1900 average.

In the Senate, despite the handful of younger men who were chosen in the last election, the average age is nearly twice that at which a man is deemed mature enough to fill the job according to the Constitution.

There are more than four times as many men over 65 in the Senate -- the word comes from the same Latin stem that gives us "senile" -- as there would be if their age bracket were proportionately representative of the American adult population as a whole. Senators are exceeded in this lopsided predominance of old men only by a few other job groups, including scissors grinders, fortune tellers, beekeepers, umbrella menders, bankers, Roman Catholic Cardinals, cemetery keepers and Federal judges.

In the House of Representatives, Speaker Sam Rayburn is 77. If the Republicans had won control of Congress last election, Rayburn would have been replaced by Joe Martin, also well up in his 70s.

The oldest of our top leaders are Congressional committee chairmen who head the bodies where new laws and projects are born and where initiative and vision are called for perhaps in greater measure than anywhere else in American public life.

The average age of all Senate permanent committee chairmen is 67. Appropriations is headed by Carl Hayden, 81, Public Works by Dennis Chavez, 71, and Finance by Byrd of Virginia who refuses to list his age in the Congressional Directory. The Senate's newest committee is the Astronautical and Space Exploration Committee. It includes Senator Green, 91, who has said he will not retire till he's 100, but who recently resigned chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee following newspaper attacks upon his age. The space committee was formed by a 95-1 vote, with Allen Ellender, 67, the lone dissenter. He could not be made to see the importance of outer space in America's future.

In the House of Representatives, chairmen average even higher in age, with Cannon, 80, heading Appropriations, Dawson, 73, running Government Operations, and Vinson, who has been charged with the nation's dragging its heels on Pentagon reform, heading Armed Services at 75. Every one of these gentlemen would have been forced to retire under rules of Civil Service if he had been appointed instead of voted into office.

But in Civil Service the ages of top men are up sharply, too, just as they are in the military establishment and foreign corps.

Is this good or bad? That is, does the country profit from the maturity and experience of its present leadership more than it would from the qualities that would be associated with a group of younger men? And exactly what are the mental qualities which youth possesses and age does not, and vice versa?

In studies at leading universities across the land, it was found that older people do not fare well in either memory, ability to learn or judgment, as compared with young people. At Columbia University it was found that a person's ability to absorb new information is greatest during his middle twenties, diminishing at about one percent a year until the mid-fifties when it starts to drop sharply. By 65 a man can learn only about half as much in an hour as he could at 25, the Columbia study showed. Older people are tremendously inhibited in absorbing new information which conflicts with established memory patterns. The effort to learn something new thus becomes twice as great when it is necessary to un learn something old.

As for memory, Dr. Walter Miles of Yale, after a series of tests some years ago, found that young adults under 30 remember things twice as sharply as those over 70. Pseudo reminiscence is common among oldsters, who also show a distinct lack of attentiveness, surprising indisposition to take pains to be right, and a sharp drop in intellectual curiosity. In general, oldsters have been found to be less concerned with lofty ideals, more preoccupied with comfort.

Although investigators are not certain of what effect brain dimensions may have upon intelligence, its very size decreases with age, losing approximately 30 grams from age 35 to age 65.

The glandular system deteriorates, too, enfeebling emotions. Thus older people show greater apathy and inflexibility, fewer signs of pleasure, weaker signs of love and courage, milder hates and fears. Despondency and pessimism overgrow the enthusiasm and hope of youth and small problems of everyday life often begin to loom enormous. Suicide statistics reflect this trend. A man in his late 70s is four times as likely to kill himself as a man in his early 40s.

In the light of scientific findings, it is no surprise that almost all the real giants of American history have been young men. Our six greatest Presidents --. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson and FDR -- were all relatively young men. The founding "fathers" Madison and Hamilton were both in their 30s when they drafted the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson, the philosopher of our Democracy, drew up the Declaration of Independence at 33.

In the arts and sciences as well, the great works have almost always been created by men in their green years. When geniuses have enjoyed long, productive lives, it is nevertheless to their early years that their major works are almost invariably traced. Dr. Harvey C. Lehman of Ohio University, in a 20-year study sponsored by the American Philosophical Society, found that a man's best working years -- no matter what his field -- rarely come after the age of 40, though public recognition may not be won until then.

Just as the records show that great political advances have been wrought mainly by young men, so recent history indicates that a large proportion of the world's political blunders are attributable to older men. Witness the numerous times Stalin brought the world to the brink of atomic annihilation during the senile dementia of the final three years of his life. Or the sorry state of unpreparedness to which 71-year-old Chamberlain had reduced Britain at the outbreak of World War II, only to be rescued by younger Winston Churchill. And remember the embarrassment caused the United States by the 85-year-old Syngman Rhee and his wholesale sudden release of Red prisoners from UN compounds while we were in the midst of hammering out a peace settlement at Panmunjom. Even more recently and closer to home, recall the spectacle of sexagenarian Eisenhower blaming septuagenarian Truman -- and vice versa -- for permitting American technology to fall behind Russia's in launching an earth satellite.

The age of Russian leaders shows a significant contrast to our own. While it is true that Khrushchev at 64 is no youngster, it is also true that almost all his bureau heads are comparatively young men. Foreign Minister Andre Gromyko, Russia's second most powerful figure, is only 49. John Gunther, in Inside Russia Today, calls the 15-man Communist Party Presidium "the youngest aggregate of men of such illimitable power in the world."

Why should things be so different in the U.S.? The explanation that comes quickest to mind is that our phenomenally lengthened life expectancy and resultant aging population have put a greater percentage of oldsters into the working force. But statistics do not back up this conclusion. Actually, since retirement at 65 is now implied for the nation as a whole under Social Security, there is a considerably smaller percentage of people over that age remaining in the labor force today than there was, say, 50 years ago. So, while it is true that greater numbers of senior citizens are alive in the country today, it is also true that proportionately fewer of them are working. That is, in almost every field but government.

People in politics themselves tend to blame the predominance of oldsters upon the financial unattractiveness of the calling. Eleanor Roosevelt in an interview told me: "A poor boy doesn't have the same chance to become President today that Lincoln had. Even a minor elective job carries social and charitable demands which a young man with a family can't begin to meet on his salary alone. Older men, of course, have had time to save up money. That might partly explain why no man under 40 has been nominated to the Presidency in this century, though several were in the 1800s."

But poor salary is only a partial explanation for the lack of young men in key government jobs. A deeper answer lies in a subtle, almost imperceptible change in America's attitude toward aged men as leaders. As the republic has grown older, we have assumed, almost unconsciously, a reverence for old age (not unlike the Chinese) which approaches a cult of the aged leader.

Robert Kennedy who, as Chief Counsel of the Senate labor rackets subcommittee, has vigorously exposed union corruption and earned for himself national prominence as perhaps the only man in his 30s of any real influence on Capitol Hill, said recently in an interview:

"We have come to put such tremendous over-emphasis upon the need for age and maturity in our leaders that young men nowadays just don't have much chance at all to leap into top jobs, even when they are far more capable than their elders. It has become 'un-gentlemanly' and 'impolitic' for a young man to talk back to an old man who has been in power for many years, even when an honest difference of opinion is involved. On the rare occasion when a young man comes into the Senate nowadays, he is expected to keep his mouth shut, to think like an old man, to live like an old man, until he actually becomes an old man. Otherwise he will be considered 'brash' or 'impudent.' I could never have gotten this far this fast in public service if it hadn't been for the wealth, connections and contacts of my family. There are many other people in the country as young as I am who could handle my job as well as I do, but not very many of them would be able to get a crack at it. The wheel of political fortune is clearly rigged against the young man nowadays."

Senator Neuberger -- who made the mistake of speaking his mind when he first went to the Senate several years ago and is said by observers to be still smarting from it -- has gone on record as saying:

"We are leaving decisions that vitally affect our lives to hardened professionals, to men turned gray and cynical in the game of vote-getting. What's more, (continued on page 96)Aged Leader(continued from page 60) we are drying up our traditional source of national leaders and statesmen.... The average age of lawmakers, at least at the state level, ought to be 37 or 38."

Dr. Eberhard Kronhausen, a California psychiatrist, supplies a psychological explanation of our changed attitude toward leadership:

"In times of peace and fat and plenty, which is by and large the current state of affairs in the U.S., the older statesman is seen by the average male voter as a benign father figure who will not compete with him for wealth or power, but who will leave him in peace to enjoy the fruits of his labors. For the women voters, the elderly politico is seen as an idealized daddy who loves and protects. Really it's not father figures we like to select in times of prosperity, but grandfather figures who will let us bask without trauma in the sun of the beautiful status quo. Grandfather is not close enough in age to pose any psychological threats and he has a direct line to divine wisdom and guidance. Or so, at least, runs the subconscious magical stream of thought of which Mr. and Mrs. Average Voter are not even aware."

Dr. Kronhausen's contention holds up even when his theory is applied to the converse situation. In times of crisis, depression and war -- which means times of national anxiety, insecurity and disappointment -- we have tended to select younger leaders representing decisiveness and action. In elections following the crash of 1929, Washington swarmed with younger men, and immediately after the Pearl Harbor fiasco hundreds of older military men were weeded out of top-level jobs. Eisenhower himself was brought up over the heads of several dozen seniors to command the European Theatre of Operations.

The change in attitude toward agingleaders is also clearly discernible in statements that have been made by men of government and industry alike. Former President Herbert Hoover, aged 85, urges men on the verge of retirement to get into public service. Similarly, General Motors' Honorary Board Chairman Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., 84, recently recommended a career in public service for men who are forced to retire under mandatory company rules. Ironically, in the same statement Mr. Sloan said he believed industry's compulsory retirement age of 65 is "probably sound, because, while some men can stay in administrative posts beyond that age, most may not be aggressive and vigorous enough to do so." Mr. Sloan's attitude is the prevailing one among businessmen, if not among citizens of the nation as a whole.

We are left, then, with the irony of top-flight executives who will not keep men on the payroll over the age of 65 because their minds are not flexible enough, who look forward to retiring at that age themselves, yet who will willingly vote into office a man of those years and expect him to carry out one of the most critical jobs in the country.

That the President's job, for example, is a killer and requires a person of superior stamina is a well-known fact. Seven of our Presidents have died in office and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company points out that Presidents inaugurated in the present century have lived an average of eight years less than their life expectancy indicated at the time of inauguration.

This increasing view of public office as a position of reward for citizens in semi-retirement is as true of appointive positions as of elective office. In Civil Service there is a growing tendency to appoint as department chiefs only men who are on the verge of retirement. Often they are merely hangers-on with little or no Excelsior! motive left, men whose chief concern is safeguarding seniority and securing maximum retirement benefits.

It is ironic that Princeton will appoint a president at 39, M.I.T. will pick one at 44, and General Electric will vote in a board chairman at 40, while the Defense Department relegates a brilliant 52-year-old Air Force staff general like Lauris Norstad to a few years of "aging" overseas before it will consider him for a top Pentagon job.

What are we to do about our disproportionately aged leadership?

The Roman Republican regime (whose culture, laws and government serve in many ways as models for our own) solved the problem by forbidding sexagenarians to vote, to run for office, or even to approach legislative buildings. Early in our own century, when the trend to older leaders was first discerned, Dr. William Osler, one of history's eminent medical pioneers, jolted the country when he suggested a savagely satirical solution: that all men over 60 be chloroformed to death. Our problem may be pressing, but obviously neither of these solutions is worthy of serious consideration.

It has been earnestly suggested, however, that mandatory age retirement rules -- which already apply to well over 99 percent of government workers -- be extended to elective officials, the Cabinet and the Federal Judiciary, the only officials now exempted. Proponents argue that such rules guarding against antiquated attitudes and senility would certainly be consistent with Constitutional provisions which now guard against immaturity in potential office holders. Mr. Eisenhower himself, in a recent press conference, said that he believed no man over 70 should be permitted to hold the job of President.

To find out how a member of Congress might react to the suggestion of voting mandatory retirement rules for himself, I went to see Congressman Emanuel Celler of New York. At 71, he is chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee. The interview went like this:

"Mr. Celler, as you may know, scientific studies have shown that a man's mental and physical abilities at, say, age 65 are considerably diminished from what they were when he was 25. Do you feel there ought to be mandatory retirement rules for Congressmen in order to assure the nation of the keenest possible group of legislators?"

"Son, you don't have to be a great athlete to be a great legislator."

"But these figures refer to keenness of the mind as well as to fitness of the body," I said.

"Well, if you ask me, the bulk of men under 25 don't even have their wisdom teeth yet. Remember, cream rises to the top of the bottle, but it takes time to rise. Leadership comes with age, not with youth."

"Do you believe, then, Mr. Celler, that a House of Representatives which averaged 80 years in age would be a more dynamic and efficient body than one of 35?"

"Certainly I do. No question of it."

Mr. Celler, rising from his chair and looking out the window, continued: "It's absolutely tragic the way we cast aside men of age like broken tools. How does that Longfellow poem Morituri Salula-mus go?" The Congressman quoted the lines:

Chaucer, at Woodstock with the

niglitingales,

At sixty wrote the Canterbury

Tales;

Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the

last,

Completed Faust when eighty years

were past.

"That poem has a great message for you, young man. Be sure to look up the rest of it when you get a chance. It's important for your article."

"Well, thank you very much, Mr. Celler," I said as I got up to leave. "I appreciate your forthright answers to my questions. I know I threw you some curves there."

"You said it, they were curves," he replied. "But I hit them all right." There was a gleam in his eye. "I hit them right out of the ball park!"

That night I looked up the rest of the poem Mr. Celler had quoted. The following stanza came right after the lines he had judiciously selected:

Whatever poet, orator, or sage

May say of it, old age is still old age.

It is the waning, not the crescent

moon;

The dusk of evening, not the blaze

of noon;

It is not strength, but weakness; not

desire,

But its surcease; not the fierce heat

of fire,

The burning and consuming element,

But that of ashes and of embers

spent,

In which some living sparks we still

discern,

Enough to warm, but not enough to

burn.

From my interview with Mr. Celler and from subsequent interviews with other public figures, including Bernard Baruch, Senator Francis Green and James Farley, it became quite clear to me that no matter how strong the argument in favor of mandatory age retirement rules for elective officials, Congressmen would never impose them upon themselves, even though they have already imposed them on almost all other government workers.

Several years ago it was thought that older members of Congress might be induced to retire if they could look forward to a secure pension. Congress voted itself a generous pension plan, providing payments up to $18,000 a year. But it had no effect whatever in lowering age averages. It became quite clear that Congressmen do not hang onto their jobs because they cannot afford to stop working. They work because they enjoy the prestige of the job. After years as public spokesmen, they have a basic and continuing need for a forum from which to deliver their opinions.

England, recognizing the possible value of these opinions, employs the House of Lords as a formal body to which elder statesmen are appointed and from which they may sound off and continue to participate in the pageantry of government but not exercise any real voting power. The Senate in France serves the same function, and Israel, one of the world's young democracies, is attempting to set up a similar chamber.

It has been suggested that the United States Senate -- which is no longer a truly representative body because of the disproportionate populations of our various states -- be converted into a similar prestigeful but emasculated chamber to which elder statesmen could be "kicked upstairs." Harry Truman himself has suggested that former Presidents be appointed to the Senate as non-voting members so that they might express their opinions for the record. However, converting the Senate into a formal "Old Legislators Home" could not be achieved in the foreseeable future and is not, therefore, a practical solution.

The prospect of another long Democratic tenure with further entrenchment of aged Congressional committee chairmen suggests that the first step ought to be the revamping of the system by which chairmen are selected. Traditionally, chairmanships have been doled out strictly on the basis of seniority. The follies and inequities of this system have occasionally been bared to public view, as when Clare Hoffman, 77, Chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, dictatorially attempted to cut off his committee's staff and funds because colleagues had gently suggested he was "not well," or when Carter Glass, 87, refused to resign chairmanship of the crucial Senate Appropriations Committee though he had not been present to answer a roll call in over two and a half years.

Philip D. Reed, who retired as General Electric's Board Chairman last year at 59, believes that our present Congressional committee system "is nothing to be especially proud of." In a recent interview he said:

"Now mind you, I don't claim to be a parliamentary expert and I'm not talking as an executive of General Electric, but in my opinion age alone is not adequate qualification for chairmanship of a Congressional committee or for any other job, for that matter. The majority party should certainly make the choice of chairman, but he should be selected by virtue of intellect, vigor or special knowledge of the committee's field. Why should the best qualified man be barred because of his comparative youth? Now mind you, I am not making criticism of any specific party or person. My only quarrel is with the method of selection."

Opponents of change in the present committee system like to point to the vigorous job which is being done overseas by such aged men as De Gaulle, 68, and Adenauer, 82. While De Gaulle may be an exception to the rule, Adenauer, according to quiet reports in the American press, is so senile that he cannot retain his train of thought from one end of a sentence to the other. Moreover, there is no need to look as far off as Germany and France for proof of the generally diminished ability of aged men as leaders. In the last session of the Senate, the five Senators with best attendance records averaged 12 years younger than the five with the worst records and the five younger men were on hand to vote for over three times as many bills. Moreover, the number of days Mr. Eisenhower spends behind his White House desk cannot be said to be setting a record for Presidential toil.

Certainly it is true that youth alone is no guarantee that a leader will be a great benefactor of the people, just as age is not. There can, however, be little dispute about the characteristics of aged and youthful leaders in general, though plenty of exceptions can be found.

Of course, all men of 70 are not inferior to all men of 40. But most men of 70 are not as capable of leadership as most men of 40. Industry, education, even major denominations of the clergy recognize this fact. That is why age retirement rules are so widespread in our society. The same logic should apply to elective office. But it is not necessary that the men in power impose retirement rules upon themselves. The voters can do the next best thing: exercise the ballot with an increased awareness of the age factor. This is not to say that a candidate should be favored strictly on the basis of youth. But where a candidate's old age raises serious question of his ability to continue to function in office and to adapt himself to the innovations of this rapidly changing world, there should be no hesitation to recognize this as an issue and to vote against him. During the last election, Harrison A. Williams, Jr., in running for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey, made an issue of his opponent's old age. Caustic newspaper comment resulted and damaged his campaign. Fortunately, a majority of the voters saw the logic of his argument and now, at 39, he is the youngest U.S. Senator.

The victory of New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller, 51, over Averell Harriman, 67, was credited by many, including The New York Times, to Rockefeller's comparative youth. A Rockefeller speech writer confided to me that "During the campaign we took every opportunity to exploit Rocky's youth and I would credit it as the principal reason for his victory in the face of a Democratic sweep nationally."

In summation, then, it is clear from available data that the men controlling our destiny are not only old, but probably too old. That is, considered as a group and without singling out any individuals, they would probably function with greater efficiency and would more accurately represent the viewpoint of the young voters of the nation if they averaged, say, 10 or 15 years younger. The only thing that can be done at the present time to correct the present age imbalance is to (a) abolish the present Congressional committee chairmen selection system and (b) urge a more cautious use of the ballot. Thus, at least to some degree, would our government rid itself of the hypocrisy implied in these lines of James Ball Naylor:

King David and King Solomon

Led merry, merry lives,

With many, many lady friends

And many, many wives;

But when old age crept over them --

With many, many qualms,

King Solomon wrote the Proverbs

And King David wrote the Psalms.