Messiaen’s Quartet

About 300 prisoners—and several Nazi officers and guards--in prisoner-of-war camp Stalag VIII A, near the Polish border, were the first to hear one of the most beautiful and haunting musical works of the 20th century, on a winter’s night in 1941. Before the event, a prisoner drew up an artistic poster with the imprint of a camp-sanctioned seal. On the evening of the performance, officers and guards seated themselves in the front row, placing prisoners behind them— half-frozen in an unheated barracks.

Stalag VIII A (or Prisoner-of-War Camp 8A) in Goerlitz, Germany was not unlike other camps of the Third Reich. Subject to brutal conditions, prisoners were often treated as less than human. This particular camp, however, was unique in three distinct ways. Inside, there inhabited: three gifted musicians, a sympathetic officer, and a renowned 31-year-old French composer named Olivier Messiaen. This famous composer, captured at the (World War II) Battle of Verdun in 1940 while his wife and two-year-old son were back in Paris, wrote and premiered one of his greatest masterpieces, the Quartet for the End of Time, in this German camp. 

Messiaen wrote the whole Quartet for piano, cello, clarinet, and violin while imprisoned. Unquestionably, this complex and religiously inspired musical piece about the end of days in the Book of Revelation would never have come to fruition without a little serendipity. The combination of a surprisingly civilized Nazi officer encouraging Messiaen to write and a few musically gifted prisoners spurred his composition. The Nazi officer fortunately loved classical music, and Messiaen’s mere presence at the camp thrilled him. He went out of his way to supply the composer with the necessary writing materials and instruments. There were three prisoners who were brilliant musicians — one could even say virtuosos. They were willing to learn Messiaen’s demanding and textured composition, with its eight movements, using inferior instruments under appalling circumstances. Étienne Pasquier was the cellist, Henri Akoka was the clarinetist, and Jean Le Boulaire was the violinist. Messiaen himself debuted as the pianist.

The reaction to the performance of these beleaguered, emaciated musicians and to the composer’s music on that January evening in 1941 was one of astonishment. Even the cynical, hardened Nazis at the camp and the demoralized prisoners were made speechless by its grace, exquisite construction, serenity, and passion. The cellist, Pasquier, described what he saw afterward: “These people … sensed that this was something exceptional. They sat perfectly still, in awe. Not one person stirred.”

For Messiaen, the Quartet for the End of Time was not really about a dramatic and awful end, nor was it about the war, or prison life. Instead he saw it as a song without words, written to God. It recounted, in quiet and dramatic ways, the triumph of beauty and truth – what was eternal and outside of time - with the help of the ordinary, powerless prisoners trapped in a quagmire of extraordinarily terrible circumstances. The piece was not only difficult to play and impressive in scope; it was also thought- provoking and a compelling spiritual response to the ugliness, destruction, and evil that pervaded the camp. It was a window into eternity, “the harmonious silence of heaven.” It was not a window into bitterness, anger, or resignation to the darkness.

The Quartet was an unexpected gift, a beautiful bird in flight. Given all that Messiaen suffered through and saw in the war and the camp, one senses from his music that he did not lament his lot in life, or ask God why he was stuck in such a desolate hellhole. He instead whispered to God: “At the end of all days, I want to be with you, you whom I love. I am not able to walk this difficult path alone.” Messiaen presented a wellspring of hope, faith, and love when he could have composed something utterly different. He created something so thoughtful, delicate, and lovely - almost the opposite of a response to catastrophe. After listening to the eight movements, one cannot help but shed tears. One can easily see how the piece left prisoners and guards at a loss for words. 

January 15 is the anniversary of the Quartet for the End of Time performance in Stalag VIII A. For many years, to mark that event, Germans and Poles have descended into a museum and concert hall, next to the remains of the old prisoner-of-war camp, to quietly listen to a performance of this remarkable, moving piece of music by a deeply religious Catholic French composer and former prisoner of war, Olivier Messiaen.

After his release from the camp, Messiaen returned to Paris. He died in 1992. 

College Journalism

 I am writing this piece in reaction to recent failures of The Spectator concerning the Kim Strassel event held on January 25. This is not about the opinion piece against Ms. Strassel’s talk, published in The Spectator, because the poor quality of that piece spoke for itself. Instead, I am responding to the blatant lack of journalistic judgment that is suggested by its publishing this column without any evidence of thoughtful editing. 

The failures of college journalism, however, do not originate with students. They cannot be blamed for what they do not know. The glaring problem with The Spectator is the lack of faculty input. 

While some students do have great journalism experience from an internship or work shadow program, faculty or staff members with years of experience in writing for publication should teach students how to write well for readers. 

From simple grammar edits to professional coverage of events, limited faculty oversight would ensure both a higher standard of quality in student pieces and the experience, for students, of working under a careful editor. When writing for Enquiry, I receive pages of edits on a 600-word piece (even when it is a good one). Over the past two years, these edits have improved my writing more than any writing-intensive class on campus has. This is the type of editing and writing experience students should seek out in college if they want to go into journalism – tear apart every line of your writing, if necessary, to improve its quality and therefore the overall quality of the product. You rarely, if ever, get the same experience if only your peers are looking over your work.

 Students should also look to “old journalism” to learn how to write, more than taking cues from blogs and “new journalists.” Exemplified by Vox and Huffington Post, new journalism leads the way in fast and thoughtless writing. While this fast writing is very easy to read and accessible, it tends to be less meaningful. Writers for these outlets are under constant deadline pressure to publish multiple times a day, in order to “drive” more clicks. These posts usually lack details about the topic, the structure found in good writing, and any integrity of ownership associated with the post. Writers can simply edit such quick postings to reflect the current “facts,” whether they are confirmed or not. This too-automatic relay of information takes all responsibility out of the hands of the writer and editor. 

In the wake of the 2016 election, there is a special need to hold journalists accountable for what they publish. Is it surprising that every major news outlet seemed to completely miss the signs indicating Trump might win when so much news coverage was fast and thoughtless? Had these journalists acknowledged the facts in front of them and the overall political picture in our country, the election result would not have been such a shock. Maybe better journalism could have changed the outcome. 

College journalists should not emulate these “new journalists,” or those more mainstream journalists who are too much like them. College journalists need to learn how to write and compose a piece before they adopt an easygoing style. They need to master the fundamentals of journalism in college if they ever hope to have a meaningful career in the field. So I urge campus publications: Think meaningfully about what you publish. Your articles and columns are not only for your writers’ benefit, but could significantly affect student life on campus if you use your journalistic tools skillfully and thoughtfully.

Kim Strassel's Talk: A Step Toward Intellectual Diversity at Hamilton

Leading up to Kim Strassel’s January 25 lecture, rumors of a protest against the event circulated around campus.

            Many students that I spoke with, especially those on the political left, assumed Ms. Strassel’s talk would be offensive -- a direct attack on all liberals. After all, they argued, the title of her speech (also the title of her most recent, critically acclaimed book) was The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech. As one student wrote in the Spectator, she attended the lecture with “a general idea of how this was going to go just from the title alone.”

            To borrow a popular proverb, many of these students were judging Strassel’s book by its cover. As one of Enquiry’s associate editors has noted, there was a definite “disparity between the title and the content of her work. The title might appear to identify the book (and lecture) as right-wing anti-liberal propaganda … [but] Strassel’s talk could not have been further from this.”            Instead of blindly attacking the entire political left, Strassel focused the content of her talk on specific efforts made by leftists to silence free speech. She noted that her original intent in writing the book was not to crucify the left, but rather to identify tactics that politicians and governmental organizations on both sides of the aisle use to silence free speech. It was only after conducting thorough research – and realizing that she had found far fewer examples of the right stifling free speech – that she decided to focus on the left.   

            Strassel began her talk by warning of a “you can say anything you want as long as I agree with it” attitude among those who seek to limit free speech. She argued that the left more frequently resorted to this kind of tactic in 2010, after the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case in favor of removing federal restrictions on political expenditures by certain corporate entities. This part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law had restricted corporations from contributing to issue ads and other campaign activities.

            Strassel explained that excessive federal restrictions on campaign contributions infringed upon the First Amendment by eliminating avenues through which people and organizations could get out messages. In doing so, she called money a proxy for, an equivalent of, free speech. Though Strassel is correct in her assessment that some campaign finance laws have functioned, in part, as “speech laws” that encroached upon corporate entities’ First Amendment rights, she should have de-emphasized the importance of money in campaigns (money isn’t the issue here, free speech is) and included a few additional words on the right of corporations to defend their interests.

            As Strassel correctly said, when the Supreme Court decision was handed down in 2010, the left “freaked out” and increasingly resorted to a strategy of intimidation and harassment. For example, some Senate Democrats demanded that the IRS target certain groups – or, as President Obama called them, “shadowy organizations” and “outside influences” – that were opposed to Obama’s policies. As a result, the IRS put nearly 400 applications by political groups for non-profit status “on ice.” Strassel argued that this was part of a deliberate strategy intended to stifle the political speech of conservative groups leading up to the 2010 midterm election and 2012 presidential election. “The IRS knew what it was doing and knew it was wrong,” she said, pointing to a damning paper trail that indicates this.

            The “John Doe” case in Wisconsin, Strassel maintained, was another effort by the left to silence free speech. In response to Governor Scott Walker’s 2011 union reform legislation, Democratic prosecutors conducted a series of secret investigations into supporting groups, which resulted in pre-dawn raids. In one of the targeted homes, a teenage son was threatened by police officers to keep his mouth shut about what happened. The Wisconsin Supreme Court eventually ruled that the prosecutors involved had attempted to intimidate certain organizations into not giving further donations to Republicans.

            Similarly, members of the political left used intimidation – in this case disclosure laws – to target right-of-center citizens in California. Strassel explained that during the debate over Proposition 8 (a ballot measure to prohibit same-sex marriage) disclosure laws – which were originally intended to keep track of the activities of politicians – were used to identify supporters of the proposition. Supporters were not only identified but also targeted: opponents of Prop. 8 created a searchable map of their homes and addresses. Many found themselves subject to flash-mob protesters and had their property damaged. The CEO of Mozilla, who privately supported Prop. 8, even lost his job.

            Strassel argued that this intimidation tactic was also used against the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a nonprofit group that writes model free-market legislation for consideration at the state level. After the Trayvon Martin shooting in 2012, activist groups began accusing the group of being “racist” for its previous help in drafting “stand your ground” laws. The activist groups found out who gave money to ALEC – which resulted in the attempted blackmail of board members of major companies – and the group lost half of its donors within two months.

            Finally, Strassel pointed to efforts by left-leaning people on college campuses to stifle free speech. She mentioned the increasing presence at colleges and universities of a well-funded organization called “UnKoch My Campus,” which aims to shut down one form of intellectual diversity – efforts and proposals receiving funding from the libertarian Koch Foundation. I do wish, especially given the nature of her audience, that Strassel had further explored the issue of free speech on college campuses.

            Overall, however, her talk was brilliant. She drove home a number of salient points and handled difficult questions from the audience with grace. It was also refreshing to hear someone who is right-of-center speak at Hamilton. I can only hope that – at least in the name of intellectual diversity – we can bring more conservative speakers to campus.

Trump's Muslim Ban

January 30 would have been Fred Korematsu’s 98th birthday. Korematsu, a Japanese-American, was famous for challenging Japanese internment camps during World War II before the Supreme Court (Korematsu v. United States). Though an American citizen by birth, he was forced by law to pack up his belongings and register at an internment camp – a requirement he believed was unconstitutional.

In 2004, one year before his death, Korematsu wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle that  “no one should ever be locked away simply because they share the same race, ethnicity, or religion as a spy or terrorist. If that principle was not learned from the internment of Japanese Americans, then these are very dangerous times for our democracy.” His words serve as an eerie prediction regarding President Trump’s recent immigration ban.

Trump’s ban – before it was blocked by a federal judge’s ruling  – was set to last for 90 days. It aimed to stop people from seven countries compromised by ISIS – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen – from entering the United States. Additionally, Trump’s administration stated that green card holders and special immigrants could expect a “swift entry,” but that they would also be checked. The ban did not apply to dual nationals and diplomats. It is also important to note that the ban would not have directly affected U.S. citizens.

Though both Trump and his supporters are quick to say that President Obama did a “similar thing” in 2011, Obama never issued an outright ban on all people from predominantly Muslim countries trying to enter the United States. Instead, he slowed down the refugee admittance process and required re-examination of Iraqi refugees already in the United States, in response to threats issued by two Iraqi refugees in Kentucky. According to the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center, 6,339 Iraqi refugees still entered the U.S. in 2011.

How can President Trump’s isolationist attitude possibly benefit Americans? Our college’s namesake, who was perhaps the most influential founding father, was an immigrant. I am an immigrant. The people I e-mail, message, and speak with on a regular basis are immigrants or descendants of immigrants. In fact, other than the two or three Native Americans I’ve met (excluding those who make the “I’m 1/200th Cherokee” argument), I have spent my entire life surrounded by descendants of immigrants.

The United States of America is a nation of, for, and by immigrants. As the inscription on the Statue of Liberty says: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” If that does not speak volumes about the importance of immigration to the United States, I am not sure what does.

I came to this country shortly after a day that will live in infamy, September 11th, 2001. I was three years old and the only words I knew in English were “hello,” “yes,” and “thank you.” But as soon as I arrived I fell in love with what I am now proud to call my country. I found friends, people who were eager to learn about me and help me acculturate to this new life. They invited me, with smiles and open hearts, to try new things, like St. Louis baby back ribs (which quickly became my favorite food as a child). I loved, and still love, the United States. If I could do it all over again, I would pick this nation over all others in a heartbeat.

While I understand that President Trump is trying to ensure the safety of the American people, his immigration ban upsets me. Even if it were lifted after those 90  days, children emigrating from these seven countries would not have the same positive experience that I did coming here. There would be a bias against them from the outset. They would look like the people Trump aimed to target with his ban, and therefore like enemies of the United States. They might not be welcomed into homes, sports teams, and schools like I was. They might be rejected as people simply because they cannot choose their birthplace and ethnicity.

Let’s learn from Korematsu, from the Statue of Liberty, from others like Alexander Hamilton, Albert Einstein, and Andrew Carnegie about how great immigration can be. As elementary school children across the nation learn to sing: “This land is your land, this land is my land …” Let’s keep it that way.

Trump's Presidential Debut

Whatever else one may think of it, Donald Trump’s inaugural address was relatively free of clichés. It was also short on ideology. While hitting the bipartisan Washington establishment hard, the new president voiced a largely non-ideological anger.

“Liberals” and “progressives” who don’t understand this should be prepared for an especially frustrating four, or more, years. They’re used to Republican presidents who are much less aggressive and, in the case of Ronald Reagan and to a lesser extent George W. Bush, speak more in terms of principles and ideas. Trump focused on the people, on the terribly shortchanged condition of America as he sees it. It was in this spirit, I think, that he didn’t go into detail about the failures of our ruling elite. His address was about practical results going forward, which, if achieved, will be popular among the public. Again, if the Left doesn’t perceive this aspect of President Trump because they’re so angry about his objectives or even his tactics, it will be harder for them fight him.

Many must have found it hard or impossible to watch the events of January 20, preferring to take comfort in the Women’s March the next day. Those who did see enough of Inauguration Day, however, should have noticed Trump's respectful, even friendly, interactions with President Obama and other political enemies. My own takeaway, from this and other evidence, is that Trump is quite capable of avoiding unacceptable rudeness—and also that he gets an extremely important point which many people, on both sides, would do well to accept in their own political interactions: that he is dealing with real human beings, that opponents can be “deplorable” without being always and only deplorable.

I am in no way naïve about Donald Trump, having opposed his nomination. It’s undeniable, for example, that he can be blatantly mean, crude, and heedless of facts or of things that people outside the most intense part of his political following reasonably presume to be true. If only those on the Left who hate or greatly fear him would be half as vigilant about such failings among their own leaders, which they are not. These leaders are often arrogant and nasty enough to deserve what Trump dishes out to them. Whether his own exaggerations are sloppy or cynical, however, he should drop them (except perhaps the harmless, often desirable, “America will be greater than ever” or “You'll get tired of winning” kind of thing, which sounds stupid to many of us, but was probably no small part of his appeal to voters). He should not continue to claim a landslide in the Electoral College, which just isn't true by historical standards. Nor should he keep saying that illegal immigrants are responsible for Hillary Clinton's winning the popular vote, which is unlikely and unprovable. And those are just the simplest instances.

Whether the mainstream media Trump likes to bash are, on the whole, his enemies is a difficult question, since the term “enemies” has various meanings. But certainly they are biased against him, and often unprofessional in other respects that happen to help the Left, and thus a problem for him and his agenda. Trump should speak of them as merely that: a problem. Few people among the millions of Americans whose support he wants, and doesn't yet have, would disagree if he simply characterized the media in that way. Privately, many journalists would have to agree.

In his second major speech as president, whenever that may be, Trump might be well-advised to lean toward these partial conciliations—having planted his flag effectively in a refreshing inaugural address.

***David Frisk is a Resident Fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute. The opinions in this piece are his own, not the AHI’s.

Thank You, Richard Nixon

On Saturday, January 21, the Women’s March on Washington D.C. inspired millions of men and women around the globe to march in solidarity. As demonstrated by numerous colorful and clever signs, the protests showcased a wide range of issues, including Black Lives Matter, reproductive rights, and the environment.

Though the causes and protesters represented were diverse, one issue – one man in particular – was present at every single march: Donald Trump.

From apparel referencing Mr. Trump’s comment that Hillary Clinton is a “nasty woman,” to creative signs with phrases like “We shall overcomb” and “Super, callous, fascist, racist, extra braggadocious,” much of the marchers’ energy was focused directly on the freshly inaugurated American president. One sign called him “Twitler.”

Marches on Washington D.C. are neither a new nor an uncommon occurrence in American history. Such large, organized efforts, however, to protest not just the president’s administration or Congress, but the president himself, are a later development.

Much of the credit for such a march goes, in a way, to President Richard Nixon.

When the Watergate scandal broke in 1973  – and it was later revealed that Nixon used his executive powers to cover up efforts to wiretap the Democratic Party’s headquarters – it greatly increased the already substantial doubt and distrust among the American people toward their elected officials. Some began to suspect that all politicians might participate in crimes like Watergate.

Watergate shook the American political system to its core. On August 26, 1974, for example, U.S. News & World Report reported that the presidential  relationship with not only Congress, but also the people, was damaged forever. Politicians now had an even stronger reputation for being seedy and corrupt and, as Harvard political scientist Richard Neustadt said at the time, those who sought a better image would need to bend over backwards to prove to the American public that they were different from other politicians.

The lasting effects of Nixon’s disgrace and resignation were obvious not only in the 1970s, but continue to reverberate in today’s American political culture. In the 2016 election, candidates like Trump and Bernie Sanders found popularity with their “outsider” status. Ted Cruz bragged about the fact that his fellow senators disliked him. Trump, in his inaugural address, promised to take away power from Washington politicians he said were reaping rewards to the detriment of the American public. Since 1974, the American electorate has searched for a politician who does not seem like a politician – someone trustworthy and relatable, somebody one could have a beer with.

Richard Nixon, more than any other political figure, changed the type of president we wanted, and he changed how we reacted to the ones we did not want. When he betrayed the public’s trust with his use of executive power to cover up a crime, he opened up the presidency to a level of scrutiny never witnessed before. The public no longer esteemed the office or held it in near-mythological high regard. The president became fair game for more extensive criticism from Congress, the media, and the American people.

Before 1974, marches on Washington – like the 1932 Bonus Army march and the great civil rights march – addressed either Congress or the American public. When 10,000 Americans marched in Washington on April 27, 1974, they did so in protest of the president himself for his gross misconduct in office. On January 21, 2017, 3.3 million people in America alone marched to protest Donald Trump, his personality, his policies, his past sexual misconduct, and his presidency. The Women’s March on Washington is part of a newer tradition of protests, one in which participants feel comfortable directly calling out the president and asking him to answer for his actions.

So thanks, Richard Nixon, for inspiring in Americans the righteous anger needed to publicly gather and demonstrate against our new president.