I Visit a Managed Society; O. Johnson

I HAD HEARD of a Iittle town in California wh'ich was credited with being an example of efficient government, and one which did an admirable job of providing for the needs of its citizens. I determined to go there some time and see for myself if these things were true, and if so, to bring back some ideas that might prove helpful to citi zens of other communities. This small town of Tarnal, with a population of about 2,000 people, was established in 1852 on the shore of beautiful San Francisco Bay, just 20 miles north of the City of San Francisco. In the early days the chief industry was the manufacture of gunny sacks and other rough cordage products made of jute. In April, 1951, a disastrous fire burned the huge mill to the ground at an estimated Mr. Johnson, of Mountain View, California,i$ a counselor in public relations and fund raising. I Visit a Managed Society ORIEN JOHNSON loss of $3,000,000 which left 1,000 men without a job. Gradually other industries were begun. A mattress factory, a cotton textile mill, a large laundry, a detergent plant, a clothing factory, a large furniture factory and several other indus tries now provide most of the em ployable residents with jobs.

An official publication described some of the services provided for residents of this unusual com munity which made me even more anxious to visit the place and to talk to someone who might be en joying these benefits. I read that three-fourths of the residents are presently engaged in some aspect of· education in a' free school system beginning with ele mentarygrades on through junior college level. Half of the students attend classes in the evenings. In addition to teaching skills and vo cational training, tbe ,instructors 1972 I VISIT A MAN AGED SOCIETY 677 are "skilled in group behavior." They train students in "terminus g'oals, interpersonal relationships, prop~r acceptance of job, work, completion of goals, and to op erate cooperatively under super vision." There are no unions in this town. Instead, a Trade Advisory Committee, representing both management and labor, works to "aid in defining training stand ards, establishing completion cri teria and assistance in job place ment." They are concerned with both H vocational competence and the development of constructive social attitudes."

An extensive free recreational program includes several well equipped play fields and courts for individual and competitive sports, and facilities for staging music and variety shows by resident or visi ting talent. I was amazed to note that none of the residents ever apply for Medicare simply because all of the medical facilities of a I50-bed fully accredited hospital, an outstand ing therapy X-ray unit, and serv ices of well-qualified consultants and specialists of the San Fran cisco Bay Area are readily avail able, and all at no cost to any of the patients. In spite of these many benefits, I noticed a paragraph describing the work of the Narcotic Treatment Control Unit which is a live in situation treating a large num ber of persons with drug abuse problems. A copy of the weekly newspaper lists the regular meet ings of an Alcoholics Anonymous chapter. Serious crimes also make headlines in this newspaper from time to time, mostly of a violent nature such as stabbings, club bings, fights, riotings and mur ders. Evidently, not all is as idyllic as one would presume in this man aged society.

Meet Lamar Knighton I finally got a lead on a man who worked as a linotypist on the local newspaper and found out he would be glad to meet with me and answer any questions I might have about life as he saw it in this welfare city. I found also that this man was a reader of The Freeman magazine and that he subscribed fully to the libertarian philoso phies of its articles. I arranged a time to go to Tarnal and to look up my new friend, La mar Knighton, to determine, if possible, how he squared his phi losophies with his life. The fog was just beginning to lift as I drove into town. Seagulls were wheeling in circles above the shore as I slowed my car to enjoy the view of the islands in the Bay. A row of small, rundown houses lined the street over looking the 678 THE FREEMAN November water. The other side of the street dropped off in a. gra.ssy meadow to the shore. After 1'd driven about three blocks the street was completely blocked with a huge iron gate. A sign pointed to a parking lot; I found a place to park my car, and 'walked back toa small building at the gate.

A large, muscular guard, dressed in an olive-colored uniform asked me who I wanted to see. "L,amar Knighton," I said. He shuffled through some files in a cabinet and asked for some identification. I showed my driv er's license, and he asked me to sign in ona large register book. A buzzer unlocked the door and I walked about 100 yards to another small building. Here I was asked to empty my pockets into a tray on a counter and step through a metal-detector gate. My next stop was a waiting room where I was told I might sit to wait while Lamar was located and paged. In about thirty min utes a voice sounded over the speaker system, "Knighton visit or." A man nodded toward a door. I walked up two steps and through the door into a large room. There I saw several rows of long tables running the· length of the room with people sitting on each side. On one side sat men, women, and children. On the other side sat only men dressed in blue jeans and blue shirts.

A voice said, "Mr. Johnson 1" I saw a handsome man about 35 years old who introduced himself to me. "I'm Lamar Knighton," he said. "Glad to see you, neighbor." 1 said, "Wen, I'm glad to see you finally. I had to go through a lot of red tape, but here I am." We started talking and I learned that Lamar was a native of Texas, had once been a meatcutter, had served a hitch in the Army, and was now operating the linotype machine in the newspaper office. We started talking about liberty and Lamar told me of his special interest in the subject and how he spends most of his spare time writing essays which he sends to anyone who will read them. What Is Liberty? I had to attend to some business in San Francisco, but promised to write and to come back for other visits. I signed out and walked to the parking area. The gulls were still tracing lazy· freedom circles in the breeze. A few sailboats dotted the Bay. The wind whistled through the tall pine trees on the point. "What is liberty?" I asked myself as I looked back at a stone tower manned with armed guards who would shoot to kill any un authorized person who attempted to escape from that managed 801972 I VISIT A MAN AGED SOCIETY 679 ciety. Surely I could -answer that simple question after such a visit.

But my thoughts refused to focus. I wanted only to experience the liberty I now enjoyed. My eyes turned again to the free-flying birds. My ears caught the sighing in the trees. I breathed deeply of the fresh salt air.' I picked up a stone and ,splashed it into the waves. These were the symbols that translated all my philosophies into experiential realities. This I knew. as freedom. I needed no words. They would come later as I would challenge Lamar to inter pret his freedom concepts as a prisoner in San Quentin peniten tiary. Permission was granted to me to visit this man in the famous 120-year-old institution through the courtesy of a new nonprofit group known as Job Therapy of California. Part of its service is the man-to-man (M-2) visitation program in which citizens volun teer to make one visit a month to a prisoner. I had signed up as a sponsor and was matched with Lamar Knighton, who also had volunteered for the program. My only other commitment is that I will· meet Lamar at the gate of San Quentin on the day of his re lease, and spend the day with him as he begins a new life on the out side. I am not to give or lend him any money, nor take him to stay in my home. I serve only as a friend, to encourage him to earn his own· way and build the kind of life that will be most helpful to himself.

Doing an Article ... After several visits in which we exchanged ideas we had discovered from .books .and periodicals, our friendship began to grow. Between visits we would write essays on various aspects of freedom. I re s,olved on my next· visit to get Lamar's view of the managed so ciety in which he lived. On this particular day I took the freeway that runs along the beautiful coastal range that extends from San Francisco down the Penin sula. Patches of fog were clinging to the top of the redwood hills and a brisk wind tossed whitecaps across the Bay and under the Golden Gate Bridge. The same guard in the gate house asked the same familiar question: "Who do you want to visit ?" "Lamar Knighton," I replied. "Please show your identifica tion." I produced my driver's li cense. "Sign in, please." I signed my name in the visitor's register and the time (9 :40 A.M.) in the ap propriate spot.

"What do you have in the bvief· case?" he asked.

680 THE FREEMAN November "Some papers," I said. "I'm do ing an article for a magazine and want to ask Lamar some ques tions." "That's really not supposed to be done," he said. "Tell the guard at the desk in the visiting room so he'll know what you're doing." "Okay," I promised and began the walk to the next building. I wonder what that rule is for, I asked myself. I'm not the prisoner. Why do they put such restrictions on me? I'm getting a real taste of the managed society. A man in front of me was having difficulty clearing the metal detector. Every time he walked past the machine it blinked a red light and emitted a sharp buzz. Everything was re moved from all of his pockets; still, the machine was picking up some metal object on his person. "Take off your belt," the guard said. The man pulled off his belt and held his pants up as he walked through the space. By this time several other visitors were waiting in line, including wives and girl friends of prisoners, which added to the man's embarrassment as he finished dressing in front of us. I was next and cleared the machine in my first attempt.

Official Delay At 9 :50 I deposited my pass on the desk of the guard in the waiting room and was told to take a seat on the hard oak benches. At 10 :50 I was still thumbing through some old magazines, but my visitor hadn't arrived. I waited another 20 minutes and asked the guard if his call for Knighton had gotten through. He picked up the phone and spoke to another guard sta tion. "He's just cleaning up and is on his way in," he said. At 11 :40 - two hours from the time I signed in at the outer gate - a voice came in over the ampli fying system, "Knighton visitor." I saw Lamar sitting at the table and nodded to him as I walked to the elevated guard desk. "I've got some papers with me," I told the guard. "I'll be interviewing my visitor and thought I'd tell you so you'll know what I'm doing." He shook his head. "I'd better call the Captain," he said. In a few minutes the Captain came in and said, "What's going on here?"

I told my story to him, and gave him a weak smile, but it didn't break the ice. He stared at me a moment, then without a word turned and walked off. I took this as some sort· of reluctant approval and arranged my pad of papers on the table and started talking to Lamar. "When did they call you?" I asked'. "Just about ten minutes ago. I came right over."

1972 I VISIT A MAN AGED SOCIETY 681 When I told -him 1'd been cool ing my heels almost two hours, he smiled knowingly -and said, "Now you're beginning to experience a little of what I run into every day. It's all part of the system." "But don't any of the inmates have anything to say about issues like this ?" "Oh, sure, we can complain, and I will; but they won't pay any at tention." "Surely the inmates have some official avenue of communication to the top," I suggested. "We have the MAC (Men's Ad visory Council) ," Lamar said, "but their main hassle is trying to de cide which radio station we can listen to. We only have two sta tions we are allowed to listen to. I would like to get some classical music once in a while, but never get to." "What about other leisure ac tivities?" I asked. "We can watch television, read, or talk during Honor Block, but all of our other time is supervised."

"What is your work schedule?" "Seven hours a day for 5 days a week." "How much are you paid?" "$7.50." "An hour?" "N0, a month," he said. "And this is based on your seniority in the job training program." "Can you strike?" "Are you kidding?" Hean you shop around for a better job and compete for higher wages?" "No. I might apply for another job-training course but wages would have nothing to do with it." Other Restrictions He knew what I was doing and began to think of other aspects of his life which might compare with a managed socialist government. "My travel is of course rigidly restricted and supervised. I have no choice of doctors or hospitals if I get sick. The education is as bad here as· it is in any sta te-con trolled system - teachers run through their prescribed courses just to draw their salaries. We have no right to assemble in meet ings to hear any views contrary to those of the administration. We have no elections. We couldn't start a new religion of our own, but must take what is provided for us."

"There's another question I must ask," I said. "Do some men get used to this form of life where their physical needs are provided for and everything is managed for them?" "That's the sad truth;" he said. "Some dudes simply don't like to make decisions. They are perfectly willing to have this parent-child relationship for the rest of their 682 THE FREEMAN November days. They get released and in a few months back they come. It's a vicious circle. The mana.ged soci ety, as you call it, is devastating to our initiative. Being dependent upon the system for our basic needs makes us like children, not men. Then when we get out in competition we can't cut it, so back we come to the parental nest." "What does that do to you, as a student of liberty and independ ence?" "I have to fight it all the time," he said with a sad note in his voice. "It's like a dark blanket of gloom. Most of the guys are shot through with negative thoughts. I come on trying to be cheerful and optimistic and they look at me like I'm a kook. It finally got to me the last couple of weeks. I was hit with a bad case of depression." It occurred to me then that I hadn't received a letter from him and I should have known something was wrong.

Destroying Initiative Dr. Karl Menninger, in his book, The Crime of Punishment, quoted Gresham Sykes (The·· Society of Carptives) as saying, "Thefrustra tion of the prisoner's ability to make choices and the frequent re fusals to provide an explanation for the regulations and commands descending from the bureaucratic staff involve a profound threat to the prisoner's self-image because they reduce the prisoner to the weak, helpless, dependent status of childhood . . . . The imprisoned criminal finds his picture of him self as the self-determining indi vidual being destroyed by the re gime of the custodians." On my way home I drove through the old Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco. A few years ago this was the mecca of the "flower children" - advocates of the completely undisciplined philosophy of life. Their utopian dream soon collapsed. The build ings are even more rundown than ever. A few miserable heroin ad dicts shuffle through the streets or sit in a stupor .on the steps. The same pallor of gloom that afflicts Lamar in San Quentin hangs heavy over this blighted area. Why did the experiment fail at Haight Ashbury? Because the flower chil dren were dependent for their' ex istence upon food stamps, welfare checks, the largesse of. a few so cial agencies, and upon drugs to give them a feeling of euphoria to be able to endure such a miserable life .. Dependency kept them bound in perpetual .. childhood just as de pendency keeps citizens under the control of a managed government.

Children,- you know, are much more easily managed than adults. Before T· arrived at my home I began to cool my resentment to1972 I VISIT A MANAGED SOCIETY 683 ward the unknown guard who neglected to put my call through when he should. After all, I was not a paying customer. His job does not depend upon service, but only upon compliance with regula tions. He is paid by the state. Un der the same situation I might act with similar discourtesy. And the Captain? He probably deals con stantly with lawyers trying to dig up "social injustices" to keep him in eternal hot water. Under simi lar circumstances my own milk of human kindness might curdle, too. I do not blame these men, nor any of the San Quentin officials. They are doing a thankless job which, There Must Be Freedom under our present system of deal ing with criminal offenders, has to be done. But they, too, must resist the pallor of gloom that re sults from the debilitating effect their managed society produces upon their charges and upon them selves.

I came through this experience resolved to double .my efforts .to resist a growing climate of opinion aimed at making all men depend ent upon a custodial government. The admirable struggle of my new inmate friend was aptly stated in his closing remark during my latest visit. "I am determined not to be conditioned to apathy." ~ IDEAS ON LIBERTY THE MOST DRASTIC deprivation which any person can suffer is that of the freedom to utilize and enjoy the faculties which nature has given him and which his will and desire have developed. Keep a man from exercising his mind, his body, his faculties in the pur suit of his own wishes and delights, keep him from enjoying the fruits of his efforts ""7" and you have done everything evil to him that you can. The greatest desire of each person, in short, is to be free to get the most· he can out of life. There is no other way obj ectively to define social goals than to call them the sum of those individual goals which can be harmonized in society.

SYLVESTER PETRO, The Labor Policy of the Free Society CLARENCE B. CARSON THE FOUNDING OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC 16 Making the Constitution 684 ... I feel it a duty to express my profound and solemn convic tion ... that there never was an assembly of men charged with a great and arduous trust, who were more pure in their mot,ives or more exclusively or anxiously de voted to the obiect committed to them to ... best secure the per manent liberty and happiness of their country. - James Madison It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Per haps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the people, we offer what Iwe ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us r(J)ise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God. - George Washington EVEN THOUGH this was an era stud ded with felicitously worded docu ments and momentous pronounce ments, all of these pale beside the Constitution of 1787 - the United States Constitution. It stands alone among them in the impact it has had, in its imitability, and in the role it has had in the lives of generations that were then yet to come.