J William Fulbright

Senator J. William Fulbright was an Arkansas Senator from 1945 to 1975. He pushed for the United States' participation in what would become the United Nations.

He stood with the Dixiecrats against multiple pieces of Civil Rights legislation. He also opposed MacCarthyism.

The Fulbright Program is named after him.

He was a mentor to President Bill Clinton.

On one occasion, he interrupted a UN Security council meeting regarding the "chicken tax" a set of tariffs put in place in response to foreign tariffs placed on United States chickens. The "chicken tax" also included light trucks, which was an issue for another person mentioned in Reagan speeches, Walter Reuther.

Relevance in Speech

In 'A Time For Choosing' Reagan claims that Fulbright

has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the president as our moral teacher and our leader, and he said he is hobbled in his task by the restrictions in power imposed on him by this antiquated document. He must be freed so that he can do for us what he knows is best.

Here are Senator Fulbright's actual words:

"The President is hobbled in his task of leading the American people to consensus and concerted action by the restrictions of power imposed on him by a constitutional system designed for an 18th century agrarian society far removed from the centers of world power." ...

"He (the President) alone, among elected officials can rise above parochialism and private pressures. He alone, in his role as teacher and moral leader, can hope to overcome the excesses and inadequacies of a public opinion that is all too often ignorant of the needs, the dangers, and the opportunities in our foreign relations." ...

"It is imperative that we break out of the intellectual confines of cherished and traditional beliefs and open our minds to the possibility that Basic Changes in Our System may be essential to meet the requirements of the 20th century."

(These opinions were also published in Law and Order magazine April 1971, pages 8-9.)

Source Links

J. William Fulbright (Wikipedia)

The Campaign to Abolish the Constitution

(PDF) We Can Heal America booklet from the Thomas Jefferson Center page 20-21