SOCIAL CAPITAL

A Better Society in a Time of War

Robert Putnam, Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy

The America of six decades ago now seems achingly familiar. The attack on Pearl Harbor, like the attacks of September 11, evoked feelings of pride and citizenship — as well as anxiety and helplessness — in every American. In the days and weeks following December 7, 1941, Americans sought meaning and comfort in their communities, just as we do now. And we can find inspiration in the very institutions and practices they created 60 years ago. A durable community cannot be built on mere images of disaster, however vivid or memorable. It arises from countless individual acts of concern and solidarity. Television images of ash-covered firefighters cannot create community bonds any more than radio reports of burning battleships could.

What created the civic community in the United States in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor? The victory gardens in nearly everyone’s backyard; the Boy Scouts at filling stations, collecting floor mats for scrap rubber; the affordable war bonds; the practice of giving rides to hitchhiking soldiers and war workers — all these taught “the greatest generation” an enduring lesson in civic involvement.

Their involvement was as varied as it was deep. The Civilian Defense Corps grew to 12 million Americans in mid-1943, from 1.2 million in 1942. In Chicago, 16,000 block captains in the corps took an oath of allegiance in a mass ceremony; they practiced first aid, supervised blackouts, and planned gas decontamination. Nationwide, Red Cross volunteers swelled to 7.5 million in 1945, from 1.1 million in 1940. By 1943, volunteers at 4,300 civilian-defense volunteer offices were fixing school lunches, providing day care, and organizing scrap drives.

All these endeavors represented cooperation between the federal government and civic society. Sometimes the government merely offered encouragement and approval, as it did with the victory gardens. Often it played an active role, or even the prime role. The United States financed the war effort in part through small-denomination war bonds sold to the general public, not because it was economically efficient — Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau conceded it wasn’t — but because of the importance of weaving the actions of millions of Americans together in pursuit of larger national goals.

America’s young people, especially, were taught practical civic lessons. Over a two-year period, the historian Richard Lingeman writes in his book Don’t You Know There’s a War On?, eighth graders in Gary, Indiana, were especially busy. They sold an average of $40,000 worth of war stamps a month. They campaigned against buying black-market goods. They took auxiliary fire- and police-training courses. They held tin can drives.

And this was just in one medium-sized Midwestern city. Such sacrifice was reinforced by popular culture from radio shows to comic strips. All Americans felt they had to do their share, thereby enhancing each American’s sense that her commitment and contribution mattered. As one said later in an oral history of the home front: “You just felt that the stranger sitting next to you in a restaurant, or someplace, felt the same way you did about the basic issues.”

Society is different now, of course, as is the war we are fighting. Americans have become more transient, and involvement in civic institutions is in decline. The war itself involves far fewer Americans in battle; it creates few material hardships;
the enemy is largely invisible. Nonetheless, we can take action to ensure that this resurgence of community involvement continues.

Since September 11, we Americans have surprised ourselves in our solidarity. Roughly a quarter of all Americans, and more than a third of all New Yorkers, report giving blood in the aftermath of the attacks. Financial donations for the victims and their rescuers have reached almost $1 billion. Attendance at places of worship has increased. Still, underneath all this mutual concern lies an unsettling question: Will this new mood last? I believe it can. Even 60 years ago, civic involvement took hold and flourished only with government support. It was not all spontaneous. This is both instructive and reassuring; instructive because it shows that the most selfless civic duties cannot be performed without government help, reassuring because it shows us a path toward a more civil society today.

President Bush’s recent call to America’s children and teenagers to wash cars or rake yards to earn money to benefit the children of Afghanistan was well intentioned. But government can do more. It should urge America’s religious congregations to plan interfaith services over Thanksgiving weekend. It should also expand national service programs like AmeriCorps. And just as those Boy Scouts at filling stations learned firsthand the value of civic life, this new period of crisis can make real to us and our children the value of deeper community connections.

Appended from an op-ed printed in the New York Times, October 19, 2001.

Robert Putnam is a professor of public policy at Harvard and author, most recently, of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. He is also the founder of the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America.