I. Introduction
A. Hubba Hubba
B. Food here better than Lower Cloister
1. We had Jimmy Stewart give our class talk in 1956, and now you got me!
B. I want to make a plea in behalf of our class and entire generation.
We
were called "The Silent Generation.." I've had it with all this
"The
Greatest Generation" talk. Tom Brokaw please shut up.
1. To make matters
worse, we are now hearing all about the Boomer
Generation, the generation that matured in the sixties.
The generation
that matures in the 50s -- our generation -- has been skipped over
in the
chronicles of American history
2. It's time for the
"Silent Generation" to speak up.
II. Never Elected a President:
A. We are the only generation in American history not to elect a President!
1. Though Walter Mondale
(1928) and Michael Dukakis (1933) were
nominated
B. Presidential gaps
1. Bush Sr. born 1924, Clinton, born 1946: 22 year gap
2. Eisenhower b. 1890, JFK b. 1917: 27 year gap
3. But LBJ born 1908
4. George W. Bush,
like Clinton, born in 1946
C. What about us: Some saw Korean War, but basically came of age
in the
1950s. Well over half of our class served in peacetime military
of the
Cold War
1. interesting that Mondale and Dukakis were Cold War draftees
2. Another draftee was Elvis Presley.
a. Is Elvis the most famous person of our Silent
Generation? D.. Not only are there all those WWII movies,
most recently,
Saving Private Ryan and Pearl Harbor, but also numerous movies about
Vietnam.
1. The WWII movies
are in "the greatest generation" vein, while
the Vietnam movies are negative portrayals.
2. not usually recognized
was that it was the "greatest
generation" that gave us the Vietnam war.
3. But there
has only one movie ever made about the Cold War
military. The military in which so many Princetonians served.
a. Soldier in the Rain (1963) featuring Jackie Gleason as
a sergeant and Steve McQueen as a private
E. ROTC at Princeton
1. In Princeton's ROTC
program in 1956, some 200 of our classmates
were commissioned junior officers. This out of a class of 750
2. Last year,
Princeton commissioned four. Out of a class of
over a thousand. III. Generations
A. Scholars have talked about the generations that followed the
G.I.
Generation or Greatest Generation.
1. Silent generation (born 1928-1942)
2. Boomers generation (1943-1960)
3 X generation (1961-1981)
4. and Y generation, sometimes
called Millennials born since 1982.
Today's undergraduates
B. Demographics
1. total born
a. G.I. Generation: 74 million
b. Silent Generation: 54 million
c. Boomers: 79 million
2. to be more specific;
let us take 1934
a. 1934 some 2.4 million born
b. of whom almost 2.0 million are still alive or about 80%
C. Some say we never had it tough. Our mothers generally stayed home.
1. Last generation to have unscheduled play
2. what ever happened to hitch hiking?
3. just think, our
parents worried about us getting polio,. Now it
is AIDS
D. Description from The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and
Neil Howe,
"The Silent Generation grew up as the suffocated children of war an
depression. They came of age too late to be war heroes and too
early to be
youthful free spirits. Instead this Lonely Crowd became the risk-averse
technicians and professionals in which conformity seemed to be
a sure
ticket to success. They are entering elderhood with unprecedented
affluence, a hip style, and a reputation for indecision.
IV. Princetoniana
A. significance of our bachelor's thesis
1. portable typewriter vs. word processor on the computer
B. Balt
C. Playhouse vs. Pit
V. Movies:
A. High Noon 1952 with Gary Cooper
B. The Wild One 1953 with Marlon Brando
C. On the Waterfront, 1954 with Marlon Brando again. "I
could have been a
contender."
D. Rebel Without a Cause with James Dean 1955
E. The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston 1956
VI. Radio:
A. early fifties saw radio overtaken by television. . But it was
radio
that shaped our lives
1. when William Tell overture was the Lone Ranger symphony
2. Jack Benny and Rochester. Jack Benny's closet.
3. Fibber McGee and Molly. "t'aint funny McGee"
4. Eve Arden as "Our Miss Brooks"
5 "Allen's Alley:"
Senator Claghorn, Mrs. Nussbaum, Titus Moodey,
Ajax Cassidy
6. "Inner Sanctum"
had the reputation, but "Lights Out" was the
really scary program
7. "Can You Top
This?" Harry Hershfield, Joe Laurie Jr., and
Senator Ford VII. Comic Books
A. Early Comic Books
1. First Superman comic book came out in 1938.
2. Batman came out in 1940, joined by Robin two years later
a. Batman's villains like the Joker and the Penguin have
since entered movie lore. But how many of us remember Superman's
archenemy? Lex Luthor.
3. early forties saw, The Flash, Green Lantern, Captain America
B. Interesting that so many of the comic heroes of our generation
had
self-effacing counterparts in their everyday roles
1. Clark Kent for Superman and, of course, his girl friend Lois Lane
2. Bruce Wayne for Batman
3. Even Wonder Woman
was in her common identity, Diana Prince, a
secretary
4. my favorite was
Captain Marvel who appeared when Billy Batson
spoke the magic word, SHAZAM.
a. the letters stood for Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus,
Achilles, and Mercury
b. In fact, SHAZAM might be the motto for us, the silent
generation. Modest in everyday life, but potentially super heroes
when we
had to be.
VIII. Conclusion
A. O.K. maybe that's a little exagerrated. Maybe we weren't
the greatest
generation, but we were pretty damn good.
B. Let it be of some consolation that, today, we are the only
generation
overrepresented in Congress in terms of our numbers in the general
population.
C. Last generation to tell story jokes. You know the ones
about the
priest and the rabbi... I won't go into the traveling salesmen
jokes which
are no longer told.
D. One other thing. We were the last generation to
remember when
adultery was a sin and smoking was not.
--
Charles Moskos
Northwestern University
c-moskos@nwu.edu