The Daily Signal - The Next Generation of Courageous Leaders

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

Generation Z is already making its mark on America. Born after 1996, these young Americans came of age in an era of rapid technological change—smartphones, social media, and our interconnected world. The oldest are already in the workforce while others are in the process of figuring out their careers. Fortunately, there are good organizations to provide the leadership and training for this next generation. The Fund for American Studies is one of them. It has influenced the lives of thousands of conservative leaders, journalists (including The Daily Signal's own Fred Lucas), and others since its founding in 1967. The organization is currently recruiting for its summer programs, which include international affairs, public policy and economics, journalism and communications, business and government relations, and leadership and the American presidency. Learn more at DCinternships.org. On today's show, Roger Ream, president of The Fund for American Studies, explains how his organization is developing the next generation of courageous leaders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, March 21st. I'm Rob Bluey. And I'm Maggie Haranjek. On today's show, Rob interviews Roger Ream, president of the Fund for American Studies, about educating Gen Z on the fundamental principles of American democracy and free markets. We also read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about a World War II veteran who became an author of children's books in his 90s. But before we get to today's show, Maggie and I want to tell you about a brand new addition to the Heritage Foundation.

podcast network. It's called The Kevin Roberts Show. Dr. Kevin Roberts is the president of the Heritage Foundation, and now you can hear his political analysis on the most important issues facing America. Every show is packed with analysis on the issues of the day and deep conversations with the movers and shakers of American politics and culture. New shows are available every Wednesday. You can find the Kevin Roberts show on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. We even put the full episode on YouTube. Now stay tuned for today's show coming up next. Generation Z is already making its mark on America. Born after 1996, these young Americans came of age in an era of rapid technological change, smartphones, social media, and our

interconnected world. The oldest are already in the workforce, while others are in the process of figuring out their careers. You might be one or have a son, daughter, grandchild, niece, or nephew who belongs to this generation. Fortunately, there are good organizations to provide the leadership and training for this next generation. And today, I'm honored to be joined by Roger Reem, president of the Fund for American Studies, which does just that. Roger, welcome to the Daily Signal.

Thank you, Rob. It's a pleasure to be here. In the interest of full disclosure, I've been a supporter of the Fund for American Studies for many years and serve on the board of visitors for your journalism and communications program. So I thank you for the work that you're doing. and I look forward to continue to support you in the years to come. I want to begin this conversation by asking you to describe what you do at the Fund for American Studies

and how you're helping to educate the current generation of young Americans. Well, let me begin by saying thank you for that support, which comes in many forms. And you've been a great advisor to us on our journalism programs, which we greatly appreciate and in many other ways. Well, the Fund for American Studies mission is fairly straightforward. We were founded in 1967 with the purpose of trying to develop leaders who could support American values in our free enterprise system. And we recently went through a whole board-directed strategic planning process. And we only changed one thing about our mission statement. And that was we added the word courageous.

We want to develop courageous leaders because today the campus environment is even much worse, perhaps, than when we were founded in the 1960s. And campuses were pretty tough back then with anti-war demonstrations, shootings on campus, bombings at the University of Wisconsin, and just a tremendous amount of unrest, which is what inspired our leaders to create the Fund for American Studies. But today, if you're a conservative on campus in particular, but for any student there, they are not getting a balanced perspective on American values. It's not a place where there's open inquiry taking place and you can question ideas and come to your own conclusions. So we hope through our programs, which combine the academic components plus the internship and practical experience, we can offer students an opportunity for a great environment for learning and for developing as courageous leaders. That's fantastic. I love that change that you made and think the courageous addition is really important, particularly for, are you understanding?

people today. You know, Roger, so many conservatives have lost faith in higher education institutions, oftentimes for good reason, as you just cited. What are you doing to help make up for those failures through your programs? Well, we address them in a couple of different ways, Rob. On the one hand, we have this program where we bring students off the campus for the summer or a semester. So at least for that one part of their higher education, they can come to an environment that's different. They get academic credit for our courses through George Mason University. I sometimes say, perhaps just as a shorthand, it's a Hillsdale College experience for those who don't go to Hillsdale so they can come from study under professors who understand free market economics and our

constitution and limited government get academic credits for that. And then also, really, we do recruit kids from across the spectrum. So it's a very vibrant intellectual environment where kids are challenged on whether you're conservative, liberal, libertarian. You have to defend your ideas. You have to have to have a civil discussion of ideas. In some sense, it's a safe place for vigorous debate and discussion, not a safe place to protect it from hearing other ideas. We also are sending some speakers out to campuses. We have two young men who came here from Venezuela who go out to tell their story to college students, warning them of what happened in Venezuela, and it's a caution that don't let that happen here to this rich heritage of freedom

and prosperity that we've created here because Venezuela was once a very rich country. And others who go out, Ann Bradley, our academic director, travels to campuses and speaks about our free enterprise system and how to create prosperity and others. We just hired a young man from Color Us United, Christian Watson, who talks about the experience of growing up as a black man who doesn't want to be a young man. want to be treated as a black and therefore given special treatment because of his skin color. He wants to be treated as an individual human being. And now he's going to start going to the campus for us. That's fantastic. I love that you're sending them out there. I want to go back to

one thing you said. And that is the real diverse nature of the students that you attract to the program. Having served as a mentor to some of those students in years past, I definitely see that as well. And I think that you talked about having that civil conversation and debate, which doesn't seem to be happening on so many college campuses. What are some of the ways that you help foster that through your program? And not just in the academic setting, but even the students when they're living on the campus together in the summer, for instance. Well, in recent years, we've added to our orientation when the students first arrive at the start of the summer several lectures that deal with the importance of hearing ideas you might not agree with.

We bring in some speakers. We have Greg Lukianoff, the head of fire, talk about the importance of free speech on campus. We have several others talk about the importance of diversity as it relates to intellectual ideas and just tries to set the right tone for the summer so that when students get into the classroom and hear perspectives from professors and other students that they might not have otherwise heard, they aren't going to react by closing up and saying, you know, you can't express those ideas. They are offensive to me or something. So we work to create that kind of environment so that when students do get into the dorms at night

and have those bull sessions that they likely have after hearing a provocative lecture or from our faculty, they're prepared to talk about it. I was just in Arizona with a young woman who had attended last summer and she gave a little testimonial at an event with our donors. And it was funny because she said when she first moved into her dorm, one of her roommates said she was a socialist. And she said, oh, boy, this is going to be fun. And she realized that what the summer did for her as a conservative was it taught her how to

present her ideas in a way that would be influential to this woman calling herself a socialist. And she said when she got out of the first course with Ann Bradley, a free market economics professor, this socialist said, I really agreed with everything that Ann Bradley said. So she thought, you know, some kids adopt labels, liberal, progressive socialism, but they haven't really thought out their ideas. It's just the label they've learned they should adopt on a college campus to not be acting like they're, you know, somehow odd or abnormal. And so I think when kids are exposed to these ideas effectively with our faculty, they realize that freedom and liberty and free market ideas are really the true way to try to help people and make the world a better place. So it really is a transformative experience for many of the students who come to us who don't already kind of hold these free market ideas. That's great. Thank you for sharing that story as well.

Your programs put an emphasis on teaching free market economics. It's something that also appears to be lacking in higher education today. Why have you decided to make that a priority? Well, it was always one of the important things we did in our programs was teaching economics, particularly to journalism students. But in 2013, we formed a merger of sorts by taking over a group called the Foundation for Teaching Economics. which is located in Davis, California. And their specialty is teaching high school kids

to understand what they call the economic way of thinking. They run programs around the country in the summer, one week long for high school students to learn about economic principles and how an free economy works. They also do a lot of great programs for teachers. And so when we brought them in in 2013 and simultaneously moved our programs from Georgetown University, where he'd been for 40 years, to George Mason,

which has one of the best free market economics departments in the country, it kind of made sense to put that emphasis on economics in all our programs. So we still do focus on issues like the importance of the Constitution, of limited government, of individual liberty. But all the students in the college programs are required to at least take a course in economics as part of the curriculum. And they can take electives at other subjects. That's great.

Thank you. So often I hear fellow conservatives bemoaning our failure to effectively persuade young people. What is your general outlook on this generation? Well, I do think we fall short when it comes to trying to persuade young people. But I do think, Rob, the environment right now that students who come to us are looking for answers. I think many of them have the right instincts. And you no doubt heard the Speaker of the House saying the Congress has helped reduce the national debt by spending all this money. I mean, it was ludicrous her statement on the surface.

And I think college students understand that that is nonsense. And I don't think it's that hard to be persuasive. Certainly there are people in the conservative movement who are better than others when it comes to being persuasive about ideas. and you have to be thoughtful about the way you present things. Our faculty tends in the classroom the first day to say, I'm going to assume that everyone in this room wants to make the world a better place, wants people to have a higher standard of living, wants to address hunger in the world.

And this course is going to be dedicated to trying to figure out how to do that. So let's together explore ideas and see if we can come up to some conclusions about how to make the world a better place because that's what we all want. So we start with that common assumption. And that's generally true, I think, of most people. And then as she or he on our faculty works through these ideas, I think it brings students to a conclusion that it's through markets, through private ownership, private property, that, you know, people create wealth.

And of course, I think college students are feeling the effects of our economy right now, whether it be inflation or the supply chain or other factors that are having a real, impact on their lives just as they are for all of Americans. Last year, you were honored with the prestigious Bradley Prize, and in your acceptance speech, you spoke about the importance of equipping the next generation with the tools to defend free market capitalism. How can we do that? Well, I, being the son of a preacher, one thing that's always been important to me and my

outlook on this is you must teach it, you know, have a real moral clarity to the way you teach, start with basic Judeo-Christian moral principles in building the case for a free society. You begin by talking about the worth of the individual, which is where I say the Judeo-Christian outlook teaches you that all individuals are children of God and therefore they deserve dignity and respect. They deserve the opportunity in life to use their skills, their talents, to get a head. And when you create a society that's patterned after the great society and, you know, cradle to grave, you can be a ward of the state from the housing provided for you, your food stamps,

your welfare, you get to the end of life, you know, what have you, you know, what has your life been worth if that's how you've lived your whole life? So only in a free society where you can succeed or fail, take advantage of opportunities or ignore them when they come upon you, can you really have lived a meaningful life? So I think the principles we teach in economics, in limited government, are the principles that are most consistent with those guiding principles that we learned from our Judeo-Christian heritage, the bedrock foundation upon which our Constitution was framed

and our Declaration of Independence proclaimed. So I just think that's where you start and trying to reach students. In light of that, you're well aware, as I am, that there are some conservatives who have started to question this belief in free markets and have proposed solutions that would expand the role of government, particularly at the federal level. Should we be worried about this? We should definitely be worried about it. There are several ways, I think, to approach that.

But first and foremost, as conservatives, we should understand the grave, grave danger of giving government more power. First of all, our guys may be in charge today, but their guys will be at some point. And in fact, generally it is their guys who are in charge of these bureaucracies we've created that are supposed to carry out these orders. And in the book by Ludwig von Vises on bureaucracy, a very short book of his, you learn is that government can't function properly. It's not going to achieve the ends you want it to achieve. The incentive structures are such.

There's this knowledge problem, the lack of profits and losses. Bureaucrats will not respond effectively to what we may want done as conservative. So I fear giving a government more antitrust power to break up companies because it'll be misused in the future. I fear giving government power to impose tariffs on goods that we think are. coming in here from the wrong countries or undercutting our industries because those same powers you give to government will eventually misused. So that's my great fear is that government cannot do what we wanted to do.

So we must keep it small, decentralized, as much power as possible in local and state governments and not brought here to Washington because it's already we've got this blob of government. It's spending trillions of dollars. it's bankrupting our future. It's misusing its powers, and it's a big burden on our society and is impacting our standard of living. We've seen that with COVID. We've seen that in other ways.

So I think conservatives should continue to stand for our Constitution and the limitations that are found in there when it comes to the federal government. Well, I agree with you on that for sure. You mentioned the Von Mises book. It reminds me to ask you a question. Do students when they come to your programs get a reading list? Or are there any particular books that stand out in your mind that are probably not being taught in higher-end today that they might want to take a look at?

Well, that's a great question. We don't specifically give them a reading list, though. Each professor has a syllabus with recommended readings. But here's an experience last summer. A friend of mine sent his daughter to the program. It was a young man. The father had worked for me in the early 1990s. And his daughter came this summer.

It makes me feel old. But he emailed me after the first few days and said, Roger, you can't believe how I feel. My daughter this week has been reading Walter Williams and Tom Sol in her class at T-FAS. And so they will be exposed to Hayek and Walter Williams and Tom Sol and a lot of these great economists that you've read, I know, Rob, that we hope will inspire these students to read more from those people. and so they do get a good exposure to really great books. That's fantastic. You had mentioned earlier that the Fund for American Studies started in the 1960s. What was the impetus behind its creation?

Well, yeah, I wasn't there at the time, but the story is that Charles Edison, who was the son of the inventor, Thomas Edison, had been Secretary of Navy under FDR, had been a reform. governor of New Jersey and Chairman McGrathus, and he called a group together at his suite at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel late in his life. It included the great Congressman Walter Judd from Minnesota, William F. Buckley, David Jones, who I knew, and several others. And he expressed the vision of an organization that would bring young people who seemed in the campus unrest going at the time to be questioning American vans. values. So let's bring them together in the summer, come in the best and brightest, and expose them to the American political and economic ideas, and they can make up their minds, but

at least they have to hear about those ideas first. And shortly after that, sadly and unfortunately, Governor Edison passed away and it was viewed that he was going to endow this, but it wasn't something he had done before he died. But the organization went to Georgetown. They got a professor named Lev Dobryansky, great government professor there who later served as an ambassador for Ronald Reagan, to sponsor us at Georgetown. And we created the first program in 1970 with a credit from Georgetown. And the rest is history, so to speak. But since then, we've been trying to educate young people who are going to be leaders in the future, journalists in the future about our American institutions. And you certainly touch the lives of thousands, tens of thousands of alumni who are now working.

working out in careers throughout all of these different fields. Who are some of the alumni that our listeners might be familiar with? And what are they doing today? Well, I attended a program in 1976, and one of my classmates was Mark Levin, who I know many of your listeners will know from his Fox News and radio and books, great books he's written. Mark and I have remained friends, and he was a great friend to have as a classmate back in 1976.

The others from the early years, there was Ron Robinson, later president of Young America's Foundation, his wife, Michelle, who founded the Claire Boothloose Institute. There was Frank Donatelli who worked in the Reagan White House. In the 80s, Clint Bullock, who founded the Institute for Justice and was later at the Goldwater Institute before now, serving as an associate justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, a great defender of school choice programs and reform. Education. Through our Robert Novak Journalism Fellows, we have a lot of outstanding alumni, such as Molly Hemingway, and Tim Carney, who's at the Washington Examiner, Joy Pullman at the Federalist. We have Kat Timf, who's also at Fox News, who've received Novak fellowships from us. And we have two serving in Congress now, Republican David Rouser of North Carolina and a Republican from Tennessee, David Kustoff.

We've had others in the past. We probably have about three dozen or more serving on the staffs of members of Congress. And we have some serving in state legislatures around the country as well. Well, a great reach and impact. Thank you, Roger. I'm particularly thankful for the work that you are doing

in the journalism field. In addition to having that great program for on economics and other issues, you also, as you mentioned, offer the Robert Novak Journalism Fellowships. You have a relatively new fellowship with the Wall Street Journal, which you just made some news on recently. Why have you made this commitment to journalism and tell us a little bit more about these programs? Well, yes.

From close to the start, we had created campus programs for young journalists, and we'd go out to campuses and hold conferences in the 70s. And that evolved into a summer-long program for journalism students. It was called the Institute for Political Journalism, now the program on journalism and communications. So we'll select, if we can, 40 to 50 young journalism majors, bring them to Washington for an internship and courses in economics and government and try to set them on a path where they get experience in the internship that will make them successful in their careers. A natural follow-on to that was when in 2013 we took over the Robert Novak. journalism program, Bob Novak, great journalist, covered politics and wrote a column for decades

here in Washington. He had helped inspire that program with Tom Phillips. And it's a fellowship for a year for young journalists, less than 10 years of experience, have a great writing idea, a writing project idea, preferably a book. And they submit the project ideas to us. We'll pick six or seven and give them a fellowship so they can take some time off, do do the research, do the, you know, use the shoe leather that'll enable them to publish a book. And a lot of great books have been written.

I think we have over 75 books that have come out of that program, some bestsellers. And it's really helped these young people establish themselves and move on in their careers as with Molly Hemingway as an example of that. Tim Carney, too, will tell you that's what started his career. And then, in fact, we've just opened up applications for this next round of Robert Novak, Journalism Fellows. The Rago, Joseph Rago Fellowship is a great one. It was what Joe Rago was a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal.

He died suddenly in his sleep. And his parents and friends came to us about establishing a fellowship in his name. We pay the salary of a young journalist with less than five years' experience to work at the Wall Street Journal on the editorial page for nine months. It's a great way to honor Joe Rago's memory as a great Pulitzer. surprise-winning journalist who wrote great columns on Obamacare and a great way to get young people on a path to careers in journalism. You mentioned some application deadlines coming up for our listeners who want to learn more or if they have children or grandchildren or nieces or nephews who would like to participate. How can they go about doing that?

Well, we are recruiting right now for a summer of 2022 programs, which will start in June and run for eight weeks. The information can be found on a very easy to find website, DC internships.org. If you go to DC internships.org, it gives you all the information there. We had application deadlines that move. We had one yesterday, but we're extending deadlines toward early April. So anyone who's interested can apply now, find the information. We provide the housing. It's live, learn, and intern.

We do everything for a student. We'll get them the internship. They get enrolled in the courses at George Mason. We've got co-curricular activities that go on, from everything from visiting monuments and seeing Washington to going to briefings, hearing great speakers. We do a congressional briefing with members of Congress,

get here from different agencies and individuals. So a lot of our students have the opportunity to come to the Heritage Foundation and other think tanks. So just a great idea for any young person who's interested in public policy, journalism, international affairs, even business. I recommend it very highly. And we have lots of scholarships available as well to defer the cost of the program. Well, we've been honored to host them here. And we thank you, Roger, for your leadership of the organization.

Again, for our listeners who would like to learn more, it's DC internships.org. We'll be sure to leave a link prominently on the website as well as the show notes for this episode. Roger, thanks for being here today. Well, thank you, Rob. I have a great affinity for all the work you do here. The Daily Signal's great. I really admire what you've built here, and it has a lot of influence. So thank you for what you're doing.

Thank you. Do you have an interest in public policy? Do you want to hear lectures from some of the biggest names in American politics? The Heritage Foundation hosts webinars called Heritage Events Live. These events are free and open to the public to find the live. latest heritage events, and to register, visit heritage.org slash events. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor.

Each Monday we feature our favorites on this show. Maggie, who's up first? Tara Hulsley of Brazil, Indiana, writes, Dear Daily Signal, as revealed in Doug Blair's podcast interview with movie critic Christian Toto, I agree that there needs to be an outspoken conservative element in Hollywood, and everywhere else for that matter.

What I don't understand is why anyone would ever care about what an actor thinks. Where is the evidence that actors are worthy of being listened to? Are they smarter? More educated in all things political? Somehow imbued with wisdom? Magic? We need not give these people coverage. We need to turn our backs on their attempts to change fleeting popularity into conventional wisdom.

We have no chance of being heard above the cacophony of petty idiots until the media stops enabling this hijacking of our culture. And Pete Ferris of St. Michael's Maryland writes, Dear Daily Signal, I think President Biden just made a third big mistake. The first was stating that he would only nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court. This excluded not only whites, but other qualified non-whites, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, and so on. His second big mistake was choosing another nominee with an Ivy League background. If Judge Jackson is confirmed, that will be eight out of nine on the high court. Justice Amy Coney-Barratt went to Notre Dame Law School, generally considered, to be on the same level as

the ivies. But perhaps Biden's biggest mistake was not choosing the preferred nominee of House Majority Whip, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, who put him over the top in the 2020 Democrat primary in South Carolina. Your letter could be featured on next week's show. So send an email to Letters at DailySignal.com. The Heritage Foundation has a new website to combat critical race theory. CRT, as it's known, makes race the centerpiece of all aspects of American in life. It categorizes individuals into groups of oppressors and victims. The idea is infiltrating everything from our politics and education to the workplace and even our military. Heritage has pulled together the resources that you need to identify CRT in your community and the

ways to fight it. We also have a legislation tracker so you can see what's happening in your state. Visit heritage.org slash CRT to learn more. Maggie, we're delighted to have you deliver today's good news story. You've been doing excellent work as our Daily Signal Intern this semester. Over to you. Thank you, Rob. You are never too old to learn a new skill. Sam Baker took that advice to heart in his 90s

and embarked on a new adventure, writing children's books. Baker is a 99-year-old World War II veteran from Scottsdale, Arizona. He enlisted in the Marine Corps as a 19-year-old in 1942, only four months after Pearl Harbor. As a first lieutenant, I was a second senior officer the end of Italian. After the war, he worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for 30 years until he retired. When Baker was 95 years old, he decided to take up writing.

He was inspired by his wife, Janet, who used to read children's books to their son. She was also instrumental in getting me to write the first book. Growing up, Baker says reading was hard for him. He told Fox News that as a child in school, he struggled to, with reading and really only learned phonics when he became an adult. Despite his challenges reading, Baker developed a love for books when he entered high school. During his freshman year, Baker says he had to write 12 book reports. From then on, he was hooked on reading. When he began writing his first children's book, Baker said he knew he wanted to write stories that would

encourage kids to love reading. Reading is a foundation for all future learning. If we have a building called education, the foundation is reading. His first book, The Silly Adventures of Petunia and Herman the Worm, was based on stories Baker used to tell his own children. He recently published Oscar the Mouse, a story about a young girl on her mouse, which was inspired from Baker's own pet rat he had as a kid. Now, at the age of 99, Baker's third book is expected to be published later this year.

Children who read succeed. If I can just do anything to increase the reading of young children, I will have had a wonderful experience. Readers interested in learning more about Baker or buying his books can visit sambakerbooks.com. Maggie, thanks so much for sharing that story. What a fantastic individual for taking this up at such a stage and later in life. And I'm grateful for you joining us on our show today as a guest host. for Virginia. We're grateful for Al that you're doing this semester at the Daily Signal. We're going to leave it there for today's show. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on the Ricochet

Audio Network. All of our shows can be found at DailySignal.com slash podcasts. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review and a five-star rating. It means a lot to us and helps us spread the word to other listeners. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at DailySignal and Facebook.com slash the Daily Signal News. Have a great week. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Rob Blewey and Virginia Allen. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.