Center of Gravity

On the sunny slopes above Santa Barbara, Calif., stands Robert M. Hutchins' Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. In placid isolation from everyday bustle, some 25 Fellows of the Center and their guests daily discuss the state of the world and issue occasional position papers. Those papers often display a doctrinaire devotion to such ill-fated causes as the Center's second Pacem in Terris conference.

So when the Fellows decided to start a magazine last fall to reach a wider audience than is generally found at their home on Eucalyptus Hill, the publication was expected merely to promote the Center's more passionate, loftily liberal concerns.

The surprise is that it does not. The Center Magazine, as the bimonthly is called, stands, more or less, at the center. It invites contributors, mostly Fellows of the Center, to argue major issues of the day. In a lively exchange on Black Power, for example, Fellow W. H. Ferry maintained that integration in the U.S. is a hopeless dream and separatism is just around the corner. To which another Fellow, John L. Perry, just as exuberantly replied that Black Power may well be the best path to integration. Negroes, said Perry, have come to the realization that they must find their "manhood" in their own community before they can move successfully into the white. "Thus, while some blacks are moving into white America--and not thereby becoming white, either --others are turning inward to the black ghetto to build their own strength. I find the dual process exciting, healthy and promising."

Proof of Utopia. Center is not content to be merely topical, but offers some intriguing glimpses into past and future. In the current issue, Trappist Monk Thomas Merton, author of The Seven Storey Mountain, writes about an early Mesoamerican civilization that survived from 1000 B.C. to A.D. 900 without a single war. So attuned to their environment were its members, so at peace with themselves, that they simply felt no need to fight, nor their neighbors to fight with them. Here, says Merton, was a Utopian existence that was not mere fantasy.

Looking forward, onetime New Deal Brain-Truster Rexford Guy Tugwell gives a progress report on his 32nd effort to bring the U.S. Constitution up to date. Dubbed the "Refounding Father" by his colleagues, Tugwell spells out a citizen's responsibilities along with his rights, emphasizes the shift in society from "competition to mutuality."

Center Editor John Cogley, who reported on religion for the New York Times, concentrates on making the magazine readable. This often entails editing writers of academic background, who, says Cogley, lack the "usual and necessary journalistic anxieties and deadline mentality." Center, nevertheless, boasts such skilled writers as Harry Ashmore, onetime editor of the Arkansas Gazette, who is now executive vice president of the Center; Military Critic Walter Millis, who has been examining proposed changes in the draft; Classicist Stringfellow Barr, who has tried to draw some lessons from ancient times to apply to the present-day U.S. (one of them: Woe to the nation that puts too much faith in force). Far from being abstract, their writings clearly bear the imprint of their personalities.

Surprise Surplus. The result is that Center has been acquiring readers beyond its fondest hopes. Since it first appeared last October, subscriptions have risen from 10,000 to 45,000. Most subscribers pay $10 a year; others pay more in the form of a donation. The Center has already earned back the $450,000 cost of the first year of operation and will have some surplus to put back into the nonprofit organization. And the magazine gets along without any advertising.

At times, Center may be a trifle over-cosmic in its approach. As Hutchins cheerfully admits, "A tinge of megalomania is still present." In one breathtaking article, a writer with a fondness for revolution managed to find a common denominator between the American rebellion, Castro's takeover of Cuba, the Dominican Republic uprising, Watts, Selma, and you name it. What keeps Center balanced is difference of opinion. "We have people who believe that political parties have outlived their usefulness," says Cogley, "and others who think that parties are moving into a new ascendancy. Some think that technology is demoniac; others feel it is a new source of liberation for mankind."

To Harry Ashmore, the merit of the magazine is its determination to clarify basic issues for the general reader. "We don't do research," he says. "There is nothing we can do in that area that won't be duplicated elsewhere. We prefer to do thinking."

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