CONSERVATISM AND FOREIGN POLICY by Felix Morley (Text of an address delivered November 10th at Yale Law School, being the third in a series on "The Role of the Conservative in Today's World", sponsored by The Conservative Society of Yale Law School, a newly-formed student organization.) "The Conservative Society of Yale Law School," I read in your program, "seeks to generate a sense of inquisitiveness for what it is the word conservative stands." I could be critical of the preposition in that statement of purpose, but not of the proposition. Like any other "ism", Conservatism is fundamentally an attitude of mind, and as such a proper subject of inquiry at any university that emphasizes the humanities. It is, moreover, especially fitting that this interest in the wellsprings of Conservatism is being shown here at Yale. I think of two great Conservatives who will forever rank among the most distinguished of Yale alumni -- John C. Calhoun, of the class of 1804, and Robert A. Taft, of the class of 1910. One was a Southerner; the other a Nor- therner. One a Democrat; the other a Republican. One sought vainly to avert the Civil War; the other to keep this country out of World War II. But both were alike in their integrity, their political vision and their love for Yale. Both of those great Senators, I am sure, would have been deeply interested in your Society. And yet, to some, it may seem a little unnatural that students should wish to make a serious examination of Conservatism. Youth is the period of rebellion. Students are naturally revolutionary. Innovation, experimentation, iconoclasm -- it is right and proper that all young men should lean towards these questioning attitudes. In later years one comes to accept the dictates of authority. But on the campus, surely, they may and should be questioned. You need not fear, however, that by forming a Conservative Society you have forsworn youth's prerogative to rebel. How it is at Yale I do not know. But I do know that over the country as a whole authority is no longer conserva- tive and that at most American colleges doctrines misleadingly called "liberal" are in the saddle. Lectures and libraries are alike slanted towards the Left and the campus traditionalist is almost as lonely as was the Marxist in my own undergraduate days. Perhaps you will let me recall that just forty years ago this night I was in my Senior Year at Haverford, then an excellent though very conservative small college. That combination is not impossible. There would have been no point, at the Haverford of my day, in having a Conservative Society, for all our campus society was conservative. But for that very reason there was point in forming a radical student group, to consider the position our teachers tended to ignore. So some of us established what we called the Social Science Club. And on our own responsibility we got dreadful people -- outright Socialists like Scott Nearing, if you remember him to come and talk to us. That was our way of protesting the orthodoxy of the Haverford atmosphere. It could, conceivably, be that you are making a similar protest by having people like me -- who admit to admiring Bob Taft and John C. Calhoun -- to speak at Yale tonight.