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[APPLAUSE] BOB POTTER: Good evening. Minnesota Public Radio now presents another in a series of lectures by the former vice president of the United States, Walter F. Mondale. These special broadcasts are made possible in part by a grant from LRB Incorporated.

This is Bob Potter speaking to you from the College of Saint Thomas in Saint Paul. And the president of the college, Monsignor Terrence Murphy, is now introducing our guest speaker.

TERRENCE MURPHY: I'm very pleased to welcome all of you here this evening and to this public lecture by our very distinguished visiting professor, the honorable Walter F. Mondale, former vice president of the United States.

Before introducing our speaker, I'd like to take a moment to recognize some of our very special guests in the audience. Here on the platform is Mr. Jon F. Donovan, President of the Donovan Construction Company and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees. And seated in the audience is Monsignor Ambrose Hayden, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul in Minneapolis and vice chairman of the college's board of trustees. He is representing this evening Archbishop John Roach, chairman of our board, who was unable to be present this evening because of a conflict.

Also seated in the audience is Mr. Harlan Cleveland, the Director of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and Dr. Jack Rossmann, Vice President for Academic Affairs at Macalester College and who is representing Dr. John Davis. He's the president of that institution, who cannot be with us this evening. I want to also to recognize the presence here of several members of the board of trustees and their spouse.

Tonight's lecture is the third and the final lecture in a series, the first of which was given at the University of Minnesota and dealt with the Office of Vice President as experienced by Mr. Mondale. The second was delivered last week at Macalester College and dealt with foreign policy. This evening, Mr. Mondale will discuss domestic issues which our nation will face as we proceed in the decade of the '80s. And we'll also consider the prospects for pluralism in our immediate future.

He has agreed to vary somewhat the format from the former lectures. This evening, he will accept questions from the audience at the end of his lecture. So you will have an opportunity to dialogue with him.

Microphones have been placed here in the auditorium. And if you ask a question, if you will come forth and identify yourself and state your question, Mr. Mondale will be pleased to deal with them. And don't feel intimidated. State whatever is on your mind.

[LAUGHTER]

And in case any of you are intimidated, tomorrow morning at 9:30 in this building, our students will meet with the former vice president. And I'm sure they will not be intimidated when it comes to asking questions. One does not introduce an individual who is as widely known as Fritz Mondale. He hardly requires an introduction and certainly not in this region in which he is so much admired and respected.

Rather, I should like to say to him, welcome back. Welcome back to one of Minnesota's most illustrious citizens and to one of education's staunchest friends and advocates. He has honored the University of Minnesota, Macalester College, and Saint Thomas College by affiliating himself with these three institutions in a teaching capacity. With each of the three, he is renewing already existing bonds.

Fritz Mondale earned his undergraduate degree from Macalester College, as did his wife Joan. Later received his law degree from the University of Minnesota. The College of Saint Thomas awarded him the degree Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causa, in 1973.

Throughout his career in public service, as attorney general of the state of Minnesota, as United States senator, and as vice president of the United States, Walter F. Mondale has consistently exemplified a politics of humaneness through his abiding concern for the poor and the disenfranchised.

As a United States senator, this same dedication led him into legislative action against poverty and the disadvantages that it generates, against nutritional and child care deficiencies would sap the strength of our future citizens, and against discrimination that has prevented many of our fellow citizens from becoming equal before the law.

As vice president, he was in the vanguard in stressing the primacy of human rights for all individuals everywhere. In all his public service as well as in his personal life, Fritz Mondale has pursued high ideals of service to his fellow citizens and has conducted himself with rigid standards of personal integrity. It's a distinct pleasure for me to welcome you back to this particular alma mater of yours, Mr. Vice President. And it's my honor to present you to this audience.

[APPLAUSE]

BOB POTTER: Monsignor Terence Murphy, President of the College of Saint Thomas, introducing the former vice president of the United States, Walter Mondale, who is speaking tonight from the auditorium of the O'Shaughnessy Educational Center at Saint Thomas, a hall which can accommodate approximately 850 people. The hall is packed. And here is Mr. Mondale.

WALTER MONDALE: Thank you, my friend, Monsignor Murphy, for that very, very kind introduction. Not only is the monsignor one of the ablest presidents of any university or college that I know, he is without doubt the nicest president of any university or college that I know.

[APPLAUSE]

I'm sorry that my friend, his excellency Archbishop Roach, is not with us this evening. We're delighted that Monsignor Hayden is here representing him. But I wish you would tell him this story when you see him. It really signifies the new role that I'm playing in American life or the absence thereof.

When I was elected, I was permitted to pick a friend to deliver the invocation at the inaugural. And I called John Roach and asked him if he would do it. And for four years, wherever I went, people would say, is John Roach a friend of yours? Now, the other day, someone came up to me and said, are you a friend of John Roach's?

[LAUGHTER]

And I'm trying to be as best I can. To Jack Rossmann representing Macalester College, to Harlan Cleveland, the gifted director of the Humphrey Institute, to the faculty, to the students and friends, the board, and supporters of this great Saint Thomas College. I called Monsignor Murphy yesterday and said, I want to change a little bit the way in which I approach tonight's event from the previous two events.

I have prepared an absolutely spectacular, academically perfect, and totally exhausting lecture on progressive values in American life, approaching at exactly the same way I did the previous two lectures. That text will be available to anybody who wants to read it.

[LAUGHTER]

I'm even planning to read it myself.

[LAUGHTER]

I am not a textual deviant, and you can count on every single word. But instead, I want to speak briefly and then hopefully have a discussion on the topic that I raise or any others that concern you. And then tomorrow, for the survivors, we'll meet again here.

SPEAKER: 9:30

WALTER MONDALE: 9:30. If I'm not here, you go right ahead--

[lAUGHTER]

--and guess the answers on-- and we'll have a further discussion. This great college, I think, is a good place to begin what I want to discuss this evening. And that is the place, the purpose, and the strategy for progressive values in American life.

This great college is a classic example of progressive values at their best. For nearly a century now, this, the largest private college in Minnesota, has delivered superb, excellent education across the broad range of the needs of Americans and Minnesotans, has taught the values of a deep religious faith, has taught the values of the highest ethical standards, has taught the skills and the knowledge that countless now generations of Minnesotans and others have learned here at this great school, and has served this nation and continues to serve this nation and this world and humanity in the broadest and the deepest sense of the word.

My association with this campus goes back many, many years. I attended a school down the street here. It's a small school, but it's a good school, and they're trying.

[LAUGHTER]

Yeah. And I came to this campus before it was coeducational as well. And many of the young people here at that time and students, young faculty members, and young faculty and others and students at Macalester, and so on would often get together in those days and years right after World War II and talk about our own lives. We'd talk about what future we wanted for ourselves.

And we'd talk about this state, and we'd talk about our country. And we'd talk about the world as students ought to do and as all Americans ought to do.

I met a young instructor, I think, in economics here named Eugene J. McCarthy, a young instructor, I believe, in history, named Joe Gabler, a young instructor in economics, Adrian [? Winkel. ?] I became a lifelong friend of many, many people here-- the Haleys, the O'Tooles, the McLaughlins, and the rest. And together, we more or less informally decided to dedicate our lives to trying to achieve a more just America and a more just world.

And because of that, I spent the next now over 30 years in public life. The voters of Minnesota have been shamelessly kind to me. I served as attorney general for 12 years in the United States Senate and then for four in the second highest office in the land.

And during all of that time, I tried to serve the progressive values that I learned at home and in my faith and from my friends. And tonight, the voters have given us a chance to look at these issues from the outside for a while. I'd like to just speak briefly about those values and what I think we need to do in America, regardless of party lines, as we face the challenge of achieving and continue to strive for humane values in America.

Just as Saint Thomas has gone through an evolution, being a far different institution than it was when it was first founded, but still serving the values that they had in mind when it was created, so too those who wish for a humane America must also understand the changes and must also adapt to the needs of our society.

The modern progressive tradition we talked about probably started in the Depression in the early '30s, when average Americans, farmers, workers, people of all walks of life, for reasons totally beyond their control, would find themselves stripped of their jobs, their farms gone, and the other tragedies and human suffering that we relate and remember in those Depression days.

Hubert Humphrey was a representative of the experience of those times. And he once said this. "I grew up in a time when the poor were not those who had always been poor. They were once men and women of substance, and they were struck down as if they'd been rolled over by a mighty tidal wave. I will never be able to forget it.

I know that out of those days, experience came that helped shape legislation later on. I was the original author of the Job Corps legislation. It came about because I remember the CCCs. And I remembered the young men who walked the railroad tracks in the days of the Depression. I remember that many of them were considered to be useless and worthless by some of their more fortunate contemporaries, only to have them later become generals and governors and businessmen and labor leaders and professors. I have not forgotten."

I think those of us in this room about my age or thereabouts could all recite similar experience and insights from those early days. My father was a minister, and he told me as a young boy what he thought were the worst ravages of the Depression. And he said it wasn't the loss of income and the tragedy in terms of an economic problem that struck him the most.

It was the collapse of the pride and the spirit and the sense of self-worth that came over a person who tried every way he or she could, but nevertheless could not find the status, the work that they needed to care for themselves and their families. And the searing impression and impulse from this experience, I think, dominated American political life for many, many years thereafter.

There was adopted under the New Deal a range of modern legislation dealing with collective bargaining, Social Security, rural electrification, Tennessee Valley Authority, the agricultural programs dealing with the CCC programs, and all the rest. And then World War II came along, and the process stopped.

And then in the early '60s, about the time that I went to Washington, a new focus, a different focus occurred in Washington and in this nation. We were not looking alone at working families in this country, but we were trying to look at the very poor in American life, whose independence had been stripped by poverty. We were trying to look at the needs of the sick, who could not afford to pay the costs of medicine.

For the first time in a real sense, Americans looked at the then inexcusable treatment of minorities in American life. We sometimes forget. But it was less than 20 years ago when it was rather common in America for laws that deliberately required Americans to be separated based on color and based on race.

We looked at the young, many of whom were not given minimum decent education, and at the old, whose retirement was tarnished by struggle. We had to face a range of new problems that were difficult to grapple with, such as the growing problems of the environment and the rest, and act on those problems we did. We passed Medicare, Medicaid, the Economic Development Administration, a whole range of educational legislation from Head Start to Title I to the handicapped, the bilingual, to student assistance, specialized education, and the rest.

We passed programs to house the poor. We started over those years hearings on hunger in America. And I saw too much hunger in those years, and we passed legislation there. We passed voting rights legislation and much more. Those were good years for people of my breed to be in public life.

We're able to reduce tax rates, increase tax revenues, fund new programs out of growth, and add new jobs with virtually no inflation. And we were able to do so because we were in a period of rapid noninflationary economic growth. But then those great days came to an end very quickly and for many, many reasons, one of which I'm glad we do not have to live with anymore, and that is the war in Vietnam.

The students at Saint Thomas, in this age, could not possibly imagine the torture, the heartache, the division, the poisoned dialogue that existed on all the great campuses of America as a result of that war. It literally poisoned the American political debate and stopped domestic progress in its tracks.

Next came Watergate, with all the deep and profound concerns about integrity in the highest offices of our land. But finally, and perhaps most fundamentally, for our time today and for the future years, has been the economic difficulties in which this nation and virtually every industrialized society on Earth is suffering in recent years.

In the '60s, early '60s, we had virtually no inflation. There was no energy crisis. We sometimes forget. I think oil went for about $1.25 a barrel at that time, and there was unlimited quantities of it.

We had little unemployment. There was no price rigging by OPEC. We had no huge budget deficits. Many times we had surpluses and no high interest rates. We were able, in those days, not to divide existing resources, but to deal justly with those who had been excluded by taking a modest proportion of increased wealth so that everyone was better off. And we were able to take a little bit of that growth and help those who had been excluded.

And those days are behind us now. Today, we have an economy that's sluggish, that is not growing as rapidly as it should. And we have very, very severe problems that have changed the whole nature of the dialogue.

During these next few months and years, I intend to spend a good deal of my time learning, pondering, considering, the implications of these developments. But as I do, I want to make a few points and then I want to move into questions about what I think those of us who believe in a progressive spirit in America must look at realistically, practically, and in a responsible way if we're going to be a progressive nation.

First of all, we have to look at today's severe economic problems with realistic eyes. We are in very, very difficult times. We have an inflation rate, and inflation may be the cruelest of all phenomena in American life, equally cruel with unemployment.

It undermines the meaning of savings. It robs each generations of their future for themselves and their children. It is demoralizing. It leads to high interest rates and unemployment and a stalled economy. It embitters the dialogue and the rhetoric in American life.

And no person who wishes the best for this country, no person who wants just and humane Society can escape the responsibility together of taking those tough steps that will be needed to restore this nation and its economy to a situation where we can once again have a stable, highly productive, relatively, if hopefully completely, noninflationary economy in America. That is an absolutely essential demand of anyone in this country that wants just society, and we must all contribute to that progress.

Secondly, and very closely related to it, is that we can no longer avoid the seriousness of the energy crisis. I've talked on that issue the other evening, so I won't repeat it tonight. But let me just say this after spending four years in that White House.

This energy crisis is no joke. It is a threat to our economy. It is one of the key sources of today's inflation. But even more than that, this nation's dependence upon foreign sources of oil is a basic threat to the very independence of this nation.

And I've been all over this world. And there is subtle and not so subtle intimidation all over this world being imposed by certain holders of foreign oil, seeking to interfere with and undermine the independence and the judgment of the people of independent nations, including the United States of America. We must solve this energy crisis, and we must return this nation to the situation where we are, in effect, independent again by way of producing more energy and saving more energy until we have returned to a point where we are not subject to that intimidation.

Thirdly, we have to deal candidly and realistically with national security matters. I was asked earlier, at a dinner preceding tonight's event, whether I was concerned about the Russian military buildup. I am very concerned about the Soviet buildup. I don't think there is any rational explanation for what they're doing that can be justified on the basis of the defense needs of the Soviet Union.

Their investment in arms today, and it has been for several years, may be 14%, 15%, 16% of their gross national product. Ours is about 5% of our gross national product. They are investing massively in every conceivable kind of weaponry, both strategic and conventional. There is not a single weapon system that I am aware of in either category in which they are not making massive investments.

I wish that were not the case. I wish we were able to much more swiftly in arms control to head it all, but it takes both nations and several nations to do so. And in the meantime, I do not believe, regardless of anyone's point of view, that this nation has any other option except to adequately defend itself and adequately be able to help serve our interests and our obligations to our allies around the world.

Fourth, we must learn the lessons of Vietnam. And this goes clear beyond tonight's subject. That ripped this nation apart, Vietnam. And we must be careful that we've learned the right lessons.

One of the lessons I hope we have not learned is to become isolationists. There is no way that America or Americans can isolate themselves or this nation from world affairs. We are the single most influential actor in this world. And how we behave and what we do and how we use our values and our power is a crucial question that goes to the very basis of civilization itself.

On the other hand, I hope we haven't learned from Vietnam that we can be-- and somehow to get rid of our guilt, that we should engage and intervene in almost any dispute around the world. One of the things that I think I've learned over my years of experience in the Senate and in the White House is the need for this democracy of ours to understand other cultures, other histories, the history of other societies.

And that's one of the great challenges of Saint Thomas or any great college to continue to educate new generations of young people who are sensitive to, respectful of, and who have learned the differences and the languages and the rest that are necessary to the understanding of differences around the world. Some of that issue comes dramatically to the fore right now in the context of El Salvador. Vietnam, I think, was a mistake for this nation.

And it occurred partly because this nation, including myself as a United States senator, if you were frank about it, we were basically ignorant about the history, the traditions, the basic political drives that we were dealing with in Vietnam. We cannot afford this. In a democracy, in a free society, we're in it together. And we rely especially on those students here at Saint Thomas and around the nation to help understand and to help all of us understand better how to do it.

We need to be much more worried about effective and efficient and respectful implementation of programs than has been the case in the past. The American people have a right and will insist on getting their money's worth out of these programs. There's nothing boorish about the taxpayers feeling that they are paying more and getting less.

Complaints about waste and inefficiency, are not all of them thinly disguised assaults on progressive values? Horror stories about red tape, paperwork, regulation, and bureaucratic meddling, are not all of them crafty attempts to elude the reach of social justice? We need to take great care to ensure that these programs are working effectively and efficiently.

We must understand that not all answers, in many cases, not any answers, are found in certain areas just because they come from Washington. There are state governments and local governments and special governments that, too, have great validity. We must understand the great power and strength of the private competitive enterprise system in terms of producing wealth and in terms of helping this nation reach a more socially just society.

We must be supportive and respectful of the great private voluntary sector. And I indeed go no further tonight than mention that this great college is an example, a splendid example of private voluntary support and what it means to our nation. Our programs must be directed at independence and not dependence.

The American people will not support programs that contribute to dependent Americans. We are a work-oriented, savings-oriented, achievement-oriented societies. And any programs we support must stand that test of whether or not it produces or does not produce more independence.

We must be frank about our failures. We also should be frank about our successes. And I want to stop here just a minute because it isn't totally-- I might say that the record is, at worst, a mixed one.

Just a few years ago, about a third of the students here tonight would have been ineligible for all federal assistance to go on to college. A few years ago, the impoverished children of this country in many parts of this land were getting little or no effective education whatsoever. Much of this has changed in recent years, and it's showing up in expanded enrollments. It's showing up in improved basic skill test scores. It's showing up in improved job placement and the rest.

Some of the programs have worked. Some haven't. But in one area where I'm especially proud, it's been the role of the federal government in helping local education, both public and private, to provide better education for their children and for all others.

Finally, the issue of excellence. For the past 20 or 30 years, we've been working on access, on equity. But we cannot forget the importance of excellence as well. Access permits more people to have a chance to participate.

But this nation, its industries, its colleges, its universities, across the board in research and sciences, the languages, in all aspects of American life, we must insist on increasingly higher standards of discipline and excellence if we're going to compete in the difficult and competitive world in which we find ourselves. These observations are commonplace. But they also, I think, go to the core of what I've been hearing as I've traveled over our nation about what Americans are saying and what they want by way of response.

As we do so, let us remember what it is that drives this progressive tradition in the first place. It is what caused me to go into politics. It's what keeps me in politics. It's what makes it worthwhile.

Hubert Humphrey put it this way. "Let us remember," he said, "why we set out on this journey. The answer is reflected by the broken glass of our cities. It is glistening in the tears of a hungry child. It is standing in the stillness of the unemployment line.

It is whispered by the dying man whose disease we could have cured. It is echoed by the family whose home we could have saved. It is running in the refuse in our lakes and streams and carried in the air around us. It is waiting wherever bigotry or injustice still survive.

And wherever a man or woman is prevented from becoming the best that is in them to be, it is that cause of justice that is fueled the great shared objective of social justice in America. That's how we got started, and that's why we must go on." Thank you very much.

[APPLAUSE]

Thank you. Thank you.

BOB POTTER: Walter Mondale, the former vice president of the United States, speaking here at the College of Saint Thomas in Saint Paul on the tradition of progressive values. As he has indicated, he's going to depart somewhat from the format of the earlier lectures in this series, the lecture at the University of Minnesota and the lecture at Macalester College. And he will, in just a few moments, be accepting questions from the audience here at the O'Shaughnessy Educational Center at Saint Thomas College.

WALTER MONDALE: Who's the first victim?

[LAUGHTER]

Yeah.

AUDIENCE: Mr. Vice President, tonight you talked a lot about justice and about programs for the poor--

TERRENCE MURPHY: Excuse me. Would you go over to the microphone, please, and identify yourself?

BOB POTTER: There is a microphone set up in the audience, and that particular individual was apparently trying to speak directly from the floor. Give that person a chance to wander over to the microphone here.

AUDIENCE: My name is Anthony [INAUDIBLE]. And what I was wondering, Mr. Vice President, because you talk a lot about a just system of government-- today, when we talk about the poor and programs for the poor, we're hearing a lot about productivity, about cost-effectiveness. But we don't hear very much about human suffering.

And I was wondering, if it was up to you, what's the most important thing when we're talking about getting our economy back on the road? Is it that our [INAUDIBLE] and our grasp of what [INAUDIBLE]?

WALTER MONDALE: Well, what I tried to say in my-- and I think it's an excellent question. What I tried to say in my opening remarks is that they're related. In the '60s, as I said, when we had a growing economy, when we were able to decrease tax rates and increase revenues, when we're able to add millions of new jobs in America, profits were rising. Inflation until Vietnam held at very, very low levels, 1% or 2%. Housing industry was beginning to boom.

We had a shared consensus in America that contributed enormously to the progress in social justice that I've referred to. We made more progress in civil rights in eight years than we had in 200 years of American history. And it's one of the great successful revolutions of any civilized society in America.

What we've done for senior citizens in the last 15 years has been truly profound, whether it's Medicare or Medicaid or senior citizens housing or older Americans programs or Social Security adjusted for inflation. Truly fantastic, in my opinion. What we've done for education has been, I think, a great success story in these past years.

I remember, in the early '60s, going to hunger hearings, visiting unannounced at schools, in poor areas where kids had no money at all for school lunches, where they would come to school in the morning with nothing to eat, where they would be either listless or terrible behavior problems because the kids were suffering so much from hunger that they couldn't learn. There have been some mistakes in that program.

But the fact of it is, the last eight or 10 years, there's been a fundamental change. And doctors now are reporting that the high health levels in America our much greater than ever before. This is not the night to go over these programs. But for 10 years, I worked on an adoption program. There were about 500,000 or 600,000 kids in this country that have not been adopted for many different reasons.

Some of them have severe emotional problems. Some of them are minorities, which should not be a reason, but sometimes it is. Many of them are left without parents with four or five or six children in the family, and they don't want to understandably be split up and so on.

We finally passed a bill after 10 years-- and I won't go into the details-- that will make it much easier for parents to adopt these children so that these children can have their own families. Talk about human suffering. Many of these children have spent all of their youth going from home to home to home to home to institution, never having a place as a matter of right, as we all should have, as children in a family entitled to the rights and the rest that goes with being a child.

So what I'm saying, and I'm being entirely too verbose here, is that if you don't have a healthy, growing economy, I don't believe the American people will find it possible to support the kind of progress that they did. And I think right now, there's much that we have to do in the human suffering field. There's no question about it.

But fundamental to any fundamental progress has got to be putting the needs of restoring this economy to a healthy basis as an essential emphasis and occupation for the next few years. OK, I got him. Yeah.

AUDIENCE: Mr. Mondale?

WALTER MONDALE: Yeah.

AUDIENCE: My name is-- [INAUDIBLE].

WALTER MONDALE: We also need a new program for microphones.

[LAUGHTER]

BOB POTTER: Mr. Mondale obviously referring to the difficulty we're having picking up the--

AUDIENCE: --here in the balcony.

BOB POTTER: --questions from the floor. Not unlike what happens in the state political convention.

AUDIENCE: My name is [? Reed ?] [? Trouts. ?] And I'm a senior in political science at the University of Minnesota. And I think you'll agree with me when I say that foreign policy, two goals of foreign policy is to create an orderly and just system in the world. And then no matter how much of our resources, our time and money that we put into it, it is very difficult to achieve both of those.

And it has been said that an orderly international system with injustice is preferable to an unstable international system with justice. And I'd like to know if you believe that the human rights policy of the Carter administration helped or hindered US foreign policy in the stabilization of the international order. And if you are again to be a part of that policy-making process, say, in four years or so, an arbitrary number--

WALTER MONDALE: You just got my attention.

AUDIENCE: Would you place as much--

[LAUGHTER]

[APPLAUSE]

Would you place as much emphasis on human rights in your foreign policy?

WALTER MONDALE: I would consider and do consider, and I think the American people consider a foreign policy which includes an emphasis on human rights as an important and essential aspect of American foreign policy. I do not, for a moment, agree with those who argue that you can disregard a profound social injustice and oppression and have stability. I think all human history is to the contrary.

This past week, the Holy Father visited the Philippines and, I think, performed superbly. I suppose it would have been easier for the administration of the church there if he hadn't mentioned human rights at all. He certainly would have been received more warmly, more predictably, and the rest. But for some reason, he chose to speak out for human rights and liberty in the Philippines. And I think he acted in a way that all humanity supports.

I, too, visited the Philippines a few years ago, and I had a different set of problems. But the idea was to try to press Mr. Marcos and that government, as we dealt with our other business, to also be concerned about the long-standing martial law, the oppression, and the rest. I think that's what the American people want. And I think both in the long run and the short run, it's in our interest.

Another example is Zimbabwe Rhodesia. Right after we came into office, we announced that we were going to stand for majority rule around the world. Not that we could have our way all the time, but because, as the president said, we're free, we're going to stand for freedom elsewhere.

I think that the results there, got a long way to go, have been a profound improvement, not only for the citizens of Zimbabwe, but a profound improvement for mankind generally, because we've shown that in a peaceful, evolutionary way, we're able to move toward justice in that society. I could give many, many other examples.

We have consistently pressed the Soviet Union in every forum that I know of to relax the oppression in the Soviet state, in Belgrade, in Madrid, in Helsinki.

And it was an encouraging fact to me that when we met in Madrid at the latest CSCE conference-- the Helsinki conference is the human rights conference-- virtually every known example, internationally known example of heroic figures who have stood up to oppression, whether it was the Nobel laureate from Argentina or Mrs. Sharansky or others, they came to Madrid, and the United States was the country that stood up for them and for their objectives.

I believe this is the best way to achieve security. I think there's often very, very difficult problems. And one of the things we've learned over the last four years is how to do it in a more effective way. I've been involved in several of these diplomatic missions, and I believe we've made some progress.

Amnesty International, the Heritage Foundation, and others have all said that this emphasis on human rights is held. So if you ask me, I would say that I think we have to continually ponder whether we're doing it in the most effective way. But I think that this country of ours is important above all because of our values.

I think we're most attractive to the rest of the world when we're true to our values. I think our ability to lead and be influential in the world is enhanced when we stand in a true sense for our values, for freedom and security and justice. I think that we put the totalitarian nations of the world in their worst defensive predicament when we stand up.

If there's a society on Earth that has been an utter, absolute appalling flop, it's the Soviet system. And what holds it together is a police state. Why should we not-- and I'm not talking about the Cold War. Why should the United States abandon that contrast?

We don't need any walls to keep Americans in. They do. We don't have to silence dissent. They do. We're not hiding our scholars and our dissidents in mental health prisons. They do. We didn't invade Afghanistan and kill thousands. They are.

I think one of the best ways of letting the world see the enormity, the brutality, the oppression of the Soviet state is to keep that contrast right up front. I think it enhances us.

[APPLAUSE]

BOB POTTER: Walter Mondale is taking questions from the audience here at the O'Shaughnessy Educational Center at the College of Saint Thomas.

AUDIENCE: Your left in the left balcony, up here to your left balcony.

WALTER MONDALE: Right here.

AUDIENCE: Up here.

WALTER MONDALE: I've never-- oh.

AUDIENCE: OK. My name is Mark Ginter. I'm a sophomore here at Saint Thomas and the president of the Saint Thomas-Saint Catherine Human Life Alliance. And I absolutely commend your statements on the value and dignity inherent in every human being. However, if I may correctly assume that since you ran on the Democratic national party platform, which reiterated, as one of its planks, support for the January 22, 1973, Supreme Court decision which allowed for the mass production of the unborn killing, killing of the unborn.

I pose this question. If, as I believe, we must continue to strengthen the value of every human life in a progressive way, which you presented this evening, in this decade, how can you square with this ideal the legal killing of the unborn with your view of the dignity of every human being?

WALTER MONDALE: I don't know of an issue that I found tougher than that one. I have worked on a range of alternatives to abortion. I've helped lead the fight for the adoption legislation I just referred to so that desperate parents can have an alternative.

I've worked hard on teenage pregnancy consultation. I've worked on a whole range of matters of that kind. I've supported the conscience clauses in the law that permits doctors and others to refrain from doing it.

It is one of the toughest issues for me and for this nation that I know of. I respect your point of view. It has been a troublesome issue for me, and I don't think I can give you a completely satisfactory answer from your standpoint.

AUDIENCE: Mr. Vice President, I'm Mark [INAUDIBLE], a junior at the College of Saint Thomas. I'm curious. This evening, you spoke of many of the great programs the Democratic Party has done within the last decades.

I'm curious, as you as being possibly as a leader today in the Democratic Party and possibly the leader in four years, what you see will be the redefining of the policies of the Democratic Party. This morning, on Good Morning America, the new chairman of the Democratic Party spoke of the need for the Democratic Party to redefine some of the policies and gear them towards the steps towards the '80s. And I'm very interested to hear what you have to say in regards to how the Democratic policies will be redefined for the upcoming '80s.

WALTER MONDALE: As one of Shakespeare's characters said one time, "blessed are the uses of adversity." And we now have, at least a few of us have, an opportunity out of office to take a good hard look without the pressure of office, without the need to defend programs at precisely the question that you raise.

I intend to spend the next couple of years studying, traveling, listening, particularly to young people as well as others, to, in effect, take a fresh look at all of these programs. I do not intend to abandon my sense of social justice. I do not see this as a-- in one sense, you can look at it tactically.

But fundamentally, social justice is not a Democratic monopoly or a Republican monopoly. I think it's an American objective. This society of ours is very fair and has been. It wouldn't be unless it was a shared objective found across party lines and in the hearts of most Americans. I believe that to be the case.

I think there are some problems with what we've done. The American people certainly believe that there are some problems. I think there's some need to look hard again at regulations. I think there's a need very much so to really do something to get our economy moving much more productively and with a much lower inflationary rate. I think there is a need to deal with the efficiency with which some of these programs are delivered.

I have been frustrated. Most Americans have been frustrated. I'm sure that Monsignor Murphy could give a good speech about the kind of paperwork and reports that he is required-- I finally got him to nod in one of my comments here.

[LAUGHTER]

And a lot of that, I think is unneeded, induces costs, creates frustration, and is sometimes delivered in a way that's arrogant and insulting. If I can give you one example where I begin to look at some of these programs. I was the chief sponsor of the child abuse legislation.

For two or three years, we held hearings about these poor kids that just get mangled, burned, stabbed, killed by parents who have emotional problems they can't handle. So we finally passed a bill to provide modest amounts of funds to help private groups and others to try to get together, parents and so on, to see if they couldn't deal with this social problem. Passed the bill. President signed it. Got some money for it.

And two years later, I called the director, and I said, how much of this money is going to Minnesota? He said, none. Of course, that's a sin. And I said, would you mind telling me why? Well, he said, none of the applications are of high enough quality.

Well, I said, here's one from the University of Minnesota to deal with urban Indian families and help them. They're pretty smart over there. What about that? Well, he said, the law prohibits helping urban Indians. I said, is that true? Show me the law. Oh, he said, the law was in the minds of the framers. I said, you're talking to the framers.

[LAUGHTER]

That guy was just out there running his own government. He didn't get elected. I never met him for two years. He just out there by himself doing something. And that drives not only the public, it drives senators nuts. And the other day, I spent a lot of my life trying to save the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Not always too popular.

[APPLAUSE]

Well, I went up there last summer to take a triumphal canoe trip. Guy met me at the canoe, and he said, what's your profession?

[LAUGHTER]

Do you plan to stay here overnight? What lakes do you want to visit? Do you plan to build a fire? Where?

[LAUGHTER]

Do you plan to come back after you leave? And then he had a code for each lake number. And I figured if I had to master, it'd take me about four hours of a wilderness experience filling out this form, why didn't they just leave you alone so you can go fish?

Then I got on the lake. And it's a lake that divides Canada from the United States. It's some places only 60 feet wide. If you're on the Canada side, on that particular lake, you could have minnows but no motor. On the Minnesota side, you could have a motor and no minnows. What they did was to create a lake full of the damnedest liars you ever saw in your life.

[LAUGHTER]

Well, what I'm saying is that we-- I think there's some officiousness, some interference that isn't needed. And we try to deal with it. And I hope the new administration will be able to deal with it.

America does not have to run that way. The American people have to be trusted. We have to assume there's common sense. And if government doesn't, they'll get somebody else who does. And these sorts of things run through American government now. And this is a good time to try to shape some new approaches to try to deal with it.

BOB POTTER: Walter Mondale taking questions from students here in the audience at Saint Thomas.

AUDIENCE: --subject that I'm going to raise. I'm wondering how you feel the country can best deal with the problem of inflation, which is of such great concern to all of us.

WALTER MONDALE: Number one-- and I don't have the answer yet. I'm working on some ideas. Number one, I think that we need to have a substantial business tax cut that is geared to a broad range of investments to improve productivity in America. That's central, and I think there's pretty much of a consensus.

I would like to see this particular tax cut geared much more closely and weighed more heavily toward that objective than a general stimulation. I'm afraid a large stimulative package at this time on the consumer side will be self-defeating. It will simply be counteracted by inflation, money going into higher tax brackets and higher interest rates.

And it will be a short-term good feeling, quickly obliterated by the-- in other words, I'd like to go a little slower on the demand side as we cut the budget, try to reduce regulatory burdens and the rest, and reduce the inflationary pressures in American society. I would be just a little more cautious about that than we are today.

I brought up energy because that's a very, very important part of it. You notice the other day, apparently, they're now raising oil another $2 or $3 a barrel. The impact on the inflation in this economy is tremendous. Gas has gone up, what, $0.10 or $0.12 a gallon, I think, the last month. And that's going to start showing up in the CPI.

In the short run, there's probably nothing we can do about that. But in the last year or year and a half, the price of oil in the world went up by more than it had from the day oil had been discovered over a hundred years ago. And the inflationary impact in this world, including the United States, was horrible.

If we're going to deal with inflation, among other things, we've got to continue an all-out march to produce and conserve energy so that we diminish the impact of the inflationary shock of energy upon our economy. There's much more. I think we need a major resurgence in investment in research and technology in America.

When I went to the university in the '50s, our graduate schools, higher research centers in the country were the centers of research and technology in our country. One of the reasons I think we've got Minnesota Mining and Honeywell and Control Data-- and Minnesota has one of the highest percentage of high technology per capita, if not the highest, perhaps in the world-- is because this state of ours has been nuts in favor of education for over a hundred years. And we have a highly trained, highly sophisticated populace.

Now, the last 20 years, most of our educational centers of superb, excellent research have been allowed to slip. And the great centers of the most sophisticated research are now found in a few private industries and sectors, all of them excellent. But what's happening is we're not feeding into the stream trained young men and women who continue to permit America to jump ahead in this great technological search.

And that can have a tremendous influence on inflation. I don't know how we keep an American standard of living. I don't know how we continue to produce new wealth in this country of ours unless it's through science and technology that helps us jump ahead in these fields and stay ahead of countries that have much lower wage rates than the rest.

I put a strong emphasis on that because I think we've allowed, both in the private sector and in the public sector, our research plant to run down. I would, for example, be for a tax credit for investment in research and technology. I think it's that important. There are other points, but those are some of the directions I'd take.

AUDIENCE: My name is Julie Kramer. And I'm interested in what your opinion is concerning the new administration's recommended budget cuts concerning education, specifically student loans.

[LAUGHTER]

WALTER MONDALE: I've got to go to another meeting here.

[LAUGHTER]

I mentioned in my opening remarks that one of the revolutions that took place in the last 10 years-- I've been a part of every one of those fights-- has been to try to make student assistance available to all Americans. I'm a product of the GI Bill. And I'd be interested to know how many people in this room got some help on the GI Bill. Raise your hand.

That's an interesting-- as the years go on, there's fewer and fewer that raise their hands. That's an interesting study. The GI Bill has educated a whole generation of Americans. The federal government has received, I think, three times its original investment in tax returns from the higher incomes that we've all earned because we were able to get better educations, and the government was repaid.

So whether it's the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant Program, the Special Educational Opportunity Grant Program, the Work-Study programs, the Guaranteed Student Loan Program, and the other programs I've supported, including one that seems to be in the most pressure right now. It used to be that the only way you could go to a really good college is to be very rich or very poor. If you were right in the middle, too bad.

And so we changed the Guaranteed Student Loan Program and took the ceiling off it so that-- the government says, if you're making $30,000 or $35,000 a year, you're middle class. But I'll tell you, if you've got two or three kids going to college, you're as broke as anybody can possibly be. And so we changed that law. And now it's generally available.

But unfortunately, two or three things have happened that, I think, do call for some reform. Number one, there's a tremendous default rate. And there's no excuse. People have to pay their bills. There are thousands and thousands who have taken these loans and are not paying them back, hurting those who need the loans.

Secondly, because of the tremendous spread between the interest rate charged to a student and the prevailing interest rates in the market, there is an enormous subsidy. So the program that we thought would cost $300 or $400 million a year, I think next year will cost something like $3 billion.

So I think we have to look at that student loan program to see how we can keep the middle-income Americans eligible, stop these abuses, and save a lot of money in the process, but still not provide a barrier against students who need education. I think that's--

TERRENCE MURPHY: Yeah, [INAUDIBLE].

WALTER MONDALE: I'll see you tomorrow morning at 9:30.

[APPLAUSE]

BOB POTTER: And with that, the former Vice President Walter Mondale has concluded his remarks, followed by a question and answer session at the College of Saint Thomas in Saint Paul. He will be back on campus tomorrow to answer more questions from students.

He departed a bit from the format of the previous lectures by taking questions tonight. One of the reasons for that is because this hall is slightly smaller than the others he has spoken in. And the more intimate atmosphere was more conducive to the more informal setting that he chose tonight.

Mr. Mondale was speaking on the topic of the domestic issues, particularly the progressive values that he has been most concerned with during his long career in public life. He talked about the importance particularly of dealing with the nation's economic problems, talking about the inflation and energy issues being particularly serious. He said that progressives must learn a number of other lessons, too, including the lessons of Vietnam, to be neither interventionists nor to be isolationists.

He said that progressives must be able to support the private enterprise system, recognize the importance of voluntary sector. And he also talked about the importance of excellence. Access, he says, is important. It gives people a chance to participate. But at the same time, we, as a society, have to insist on a high level of performance as well.

Then in the question and answer session, he again talked about the importance of human rights, saying that it is America's values that really give it its scope of leadership in the world. He talked about abortion, was asked about abortion, saying it's the toughest question that he thinks the country faces, talking about some of the things he has worked on as alternatives to abortion. But he has not come out against legalized abortion and talked about also the importance of social justice in the American domestic scene.

From the College of Saint Thomas in Saint Paul, you've heard a lecture, followed by a question and answer session, with Walter F. Mondale, former vice president of the United States. This lecture concludes a series of three that Mr. Mondale has given in as many weeks at Twin Cities area colleges.

Two weeks ago, he spoke at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis on the institution of the vice presidency. Last week, he addressed a Macalester College audience on foreign policy. And his topic tonight at Saint Thomas was domestic affairs.

These special broadcasts of the Mondale lectures are made possible in part by a grant from LRB Incorporated. The technical director is Linda Murray. And this is Bob Potter speaking to you from the O'Shaughnessy Educational Center at the College of Saint Thomas in Saint Paul. This has been a public affairs presentation of Minnesota Public Radio, a listener-supported service.