Teenage Harry Smith 1941 opinion piece on civic duty comes to light

Anacortes Debate Team essay found in old newspaper

Harry Smith was part of the Anacortes High School Debate Team “disputants” supervised by “Mr. Chance” and wrote to the local paper – the Anacortes American – on the question propounded by the National Debate League that year: ‘“Resolved: That the Powers of the Federal Government Should be Increased.”

The headline read “Learning the Ways of Democratic Institutions,” over the following essay authored by Harry Smith:

The schoolhouse, like the flag, is a symbol of our form of government. It is more than a place to learn three R’s; it is the proving ground of democracy—where Loyalty, Understanding, Tolerance, and Responsibility are presented to the future citizen. In the following paragraphs I shall describe the place that each one of these aims takes in our educational system.

By Loyalty an unthinking obedience to a semi-mythical leader is not meant. Our country and its ideals are made very real things in the schools by round table discussions, student government, and classes in Civics, History, and Economics. These activities make the student have a better understanding of the value of not only political but spiritual loyalty to his country.

Understanding his government’s problems is one of the most important duties of the citizen. This understanding depends on keen reasoning and the ability to apply knowledge to the situation at hand. By learning to discuss and find a voter, he is called on to take in all of his classes, whether it be English or Physics, the student gains mental training that will be valuable when, as a voter, he is called on to take part in governmental affairs.

Tolerance of the other fellow’s view is stressed in our schools by publication of a school paper and the opportunity to join a debate society. Editorials in the paper discuss a question from the editor's viewpoint but do not force the reader to take the same view, while debates offer an orderly way of presenting opposing arguments, weighing them against each other and finding the best solution. By hearing and considering other ideas than your own a tolerant attitude toward the religious and political attitudes of others is developed.

Responsibility for citizenship has been referred to as the keynote of our learning for the future. This means that the citizen should fight for his way of life not only in times of national crisis but should be responsible for his share in making his country a better place in which to live. Too many Americans have been so busy trying to raise their own position that they have sometimes left the government in the hands of incompetents. It is important that each individual develop his personality, but not at the price of any of the liberties that have come down to us. If every citizen will take his share of the responsibilities that confront us our country will truly be “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

—Harry Smith (13 November 1941 Anacortes American)

Harry referenced an idealistic youth in some of his interviews in adulthood, but we could only imagine how that might have been voiced before digesting this essay. Granted, this may have been an articulation of a debate position that did not mirror his own beliefs. One might also wonder if this is the writing of the same Harry Smith, but given that his classmates – including Jack Wells – are listed as members of this Debate Club, it seems safe to assume that this is the work of Harry Everett Smith.

In Sounding for Harry Smith I reference participatory democracy and also a Greil Marcus take on Harry’s Anthology:

While Funk and Anacortes were conducting a community-wide study in the early 1950s, based on the book Democracy Is You, Harry Smith was “by imposing his oddness,” according to Greil Marcus, suggesting “to America that their culture is in fact theirs—which means they can do whatever they like with it.”

I’ll leave to Anthology experts the questions of if or how this Harry Smith essay on democracy might inform the debates about Smithville.