In a time of global upheaval, we will cleave to the eternal truths.
Last year, we celebrated the centenary of our founder, William F. Buckley Jr. This institution was partly an extension of himself — not just of his thoughts but also his virtues, his network of friends and allies. He was an American original, endowed with unbelievable energy and wit. One thing he never neglected to do was ask National Review’s readers to help provide for this publication’s continued life. We do the same: Please, if you’re able to, donate to our spring webathon.
Buckley’s legacy is a special privilege for us. The very founding of National Review was not just an expression of conservative activism aimed at the repristination of America’s constitutional order. It was a creative act; it required new thought, new friends, and new alliances to meet the challenges of a new era. There was a movement before Buckley’s conservative movement. Some of it was almost apolitical. Some of it was built around the ruins of the Southern tradition. Some of it was the nearly inscrutable protest against the New Deal. Much of it was inward-looking. Buckley took what was best and most enduring from the conservative tradition and made it fit for a new era.
National Review was born after World War II, at a time when conservatives were waking up to the uneasy revelation that victory for the Allies was primarily a victory for Stalin and for communism. The war began with 170 million humans underneath communist regimes. It ended with perhaps 380 million in the same state. By 1949, the number more than doubled again as China joined the unfree world. By the founding of this magazine, the number was on the order of a billion. This was no longer a time to be indifferent to what was happening in Europe or Asia. Owing to liberal bias in the mainstream media, or outright sympathy for the devil, National Review would be one of the only publications in America that would intelligently and honestly inform readers what was happening in these places.
Communism has never entirely gone away, and National Review remains ready to oppose its influence. But it also takes from Buckley’s spirit an awareness that the times are a-changin’. We face new challenges. A period of globalization has unsettled national sovereignty. A period of technological progress has made mass emigration a worldwide phenomenon, and this presents both opportunities and challenges to the developed world. We face, most dauntingly, a civilization that produces wealth and comfort on a scale never before seen but fosters in its citizens a kind of timidity, most evident in the retreat from family life and childbearing. The trend imperils the very essence of conservatism: passing on a civilization to our posterity.
In the face of these challenges, we have Buckley’s example. Following him, we will cleave to the eternal truths that still course through Christian civilization, we will take up our tradition of political thought and reexamine it for its strengths, and we will try to repair its mere prejudices and weaknesses. We will discover in it hidden rooms, with furnishings and treasure boxes long since forgotten but providentially discovered in the nick of time. We will continue to work and think as if all depends on our efforts, and then rely on Providence and our good readers for the rest.
With that, I ask for your continued financial support. We are most grateful.
