In his book, Gratitude , William F. Buckley, Jr. emphasizes the debt that all men owe to their country, just by virtue of its being there with its political structure involving courts of law. It is possible to respect the accomplishments of those that went before and to wish to pass opportunities on to those who come after, without describing the impulse by using the word "debt."

The national service Mr. Buckley endorses, as a vehicle to pay-off twhat he refers to as debt, is costly and will encourage special favors. Perhaps we should pay off the nation's fiscal debt before expanding federal programs. Interest in the neighborhood of $200 billion annually gives taxpayers nothing for their money. Paying exorbitant amounts of interest is like pouring dollars down a black hole.

Mr. Buckley speaks of obliging "those sleeping angels in one's own nature through which one develops the best kind of pride." However to pay those angels is to lower the heights to which they might otherwise soar.

Mr. Buckley anticipates critics looking at national service as "a grand manipulation of the human personality by the state". It is unlikely that the state would be successful in changing human nature, but that is unimportant. What is important is a realization that such an attempt is not a legitimate role for government. Although the failure to express gratitude may well lead to coarseness and the "drying out of the well-springs of civic and personal virtue" any challenge "to stimulate the civic echoes" should not come via government.

Mr. Buckley suggests that there are "...needs, undefined, or ill defined by the market..." Some proponents of national service claim energy "ought to be channeled to social needs whose spokesmen cannot successfully plead their case in the marketplace." Mr. Buckley claims "Whether a society has altruistic reserves on which it will draw to help those who need help is not a market question...the market has only a tangential role, if any, in suggesting vectors on national service concern." However, if a need is "acute enough" (Buckley's term) we believe it would generate economic demand. It is as possible for the market to recognize and satisfy loneliness as it does hunger. Satisfaction, purpose, meaning can all be found in the marketplace as an alternative to money. Anything can be traded.

The civic pride and solidarity which Mr. Buckley attributes to compulsory Swiss military service is merely an example of making lemonade out of lemons. The Swiss find cohesion in service, but they do not serve in order to find cohesion.

A person motivated solely by goodwill attains a higher satisfaction than one motivated by a combination of altruism and "goodies" in the form of subsidies and monetary incentives. In national service we may have a case of well motivated legislation which denies the young givers the opportunity to soar. As stated earlier, national service would be clipping angels' wings.

It seems that Robert Ely, Mr. Buckley's example, might take a year off between high school and college and do something productive as dictated by the needs in the market place. Private industry, rather than government, would provide the compensation. The Carl Pepper character worked at a retirement home 12 hours every other day, averaging 42 hours a week. For one year's service he received pocket money of $100 a week plus other subsidies and accumulated $10,000, possibly in the form of a future tax rebate. This, we suggest, may be an unnecessary and excessive liability for taxpayers.

Paying volunteers makes them paid workers, not truly volunteers. Young people are willing to do the work now done by Americorp members without a government subsidy because:

1. They need the money to continue their education and these low skilled jobs are generally available.
2. They aren't sure what they want to do and they are getting exposure to a field that interests them.
3. They are not sure what interests them so they spend time building self-esteem by doing things generally considered to be worthwhile.
4. A combination of 1, 2, and 3.

We know a family whose five sons put themselves through college, not because their parents couldn't afford to pay their tuition but as an rite into manhood. The parents had expected their sons to take some well deserved time away from academics after an intense high school experience. It seemed plausible that the boys would use the time to get a better idea of what they wanted to do with their lives. Instead they worked as they went to school.

The youngest son started working during his senior year in high school as a volunteer at the local community hospital. He took courses at night which qualified him as an emergency medical technician (EMT) which allowed him to drive an ambulance immediately after graduation. The wage was much lower than the money he had been making in his own car washing business the year previous. He was able to work 24 hr. shifts around a college schedule. At the beginning of his sophomore year he took off some time for intensive training and classes in order to qualify as a paramedic with more skills, responsibility, and pay than an EMT.

Each son went about the task differently, but amazingly they all turned down higher paying opportunities for jobs that had a social purpose. They traded dollars, which they sorely needed, for the feeling of pride and self esteem,—a byproduct of doing something believed to be worthwhile. The something Buckley's characters —Robert Ely and Carl Pepper — found at the retirement home. Sometimes it takes real life cases to bring us down to reality. A government program is not needed. Fostering altruism belongs to the private sector.