Of Public Interest

Volume 4, Number 5
March, 2002

Richard E. Wagner

By all accounts, James Smithson (1765-1829) accomplished a great deal during his 64 years. He was an English chemist and geologist of sufficient accomplishment to have a mineral named after him, Smithsonite. Although Smithson never visited the United States, he bequeathed his estate to found the Smithsonian Institution.

It was perhaps a fitting tribute to James Smithson that the Smithsonian Institution announced in May 2001 the receipt of a $38 million gift to create a 10,000-square-foot exhibit within the National Museum of American History to house an exhibit commemorating individual achievement. Judging from the press reports, the envisioned "Spirit of America" exhibit would have a strong biographical emphasis on individuals who accomplished a great deal. As for the types of accomplishments and the people who did the accomplishing, the donor, Catherine B. Reynolds, apparently thought in quite expansive terms. According to press reports, some of her suggestions included winners of Nobel Prizes and Medals of Honor, along with a variety of entrepreneurs, political activists, and otherwise notable figures.

Suddenly, in February 2002, the donor rescinded her gift in consequence of a sharply divergent opinion from Smithsonian officials. Those officials resisted the donor’s emphasis on individual accomplishment. They wanted instead to stress various demographic groups and collective movements. Consequently, the Smithsonian will not have an exhibit on individual achievement, though some day it may have one on collective movements.

Just because a wealthy woman wants to make a gift does not mean that the recipient should accept it. The Smithsonian cannot be faulted for refusing to do the donor’s bidding. There is, however, something deeply disturbing about this particular case, more so because of the fault line on which the conflict between the donor and the museum played out.

Whether to emphasize the individual or the collective was the major battleground of the twentieth century. The American example stressed the ability of individuals to make a difference, along with their responsibility to do so. We must never forget that all of the mass butchering during the twentieth century were adventures in the glorification of collective movements, of the elevation of the collectivity over the strivings of the individual. Whether Stalin and Hitler earlier in the century or Mao and Pol Pot later on, the nightmares of the twentieth century were founded on enterprises that were dedicated to the centrality of the collective body over that of the individual members and participants.

To be sure, America has not been immune from the sweep of collectivist sentiment. Yet the spread of collectivism has been slower here as our grounding in individual accomplishment and responsibility appear to be deeply rooted. It is this deep-rooted quality that makes the Smithsonian’s rejection of an exhibit to commemorate individuals so jarring. Instead, officials voiced an avowed desire to commemorate only collective bodies, social movements, and the like.

This is not to deny the importance of collective bodies. Alexis De Tocqueville, in his Democracy in America, noted the strikingly energetic capacity that Americans had to create all kinds of associations and mutual societies. There is, however, a huge difference between those collective bodies and the collectivism that submerges the individual with the group. It is vital for a well- functioning society that its members respect themselves. This requires that they be accomplished at doing something — something, moreover, that other people in society value. This is why poverty programs that give people handouts do not work and why the only hope lies with programs that seek to give people a helping hand without giving a handout. People who receive handouts acquire no self-respect.

The replacement of an exhibit on individual accomplishment by one that speaks pleasant things about collectivities is a small matter in its own right. It is, after all, but one museum, one that is located inside the Washington beltway to boot. But, Washington is the nation’s capital, and the Smithsonian is its central museum. To depreciate individual accomplishment relative to group accomplishment is disturbing in several respects. It is contrary to our history and heritage. It sends the wrong messages concerning the types of personal conduct that are central for a good society. America needs more celebration of individual accomplishment and more such accomplishment in the years ahead. Almost surely James Smithson would agree that the Smithsonian has provided us with a bad example.

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