Alinsky Attacks War on Poverty, Claims Poor Must Have Power

"The community organizer in a free society must be a multiple schizoid," Saul D. Alinsky, organizer extraordinaire, said in a lecture last night at Hunt Hall.

Alinsky explained that the community organizer must be commited to the irradication of the causes of social problems, yet must also understand new problems which might arise from the irradication of earlier ones.

In discussing methods of community organization, Alinsky repeated an earlier statement that the federal government's War On Poverty is an example of "political pornography." He said that Sargent Shriver has a "zoo-keeper mentality," desiring not to help Negroes in ghettos, but to keep them quiet.

To completely free themselves from poverty, people need not only, money,but also power, Alinsky explained. And the War on Poverty is not designed to give Negroes power, he added.

Alinsky also complained of the business community's failure, and outright refusal, to help alleviate poverty among urban Negroes.

He said that big business would never help alleviate the conditions in urban slums until compelled to do so.

Despair

In response to a question concerning rioting in Negro ghettos, Alinsky said that people only riot out of despair, because they have given up hope of escaping their condition. The best way to avoid violence, according to Alinsky, is to give the poor a future and power to control that future. Then violence is no longer expedient.