Gardner's Common Cause

John Gardner has been an academic, a Government adviser, a federal administrator and a foundation executive. Through it all, he has also been a social and political gadfly. Last week the former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare announced that he was searching for broader wings and a sharper bite. To that end, he plans to organize a citizens' group that would attempt to influence and reform atrophied, unresponsive political institutions.

Tentatively called the Common Cause, it would function as a kind of superlobby, mobilizing widespread pressure to attack the national failures that have occupied Gardner since he left HEW and assumed leadership of the National Urban Coalition in 1968--inadequate housing, unemployment, poor education, poverty. "The purpose," he said, "should be to revitalize and needle both of the parties, and also to revitalize politics and Government at every level. The solutions aren't mysterious. Talk to any able city councilman, state assemblyman, Governor or mayor. City government is archaic. Most state governments are feeble. Congressional reform is a familiar topic but a very important one. As soon as a good man gets in, he's rendered incapable of being effective."

Gardner promised to head the effort himself. Just how this would affect his job with the Urban Coalition was unclear, but Gardner admitted that his association with the new "third force" cast doubts on the wisdom of retaining his present post. Contributions to lobbying groups are not taxdeductible, and keeping his job could jeopardize the coalition's tax-exempt status.

In the next few weeks he will undertake a round of television appearances to attract support for the Common Cause, and prepare a direct-mail campaign to 200,000 potential members. His long-range enrollment goal is 400,000, with participants contributing $10 or $15 a year. Could the organization become a political party? Gardner insisted that it would not even oppose or support individual candidates, let alone run its own men. He scoffed at rumors that once attributed presidential ambitions to him. On the other hand, he declined to echo General Sherman. "I never believed Sherman," he mused. "Did you?"

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