A Time for Courage

CHANGE, BILL CLINTON SAID AGAIN AND again during his long trek to the White House, does not come easily. It will take courage, their own courage, for Americans to choose a new course. Now that they have made that choice, it is Clinton's turn to be courageous.

With his computer-like mind and his joyous addiction to pressing the flesh, Clinton was a brilliant campaigner. Almost too brilliant: toward the end his biggest vulnerability was his reputation as a dexterous accommodator, the schoolboy politician perennially concerned about preserving his political viability. On one of his last nights on the trail, Clinton told a crowd that Teddy Roosevelt had shaken thousands of hands at his Inauguration. "Maybe this is a record I will break," Clinton exulted. Maybe, but once he takes office the born pleaser will have to master a different art: that of displeasing people. He will need the courage to do more than husband his success if he is to fulfill the mandate for change that he sought.

According to the old theory propounded by historians Arthur Schlesinger Sr. and Jr., every 30 years or so the nation turns, after a respite of conservative retrenchment, to a new era of active government, public purpose and liberal idealism. "Government is not the solution to our problems," Ronald Reagan proclaimed at his first Inaugural 12 years ago. "Government is the problem." Bill Clinton, on the other hand, has displayed an almost evangelical faith in the ability of government to improve people's lives. If he can turn his "new covenant" rhetoric into reality, he has the chance to personify the type of mood swing ushered in by the rough-riding progressivism of Teddy Roosevelt in 1900, the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and the New Frontier of John Kennedy in 1960.

Once again, the mainspring that turns the cycle is generational. "It is only once in a generation that a people can be lifted above material things," President Woodrow Wilson explained to his youthful Assistant Secretary of the Navy. That young man was Franklin Roosevelt, and his activist presidency was the formative experience for the generation that came to fruition with Kennedy. Now the torch is being passed to the generation that was touched and inspired by Kennedy. Indeed, the most memorable moment in the convention video about the man from Hope was the scene of the eager student being inspired by Kennedy's anointing touch.

But historical cycles are not inevitable. They depend on the strengths and frailties of those who become repositories of the hope for change. In a democracy, successful reformers must have, above all, the backbone to convey brutal facts unflinchingly. Especially now: America's current plight has been aggravated by a willful refusal to inhale unpleasant truths about the deficit, about racial divisions, about defense cuts and conversion of military facilities, about schools and about the workplace.