A Tragedy And a Lesson

ALLARD K. LOWENSTEIN was a man who fought all his life against the scourges of poverty, intolerance and violence. He joined the civil rights movement in the '40s, worked with Martin Luther King in the '60s, and spoke out early against South African apartheid and for Namibian independence. As an antiwar activist he won his greatest success, turning his lonely struggle to "Dump Johnson" into a mass movement. This feat drew from Robert Kennedy praise, "For Al, who knew the lesson of Emerson and taught it to the rest of us: `... if a single man plant himself on his convictions and then abide, the huge world will come round to him.' "

But Lowenstein was never content to wait patiently, always rushing, bringing his boundless drive and unwavering idealism to the United Nations, Congress and college campuses--including Harvard, where he was a 1971 fellow of the Institute of Politics. At the time of his death he was New York coordinator for the presidential campaign of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.), who said, "Minorities and the poor may be out of political fashion, but they were never far from his conscience... He thought not only of the deficits of dollars, but of the deficit of justice." Lowenstein was proud of his number-seven spot on President Nixon's enemies list. Now, it is his friends, numbering in the thousands around the country, who are the greatest tribute to his life.

The lesson of his death is one familiar from the slayings of his friend Robert Kennedy and too many others. The man charged with killing Lowenstein reportedly used a small pistol he had bought three days before at a sporting goods store for $120. A sporting goods store is not what the Founding Fathers envisioned when they upheld the people's right to bear arms in a "well-regulated militia." We may not be able to quell human destructive impulses, but we can do much to thwart them. Lowenstein's memory would be honored if we renewed our resolve to bring weapons of murder under the rule of law.