Carl F. Horowitz

Religious social services soon may be getting a new ally in their efforts to rescue people from the clutches of poverty, drug addiction and other personal problems: the federal government. The hook is "compassionate conservatism," and as the linchpin of President Bush's domestic policy, stand-and-deliver time has come early. But his plan, if fully realized, should succeed mainly in underscoring the folly of state-sponsored private charity of any type.

Creating traditions of free trade, property rights, and entrepreneurship in an impoverished continent, often amid lethal tribal and religious conflict, will take decades to achieve. But it is the only way to throw off the yoke of foreign aid.

The joy erupting in Howard University's student union was palpably motivated; O.J. Simpson would walk. "As the verdict was read, the place erupted into screaming and jumping. You couldn't hear," one observer put it. To the students, a falsely accused black man was able to get justice—in racist America, no less.