Politics

I can’t write about politics any more.

They say you should only write about things you know.  I grew up on Capitol Hill and spent half of my professional life there.   Once I knew it like the back of my hand, but I don’t recognize it now.

When I came to Washington, giants walked the corridors of the Capitol.   One of the largest was a small woman from Maine – Margaret Chase Smith.   A moderate Republican, she was the first to call out Joe McCarthy for the liar and bully he was.  She did it to his face on the floor of the Senate when most of her colleagues where sucking in their balls, ducking, and running for cover.

In a “Declaration of Conscience”, she denounced “the reckless abandon in which unproved charges have been hurled from this side of the aisle.”   She said McCarthyism had “debased” the Senate to “the level of a forum of hate and character assassination.” 

While acknowledging her desire for Republicans’ political success, she said, “I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the four horsemen of calumny—fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear.”

Paul Douglas of Illinois was another hero.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called him “the greatest of all the Senators.”

There is plaque at Paris Island that pretty much says it all. It reads:  “Graduating from Parris Island in 1942 as a 50-year-old Private, Mr. Douglas was an inspiration to all.  He rose to the rank of Major while serving in the Pacific Theater where he was wounded at Peleliu and Okinawa.  Retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. The former economics professor later served as a U.S. Senator from Illinois. By his personal courage, fortitude and leadership, the Honorable Paul H. Douglas demonstrated the personal traits characteristic of a Marine leader.”

Douglas received the bronze star and two purple hearts.  The last injury cost him the use of his left arm and left him permantly disabled.   In the Senate, he personally wrote the Senate’s first ethics manual and earned a reputation as a man of incorruptabilty. 

Ted Moss was another pillar of integrity.  Moss refused campaign contributions he sorely needed from the Senatorial campaign committee of his own party because they came with strings attached.  When he squeaked out a victory, he took on the tobacco industry to inform the public of the danger of smoking at a time when their lobby supported half of Congress.  The Surgeon General’s warning on a pack of cigarettes is one of his contributions. Then Moss took on the automobile industry, which, believe it or not, insisted it was too expensive to put seat belts in cars. Now you can’t drive without one.

I also fondly remember Jacob Javits, George Mitchell, Bobby Kennedy, Barry Goldwater and Hubert Humphrey.  Goldwater and Humphrey come to mind a lot these easy because they were politically as far apart as you could be.  They disagreed about everything but they were never disagreeable.  They were both gentlemen.  They respected each other, listened to each other, and would even take the time to answer the impertinent questions of an elevator boy.

That was the first of my many jobs on The Hill.  Over some twenty-five years, I did just about everything you can do there.  As a professional, I worked for four Senators – two Republicans and two Democrats.  I did so without hesitation or compromise.  While there were some differences between them, there were far more commonalities – most of all a commitment to “make things better.”  Significantly, all four of them left Washington with less wealth than they had when they arrived.  That doesn’t happen much these days.

These are the people I remember.  These are the people I miss.

In A Man for All Seasons, Robert Bolt writes,  “If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly.  And we’d live like animals or angels in the happy land that needs no heroes.  But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose, to be human at all…why then perhaps we must stand fast a little –even at the risk of being heroes.”

The moment is upon us.  Perhaps there will be those who will step forward and stand on principle.  Perhaps a hero will emerge.  There is always hope the better angels of our nature will prevail.

Sad to say, I wouldn’t bet on it.