Introduction
I would like to talk with you tonight about one of those facets of legislative government which is of fundamental importance not only to members of the Senate but also to members of the newspaper profession – particularly those in the editorial and publishing offices – the question of a Senator's relationship to his state and his constituents.
I.
Perhaps many of you will think that this is no problem at all. Most people assume, with some justification, that the primary responsibility of a Senator under our Constitution is to represent the views of his State and to abide by the demands of his constituents. If Senator Saltonstall and I do not speak for Massachusetts, then no one will; and the rights, the equal representation, the aspirations and even the identity of our Commonwealth become lost. We are recognized by the Vice-President in the Senate Chamber as "the Senior Senator and the Junior Senator from Massachusetts," as the agents of our State in Washington, as the protectors of her interests.
And thus, if I may be permitted a personal reference, it was not surprising when, in 1954, immediately after my speech in support of American participation in the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, many voters and many newspapers criticized me for allegedly failing to stand by the interests of our section. Some said in effect: The reasons you give as to why our participation in the Seaway would be in the national interest, and why it would have little or no effect on Massachusetts, are all very persuasive; but your duty is to abide by the wishes of your constituents, regardless of whether they are right and regardless of whether you agree with them. Permit me to quote from the editorials of one newspaper at that time: "Senator Kennedy is...ruining New England...sacrificing the best interests of the people who elected him for the national interest, as he saw it...It is nice to have a Senator with such noble motives that he seeks to be a statesman with a great broad outlook encompassing the whole of the United States. But even...the Norrises and other earlier Senators of stature didn't go back on their own areas."
Others informed me that, in order to be properly responsive to the will of my constituents under our democratic system, it was my duty to place their principles – not mine – above all else. Even if they made mistakes, I was told, that was far better than my arrogating for myself, as representative of the people, the right to say that I know better than they what is good for them.
These are very strong arguments, and they are very soundly based in our Constitution, in our Federal system and in our representative form of government. But I do not believe that they tell the whole story. Of course, we should not ignore the needs of our area – nor could we easily do so as products of that area – but who would be left to look out for the national interest if every Senator were dominated completely by local interests and pressures? Of course, I am the Junior Senator from Massachusetts; but I am also a United States Senator and a member of the Senate of the United States; and my oath of office was administered by the Vice-President, not by the Governor of Massachusetts.
I cannot believe that the people of Massachusetts sent me to Washington to serve merely as a seismograph to record the ups and downs of popular opinion. I believe instead that those of us in public office were elected – not because the people believed we would be bound by their every impulse, regardless of the conclusions directed by our own deliberations – but because they had confidence in our judgment, and in our ability to exercise that judgment from a position where we could determine what were the best interests of the voters as a part of the best interests of the nation. If we are to exercise fully that judgment, sometimes we may be required to lead, inform, correct and on occasion even ignore public opinion in our States.
I think that a rather simple, a rather "corny," but a rather thought-provoking story once told by a Mississippi Senator who had opposed his state best illustrates this point. The Senator involved bore the fascinating name of Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar; and he had gotten himself into the predicament of which I spoke by three different actions: first, he had delivered a moving eulogy in the Congress upon the death of the South's most implacable enemy, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts; secondly, he had abided by the decision of the special electoral commission to award the Presidency to the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876; and finally and most terrible of all, he had violated the instructions of his State Legislature and ignored the wishes of his constituents by opposing the free silver movement which sought to promote easy, inflationary money for the relief of Mississippi and other debtor and depression-ridden states.
When Lucius Lamar returned to Mississippi he was met with bitter hostility. But in a series of powerful speeches which he delivered throughout the State, Senator Lamar, a former officer of the Confederacy, told the story which I would like to repeat to you. In the company of other prominent military leaders of the Confederacy, he said, he had been on board a blockade runner making for Savannah harbor; and the Captain had sent sailor Billy Summers to the top mast to look for Yankee gun boats in the harbor. Billy said he had seen ten. But that distinguished array of officers knew where the Yankee fleet was, Lamar related, and they told the Captain that Billy was wrong and that he should proceed ahead. The Captain refused, insisting that while the officers knew a great deal more about military affairs, Billy Summers on the top mast with a powerful glass knew a great deal more about what boats were in the harbor. It later developed, according to Lamar, that Billy was right, and that if they had gone ahead they would all have been captured.
And so Lamar insisted to his constituents that he did not claim to be wiser than they; but that he was in a better position as a member of the Senate to judge what was in their best interests. And he concluded the story with these words:
"Thus it is, my countrymen, you have sent me to the topmost mast, and I tell you what I see. If you say I must come down, I will obey without a murmur, for you cannot make me lie to you; but if you return me to my post, I can only say that I will be true to love of country, truth, and God."
The example of Senator Lamar is only one of many examples which are available to us from the history of the Senate and American politics. We may take pride in the fact that our own State has not lacked in examples of independent and courageous Senators.
Senator John Quincy Adams, who had already incurred the displeasure of his party by supporting Jefferson in his acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, acted directly contrary to the interests of his State as well as his party when he steered Jefferson's Embargo bill against Britain through the Senate. Jefferson, who was his father's political enemy, and young Senator Adams were acting because of predatory attacks upon American merchant ships by British cruisers. Our ships had been seized, their cargoes confiscated, and our seamen compelled to serve in the King's Navy as alleged British subjects.
But Massachusetts was the leading commercial state in the nation, and it boasted a substantial proportion of the American merchant fleet and practically all of the shipbuilding and fishing industries. These industries were very nearly permanently destroyed by the Embargo; and John Quincy Adams, for his devotion to the national interest, was compelled to resign his seat and to return to Boston, scorned and deserted by all but his devoted father.
Your predecessors, the Massachusetts newspapers of the day, had a hand in his downfall. The Northampton Hampshire Gazette, for example, called him "a party scavenger...one of those ambitious politicians who lives on both land and water, and occasionally resorts to each, but who finally settles down in the mud." But young John Quincy, whose star would, of course, later rise to even greater heights, never apologized for his stand. "This measure will cost you and me our seats," he had remarked to a colleague when the Embargo bill was being prepared, "but private interest must not be put in opposition to public good."
Still another Massachusetts Senator, probably the most famous in our history, is better known for his subservience to the business interests of our State and region than for his courage in defying his constituents. I refer, of course, to Daniel Webster. But in 1850, when disunion was a much more ominous threat than most of us realize – in fact, more ominous than many good citizens of that time realized – Daniel Webster helped hold together the Union to which he was devoted by supporting Henry Clay's great Compromise of 1850 and thus pacifying the South. As a result, secession was prevented for another eleven years until the North was strong enough to preserve the Union; but Webster had been required to support features of the Compromise which were odious to the people of Massachusetts – particularly the provisions for strengthening the law that required the return of fugitive slaves to their Southern masters.
That remarkable collection of literary lights who gathered in Massachusetts in the mid-nineteenth century condemned Webster in terms which few other Senators have been forced to endure. Theodore Parker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, James Russell Lowell, and John Greenleaf Whittier were among the Abolitionists who cried out for Webster's scalp. "I know of no deed in American history done by a son of New England," said Theodore Parker, "to which I can compare this deed of Daniel Webster's – except the act of Benedict Arnold."
Once again, the newspapers of our State condemned their Senator for failing to express the views of Massachusetts. The Boston Atlas, for example, complained: "His sentiments are not our sentiments nor we venture to say of the Whigs of New England." But Webster had not intended to speak on behalf of Massachusetts. For he had opened his famous address to the Senate on the 7th of March, 1850 with these words: "Mr. President; I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American and a Member of the Senate of the United States."
Other examples in the annals of Massachusetts history could be cited. "Nothing better can be said in praise of either our Senators or our State," former Senator George Frisbie Hoar wrote in his Autobiography, "than that they have been worthy of her, and she has been worthy of them. She has never asked of them obsequiousness, or flattery, or obedience to her will, unless it had the approval of their own judgment and conscience. They have never been afraid to trust the people and they have never been afraid to withstand the people. They knew well the great secret of all statesmanship, that he that withstands the people on fit occasions is commonly the man who trusts them most and always in the end the man they trust most."
Hoar himself had occasion to apply this principle when he opposed the popular Philippines Treaty in 1899. "The temper of the people of Massachusetts," he wrote at that time to a friend who was certain that his political life was ended, "makes it possible for any of her public servants to do his duty, whether for the time he differ from them or agree with them. I suppose the majority of the people of Massachusetts (were) on my side in this matter. But if they were not, they would say to me, 'Do what you think right, whether you agree with us or not.'"
I hope that these examples from the past serve to illustrate the importance in a representative form of government of legislators who are willing, in cases of overriding national interest, to place their devotion to the country ahead of their devotion to their constituents – legislators who think more or the conclusions of their own conscience and study than they do of militant pressure groups or vociferous public opinion.
II.
But this leads me to the second part of the problem – and that is the difficulty which faces any Senator whose conscience directs him to oppose the popular or easy approach. At various times in our history it has been fashionable to ridicule Congressmen, and to assume that there are no men of courage, integrity and principle in that body. Recently Walter Lippmann rendered a harsh judgment on us all with these words:
"With exceptions so rare they are regarded as miracles of nature, successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular – not whether it will work well and prove itself, but whether the active-talking constituents like it immediately."
I am not so sure, after nearly ten years of living and working in the midst of "successful democratic politicians," that they are all "insecure and intimidated men." I am convinced that the complication of public business and the competition for the public's attention have obscured innumerable acts of political courage – large and small – performed almost daily in the Senate Chamber. But I am also fully aware of the terrible pressures which discourage acts of political courage, which drive a Senator to abandon or subdue his conscience.
One of these pressures is the pressure of compromise, which is a necessity in a political body under the democratic way of life and federal system of government.
Still another pressure is the desire to continue the comradeship and approval of our colleagues in the Senate, to get along with our fellow members of the club rather than pursue a unique and independent course which would embarrass or irritate them. "The way to get along," I was told when I entered Congress, "is to go along."
Still another pressure is the pressure of our party and our party leadership, to whom each of us has some responsibility if we are to maintain our two-party system and make party platforms and party labels mean anything to the voters. I was criticized by some in this state for being the only Democrat to support President Eisenhower's highway program, even though I thought that program was best for Massachusetts and everyone else. But I did not believe we should permit the pressures of party responsibility to submerge on every issue the call of personal responsibility.
Still another pressure, and in a sense the most important one, is the desire to be reelected. This is not a wholly selfish motive – for those who go down to defeat in the hopeless defense of a single principle will not return to fight for that or any other principle in the future. A Senator must consider the effect of that defeat upon his party, his friends and supporters, and even his wife and children. Certainly in no other occupation is a man expected to sacrifice honor, prestige, and his chosen career for the national good. And thus former Senator Ashurst of Arizona reportedly said to his colleague Mark Smith:
"Mark, the great trouble with you is that you refuse to be a demagogue. You will not submerge your principles in order to get yourself elected. You must learn that there are times when a man in public life is compelled to rise above his principles."
Finally, of course, is the pressure which embraces all other pressures – the pressure of a Senator's constituency, the interest groups, the organized letter-writers, as you know, even the newspapers. It is impossible to satisfy them all. Ex-Congressman McGroarty of California wrote a constituent in 1934:
"One of the countless drawbacks of being in Congress is that I am compelled to receive impertinent letters from a jackass like you, in which you say I promised to have the Sierra Madre mountains reforested and I have been in Congress two months and haven't done it. Will you please take two running jumps and go to hell."
Few of us follow that urge – but the provocation is there, from unreasonable letters, impossible requests, hopelessly inconsistent demands and endlessly unsatisfied grievances. One group of my constituents seeks lower transportation rates; but another group would be hurt by this action. One group of my constituents wants the Federal Government out of business; but another group would lose their jobs if this took place. One group of Massachusetts businessmen wants a high tariff on one type of goods but a low tariff on another. Many voters demand more economy in all activities of the Government – except the one in which they are interested.
Conclusion: What are we to do?
One Senator since retired said that he voted with the special interests on every issue, hoping that by election time all of them added together would constitute nearly a majority that would remember him favorably, while the other members of the public would never know about – much less remember - his voting against their welfare. A man of conscience cannot adopt this solution – which apparently did not work in the former Senator's case anyway. But no Senator can ignore the pressures of his state's interest groups, his constituents, his party, the comradeship of his colleagues, the needs of his family, his own pride in office, the necessity for compromise and the importance of remaining in office. To decide at which point and on which issue he will risk his career, thus endangering his future opportunities to fight for principle, is an overwhelming responsibility.
We can only hope that our position will be understood by the leaders and molders of public opinion such as yourselves. If our newspapers and others can recognize the need for conscientious and independent thinking in these troubled times, if they will honor courage instead of sneering at its unselfishness, then we need not fear for the future of our nation and the spirit of individualism and dissent which gave birth to it.
Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files, Box 894, "Sigma Delta Chi dinner, Boston, 27 October 1955." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.