Although I appreciate the many nice words that have been said about my book, I am convinced that whatever success it may have achieved is due to my Irish blood – for 1956 should go down in literary history as the year of the Fighting Irish. The literary and publishing worlds gave John O’Hara the National Book Award for Fiction. They applauded Sean O’Casey’s play on Broadway and Eugene O’Neill’s published play. They gave grounds for a possible libel suit to my venerable friend, James Michael (Last Hurrah) Curley. And they’re all still searching for Bridey Murphy. Truly this is the Emerald Isle’s year in literature.
It is a genuine pleasure to be here today at the Book and Author Luncheon sponsored by a justly celebrated and widely respected newspaper, the New York Herald Tribune. Even when we disagree, I admire the Herald Tribune as an outstanding example of responsible journalism – its news reports are comprehensive and competent; its editorials are thoughtful and stimulating; and its Washington columnists have far more “inside dope” on what the Senate is up to than does any Senator.
In the course of my research on political courage, I learned a lot about responsible – and irresponsible – journalism. Some of the harshest and most abusive attacks on the Senators described in my book came not from opposing politicians, not from intellectual constituents, but from newspapers.
When Daniel Webster supported Henry Clay’s Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent secession and Civil War, the New York Evening Post called it a "traitorous retreat." When Thomas Hart Benton split with the State of Missouri over the questions of slavery and states’ rights, the Missouri Register declared that Senator Benton is "a blustering, insolent, unscrupulous demagogue." When Edmund G. Ross cast his historic and decisive vote against the conviction of the impeached Andrew Johnson, a Kansas newspaper charged that he was a "poor, pitiful, shriveled wretch" who had "sold himself...basely lied to his friends...and signed the death warrant of his country’s liberty...because the traitor, like Benedict Arnold, loved money better than he did principle, friends, honor and his country." When Governor John Peter Altgeld of Illinois pardoned the three remaining defendants in the Haymarket Square bombing of 1886, the Chicago Tribune termed him an “anarchist...socialist...apologist for murder...and fomenter of lawlessness”; and declared there was "not a drop of true American blood in his veins." And when George Norris and his eleven colleagues filibustered to a temporary grave Woodrow Wilson’s armed ship program in 1917, the New York Herald – the old New York Herald – was certain their names would "go down into history bracketed with that of Benedict Arnold."
Politicians are, from time to time, still troubled by irresponsible journalists and authors – just as journalists and authors, from time to time, are still troubled by irresponsible politicians. But it is a tragic fact that there are few groups where the problems of the politician are given as little genuine comprehension as they are among the writers, who seem to possess that talent for finding the right and wrong on all questions with none of the difficulties that face the politician. It was this extraordinary faculty of so many literary figures that prompted Lord Melbourne’s statement that he would like to be as sure of anything as the youthful historian T. B. MacCaulay seemed to be of everything.
I do not wish to minimize the difficulty that the author faces in being faithful to his talent. Nor do I wish to defend the art of the politician if it results in situations which are in Shaw’s words "smirched with compromise, rotted with opportunism, and mildewed by expedience." Certainly I do not seek any cessation of your critical faculties in their application to my profession. For it is one of the hallmarks of the totalitarian when criticism is directed only against the enemies of the state, rather than against the state itself. And certainly all too frequently it has been the writer and not the politician who has been the truer friend of liberty.
But I do suggest the need for a greater comprehension of the very real and difficult problems involved in the successful governing of a democratic state. In few other professions but politics is it expected that a man will sacrifice honors, prestige and his chosen career on a single issue. I do not say that authors, teachers and others do not face difficult decisions involving their integrity – but few face them as does the politician in the spotlight of publicity. And few fear the continual weight of temptations and pressures to take the primrose path of never-ending compromise. Torn between his obligations to his constituency, his concern for the welfare of his family, his gratitude to his supporters, his loyalty to his party, his personal ambitions, his sense of public duty, and his awareness that right and wrong on most issues are almost inextricably mixed, the politician stumbles along, seeking shelter from the slings and arrows of his critics – most of them interested, only a few disinterested.
Today, the professions of politics, journalism and literature, instead of hounding and harassing each other, should be uniting their efforts in opposition to the one enemy that threatens them all – totalitarianism. And in the political arena, in particular, our nation needs leadership, not abuse – courage, not carping. For we live in an age of competitive struggle for world leadership, a struggle which in various phases may well last for a generation or more, a struggle which will require sacrifices, burdens, and perseverance.
In this seemingly unending struggle, we face an enemy whose leaders need an attitude of neither courage in opposing the voters nor compliance in bowing to them. The masters of the Soviet Union are little concerned with the popularity of their decisions. They pay little tribute to the public opinion which they themselves manipulate. And they may force, without fear of retaliation at the polls, their "constituents" to sacrifice present laughter for future glory.
Thus, in the days ahead, our nation will be in dire need of men willing to take the hard and unpopular decisions necessary for the survival of our way of life.
Will we have such men?
Since the publication of my book, I have received many letters complaining about the lack of courageous statesmen in the Senate today. I am not so sure that I can agree with this conclusion – for modern acts of political courage involve more complicated issues and are less generally recognized than in days of old when the issues of slavery, free silver, and tariffs dominated the political struggle for more than a century.
But whatever dissatisfaction may exist among those who feel that politicians have replaced statesmen in the Senate, the responsibility for that condition rests less upon the Senate than upon the people themselves. For in a democracy, we the people are the boss; and we will get the kind of political leadership that we demand and deserve, be it good or bad, conscientious or compliant, courageous or cowardly.
Shortly after the Constitution was amended in 1913 to provide for the popular election of Senators, supposedly to replace political bosses with real statesmen, Senator Boies Penrose, the boss of Pennsylvania, said to a reformer friend:
"Give me the People, every time! Look at me! No legislature would ever have dared to elect me to the Senate, not even at Harrisburg. But the People, the dear People, elected me by a bigger majority than my opponent’s total vote by over half a million. You and your 'reformer' friends thought direct election would turn men like me out of the Senate! Give me the People, every time!"
I think it is clear that the kind of government we are going to get in this country depends upon the way we fulfill our responsibilities as citizens, and upon the kind of society from which our Senators will be chosen. In the days when our nation was characterized by easy money and selfish exploitation, we had greedy and corrupt men in the Senate. In those times when the American people were bitter in their animosities toward one another, we saw a Senate characterized by heated dissension. When the nation was a fighting nation, it was represented by fighting men – and when the people vacillated on crucial issues, so did their Senators.
Now we face a time for courage, courage in the country and courage in the Capital. If the people of the United States are able and willing to meet the challenge of courage, then so will the Senate reflect accurately the temper and conditions of life in the country. If the people have fortitude, if the people have devotion to the public interest, they will be represented by men that can speak as courageously as did Senator John Calhoun of South Carolina when he said:
“I never know what South Carolina thinks of a measure. I never consult her. I act to the best of my judgment and according to my conscience. If she approves, well and good. If she does not and wishes anyone to take my place, I am ready to vacate. We are even.”
Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files, Box 895, "New York Herald Tribune luncheon, New York, 21 February 1956." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.