I am 45 years old. I was but 6 years old when Hubert Humphrey ran for president of the United States in 1968. It is one of my earliest political memories of any sort, but only in that hazy, part-here, part-somewhere else way that is one's faded memories from childhood. My dad, now retired, was a labor union activist--at that time living in Western Pennsylvania--and he worked 50-60 hours a week at Krogers grocery store stocking shelves. Because he worked nightshift, during the day, he would sleep, but then much of the remainder of his waking hours before heading back to work the next shift was devoted to the union and aiding the union's political efforts.
One of his first campaigns was helping to elect a freshman congressman by the name of John Murtha. Another was helping to elect Joe Biden to his first senate term. (There's a funny often-retold tale--a piece of family lore, if you will--of how my dad upon finally getting the opportunity to meet Biden at a campaign function began to speak but then, unceremoniously and accidentally, spit a tic-tac straight at him!)
But I digress. I didn't grow up in a wealthy household. The stories my parents tell are of pennies scraped together each month to pay the very small mortgage and other bills. Still, we basically had everything we needed; we never went hungry or genuinely feared one day not having a roof over our heads. Quite different than the lives my father and mother grew up in. My mother lived on a farm owned by someone else. Her family worked the farm. My father's boyhood home had two rooms and sat near the railroad tracks--a place where kids quite literally ran alongside the tracks to pick up whatever fell off the passing trains to bring home. A place where there was no money for extravagances, or sometimes heat, and where the notion of paying for a child's college never even approached the outer rim of living reality.
Yes, my generation was better off. And yet, my family has tried to never forget our family's more humble past. I guess it is for that reason that I grew up in a household where books like Humphrey's autobiography, "The Education of a Public Man," (along with books like Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle,") was considered required reading. And where during the fall of 1968, my family would on some evenings sit around in the paneled living room with friends singing the old labor tune "We Shall Not Be Moved." ("When Humphrey is our president, we shall not be moved! When Humprhey is our president, we shall not be moved, just like a tree standing by the water...") A scene that almost could have been taken out of Humphrey's book.
Of course, Hubert Humprhey was not elected president in 1968, and Richard Nixon was. By the time 1977 rolled around, and Humphrey revealed that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, I was 17 years old and living in the Chicago area. My dad had left the grocery stores to become a paid union official. It was at that point that the realization set in that "The Happy Warrior" (Humphrey's political nickname) would never be elected president. Chalk it up to my own naivete at that age, but I distinctly remember feeling an utter sense of disbelief at that seemingly irrational political thought. (The song said "when" Humphrey is our president, not "if", did it not?)
When Humphrey died on January 13, 1978, I was still in high school. That was a bitter cold, snowy winter in Chicago. I remember that I saved every scrap of his written obituary I could get my hands on--even helping myself to magazine articles from the high school library. I still have those scraps. I remember crying real tears when he died, and his body laying in state in the Capitol Hill rotunda.
Perhaps the two most famous political statements ever attributed to Humphrey were these: In 1948, Humphrey and others fought bravely to force the Democratic Party to adopt a pro-civil rights/anti-segregation minority plank to the party's platform. Despite high tension and threats of a convention walkout by southern conservatives, Humphrey and his allies held fast. Humphrey told a rapt convention:
To those who say, my friends, to those who say, that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years too late! To those who say, this civil rights program is an infringement on states' rights, I say this: the time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!"
The plank was adopted and, in fact, some democratic southern state delegations did walk out.
The second most famous statement attributed to Humphrey--more famous perhaps than the first--was delivered in a speech where he set out what has come to be known as "the moral test of government." Humphrey said:
"The moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped."
It's a famous statement because, well, it kind of says it all, doesn't it? Or at least, it did for me. I don't remember where Humphrey stated this; I vaguely seem to recall that the timing was very shortly before he died. Perhaps someone here with a better memory than mine can be more specific as to place and time. But really, those details are of less matter. Humphrey's statement became a cornerstone of my own political belief system, and for years, I carried around in my wallet my own hand-written copy of his statement. I still have that small piece of paper today, saved in a special place, removed from my wallet when the blue pen ink began to fade and smear and I decided I wanted it forever for my own keeping.
By the time of Humprhey's death, Jimmy Carter was into the final two years of his term. There was a growing dissatisfaction and unhappiness with Carter--particularly in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Out of that dissatisfaction, Edward M. Kennedy launched a very unlikely challenge of a sitting Democratic president for the party's nomination.
Carter won nonetheless. In a bit of historical irony, most historians now concur that the Iran political hostage crisis that was ultimately Carter's undoing in the general election against Ronald Reagan was a sword effectively wielded by Carter against Kennedy in the primary. People rallied around Carter when the hostages were first taken, but they blamed him when the hostage crisis continued.
Kennedy won but 10 primaries, Carter won 24. From the ashes of this defeat, however, came Kennedy's famous ("The dream shall never die") speech at the 1980 Democratic convention. My memory of Kennedy giving this speech is vivid; I remember running a small tape recorder next to the TV as he delivered it live, and I've listened to it many times thereafter. Hearing it even now, still, electrifies me. You can catch the audio of that speech here . Kennedy said:
The commitment I seek is not to outworn views but to old values that will never wear out. Programs may sometimes become obsolete, but the ideal of fairness always endures. Circumstances may change, but the work of compassion must continue. It is surely correct that we cannot solve problems by throwing money at them, but it is also correct that we dare not throw out our national problems onto a scrap heap of inattention and indifference. The poor may be out of political fashion, but they are not without human needs. The middle class may be angry, but they have not lost the dream that all Americans can advance together</. </p>
Kennedy then reflected upon all of the people he had met along the way on the campaign trail:
When I think back of all the miles and all the months and all the memories, I think of you. I recall the poet's words, and I say: What golden friends I have.
Among you, my golden friends across this land, I have listened and learned. I have listened to Kenny Dubois, a glassblower in Charleston, West Virginia, who has ten children to support but has lost his job after 35 years, just three years short of qualifying for his pension. I have listened to the Trachta family who farm in Iowa and who wonder whether they can pass the good life and the good earth on to their children. I have listened to the grandmother in East Oakland who no longer has a phone to call her grandchildren because she gave it up to pay the rent on her small apartment. I have listened to young workers out of work, to students without the tuition for college, and to families without the chance to own a home. I have seen the closed factories and the stalled assembly lines of Anderson, Indiana and South Gate, California, and I have seen too many, far too many idle men and women desperate to work. I have seen too many, far too many working families desperate to protect the value of their wages from the ravages of inflation.
Yet I have also sensed a yearning for new hope among the people in every state where I have been. And I have felt it in their handshakes, I saw it in their faces, and I shall never forget the mothers who carried children to our rallies. I shall always remember the elderly who have lived in an America of high purpose and who believe that it can all happen again. Tonight, in their name, I have come here to speak for them. And for their sake, I ask you to stand with them. On their behalf I ask you to restate and reaffirm the timeless truth of our party</. </p>
I often wonder what happened to Kenny Dubois and his family, and the Trachta family in Iowa, and that grandmother in Oakland.
Finally, Kennedy eloquently concluded in hopeful words that, ironically, also forcast the dark political times just ahead:
And someday, long after this convention ... may it be said of our campaign that we kept the faith. May it be said of our Party in 1980 that we found our faith again. And may it be said of us, both in dark passages and in bright days, in the words of Tennyson that my brothers quoted and loved, and that have special meaning for me now:
"I am a part of all that I have met....
Tho much is taken, much abides....
That which we are, we are--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
...strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die</. </p>
No doubt there are many at DailyKos who also remember how they felt when Kennedy spoke these words. I remember feeling as if time itself had stopped. Exhilerated, and heartbroken. As if a timeless political Gospel was being handed down from the mountain top and shared. His words expressed my own values. I remember also, however, feeling as if windows and doors were simultaneously being opened and closed.
Sadly, that is a feeling that has stuck with me for the 26 years since. Carter was defeated by Reagan in 1980. I was 18 years old. "Dark passages"--tough political times on a social, moral and leadership level--followed the country and the Democratic Party. No one can seriously deny this. These were times that might aptly be summarized as where Democrats played much more "political defense" than offense. The political arena of the '80s was thoroughly and completely dominated by Reagan and his merry band of reverse-Robin Hoods. An odd sort of testosterone-laden "go-USA!" chest-beating, which apparently made a lot of people feel better about our country after the Iran hostage crisis served as chorus to Reagan's odd political verse.
Recall that the careers of people like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney blossomed during this era. Dark passages. A long, long way from the "new hope" and "high purpose" referenced by Kennedy in 1980. A long way from the "moral test of government" set out by Humphrey.
Dispiriting times for liberals like me. Times where people fell under Reagan's strange spell of leadership and where Democrats had no answer for lifting that spell. Except. Except for one brief moment. Except for a very brief moment in the summer of 1984 when Mario Cuomo gave a stirring and stinging keynote address to the Democratic National Convention--a speech and vision that stood out for me and many others in vivid and hopeful juxtaposition to Ronald Reagan's fabled and non-existent "City upon a Hill".
Cuomo's speech began with little introduction but a sense of large urgency. Rather than a "City Upon the Hill," Cuomo told listeners this period of American history was more aptly titled "A Tale of two cities":
There's another part to the shining the city; the part where some people can't pay their mortgages, and most young people can't afford one; where students can't afford the education they need, and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate.
In this part of the city there are more poor than ever, more families in trouble, more and more people who need help but can't find it. Even worse: There are elderly people who tremble in the basements of the houses there. And there are people who sleep in the city streets, in the gutter, where the glitter doesn't show. There are ghettos where thousands of young people, without a job or an education, give their lives away to drug dealers every day. There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don't see, in the places that you don't visit in your shining city.
That speech can be read and heard here.
You know, the Republicans called it "trickle-down" when Hoover tried it. Now they call it "supply side." But it's the same shining city for those relative few who are lucky enough to live in its good neighborhoods. But for the people who are excluded, for the people who are locked out, all they can do is stare from a distance at that city's glimmering towers.
It's an old story. It's as old as our history. The difference between Democrats and Republicans has always been measured in courage and confidence. The Republicans -- The Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak are left behind by the side of the trail. "The strong" -- "The strong," they tell us, "will inherit the land."
We Democrats believe in something else. We democrats believe that we can make it all the way with the whole family intact, and we have more than once. Ever since Franklin Roosevelt lifted himself from his wheelchair to lift this nation from its knees -- wagon train after wagon train -- to new frontiers of education, housing, peace; the whole family aboard, constantly reaching out to extend and enlarge that family; lifting them up into the wagon on the way; blacks and Hispanics, and people of every ethnic group, and native Americans -- all those struggling to build their families and claim some small share of America. For nearly 50 years we carried them all to new levels of comfort, and security, and dignity, even affluence. And remember this, some of us in this room today are here only because this nation had that kind of confidence. And it would be wrong to forget that.
Words I have never forgotten. I was 22 years old. Words that built upon Humphrey's moral test. Words that drove a stake through Reagan's give-to-the-rich vision, and that reminded us that it takes a lot of courage and confidence to reach big. And that our better angels clap and sing when we are asked and we attempt together to achieve great goals that call on all of us to reach and to contribute.
Why am I recounting all of this here in this diary? Selfishly I must admit, it is as a personal reminder to myself--in the wake of John Edwards' presidential campaign--of where I have been, what I have seen, and what has inspired me. Now and again, and even recently, there have risen from the political shadows reminders that I can be inspired by political leaders who share my values. That's not always been an easy thing for me to remember during these "dark passages".
I am, indeed, a part of all that I have met.
But I am also writing with the hope of planting a small seed of reminder in the minds of people out there that, just as sure, stark and real as the dark passages we have passed, is the reality that we are enriched when we and others seek a higher purpose. Even the Clinton years--while representing a high water mark respite from Reagan-Bush years and a step forward in most ways--was unsatisfactory to me because we were not called upon to reach very high and, thus, failed to achieve all that we could. A good example of this was the welfare legislation signed into law by Clinton which some called the worst thing Bill Clinton ever did. Somehow, even during this period of unprecedented economic growth for the United States, Clinton and others were still unable to--to my mind--address the matters raised by Humprey's moral test of government.
Frankly, this is why I supported John Edwards who in 2004 said:
[T]he truth is, we still live in a country where there are two different Americas one for all of those people who have lived the American dream and don't have to worry, and another for most Americans, everybody else who struggle to make ends meet every single day. It doesn't have to be that way.
We can build one America where we no longer have two health care systems: one for families who get the best health care money can by, and then one for everybody else rationed out by insurance companies, drug companies, HMOs. Millions of Americans have no health coverage at all. It doesn't have to be that way.
We shouldn't have two public school systems in this country: one for the most affluent communities, and one for everybody else. None of us believe that the quality of a child's education should be controlled by where they live or the affluence of the community they live in. It doesn't have to be that way. We can build one school system that works for all our kids, gives them a chance to do what they're capable of doing.... We can do this together, you and I.
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John Edwards closed the circle for me--an almost three-decade long circle. He bravely talked about the American families out there whose lives, for more than two decades, simply have not counted. Who the political winds of expediency of these dark times deemed unworthy and expendable. He talked about what a moral disgrace this is. And he reminded me that this disgrace did not begin with George Bush or Dick Cheney or Bill Clinton or Bush 41. It began decades ago when the poor were pushed int the sidewalks and streets of America, and few bothered to look at their faces while walking by.
And we do this -- we do this for each other in America. We don't turn away from a neighbor in their time of need. Because every one of us knows that what -- but for the grace of God, there goes us. The American people have never stopped doing this, even when their government walked away, and walked away it has from hardworking people, and, yes, from the poor, those who live in poverty in this country.
For decades, we stopped focusing on those struggles. They didn't register in political polls, they didn't get us votes and so we stopped talking about it. I don't know how it started. I don't know when our party began to turn away from the cause of working people, from the fathers who were working three jobs literally just to pay the rent, mothers sending their kids to bed wrapped up in their clothes and in coats because they couldn't afford to pay for heat.
We know that our brothers and sisters have been bullied into believing that they can't organize and can't put a union in the workplace. Well, in this campaign, we didn't turn our heads. We looked them square in the eye and we said, "We see you, we hear you, and we are with you. And we will never forget you." And I have a feeling that if the leaders of our great Democratic Party continue to hear the voices of working people, a proud progressive will occupy the White House.
A half-century ago, one family that the government would have turned its back on--had it then acted in the manner that it has acted during the past three decades--is my own. ("And remember this, some of us in this room today are here only because this nation had that kind of confidence. And it would be wrong to forget that." - Mario Cuomo). When I think of all of the people out there who have quite literally been forgotten during these past three decades--as perhaps most vividly illustrated by the immoral treatment of people who were victimized by our government's inadequate reaction to Katrina--it makes me angry. Such anger is compounded by the knowledge that these people could have been helped had our government simply been willing to tap into the huge vaults of good will represented by peoples' willingness to help and to serve the higher purpose that has sat in wait.
I want to hear a lot more about serving this higher purpose from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I want to hear a lot more Hubert Humphrey and Ted Kennedy and Mario Cuomo and John Edwards from their lips to my ears.
To those who say that that Democrats should stay silent because the electoral politics of the past three decades has proven that the needs of the forgotten provide no political rewards (Humphrey, Kennedy, Cuomo, Edwards--they all lost or failed to run for president, after all), I would say this: in a nation still of immigrants, we can serve no higher purpose than to give voice to those who have no voice, and to seek more opportunity for those who have little. And to those who would say that we should wait until the next Democrat is elected to the presidency before giving voice to these concerns, I would say--to again paraphrase Hubert Humphrey--that the time for waiting is over. We are already many decades too late.
I'd like to close this long diary by quoting a much more tremendous and very recent diary from DailyKos's own Meteor Blades:
Whoever walks up to the podium on January 20, 2009, takes the oath of office and speaks for the first time as President to the nation, ought to take the words in John’s third paragraph excerpted above and repeat them, and tell us s/he has taken them to heart and that the first 100 days of the new administration will include not just a promise but a plan to do exactly what John said, rebuild New Orleans. Far more than that must be done to deal with the two Americas. But such a pledge would offer proof that those who today said John Edwards’s message matters aren’t just saying so for effect, but truly believe it.
From Humphrey to Kennedy to Cuomo to Edwards: the torch has been passed. It is past time for us to pick it up.