In 1947, a Republican Jewish New York Army veteran is new to the House of Representatives, as are two Navy veterans from California and Massachusetts, each a future president.
In 1954, he resigns from the House to be New York's attorney general. His eventual replacement, Louis Lefkowitz, will be the longest-serving New York attorney general.
In 1957, our hero replaces Herbert Lehman in the Senate. Earlier in his political career, Lehman had been elected governor of New York after the previous man to fill the post had become president.
That governor turned president, FDR, will see this country through a war and economic turmoil so paralyzing we know it simply as The Depression. The California man, Richard Nixon, will renew diplomatic relations with China and start the EPA and the DEA. The Massachusetts representative, JFK, will create the Peace Corps, initiate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and propose the eventual Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
With such ties, the subject of today's diary has no choice but to ... well, you'll have to read this diary to find out why the buildup for former Senator Jacob Javits.
Apologies to those who thought I would be covering Plessy v. Ferguson today, but in light of the number of "Shitty things happen in America" diaries I've done of late, I thought a change of pace was in order.
And Senator Javits, who was born on this date in 1904, is a change is a lot of ways. Jacob Javits was a Republican, but today he'd almost for sure be a Democrat:
A) Immigration and Nationality Act began to repair 80 years of anti-immigrant and anti-"They don't look like us!" legislation.
B) War Powers Act of 1973: The President can't just declare war and make Congress do his bidding. (First he has to secure some doctored intelligence, and then ...)
C) Lawrence Bradford Jr.
D) Paulette Desell.
E) The Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964.
I could keep listing his liberal accomplishments for a very long time. Look at that last site if you don't believe me. Any one of his many accomplishments and firsts would be a fine diary topic. Five distinct diaries (and likely many more) on one man's accomplishments makes for quite a distinguished record of service.
The irony of this, and the sad part of this, is that Javits was ousted by two factors: the Reagan-inspired movement of the right to the right (and then, forgive the pun, progressively more right as time dragged on) in the late 1970s and early 1980s; and ALS. His positions are right now closer to today's Democrats than today's Republicans, who are today trying to undermine the efforts of one of their own on the immigration scene.
But why do what he did? Yes, a lifelong New York legislator, but so was Roosevelt, and his civil rights record skips. What events in Javits' life might cause him to say this about a man who represented the other side of the political aisle?:
For myself, I remember coming to Congress the dame day he did. We were sworn in together on the same January day in 1947. A photograph on my office wall shows that we two, returning veterans, looked a little uncomfortable at the moment in our civilian clothes. It shows us looking at the Taft-Ellender-Wagner housing bill, and it recalls the first job we did together when we called on the National Veterans Housing Conference of 1947, which we had organized, to back this bill. It was the beginning of an association which extended throughout our careers in the House and Senate. We collaborated in many bipartisan matters, as is not unusual in the Congress. Indeed, in our service together in the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, we worked closely -- as did Senator Morse and others -- on the minimum wage bill, the Labor-Management Disclosure Act, and other similar measures which were major aspects of Senator Kennedy's legislative career.
We can look at Javits' childhood and see that he was born of Eastern European immigrants and so knew the struggles and xenophobia faced by those who had to make a living from dirt.
We can look at Javits' view of the Tammany Hall corruption and say that maybe he would be a Democrat today. (I sincerely don't see him being any but the most liberal Republican in today's political atmosphere.)
His experience working part-time and attending night school, a path he took to get to law school, may have played a nontrivial part in not only his work on helping make education more accessible to students but also the naming of a fellowship program after him:
He introduced the earliest legislation to provide comprehensive day care and was coauthor of many subsequent child¬care bills. He also played a major role in the drive for bilingual education. A staunch advocate of federal aid to education and school construction, Javits also authored programs for foreign student exchange. He was largely responsible for the incorporation of the federal student loan program in the National Defense Education Act of 1957.
(source.)
Or we simply accept that here was a man who was a champion of the lower- and middle class and was enormously popular in his home state. Here was a man who indirectly helped push along the legislation that enabled a Kenyan foreign exchange student to attend the University of Hawaii and produce the lower- and middle-class champion we know as Barack Obama.
And we can lament that in the 22 years since Javits died, the Republican party seems to have moved more and more to oppose the principles and goals the longtime New York senator embraced.
And we can hope for a day when the Republican Party buys itself back from business lobbyist interests and remembers back to a day when there was room for a Jacob Javits anywhere in it.
And until that day, we can keep electing more and better Democrats (like Javits was, only without the party affiliation).
We can admire the tributes this country has paid to Javits.
We can hope for a day when we do not need to draft more and better Democrats to secure or fight for the prosperity of the non-elite.
We can treat with respect the Republicans who carry Javits' standard.
And we can remember words with which Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan eulogized Javits:
For as we think of him, now radiantly a part of our history, we do well to think of the history, the ideas, the devotions he brought to his triumphant and, at the end, transcendent life. Of these, none was more central than the Judaic truth that the quest for justice is the greatest of man's works, and the equally Judaic thought that his work never ends.