Victor in the primary and then in the general election, what is a nonpartisan Republican or Democrat to do in Congress? Whether in House or Senate, the reception is likely to be cold and there will be very few of you, if any, beside yourself. You will receive your assignments to standing committees, where the real work of Congress is done, through your party caucus, and for a nonpartisan, let alone a freshman, they are likely to be unimportant. So you must make your impact outside committees. On occasion you may make an important statement in testifying before a committee, as Senator Burton K. Wheeler did in 1937 when testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Bolstered by a letter that he produced from Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and liberal Justice Louis D. Brandeis, he helped to derail FDR’s Supreme Court Packing Plan. You may not be welcome in your party’s caucus if party leaders deem you too thorny; they may expel and strip you of such significant committee assignments as you may have acquired. Party leaders have from time to time used these punishments against party rebels. There may, one may hope, come a time when your public status is such that party leaders have to treat you with respect, even as to your seniority, but that will depend importantly on the constancy of your constituents’ support. Each of the Part I insurgent quintet enjoyed such support campaign after campaign. Such respect, however, will not preclude party leadership from persistent efforts to unseat you in primaries, as many of the quintet could attest.
That said, you can nevertheless be a significant force for good in Congress. Sadly, much of that good will consist in thwarting bad. As Senator Wayne Morse put it: “A true liberal can’t limit himself to a few areas. He must be on guard everywhere, ready to pounce on evil wherever it raises its ugly head.”
The greatest positive impact that a nonpartisan can make is to choose one major problem area that Congress has not addressed adequately or in depth, if at all, and become expert in it, develop a reasonable position on it if it proves amenable to your doing so, and then become a vigorous advocate for that position – in speeches in and out of Congress, in releases to, interviews and appearances in the media – who should seize upon and publicize something likely to be controversial – but especially in direct approaches to the public, to build support and pressure on your colleagues that can lead to action. Indeed, it would be well if the nonpartisan were to reach that position before entering the primary, and make it a defining campaign plank there and in the general election.
Circumstances have at long last forced Congress to face up to some of these issues, which are now being actively debated by experienced advocates on all sides, issues such as energy policy and global warming; preemptive war, nation-building and the respective roles of commander-in-chief and Congress in ordering, controlling and financing combat; the integrity of civil liberties in the fight against terrorism; immigration policy. But there are other crucial issues aplenty for nonpartisans to take up “to provide for the general welfare”: national health care; education; fiscal responsibility; tax policy and the drift toward oligarchy; the role of money in politics; the role of the United States in the United Nations and in world affairs; transportation; the drug problem; globalization of trade, manufacturing, and labor; apportionment of Congressional districts – the list goes on and on.
The point is to concentrate on one issue at a time, not to spread efforts thinly over several. Following the example of Senator George W. Norris, you will need patience, learn to swallow disappointment, take support where you find it, form or join ad hoc caucuses in support, be prepared to compromise to form alliances and to hold them together.
Keep Churchill’s watchword before you: Never give up! It took Norris years and years to see his policy of public ownership of model hydroelectric power utilities enacted into law and for his Twentieth Amendment to be adopted.
A Modest Proposal has here been addressing people whom it urges to run as nonpartisans, but it is also aware that an occasional incumbent, already in Congress, may decide to embrace nonpartisanship openly for the future. In essence, that is what each of the Part I insurgent quintet did.
Showing posts with label Burton Wheeler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Burton Wheeler. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
BURTON K. WHEELER (1882-1975)
Burton Wheeler, a New Englander transplanted to Montana, is an enigma: a populist early in his political career, tilting against big business, a Democratic maverick in Congress, he ended as a right-wing conservative lawyer for interests that he had attacked most of his political life. But throughout, he left no doubt that he was always his own man.
As a young Democratic lawyer in Montana he courageously fought the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, which dominated business and politics in the state, including the Democratic Party. Though elected to the state legislature in 1910, Anaconda opposition led to defeats in 1912, when he ran for state attorney general, and in 1920, when he ran for governor on both the Democratic and Nonpartisan League tickets. In this last campaign he was mercilessly red-baited, and had a rival Democratic opponent entered against him. In 1922, however, with the Democrats now united behind him, he won election to the U.S. Senate, then under Republican control. He was to win re-election to four more successive six-year terms.
Upsetting the Lodge
Wheeler immediately challenged long-standing custom. Committee assignments having been set by the majority and minority leadership, Henry Cabot Lodge, the majority leader, on December 10, 1923 in time-honored practice, asked for Senate approval by “unanimous consent”, without a vote. The presiding officer then traditionally calls, “Without objection, so ordered.” But this time Wheeler, the new freshman, objected loudly, creating a stalemate that was to last thirty days. Wheeler objected because Albert B. Cummins of Iowa, the President pro-tem, who presided over the Senate whenever the Vice President, the Constitutionally-designated presiding officer, was absent – which was often – was also in line to chair the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. Wheeler, whose main legislative interest at the time was control of the rates that the railroads charged farmers, objected to Cummins, “the man who championed the cause of the railroads” , holding two such important posts. Cummins refused to give up the presiding office, and it took until January 9, 1924 for the Republican Old Guard and Progressives and the Democrats to sort things out. When the sorting was over, “Cotton Ed” Smith, a Democrat of South Carolina, had been elected Chairman of the Committee, in a Senate with a Republican majority!
Upsetting an Attorney General
A little over a month later, the still green freshman took the floor to deliver what he considered “the most important speech of (his) career” , in support of his resolution calling for a select committee to investigate the failure of Harry M. Daugherty, President Harding’s crony and Attorney General to prosecute those accused in the Teapot Dome oil lease scandal and other fraud cases. The Senate having approved, Wheeler conducted the inquiry, presenting evidence which led President Coolidge, who had become president on Harding’s death, to force Daugherty’s resignation. The freshman had become a national figure.
A LaFollette Progressive
Before 1924, a presidential election year, was out, Wheeler made more national headlines. A Democrat, he had nevertheless agreed to run as candidate for the vice presidency on “Fighting Bob” LaFollette’s Progressive Party ticket, which, despite a vigorous campaign, suffered the defeat that most third parties suffer in presidential races. The Progressives, though polling over 4,800,000 votes, carried only Wisconsin, LaFollette’s home state, and its thirteen electoral votes.
The New Dealer
Wheeler was the first prominent Democrat outside New York State to endorse Franklin Roosevelt for the presidency in 1932. He supported most New Deal legislation, although he was to break seriously with FDR on two very crucial issues.
As Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Committee, he performed an extraordinary service for FDR in 1935 when he managed through the Senate and a conference committee with the House, the Public Utilities Holding Company Act. He did so against ferocious pressure from the industry. The complex bill, carefully drafted by Administration lawyers, was aimed at the pyramiding of non-operating holding companies above operating utilities, leading to overcapitalization and concentration of control in fewer hands that translated into what Wheeler called “outrageous prices on light, gas, water and power consumers.” This was a basic pocketbook issue for households and businesses throughout the country. In the 1930s thirteen holding company groups controlled 75% of the privately-owned electric utility industry, and the three largest controlled some 40% themselves.
The Senate bill contained a provision, which the industry PR people called a “death sentence”, that required all holding companies not part of geographically and economically integrated systems to dissolve or reorganize themselves by January 1, 1938. On this provision the industry concentrated its formidable fire. It unleashed an onslaught whose fury is difficult to imagine. After it was over, a Senate committee headed by Hugo Black of Alabama, investigating the industry lobbying that went on, reported that the utilities had spent about $1,500,000 – a huge sum at the time – to stimulate protests against the bill, financing a campaign of 200,000 telegrams and 5,000,000 letters to Capitol Hill. The Scripps-Howard newspapers reported that the industry had marshaled an army of 660 lobbyists to pressure 527 members of Congress. They came very close to swaying Congress to their will.
Wheeler, wielding a handwritten note that he’d personally coaxed from FDR saying that the President wanted the “death sentence” kept in the bill, just managed to get it through the Senate by one vote, 45-44; the House knocked it out in their version. There were even indications that, in the face of the pressure, FDR was shying away from actively rallying the troops. With the House conferees threatening to kill the “death sentence” in conference, Wheeler persuaded the President to sign a note, delivered to Speaker Rayburn, stating that he wanted the “death sentence” in the final bill. That did the trick. The House conferees backed off, and the Administration bill was passed by both Houses and signed into law by FDR on August 26, 1935.
Saving the High Court
The first serious break with the President occurred in 1937 when Wheeler, “flabbergasted”, as he said, by FDR’s bombshell announcement of his Court Packing Plan, resolved that he “would have to do everything (he) could to fight the plan.”
The Supreme Court, taking a constricted view of the reach of Congress’s power over interstate commerce and of its power to assign discretionary functions to administrative agencies, had been throwing roadblocks in the path of the New Deal’s efforts to deal with the Depression: it had declared unconstitutional the National Industrial Recovery Act and the first Agricultural Adjustment Act. Chafing in frustration, Roosevelt, flushed with his landslide victory in the recent election – and apparently without consulting his leaders in Congress – announced his plan calling for the authority to appoint one new Supreme Court justice for every judge who refused to retire after his seventieth birthday (Federal judges have lifetime appointments!). His purpose was transparent: to pack the Court with justices with a more expansive view of Congress’s powers under the Constitution, who could outvote the more obstructive of the “nine old men.” Wheeler would have none of it.
After alerting his wife to the political risk that he was about to run in opposing a President at the height of his popularity, he released a statement to the press opposing the plan. Throughout, he remained one of the leaders of the fight against the plan. He resolutely declined invitations to dine with FDR, avoiding the spell of the President’s charm. He repelled a constant flow of Democratic leaders, beginning with Vice President Garner, urging him to back off or compromise. In his testimony before the Judiciary Committee he said that although he disagreed with many decisions of the Court, he opposed in principle “tinkering” with the composition of the Court; that “age has (nothing) to do with liberalism” , and that it was a serious reflection on the Court to say that it was behind in its work. He trumped the contentions of the proponents of the bill by drawing from his pocket a letter that he had received from Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and signed by liberal Justice Louis D. Brandeis and conservative Justice Willis VanDevanter, refuting point by point the Administration’s position. The letter caused a sensation and was instantly seized upon by the media. It decisively turned the tide and set it running against the bill, which was voted down 70-20 in the Senate.
In the end, the Court Packing struggle turned out to be a win-win affair: Wheeler won the battle, but FDR – and Wheeler – won the war. Even as the battle raged, the Supreme Court altered course and held the Wagner National Labor Relations Act and the Social Security Act constitutional. Some of the “nine old men” began retiring, making way for more congenial presidential appointments. When Justice VanDevanter retired that same year, FDR appointed Senator Hugo Black of Alabama to the vacant seat, rewarding his ardent support. To the next vacancy he appointed Senator Sherman Minton of Indiana for the same reason.
The American Firster
Wheeler’s other break with the President came over the war in Europe. He was implacably against American involvement. After the death of Senator William E. Borah of Idaho, he became the leading isolationist in Congress. He actively opposed every measure that might lead to intervention, often going to excess. Distorting a slogan of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, he called the Lend-Lease bill in aid of beleaguered Britain “the New Deal’s triple-A foreign policy – it will plow under every fourth American boy,” a remark which FDR called “the most untruthful … most dastardly, unpatriotic thing that has been said in public life in my generation.”
With Charles A. Lindbergh, Wheeler became one of the leaders of the America First Committee, dedicated to keeping America out of the war, and one of its principal speakers. In April 1941, he joined Lindbergh in proclaiming Britain defeated and calling for negotiated peace with Hitler. Wheeler went further; in July he called a press conference to announce that the United States was about to occupy Iceland, doing so before the troops had departed or before the Administration was to make its announcement. Shortly before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he released to the press a classified War Department Victory Plan, leaked to him by a disgruntled Army Air Corps officer, outlining steps to be taken by the Untied States in the event it entered the war.
The attack on Pearl Harbor effectively ended his insurgency, and he thereafter supported the war effort. This did not save him from defeat when he ran for re-election in 1946. So prominent an America Firster had he been, that Philip Roth cast him as Lindbergh’s fictional Vice President in his terrifying 2004 novel, The Plot against America.
Denouement
Wheeler took positions and said and did things from time to time that even objective observers would consider discreditable. However, in all his public acts he was his own man, beholden to his conscience alone, following his own moral compass. He also did much good. Although a loner for most of his political life, he left a profound mark on Congressional and American history. In his autobiography, Wheeler wrote:
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To download a complete copy of A Modest Proposal, click here.
As a young Democratic lawyer in Montana he courageously fought the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, which dominated business and politics in the state, including the Democratic Party. Though elected to the state legislature in 1910, Anaconda opposition led to defeats in 1912, when he ran for state attorney general, and in 1920, when he ran for governor on both the Democratic and Nonpartisan League tickets. In this last campaign he was mercilessly red-baited, and had a rival Democratic opponent entered against him. In 1922, however, with the Democrats now united behind him, he won election to the U.S. Senate, then under Republican control. He was to win re-election to four more successive six-year terms.
Wheeler immediately challenged long-standing custom. Committee assignments having been set by the majority and minority leadership, Henry Cabot Lodge, the majority leader, on December 10, 1923 in time-honored practice, asked for Senate approval by “unanimous consent”, without a vote. The presiding officer then traditionally calls, “Without objection, so ordered.” But this time Wheeler, the new freshman, objected loudly, creating a stalemate that was to last thirty days. Wheeler objected because Albert B. Cummins of Iowa, the President pro-tem, who presided over the Senate whenever the Vice President, the Constitutionally-designated presiding officer, was absent – which was often – was also in line to chair the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. Wheeler, whose main legislative interest at the time was control of the rates that the railroads charged farmers, objected to Cummins, “the man who championed the cause of the railroads” , holding two such important posts. Cummins refused to give up the presiding office, and it took until January 9, 1924 for the Republican Old Guard and Progressives and the Democrats to sort things out. When the sorting was over, “Cotton Ed” Smith, a Democrat of South Carolina, had been elected Chairman of the Committee, in a Senate with a Republican majority!
A little over a month later, the still green freshman took the floor to deliver what he considered “the most important speech of (his) career” , in support of his resolution calling for a select committee to investigate the failure of Harry M. Daugherty, President Harding’s crony and Attorney General to prosecute those accused in the Teapot Dome oil lease scandal and other fraud cases. The Senate having approved, Wheeler conducted the inquiry, presenting evidence which led President Coolidge, who had become president on Harding’s death, to force Daugherty’s resignation. The freshman had become a national figure.
Before 1924, a presidential election year, was out, Wheeler made more national headlines. A Democrat, he had nevertheless agreed to run as candidate for the vice presidency on “Fighting Bob” LaFollette’s Progressive Party ticket, which, despite a vigorous campaign, suffered the defeat that most third parties suffer in presidential races. The Progressives, though polling over 4,800,000 votes, carried only Wisconsin, LaFollette’s home state, and its thirteen electoral votes.
Wheeler was the first prominent Democrat outside New York State to endorse Franklin Roosevelt for the presidency in 1932. He supported most New Deal legislation, although he was to break seriously with FDR on two very crucial issues.
As Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Committee, he performed an extraordinary service for FDR in 1935 when he managed through the Senate and a conference committee with the House, the Public Utilities Holding Company Act. He did so against ferocious pressure from the industry. The complex bill, carefully drafted by Administration lawyers, was aimed at the pyramiding of non-operating holding companies above operating utilities, leading to overcapitalization and concentration of control in fewer hands that translated into what Wheeler called “outrageous prices on light, gas, water and power consumers.” This was a basic pocketbook issue for households and businesses throughout the country. In the 1930s thirteen holding company groups controlled 75% of the privately-owned electric utility industry, and the three largest controlled some 40% themselves.
The Senate bill contained a provision, which the industry PR people called a “death sentence”, that required all holding companies not part of geographically and economically integrated systems to dissolve or reorganize themselves by January 1, 1938. On this provision the industry concentrated its formidable fire. It unleashed an onslaught whose fury is difficult to imagine. After it was over, a Senate committee headed by Hugo Black of Alabama, investigating the industry lobbying that went on, reported that the utilities had spent about $1,500,000 – a huge sum at the time – to stimulate protests against the bill, financing a campaign of 200,000 telegrams and 5,000,000 letters to Capitol Hill. The Scripps-Howard newspapers reported that the industry had marshaled an army of 660 lobbyists to pressure 527 members of Congress. They came very close to swaying Congress to their will.
Wheeler, wielding a handwritten note that he’d personally coaxed from FDR saying that the President wanted the “death sentence” kept in the bill, just managed to get it through the Senate by one vote, 45-44; the House knocked it out in their version. There were even indications that, in the face of the pressure, FDR was shying away from actively rallying the troops. With the House conferees threatening to kill the “death sentence” in conference, Wheeler persuaded the President to sign a note, delivered to Speaker Rayburn, stating that he wanted the “death sentence” in the final bill. That did the trick. The House conferees backed off, and the Administration bill was passed by both Houses and signed into law by FDR on August 26, 1935.
The first serious break with the President occurred in 1937 when Wheeler, “flabbergasted”, as he said, by FDR’s bombshell announcement of his Court Packing Plan, resolved that he “would have to do everything (he) could to fight the plan.”
The Supreme Court, taking a constricted view of the reach of Congress’s power over interstate commerce and of its power to assign discretionary functions to administrative agencies, had been throwing roadblocks in the path of the New Deal’s efforts to deal with the Depression: it had declared unconstitutional the National Industrial Recovery Act and the first Agricultural Adjustment Act. Chafing in frustration, Roosevelt, flushed with his landslide victory in the recent election – and apparently without consulting his leaders in Congress – announced his plan calling for the authority to appoint one new Supreme Court justice for every judge who refused to retire after his seventieth birthday (Federal judges have lifetime appointments!). His purpose was transparent: to pack the Court with justices with a more expansive view of Congress’s powers under the Constitution, who could outvote the more obstructive of the “nine old men.” Wheeler would have none of it.
After alerting his wife to the political risk that he was about to run in opposing a President at the height of his popularity, he released a statement to the press opposing the plan. Throughout, he remained one of the leaders of the fight against the plan. He resolutely declined invitations to dine with FDR, avoiding the spell of the President’s charm. He repelled a constant flow of Democratic leaders, beginning with Vice President Garner, urging him to back off or compromise. In his testimony before the Judiciary Committee he said that although he disagreed with many decisions of the Court, he opposed in principle “tinkering” with the composition of the Court; that “age has (nothing) to do with liberalism” , and that it was a serious reflection on the Court to say that it was behind in its work. He trumped the contentions of the proponents of the bill by drawing from his pocket a letter that he had received from Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and signed by liberal Justice Louis D. Brandeis and conservative Justice Willis VanDevanter, refuting point by point the Administration’s position. The letter caused a sensation and was instantly seized upon by the media. It decisively turned the tide and set it running against the bill, which was voted down 70-20 in the Senate.
In the end, the Court Packing struggle turned out to be a win-win affair: Wheeler won the battle, but FDR – and Wheeler – won the war. Even as the battle raged, the Supreme Court altered course and held the Wagner National Labor Relations Act and the Social Security Act constitutional. Some of the “nine old men” began retiring, making way for more congenial presidential appointments. When Justice VanDevanter retired that same year, FDR appointed Senator Hugo Black of Alabama to the vacant seat, rewarding his ardent support. To the next vacancy he appointed Senator Sherman Minton of Indiana for the same reason.
Wheeler’s other break with the President came over the war in Europe. He was implacably against American involvement. After the death of Senator William E. Borah of Idaho, he became the leading isolationist in Congress. He actively opposed every measure that might lead to intervention, often going to excess. Distorting a slogan of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, he called the Lend-Lease bill in aid of beleaguered Britain “the New Deal’s triple-A foreign policy – it will plow under every fourth American boy,” a remark which FDR called “the most untruthful … most dastardly, unpatriotic thing that has been said in public life in my generation.”
With Charles A. Lindbergh, Wheeler became one of the leaders of the America First Committee, dedicated to keeping America out of the war, and one of its principal speakers. In April 1941, he joined Lindbergh in proclaiming Britain defeated and calling for negotiated peace with Hitler. Wheeler went further; in July he called a press conference to announce that the United States was about to occupy Iceland, doing so before the troops had departed or before the Administration was to make its announcement. Shortly before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he released to the press a classified War Department Victory Plan, leaked to him by a disgruntled Army Air Corps officer, outlining steps to be taken by the Untied States in the event it entered the war.
The attack on Pearl Harbor effectively ended his insurgency, and he thereafter supported the war effort. This did not save him from defeat when he ran for re-election in 1946. So prominent an America Firster had he been, that Philip Roth cast him as Lindbergh’s fictional Vice President in his terrifying 2004 novel, The Plot against America.
Wheeler took positions and said and did things from time to time that even objective observers would consider discreditable. However, in all his public acts he was his own man, beholden to his conscience alone, following his own moral compass. He also did much good. Although a loner for most of his political life, he left a profound mark on Congressional and American history. In his autobiography, Wheeler wrote:
I felt then and I feel now that the office of United States Senator is the finest there is – if you are a free man. By this I mean free from dictation by political bosses and control by corporations, labor or other pressure groups. A Senator as fortunately situated as I was in Montana could disagree with a President who was in his own party when he believed the President was wrong. To be beholden to any individual or group would have made the Senate a stultifying experience for me.It would be hard to find more encouraging words for nonpartisans.
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To download a complete copy of A Modest Proposal, click here.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Part I - The Proposal and Mavericks
In his column of September 4, 2005 in The New York Times, David Brooks recounts and deplores a parade of failure of our government in recent years (“No wonder confidence in civic institutions is plummeting”). He concludes almost prayerfully:
Here, in response to Brooks’s implied plea, is A Modest Proposal: that some able, independent-minded women and men take up his challenge and run for seats in Congress as avowed nonpartisans. They can do this as independent candidates; even better, they can enter the primary of a major party as a frank and open nonpartisan in hopes of defeating the choice of the regular party organization and taking over the party’s line on the ballot for the general election. Chances for success have never been better: large sectors of the public are upset with the bitter partisan wrangling in Congress.
Howard Dean and John Kerry showed in 2004 that dedicated candidates can raise large sums of money, in small contributions, over the Internet; nonpartisans, using the same methods, should be able to fill war chests adequate for statewide campaigns for a Senate seat, and even more easily for a Congressional district campaign. There is every reason to believe that a very special party insurgent will attract a significant number of contributions from out-of-state, as well as from constituents.
The 20th Century has a rich history of independent spirits in Congress. Their accomplishments against formidable odds are impressive, a history mostly unknown to , or forgotten by, recent generations. They were few in number, to be counted on the fingers of one hand: Senators Robert M. LaFollette of Wisconsin, George W. Norris of Nebraska, Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, and Wayne L. Morse of Oregon, and Representative Fiorello H. LaGuardia, who was a feisty Congressman before ever he became the iconic mayor of New York City.
Some often served in the same Congress, working together on the same issues, giving each other welcome support. Each emphatically marched to his own music. This autonomy was never more in evidence, as will be seen, in their respective reactions to the issue of war, none more agonizing for a legislator. Each, in his time, faced the issue, as to which they were all over the map. Which underscores how each followed his own understanding of issues and his conscience, free of partisan influence and pressure, or, for that matter, public opinion. Still, their constituents returned them to Congress term after term. Each, in his time, was a darling of the political cartoonists and of the press, for they were such good copy. Indeed, each entered the folklore of the country; as will be seen, each figures in recent literary or dramatic works.
It will be instructive and, one would hope, inspirational to revisit their experiences in Congress. It might even be intimidating.
Next Installment: ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE (1855-1925)
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To download a complete copy of A Modest Proposal, click here.
Maybe this time there will be a progressive resurgence. Maybe we are entering an age of hardheaded law and order. . .maybe there will be a call for McCainist patriotism and nonpartisan independence. All we can be sure of is that the political culture is about to undergo some big change. (italics supplied).
Here, in response to Brooks’s implied plea, is A Modest Proposal: that some able, independent-minded women and men take up his challenge and run for seats in Congress as avowed nonpartisans. They can do this as independent candidates; even better, they can enter the primary of a major party as a frank and open nonpartisan in hopes of defeating the choice of the regular party organization and taking over the party’s line on the ballot for the general election. Chances for success have never been better: large sectors of the public are upset with the bitter partisan wrangling in Congress.
Howard Dean and John Kerry showed in 2004 that dedicated candidates can raise large sums of money, in small contributions, over the Internet; nonpartisans, using the same methods, should be able to fill war chests adequate for statewide campaigns for a Senate seat, and even more easily for a Congressional district campaign. There is every reason to believe that a very special party insurgent will attract a significant number of contributions from out-of-state, as well as from constituents.
The 20th Century has a rich history of independent spirits in Congress. Their accomplishments against formidable odds are impressive, a history mostly unknown to , or forgotten by, recent generations. They were few in number, to be counted on the fingers of one hand: Senators Robert M. LaFollette of Wisconsin, George W. Norris of Nebraska, Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, and Wayne L. Morse of Oregon, and Representative Fiorello H. LaGuardia, who was a feisty Congressman before ever he became the iconic mayor of New York City.
Some often served in the same Congress, working together on the same issues, giving each other welcome support. Each emphatically marched to his own music. This autonomy was never more in evidence, as will be seen, in their respective reactions to the issue of war, none more agonizing for a legislator. Each, in his time, faced the issue, as to which they were all over the map. Which underscores how each followed his own understanding of issues and his conscience, free of partisan influence and pressure, or, for that matter, public opinion. Still, their constituents returned them to Congress term after term. Each, in his time, was a darling of the political cartoonists and of the press, for they were such good copy. Indeed, each entered the folklore of the country; as will be seen, each figures in recent literary or dramatic works.
It will be instructive and, one would hope, inspirational to revisit their experiences in Congress. It might even be intimidating.
Next Installment: ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE (1855-1925)
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To download a complete copy of A Modest Proposal, click here.
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