Category Archives: Politics

God and the election

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(Since July, 1997, the Reverend Doyle Sager has been the lead pastor of the First Baptist Church, next to my First Christian Church—and across the street from the First Methodist Church—a few blocks from the Missouri Capitol.  Whenever I stop at the cafeteria in the basement of the Capitol, I see if there’s a new edition of Word and Way, a monthly Baptist magazine because I enjoy Doyle’s thoughtful essays.  He wrote one a year ago, in the October, 2019 edition, that is appropriate for these last few days before a major election.  We’re passing it along today instead of our usual meditation from Dr. Frank Crane because it strikes us as eminently appropriate to our times.)

NATIONALISM & THE TRIBAL GOD IT CREATES

More than anytime in our recent history, America is struggling to discern the difference between patriotism and nationalism. This summer I attended the annual gathering of the Baptist World Alliance in Nassau, the Bahamas, interacting with believers from approximately 50 nations. As always, it was a beautiful experience of cultural immersion—all sorts of languages, all shades of skin color, and all kinds of beautiful Caribbean costumes. Back in my room late one evening, I made a journal entry about a Christ who is bigger than our Western culture and sectarian politics.

But instead of worshipping a Cosmic Christ, many have settled for a tribal deity who suits our tribal behavior. The result? A nationalism which places country above God and uses religion to justify any means.

Observe carefully: Most genocides are religion-based. These pogroms christen violence in the name of their god. Conveniently, a tribal god hates what we hate and loves what we love. In contrast, the true Lord God of Hebrew and Christian scripture is larger than our nationalism. Isaiah, Jonah, John the Baptist, and Jesus all bear witness to a God who strides above the nations and will not be domesticated for our parochial purposes.

History offers many warnings. By the mind-1930s Germany’s body politic had been infected with Hitler’s toxic fascism. In protest, Karl Barth and others crafted the Barmen Declaration, a bold witness offered by those who loved their country enough to tell it the truth (an essential ingredient in true patriotism).

For our purposes, two points from the Barmen Declaration are particularly relevant. Number three: “The message and order of the church should not be influenced by the current political convictions.” And number six calls for the rejection of “the subordination of the Church to the state…” In other words, the Church is not the errand boy for any politician or party.

Nationalism loves to delete unpleasant portions of its history, bending and weaponizing its myths to align with its purposes. Patriotism, on the other hand, is willing to face harsh truth in order to be liberated from the past. Karl Barth often marveled at the human capacity for self-deception. It never occurs to us that God might be opposed to us. We always see God as the guarantor of our values, our way of life and our tribe. What if we’re wrong? What if God isn’t pleased?

Here’s a challenge: Read in detail the tragic massacre of Native Americans at Sand Creek and Wounded Knee. Also consider a lesser-known national sin, the Rock Springs massacre.  After the sweat and toil of thousands of immigrant Chinese had made possible the completion of the transcontinental railroad, white Americans decided they had no more use for the foreigners who were taking up space and being hired for jobs that whites needed. Tensions rose and a riot broke out in present-day Rock Springs, Wyoming. Enraged miners killed at least 28 Chinese and injured 15 others. Seventy-eight Chinese homes were burned. One local newspaper defended the killings. A grand jury refused to bring any indictments. No one was ever convicted for the slaughter.

Our church recently hosted a community worship service commemorating the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in America.  The service was a painful time of truth-telling, as blacks and whites together reflected on our country’s nightmare and our dreams. We cannot undo the past, but we can tell ourselves the truth in order to make tomorrow better.

Without fail, history bears witness to an ironic truth: Nationalism always leaves us more enslaved, not more free.  This is true because tribalism always shrinks us—a smaller world, more selfish goals, deeper fears and more distrust of the other. And a small-hearted tribe always needs a very small, angry, god.

Recent brain science research has revealed that we become like the God we worship.  Contemplating a loving God strengthens portions of our brain where sympathy and reason track.  Contemplating a wrathful God empowers the limbic system, which is filled with aggression and fear. Brian McLaren comments, “The God we choose to love changes us into his image, whether [that God] exists or not. (A New Kind of Christianity, p. 279).

Everyday, Americans get to decide; Do we choose a god who is a mascot for our shameless nationalism? Or do we choose the one who is above all rulers and authority and who calls us to healthy, thoughtful patriotism.

(Reverend Sager was diagnosed in mid-August with Stage IV lung cancer. He recently finished a round of chemotherapy and posted on his web page that the results were encouraging. We pray for his recovery.)

 

Book Club—VII

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Jon Meacham quotes Theodore Roosevelt describing in an 1884 speech the responsibilities we share as American citizens: “The first duty of an American citizen…is that he shall work in politics; his second duty is that he shall do that work in a practical manner, and his third is that it shall be done in accord with the highest principles of honor and justice.”

Roosevelt elaborated on the subject in an April, 1894 issue of “Forum Magazine.” 

The man shows little wisdom and a low sense of duty who fails to see that love of country is one of the elemental virtues, even though scoundrels play upon it for their own selfish ends; and, inasmuch as abuses continually grow up in civic life as in all other kinds of life, the statesman is indeed a weakling who hesitates to reform these abuses because the word “reform” is often on the lips of men who are silly or dishonest.

What is true of patriotism and reform is true also of Americanism. There are plenty of scoundrels always ready to try to belittle reform movements or to bolster up existing iniquities in the name of Americanism; but this does not alter the fact that the man who can do most in this country is and must be the man whose Americanism is most sincere and intense. Outrageous though it is to use a noble idea as the cloak for evil, it is still worse to assail the noble idea itself because it can thus be used. The men who do iniquity in the name of patriotism, of reform, of Americanism, are merely one small division of the class that has always existed and will always exist,- the class of hypocrites and demagogues, the class that is always prompt to steal the watchwords of righteousness and use them in the interests of evil-doing.

The stoutest and truest Americans are the very men who have the least sympathy with the people who invoke the spirit of Americanism to aid what is vicious in our government or to throw obstacles in the way of those who strive to reform it. It is contemptible to oppose a movement for good because that movement has already succeeded somewhere else, or to champion an existing abuse because our people have always been wedded to it. To appeal to national prejudice against a given reform movement is in every way unworthy and silly. It is as childish to denounce free trade because England has adopted it as to advocate it for the same reason. It is eminently proper, in dealing with the tariff, to consider the effect of tariff legislation in time past upon other nations as well as the effect upon our own; but in drawing conclusions it is in the last degree foolish to try to excite prejudice against one system because it is in vogue in some given country, or to try to excite prejudice in its favor because the economists of that country have found that it was suited to their own peculiar needs…In short, the man who, whether from mere dull fatuity or from an active interest in misgovernment, tries to appeal to American prejudice against things foreign, so as to induce Americans to oppose any measure for good, should be looked on by his fellow-countrymen with the heartiest contempt. So much for the men who appeal to the spirit of Americanism to sustain us in wrong-doing. But we must never let our contempt for these men blind us to the nobility of the idea which they strive to degrade.

Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, became President when William McKinley died after being shot in Buffalo, New York in 1901.  He was elected to his own four-year term in 1904.

 

Throwing away our right to vote—again

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How unfortunate that in a year when millions of Americans and thousands of Missourians are taking such extraordinary steps to vote, Missourians are likely to throw away the right to vote.

Again.

For the third time, by our count.

Amendment One puts term limits on the Lieutenant Governor, State Auditor, Secretary of State and State Auditor.  Two terms and they never again can fill those offices no matter how well they have done their jobs, no matter how many people want to vote for a third term for them.

Missourians are likely to throw away their right to decide if these people should be in office longer than eight years.

Missourians threw away their right to vote for a fifth term or more for their state representative or a third term for their state senator about thirty years ago.   Many years later, Missourians threw away their right to decide whether their city ever could levy an earnings tax. The same amendment required St. Louis and Kansas City to get voter approval of earning taxes every five years. But a not-well publicized additional provision means local voters can never decide an important local issue.

Now here we are with Amendment one.

In an election cycle that will be remembered for, among other things, the intentional promotion of distrust in and confusion about our election system, when tens of millions of people are determined to vote despite a pandemic and the generated chaos in the system, citizens of this state are being asked to approve a third constitutional amendment taking away a voting right.

Past results indicate they’ll do it.  And then they will hypocritically prove they don’t really believe in what they are approving.

Prove it, you say? Easily. The term limits do not affect the listed statewide officers until the next time they come up for election. If State Auditor Nicole Galloway remains the State Auditor after this year’s governor’s race is decided, she will have a chance to serve two MORE terms as Auditor.  Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who could be elected to a second term this year would be eligible for election to two MORE terms—giving him four terms in office. Lieutenant Governor Mike Kehoe and Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who are serving out unfinished terms of Mike Parson and Josh Hawley could be elected to full terms this time and be eligible to run for two MORE terms, if they want to do so.

We saw this happen with legislators when the original term limits were enacted.  Those lawmakers elected that year were eligible to four MORE terms in the House no matter how many they already had served and those elected to another four-year term in the Senate were eligible to run for two MORE four-year terms.

And their constituents did vote for them for those additional terms after saying eight years was a limit for their service.

It is a fact proven by experience that voters are more likely than not to support an incumbent time after time after time if they have the chance—-despite saying they want term limits.

Term limits paints with a size 30 brush when voters would be better served with a size four brush. It misses the target it should have.  The biggest danger of unlimited terms is not in positions of  service; it is in  positions of power.  Controlling government power is one thing.  Limiting the opportunity of trusted and responsible office-holders to continue providing service is another.

It is appropriate that Missouri has term limits for the Governor and the State Treasurer—although making them nuclear limits as they are (never again serving in those offices after, for example, waiting four years before trying to come back) can be and has been questioned—because these two officers have executive and financial powers that set them apart from the other statewide officials whose roles are more management-oriented.

In an extended age of loud voices that undermine trust in public institutions of all sorts and the easy acceptance of paranoid conspiracy fictions, we are willing to sell out, again, one of the great gifts our founders gave us—the right and the opportunity to decide who deserves to stay in office.

Our founding fathers gave us a system that can work if we are responsible enough as citizens to make it work.  If the national polls are correct, we might find out in a few days that voters decided Donald Trump’s term limit is one, a proof that the system can work if we are responsible enough to protect that system and use it.

Your pessimistic observer knows that his voice is unlikely to influence a wide audience on Amendment One and it probably is too late in the process for it to make any difference.  But giving away our right to vote, one increment at a time, is not something that should never happen quietly—or ever happen again.

 

A kind word

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(In a contentious time when loyalty is demanded by some, commanded by others, we yearn for lowered quantities of disrespect and higher quantities of respect, less heat and more light. Because kind words are conspicuously lacking in our public dialogue, this seems to be a good time to consider Dr. Frank Crane’s thoughts on—-)

PRAISE

Praise is never wholly undeserved.

Don’t be afraid. No bonds were ever broken by appreciative remarks.

Go ahead. Say it. You can hardly come to contact with anybody without nothing some commendable thing.

And if any criticism, any salt or sour word comes up in your throat, swallow it back.

What a vast, kindly benevolent, bottomless pit is the pit of the great Unsaid!  It is the Gehenna valley* of our lives, where lie the burnt refuse of our unkindness.

You are full of gentle thoughts and gentle words, only you do not realize how full until you begin to speak.

Unstop your generous impulses. Turn on the fountain of your praise.

For this world of human hearts is dry and dusty. Most men and women go about smitten with   cruel thirst. The sons and daughters of men perish for appreciation.

Then water them. Sprinkle them with the gentle rain of your admiring glances and warm smiles on the just and upon the unjust, with heaven’s indiscrimination.

Contwist you, smile!

We Americans are an odd lot.  We are soft as wax in our hearts, full of generous feeling, hungry to help the next man. But we hate to admit it.

I have walked the city street, in lonely moods, and searched the face of every passer-by for a human look. But it was dreary picking. Men glanced at me and looked quickly away. Women never looked at all.  Only a woman or two of Mrs. Warren’s profession. ** And I have wondered if it is not sheer loneliness, mere desire to see a lightened face, even if it must be bought, and not a taste for vice, that leads men to take up with crepuscular creatures.

For souls are purchased with kindness. Every cordial gesture you make to a man gives you a property-right to a portion of his soul.

Mine are the people I have loved, if only for a moment. They constitute my estate. I own them. I do not own my purse.

“’Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands.” I do not own my house, the contents of my strong box, my furniture and pictures, no, nor the wife I have legally bound to me, nor the children I have begotten, save in so far as I love them.

There is but one right and title in the court of souls. It is love. It is appreciation. Anything or anybody in this world belongs to the one who appreciates it, or him, or her. No other claim will stand in the great assizes.

And I do not own those who appreciate me; they own me. It is the lover, and not the beloved, that has the best end of the bargain. Love is its own reward.

Hence, get rich. Pile up property. Be a soul millionaire. Do this by the practice of appreciation.  Be an appreciation expert. The wider, more refined, subtler, keener your power to see the praiseworthiness of men and things, the wealthier you are…

Compliment. Appreciate. Praise. But me no buts. No praise is ever wholly undeserved.

*A reference to a valley in Jerusalem where, according to the Hebrew Bible, the godless kings of Judah turned children into burning sacrifices. The Old Testament Book of Jeremiah says the valley is cursed. Some ancient literature refers to it as something like Hell, other writings saying it is more like a purgatory of sorts.

**Mrs. Warren’s Profession, an 1893 play by George Bernard Shaw, is about the operator of a brothel.

 

Book Club—VI 

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In 1832, South Carolina enacted nullification acts declaring the state would not obey or enforce federal laws establishing duties on certain imported products.  Jon Meacham quotes President Andrew Jackson telling his Secretary of War, Lewis Cass, “Nullification and secession, or, in the language of truth, disunion, is gaining strength. We must be prepared to act with promptness and crush the monster in its cradle before it matures to manhood.”

Jackson, whose followers founded the Democratic Party and saw him elected to the presidency in 1828, issued a special proclamation on December 10, 1832 defending the concept of a union of states and the importance of a central government.

Contemplate the condition of that country of which you still form an important part. Consider its government, uniting in one bond of common interest and general protection so many different States, giving to all their inhabitants, the proud title of American citizen, protecting their commerce, securing their literature and their arts, facilitating their intercommunication, defending their frontiers, and making their name respected in the remotest parts of the earth!  Consider the extent of its territory, its increasing and happy population, its advance in arts, which render life agreeable, and the sciences which elevate the mind!  See education spreading the lights of religion, morality, and general information into every cottage in the wide extent of our Territories and States!  Behold it as the asylum where the wretched and the oppressed find a refuge and support!  Look on this picture of happiness and honor and say, We too are citizens of America. 

Meacham writes in “The Soul of America” that Jackson “had spoken in the vernacular of hope and of unity to combat fear and disunion.

 

The worst in us is never far away

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It’s comfortable to think the virulent racism of long ago is no longer part of our lives.  But it is.  It’s hidden and when it exposes itself it does so with such vengeance that witnesses might be left gasping.

More likely it’s white witnesses who are left gasping by the searing viciousness that is not so surprising to black people, even today in our supposedly accepting society. And I suppose it shouldn’t have been the surprise that it was in this time of increasingly-public white nationalism.

It happened last week at a meeting of a city council committee considering whether to remove a rock with a bronze plaque on it saying Confederate General Sterling Price decided in 1864 not to attack Jefferson City.  I had thought it was a fairly benign thing a few months ago when people asked me about it.  But the more I have looked into it, how it wound up where it is, who Price was, and what his brief siege was about, the more convinced I am that the continued presence of this marker is a blot on my town.

Some brief background: General Sterling Price was a former Missouri governor who had three times sworn loyalty to the United States and vowed to defend it from enemies, foreign and domestic.  But in 1861 he turned his back on those oaths and became one of those enemies who sought to destroy our nation as it then existed. In the fall of 1864 he led a last-gasp effort to recapture Missouri for the South, leading a rag-tag army of 12,000 poorly-equipped soldiers, thinking he might be able to capture St. Louis (impossible because it was full of Union troops), Jefferson City (where Confederate Governor Thomas C. Reynolds who was traveling with him could be sworn in as the legitimate governor of a now-Southern state) and then Westport and in the process turn the tide in the 1864 election and get rid of Lincoln so a truce could be arranged that would preserve the South and its slaves.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy, a group aligned with the Ku Klux Klan at the time the marker was presented in 1933 (its webpage makes it clear it no longer subscribes to its past attitudes), wrote the language on the bronze plaque.

We won’t go into a lengthy discussion of why some people think the marker should be removed but, in short, the idea is that the values behind its presentation are not the city’s values, does not reflect the true history of what happened here, and it casts a shadow over the lives of many African-Americans who see it as a symbol of a time when black people were told they had a place in this town and it wasn’t where white people were.

A woman named Jackie Coleman, who I did not know about until a couple of weeks ago, was among the list of people who shared with the city council their thoughts about “the rock” as it is called. She said she was “appalled” that the marker was on city property because, “It’s not what Jefferson City is about.”  A little later she told the council, “I know discrimination. If you don’t want to get rid of the rock you are saying you don’t care about me.”  The council took no action but referred the issue to two of its committees.

At the Public Works Committee meeting last Thursday I suggested the council pay more attention to what she and others said about their experiences in Jefferson City—and the experiences of their ancestors—more than the council pays attention to the philosophical arguments about history that people like me were making, valid though they might be.  While most of the argument is about Price, the KKK, the UDC, the proper telling of history, etc., the feelings of Jackie Coleman and others who spoke with her are about LIFE and how the marker casts a shadow over them, even now.

She spoke right after I did last Thursday and I was gratified that she found my remarks good. I hope I was not the only person stunned in the council chamber by what came next.

Before I tell you about it I want you to understand that there are some words that we have become too cautious in using when their use is most valuable in understanding what a circumstance is.  Some words are so brutal and so cruel that referring to them as “the –word” relieves us of confronting the remorseless attitude behind them.  I am going to use one of those words and by now you know what it is.

Jackie read an unsigned letter she received after the City Council meeting saying, “What is wrong with teaching our youth about history, that the Civil War was not fought over slavery but over state rights. People like you are causing a racial divide.”   She said the letter called her a nigger or referred to niggers thirteen times. It concluded, “Why don’t you just move and leave our nice town. I don’t belong to the KKK but you are an example of why it should exist.”  She told the committee the rock created that letter. “This is an offensive rock to me. We have to call it what it is,” and she concluded, “A citizen of Jefferson City getting a letter like this is appalling.”

Of course the letter was unsigned. Flaming bigotry has never counted courage as one of its qualities. If the writer thought he or she could intimidate Jackie Coleman, that person is stupid along with being a coward.

One of the points I hope I made with the committee—and that I will make again at the full council meeting if given a chance to speak—is that the Capital City of Missouri has no business protecting a symbol that excites cowards such as this letter-writer to prove once again that the worst we can be is never far away.

The rock must go. But I’m afraid its shadow will remain, not visible but resentfully lurking beneath the surface waiting to erupt.

And that, to use Jackie’s word, is appalling.

Book Club—V 

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“The Confidence of the Whole People” is the first chapter in Jon Meacham’s The Soul of America, a book we are recommending to all who find these words. We are recalling the words mentioned in the book although we offer them at times in a greater extent than Meacham does.

Thomas Jefferson, writing from Monticello on January 25, 1810 to the son of his first cousin, John Garland Jefferson, advocated for a presidency that united, rather than divided, the nation’s people, and rejected the idea that the presidency was a family affair. 

…In a government like ours it is the duty of the Chief-magistrate, in order to enable himself to do all the good which his station requires, to endeavor, by all honorable means, to unite in himself the confidence of the whole people.

This alone, in any case where the energy of the nation is required, can produce an union of the powers of the whole, and point them in a single direction, as if all constituted but one body & one mind: and this alone can render a weaker nation unconquerable by a stronger one.

Towards acquiring the confidence of the people the very first measure is to satisfy them of his disinterestedness, & that he is directing their affairs with a single eye to their good, & not to build up fortunes for himself & family: & especially that the officers appointed to transact their business, are appointed because they are the fittest men, not because they are his relations.

So prone are they to suspicion that where a President appoints a relation of his own, however worthy, they will believe that favor, & not merit, was the motive. I therefore laid it down as a law of conduct for myself never to give an appointment to a relation.

                                                        

 

 

Tinkering with the court 

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Talk by Democrats about increasing the numbers of Supreme Court Justices after the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett—IF they gain control of the Senate—is nothing new.  The court membership has fluctuated from five to ten and the changes often have been for political reasons, not because of concerns that the court would not dispense justice.

The concern by liberals that the Court will be 6-3 for years to come is based in part on the ages of the present members of the Supreme Court.  If Joe Biden is elected president, he might have a chance to hold the court at 6-3.  A loss exposes the court to the possibility of slipping to 7-2. If Democrats hold onto the White House, for another four years after Biden (assuming Biden keeps to his early statement that he would not seek a second term) his successor could flip it back to a 5-4 court. But some things would have to happen and it is not wise to count on them falling into place.

Justice Stephen Breyer, appointed by President Clinton, is 82.  We are not aware that he has said anything about hanging on until a Democrat takes office but at 82, he might think about whether he wants to still be on the court at 86.  Clarence Thomas, the senior justice, is 72, a Republican appointee. He also hasn’t said anything about leaving—in fact it is rare for him to say anything at all publicly, and nothing says he must—but he soon will have thirty years on the court, becoming the fifteenth justice to reach that tenure.

Depending on this presidential election and the next, Breyer and Thomas might be where Justice Ginsberg was—trying to hang on until a new president of an acceptable party is elected before retiring.

Here are the ages of the present and likely future U.S. Supreme Court:

Stephen Breyer   82 (Clinton)

Clarence Thomas 72 (Geo. H. W. Bush)

Samuel Alito  70 (GWB)

John Roberts 65 (George W. Bush)

Sonia Sotomayor 66 (Obama)

Elena Kagan 60 (Obama)

Neil Gorsuch 53 (Trump)

Brett Kavanaugh 55 (Trump)

Amy Coney Barrett  48 (Trump)????

All of this is assuming everyone remains in good health.

If Democrats have the White House for the next eight years, Justice Thomas will be 80 and he will be approaching the tenure record of 36 years and 7 months set by William O. Douglas (1939-1975), the only Justice to serve more than 35 years. Would Thomas want to set a new record and in the process wait for a Republican President and a Republican Senate again?

But how about just adding new seats on the court while the Democrats are in power to neutralize the current conservative leaning or to offset it?

There is nothing sacred about the number nine in determining the size of the court. The Judiciary Act of 1789, the legislation that enabled to Constitutional provision creating the court system, established the first U.S. Supreme Court with six members—a Chief Justice and five Associate Justices.

The National Constitution Center says President John Adams and a lame-duck Congress passed a law in 1801 to reduce the court to five members. That was done to limit incoming President Jefferson from making appointments. Jefferson’s Republicans overturned that act and put the membership back to six. A seventh judge was added during Jefferson’s term when a Seventh Judicial Circuit was created.

For some time, the number of justices was tied to the number of federal court circuits. When Congress expanded the number of districts, President Jackson added two more members of the court. When the Tenth Judicial Circuit was created in 1863, Congress added a tenth Justice.

Congress did not want President Andrew Johnson, soon to be impeached, to appoint any new Justices, so the Judicial Circuits Act of 1866 reduced the membership from ten to seven with the decrease taking place as vacancies occurred. Two years later, with Johnson gone and Grant in the presidency, only two vacancies had occurred, leaving the court with eight members. The Judiciary Act of 1869 added one seat back, setting the membership at nine and there it has stayed to this day.

The number withstood President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s threat to enlarge the court because it leaned conservative and wasn’t as supportive of his New Deal policies as he wanted the court to be. His Judicial Reform Act of 1937 would have expanded the court to fifteen. The court took the unusual step of engaging in the political process when Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, a conservative, and liberal Justice Louis Brandeis came out against the plan. Not long afterwards, changing voting patterns on the Court and vacancies that Roosevelt could fill took care of the situation as far as he was concerned. Roosevelt’s packing proposal had gained little traction anyway.

So that is how we got to having nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Here’s another interesting tidbit about the selection of new Justices. If you read the original Constitutional language in last week’s entry, you might have noticed there are no qualifications listed for becoming a member of the U. S. Supreme Court. Nothing says a Justice must be a lawyer or have previous experience on the bench. Should a President want to appoint a White House janitor to the court, he or she could do that.  The Senate with its confirmation powers presumably would not confirm a janitor. But how about—-

Justice-nominee Sean Hannity, a house painter before he started talking on the radio. Never finished college.  But under the Constitution, he could be appointed to the U. S. Supreme court.

Would Senator McConnell fast track that one?

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A good man, a statesman

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We usually are silent in this space on Tuesdays but today we must note the passing of former state legislator Wayne Goode.  His kind has been missing from our General Assembly far too long.  Wayne was from St. Louis and St. Louis County. He and John T. Russell (who died several years ago) served 42 years in the House and the Senate. Only Senator Michael Kinney, who represented St. Louis for 56 years served longer.

He died Saturday of leukemia. He was 83. He was one of the finest people I knew in four decades as a reporter at the Capitol.

Wayne is a prime exhibit in discussing the evils of term limits.  Last year, the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis presented him with its highest honor, The Thomas Jefferson Award.  I was asked to talk about him.

Some people, it seems, are born for public service and if there ever was one of those people it is Wayne Goode. I will not even try to list all of the boards and commissions on which Wayne has served. 

Wayne always was one of the “white hats” in the general assembly.  In today’s sometimes irrational political world there would be critics who would say he was just a darling of the left wing fake news media, I suppose.  But they’d be wrong.

Wayne wasn’t very good at political rhetoric.  But he was great at common sense, sound reasoning, and persuasive credibility.  People listened when he talked. 

I remember him especially from his work in shaping state budgets.  Until he came along, the state budget was pretty much written by the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.  But Wayne got the job and decided that if there was a committee, the committee should do the work and state officials as well as common citizens should participate.  There were some folks in the Capitol who didn’t know what to make of that process at first, but the process is still used today. 

He co-sponsored a resolution to have Missouri ratify the Equal Rights Amendment….only to see the Speaker of the House and the Majority Floor leader introduce one, too…..The leadership resolution went to a committee where the chairman refused to hold a hearing and the Speaker refused to put the hammer down and get one…and the issue died that year.  After that, Phyllis Schlafly was in the way and the best chance of Missouri to ratify the ERA was lost.

His love of the outdoors led him to observe great damage was being done to it in the post-war industrial age…which led him to sponsor a hazardous waste bill that was the first major environmental cleanup legislation to pass.  We are grateful for that in our household because my wife, Nancy, worked for many years in the Department of Natural Resources Hazardous waste section.  I think she still has her big green boots in which she clomped around hazardous waste sites.  There is no truth to the rumor that the boots were black before she started clomping around.  

He got a bill passed that ended the legal dumping of hazardous wastes down wells. 

But one thing he could not stop was the construction of the Callaway Nuclear Plant.  I remember hearing Wayne and some other legislative colleagues protesting the plant’s construction.  Wayne and three other House colleagues proposed legislation that would have put some strict controls on nuclear plants. The issue made it to a statewide ballot. Union Electric outspent Wayne and Kay Drey and the legislators behind the bill by 3-million dollars to 100-thousand dollars; voters said no, big time, to the anti-plant proposal in 1984 and Callaway was built.  I saw an article a few years ago where Wayne admitted the plant was being operated about as well as a nuclear plant can be operated….although the industry still lacks a final solution to its nuclear waste problem.

It was his legislation, of course, that led to the creation of the University of Missouri at St. Louis, for which there is a statue of him on the campus. It’s a good statue. It captures Wayne fully engaged in straightening out a colleague on the bill Wayne holds in his hand. 

(Wayne, on the right, poses with sculptor Jay Hall Carpenter and Carpenter’s statue of Goode on the UMSL Campus. UMSL)

There is nothing angry about the debate that is portrayed in this statue. In fact, Wayne is enjoying himself.  There is a joy of earnest discussion. There is no animosity. No posturing. This is the Wayne Goode I remember.  It is an example of what collegial lawmaking should be. Unfortunately it also is a contrast to what too much of our lawmaking has become. 

University students will benefit for years to come because of the Senator Wayne Goode Scholars Program.  Goode Scholars, they’re called.  The recognitions are handled though the University’s Scholars and Fellowship program.  It’s a shame that the Wayne Good Scholars Program isn’t considered a fellowship…..because students happy to win one of those could be called Jolly Goode Fellows.

I saw Wayne in the pose frozen by that statue many times, never outwardly angry, never flustered, always knowing legislation better, sometimes, than the sponsors.  I never saw him try to slip something into a bill secretly.  I also never saw him stand still as long as he has since being cast in bronze. Wayne likes to be in motion—whether it’s hiking or riding a bike or going about doing—good(e).          

I was curious the other day and looked back at some of the people Wayne served with in the House and Senate. I dug out the Blue Book—the official state manual that has not always been blue. The list gives an idea of the eras that he spanned in his 42 years in the Missouri legislature.

When Wayne began serving in the House, Theodore McNeal was a State Senator from St. Louis, the first African-American state senator. The first African-American to serve in the House, Walthall Moore of St. Louis, served in the 1920s, BG (Before Goode)

Senator Michael Kinney was still there, the man who served 56 years in the Senate, the only man in the history of Missouri who served more years than Wayne in the legislature. Kinney had succeeded his brother who had died in 1912, toward the end of his second term.  So that part of St. Louis was represented by these two brothers for 64 years. Thomas was serving in the Senate when the Capitol burned in 1911 and Mike served in the temporary capitol while the present building was going up. 

The Kinney family, incidentally, apparently believed in naming children after Biblical figures…Michael and Thomas.  Thomas’ nickname also was Biblical—Snake. 

Here are some of the other people Wayne served with during his time in the House:

William C. Phelps, Melvin Carnahan, James Spainhower, James Conway, Harold Volkmer, John Buechner, Wendell Bailey, E. Thomas Coleman, Karen McCarthy, Alan Wheat, Betty Hearnes, Claire McCaskill, William Webster, Todd Akin, and Robert Holden.

In the Senate, he served alongside Patsy Danner, Roger Wilson, Jeremiah Nixon, William L. Clay Junior, Sam Graves, Joe Maxwell, Peter Kinder, and Steve Ehlmann. 

There were hundreds of others but the ones I’ve just mentioned have special distinctions.

Ten of these folks became members of the United States House of Representatives—Harold Volkmer,  Tom Coleman, Jack Buechner, Wendell Bailey, Karen McCarthy, Todd Akin, Alan Wheat, Pat Danner, William Lacy Clay, and Sam Graves. 

One, Claire McCaskill, became a U. S. Senator—after she had been state auditor.

There were four who became governors: Mel Carnahan, Jay Nixon, Roger Wilson, and Bob Holden.

Betty Hearnes was a first lady when Wayne showed up in Jefferson City and later became the only former First Lady to serve in the legislature.

Five of these names were Lieutenant Governor—Mel Carnahan, Fulltime Bill Phelps, Peter Kinder, Roger Wilson, and Joe Maxwell.

Three were state treasurers: Carnahan, Bob Holden, and Jim Spainhower.

Two served as Attorney General—Jay Nixon and Bill Webster.

James F. Conway became Mayor of St. Louis.

And Steve Ehlmann runs St. Charles County government. 

What I can’t figure out is why we are here tonight.

We’re honoring the guy who went nowhere—except to Jefferson City and back…and to Jefferson City and back….and to Jefferson and back…for 42 years.  

Wayne, you coulda been somebody!  

But for some reason, it’s you, a man of low ambition, that we’re honoring tonight..   

However, this stay-at-home, low-ambition guy is, I think, the only one of the 24 people I have just mentioned who has a statue of himself. That’s pretty special.  Not even James S. Rollins, who is considered the “father” of the whole University system has a statue.  A bust, but not a statue. 

Wayne served in a far different Senate and a far different House during his 42 years.  There were filibusters every now and then but they weren’t the self-serving filibusters that we see so much today.  Filibusters in Wayne’s time, were often funny, and often had a purpose of forcing two sides to find some middle ground that would let the Senate move ahead.  Today, in the days of supermajorities, filibusters aren’t funny; they’re often futile efforts by a weak minority; and quite often are not just ways to force two sides to work out a troublesome issue.  They’re unfunny and they’re boring. I know.  I was there for many of them and found laughter helped stay awake. 

A few weeks ago I asked some capitol staffers who remain from the Goode Old Days to share some thoughts about Wayne.  Most talked about how hard he worked—and in the process how hard he sometimes worked THEM.   One comment that I enjoyed was that Wayne was always careful with what he ate during legislative sessions.  I was told that he didn’t like potatoes…and often had rice with his meals.  

You might have noticed potatoes were not on our plates tonight.

I planned to bring Wayne a gift from Jefferson City tonight.  I suspect, Wayne, you’re not a fan of bumper stickers and it wouldn’t fit on your bicycle anyway. But I wanted you to have this bumper sticker that says “Eat More Rice. Potatoes Make Your Butt Big.”  But the one I have that I was going to give you is in a box that I have filed too far away.  Be watching for it in the mail, though.   

In his closing years in the General Assembly, Wayne was increasingly concerned about term limits and the loss of institutional memory that they would cause—among other concerns.  In the years since their adoption we have seen his fears of term limits—and similar fears voiced by many others who have served in the legislature—come true. 

I watched it happen from the House Press Gallery and from the press table on the Senate floor. I can tell you from personal experience all of the negatives we were warned about have come true…and there are darned few positives. 

There are three portraits that hang in the Senate Lounge at the state capitol.  One is Senator Kinney.  Another is Senator A. Clifford Jones who was from Ladue and was known for his humor, his tight-fistedness (he didn’t like spending money to redecorate his office, for example), and for not suffering fools gladly during debate.  The third is Senator Richard Webster, who was the last Republican Speaker of the House before Catherine Hanaway arrived, and who became one of the most powerful men in state government as the minority leader in the Senate.

I have suggested, always to deaf ears, that two more portraits should be in that Lounge—two men who served in the legislature together for 42 years.  One is a strong-conservative Republican from the city of Lebanon, in southwest Missouri, John T. Russell, and the other is Wayne Goode, a strong-liberal Democrat.   I don’t recall, as I mentioned earlier, ever hearing Wayne raise his voice. I heard him speak firmly at times, but I don’t remember that he ever showed a temper.  Russell was different.  He had a resonant voice and there were times—brief ones—when he could thunder.

The legislative session in the year that Republicans took control of the Senate, began with some vacancies, leaving Republicans and Democrat with the same numbers.   For a few weeks there were co-presidents pro tem, for example.  And for a short time, Wayne Goode—the dedicate liberal—was the co-chairman of the Senate appropriations committee with John T. Russell, the dedicated conservative.  

When Republicans won enough of the special elections to take the majority in the Senate, Russell became the stand-alone chairman.  But he and Wayne, as the ranking minority member, worked together on the state budget, respecting the experience and the knowledge and the shared legislative history that each brought to the process. 

To those of us who watched them, they represented the best that government can be.  Two men of widely-different political loyalties showed what statesmanship means.  We lost both of them at the same time because of term limits.  Both served the people in Jefferson City for 42 years—not just THEIR people, but THE people.  

In 1892, Maine Congressman Thomas B. Reed, who also served three terms as Speaker of the House, received a letter from a citizen who asked him, “What is a Statesman?”  Reed wrote back, “A statesman is a successful politician who is dead.”

Harry Truman embroidered that comment in 1958, after he’d been promoted back to private citizenship, as he liked to say, by saying, “A statesman is a politician who’s been dead ten or fifteen years.”  

But both Thomas B. Reed and Harry S Truman were wrong.  Politicians can be statesmen in their lifetimes….and we have living proof with us tonight of the goodness that comes from that living statesmanship. 

Term limits robbed the legislature of the influence of people such as Wayne Goode.  Time now has robbed all of us of this good man.

Dr. Crane on lying

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(In a time when accusations of lying are common, we turn to a column by Dr. Frank Crane published about 1917, the year of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and the publication of the diaries of Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy had died in 1910. Although nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature five consecutive years and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times, he never won. Dr. Crane uses Tolstoy’s diary to talk about—-)

LYING TO YOURSELF

The private diary of Leo Tolstoy was recently published in Paris by his daughter, the Countess Alexandria Ivovna. One of his views therein expressed is:

“Lying to others is much less serious than lying to yourself.”

To know this is the beginning of wisdom.

Self-deception is the starting-point of moral decay.

Lying to others may be but a harmless amusement, but lying to yourself is sure to mean inward deformity, the germ-laden fleck that spreads disease throughout your whole character.

Yet it is the commonest, easiest, most subtle of sins.

If you talk with the inmates of the penitentiary, with the crime-wrecked and drug-soaked of the slums, you will find that every one of them is living like a spider in a web of delusions he has woven out of his own substance.

The profligate has told himself that “the world owes him a living” until he believes it.

The criminal lays his downfall at the door of society.

The prostitute can glibly prove that she is not to blame, she is the victim of injustice.

Every down-and-outer labors to justify himself and trace his misfortune to others.

As a matter of fact, no person since the world began was ever compelled to do wrong.

No rotten stone or cracked beam was ever laid in the edifice of any man’s character that he did not put there with his own hands.

When I say that another made me do an evil thing I lie to myself.

Others may have threatened, cajoled, tempted, pushed, or bribed me, but the fatal final step was never taken except by the consent of my own will.

You may offer me a habit-forming thing, you may argue with me that it will do me good, you may urge me by ridicule, and lead me on by example; and my appetite may second your efforts. I may crave the glass, my nerves may clamor for it, and my imagination may lure me to it; BUT I DO NOT HAVE TO DRINK.

Whatever excuses I may give, there is one thing I do not have to do, and I do only because I will do it, and that is to swallow the stuff.

And that is true of every injurious deed. If I do an act of fraud, or uncleanness, or cruelty, there is just one person guilty—it is myself.

The world is full of blubbering whiners, whimperers, and weaklings. Overfull.

That we do wrong is not so disgusting. We are all human, and perhaps all a little perverted. But having erred, let us be down-right and manly and honest about it. Let us acknowledge our guilt, admit that our lusts and greeds and selfishness, which other people or circumstances may have deftly played upon, are no valid excuse, and that the responsibility for our evil rests absolutely upon ourselves. We may be sinners; but at least we can play the man.

Don’t lie to yourself. Don’t wallow in self-pity. Don’t hunt extenuating circumstances. Don’t justify yourself by comparing your own with others’ wrongdoings.

The wickedness of others may bring pain or loss to you through no fault of yours. Each of us must  bear a portion of the vicarious burden of the world’s evil. But mark this; you never did wrong for any other reason than that you chose to do it.

Not to have committed the wrong deed may have meant suffering to y9ou or to those you love, may have meant humiliation, or calamity, or even death. BUT YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO DO IT. You could have died.

You may have to suffer, to be humiliated, to endure tragedy, to die; nor you,  nor any human being, ever had to do wrong.

So don’t lie to yourself.

Honesty toward yourself is the key that will open to you the New Life.