originally published 1/19/2019
2019 has barely begun, but the first candidates for our 2020 Presidential election are already forming teams and making themselves heard around the nation. While considering how to write about that, I came across quotations from Adlai Stevenson, a very thoughtful candidate that we didn’t elect. Running as a Democrat, he lost twice to President Eisenhower, in 1952 and 1956. Here are some of his thoughts. (Women reading this, please forgive his exclusive use of masculine pronouns. It was the manner of speech at the time.)
“I’m not an old, experienced hand at politics. But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.”
These next three make me wonder if Stevenson somehow knew that Donald Trump was on his way. “The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions. But there is also, it seems to me, a moment at which democracy must prove its capacity to act. Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal cords.” “Whenever I hear one of these old guard leaders on the other side talking about cutting taxes, when he knows it means weakening the nation, I always think of that story about the tired old capitalist who was riding in his car one day, and finally, he said ‘James, drive over the bluff; I want to commit suicide.” “Public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for.” What would he think of a President who impugns the integrity of our courts, judges, FBI, intelligence agencies and his own nominees when they disagree with him?
“We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed, for our safety, to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave — to the ancient enemies of man — half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all.” What advice might he have for a world with refugees seeking safety in Europe and North America?
“Nature is indifferent to the survival of the human species, including Americans.” We’ve made some progress cleaning up our environment but President Trump is rapidly repealing the rules and laws that created it. He thinks it’s too expensive for power plants to remove mercury that causes brain damage from their smokestack emissions.
“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.” “All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind. Don’t be afraid of being out of tune with your environment, and above all pray God that you are not afraid to live, to live hard and fast. To my way of thinking it is not the years in your life but the life in your years that count in the long run. You’ll have more fun, you’ll do more and you’ll get more, you’ll give more satisfaction the more you know, the more you have worked, and the more you have lived. For yours is a great adventure at a stirring time in the annals of men.”
“You will find that the truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fancy and disagreeable fact is unequal. For, in the vernacular, we Americans are suckers for good news.”
“You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad.”
Stevenson wanted citizens to be involved in their government, and he acknowledged his own discomfort with leadership. “It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.”
He was a visionary and a leader who wanted laws and policies that work for all Americans. I wonder, if a candidate as good as Adlai Stevenson appears, will Americans recognize him (or her)?