by Michael Liss
Too many people don’t care what happens so long as it doesn’t happen to them. —William Howard Taft, former President and Chief Justice
Some may belittle politics, but we know, who are engaged in it, that it is where people stand tall. —Tony Blair, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Somewhere between those two statements, made by two exceptionally accomplished and intelligent men, is a truth. Somewhere there is a fulcrum. There has to be.
Where? If you think about it, contemporary politics is often just a sorting mechanism. We voters pick a team, we align our views with that team, and we tighten our bond to that team through ideologically similar traditional and social media. In doing so, we become so consumed with pursuing our own interests that we often lose our capacity for empathy. To Taft’s point, we don’t care what happens as long as it doesn’t happen to us. We don’t care who pays for it, so long as we get it.
What about politicians? Do they “stand tall”? Do they stand for everyone? We know they often don’t. To rise in the party, and/or to keep their jobs, the pols needs to hew ever closer to whatever idea (or person) exercises the strongest gravimetric force. The distillation process continues until most individuality disappears, not just in the ambitious (or worried) pol who learns to squawk in lockstep, but also in the vast majority of rank-and-file voters. Both groups look past, or even take up positions that, in calmer times they might have thought disqualifying as a matter of principle—or even manifestly against their own interests.
Nothing said here is particularly new—even more so now, as both major political parties have become less ideologically diverse over the last several decades. There’s an acute imbalance right now because Trump is such an accelerant, but if we ever get past the Trump Era with our traditional basic values intact, we are going to need to find a sense of balance again. To quote Lincoln, we must “disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”
Just how do we disenthrall ourselves? How do we think anew and act anew? It probably starts with a bit of “knowing thyself,” perhaps to recapture some of the “care” that Taft said was lost. As voters, we could demand more—but we also need better leadership—leadership that “stands tall” for those basic American principles.
We may not need a William Howard Taft. But we could use the most balanced, “disenthralling” President since then, Dwight David Eisenhower. We need Ike.
Garry Wills talks about Ike’s “resolute lack of romanticism,” and he’s right. In both deed and word, Ike didn’t soar. It wasn’t his style—he drew a different conclusion from his rank, either military or civilian, than most others would. He commanded, but did not demand or even need the constant reaffirmation of status. That ability to project strength regardless of the outcome—he “was not tortured by the fear of losing face”—was central to his ability to lead.
In his military career, he learned to build first: gather your assets, husband them until they reach critical mass, watch for whatever hazards could interfere with your plans, reconnoiter your opponent’s positions, and defer deployment until you can attain maximum assurance of success. This was not the George McLellan kind of reticence that drove Lincoln to distraction. Ike would give the go order; he was more than capable of making the most difficult of decisions, but reserved to himself the choice of when and where. There’s a story about a childhood experience with a hostile goose. He was pecked at continuously until he learned to go outside, “broom in hand.” It’s a lesson that echoed through his life. Don’t look for glory by chasing without preparation. Move when you are ready, when your leverage is highest, and then go with conviction.
You get the same sense from his speeches. Ike was not known for his eloquence, he certainly didn’t go for rhetorical overreach, but he did have a certain style, a way of introducing as subtext something that got his point across very effectively.
Ike’s most memorable speech was his last as President, on January 17, 1961, the “beware the military-industrial complex” one. What he actually said is:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. … We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
I’d recommend the speech in its entirety. It is remarkably prescient. You can almost see the training of the lifetime soldier who asks, “What’s ahead of me?” and is perceptive enough to see it. Ike sensed the ambitions of men and their willingness to place those ambitions ahead of principle or even good sense.
It’s an article for another day—how the concentration of power can lead to the dismembering of our common political heritage. For today, I’d rather spend some time with other sets of words, one public, the second private, that both foreshadow, and have their own relevance.
The first is from Ike’s relatively brief remarks on November 23, 1953, in receiving the “Democratic Legacy Award“ at a dinner in honor of the 40th Anniversary of the Anti-Defamation League. The second (and definitely the most fun) is his letter of November 10, 1954, to his older brother, Edgar Newton Eisenhower.
Before we get to these, it is worth clearing away a little of the brush. Ike didn’t have to be President, or even a Republican President, and almost wasn’t. In July of 1947, Truman, fearful that Douglas MacArthur would “return” to the United States and try to parlay his fame into the Republican Presidential nomination, approached Ike with an extraordinary offer: Ike and he would run as a ticket in 1948—with Ike for President and Truman as his Veep. As incredible as this might seem, it made sense from two perspectives—Truman’s popularity was in the doghouse, and Ike was the most sought-after potential candidate in the country. But even more incredible than the offer was the fact that Ike wasn’t then a Democrat—or a Republican. He had (very astutely, very Ike-like) refused to declare himself as either. Ike turned Truman down—he wasn’t yet ready to move.
By 1952, it was obvious from Truman’s unpopularity that the next Republican nominee would likely be President. Now it was time, because the Republican with the best chance of getting the nomination was the isolationist Robert Taft. Taft was opposed to further involvement in Europe, opposed to the creation of NATO. Ike declared himself a Republican, allowed his name to be entered, and defeated Taft.
The Democratic nominee, the cerebral Adlai Stevenson (even then, Democrats liked nominating cerebral guys who had slim chances), couldn’t match Ike’s personal fame, his charisma, nor his effective way of campaigning on “Korea, Communism and corruption.” Those, along with a bit of “triangulating” on his relationship to Joseph McCarthy (privately deploring the fact that Tail Gunner Joe called his friend and mentor George C. Marshall a Communist, but publicly staying silent), led to a landslide victory. Ike had shown two qualities that he retained through the balance of his public life: he was a careful keeper of his own assets who knew how to wait to deploy them, and he had a touch of ruthlessness that almost all good politicians have. Not entirely attractive, but very effective. Particularly on the uglier issues, Ike often chose to sit one out, but if he entered the game, it was to win.
Back to Ike’s words. Let’s start first with his remarks at the ADL dinner. For context, this was at the height of the McCarthy Era, a few months before Oppenheimer lost his security clearance, and before the Army-McCarthy Hearings. The country was in the grip of a madness, and Ike, just as he had during the campaign, remained largely silent.
Eisenhower sat bravely through the pomp and circumstance before being called up. He was introduced to great applause. He gave some customary thanks and flattery, then claimed to go off script (deploying some of his substantial reserve of Ike charm). His theme was “I am proud to be an American!”
Why are we proud? We are proud, first of all, because from the beginning of this Nation, a man can walk upright, no matter who he is, or who she is. He can walk upright and meet his friend—or his enemy; and he does not fear that because that enemy may be in a position of great power that he can be suddenly thrown in jail to rot there without charges and with no recourse to justice. We have the habeas corpus act, and we respect it.
He talked about his upbringing on a farm in Abilene, Kansas and its moral code.
It was: meet anyone face to face with whom you disagree. You could not sneak up on him from behind, or do any damage to him, without suffering the penalty of an outraged citizenry. … And today, although none of you has the great fortune, I think, of being from Abilene, Kansas, you live after all by that same code in your ideals and in the respect you give to certain qualities. In this country, if someone dislikes you, or accuses you, he must come up in front. He cannot hide behind the shadow. He cannot assassinate you or your character from behind, without suffering the penalties an outraged citizenry will impose.
I would not want to sit down this evening without urging one thing: if we are going to continue to be proud that we are Americans, there must be no weakening of the code by which we have lived; by the right to meet your accuser face to face, if you have one; by your right to go to the church or the synagogue or even the mosque of your own choosing; by your right to speak your mind and be protected in it.
There it is Eisenhower’s durable definition of what our code as Americans is: the right to meet your accuser face to face (not by some anonymous accusation by a feckless or frightened or simply malevolent man or group or panel). The right to practice your religion freely (notable that he includes Islam). The First Amendment right to speak your mind without fear of punishment. And, finally, the generational obligation:
But if I could leave with you one thought, you not only will repeat it every day of your life, but you will say, ‘I will do my part to make it always true for my children and my grandchildren.’
With that, he closes. It’s unnecessary to harp too much on how relevant those words were at the time. They are, if you think about it, perhaps one of the best definitions of an American civic credo—making them even more relevant today.
Time for the big brother letter—and it made me laugh. Edgar Newton Eisenhower is the rare big brother who thinks he knows more than his younger sibling. Dwight David Eisenhower has been Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force, and President of the United States, but he’s still the younger, still messing things up with his sloppy thinking. Edgar is also a lawyer and a director of several local businesses. This makes him exceptionally knowledgeable on a vast range of issues. If you are looking for a place in the philosophical firmament for Edgar, put him in the Calvin Coolidge-Herbert Hoover class, on their more doctrinaire days. Edgar often takes it upon himself to explain (presumably in very small words so as not to overburden his younger brother’s limited capacities) just how wrong little Dwight can be.
I haven’t been able to locate Edgar’s letter to Dwight, which appears to have been induced, in part, by Ike’s opposition to the Bricker Amendments. I’m going to spare you some of the wonky details beyond saying, if passed, the Amendments would have given Congress far more power to oversee the President’s ability to make agreements with foreign countries. Edgar was for this.
That might have been the impetus, but it appears that Edgar, once he got up a head of steam, was quite capable of a comprehensive critique. He seems to have questioned Ike’s understanding of the Constitution, complained that Ike’s foreign and domestic policies were indistinguishable from that of Truman’s, criticized foreign aid, said Ike was getting poor advice, took a shot at those programs that conservatives love to hate, and more. “Some people” were saying this, of course.
Ike responded on November 10, 1954. From the tone of it, it turns out the lad may have been a tad cranky, with the Republicans having just lost control of the House and Senate.
The full text can be found here, and it is absolutely worth reading all of it, but here are some choice portions after the “Dear Ed”:
You keep harping on the Constitution; I should like to point out that the meaning of the Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is. Consequently, no powers are exercised by the Federal government except where such exercise is approved by the Supreme Court (lawyers) of the land…(and) until some future Supreme Court decision denies the right and responsibility of the Federal government to do certain things, you cannot possibly remove them from the political activities of the Federal government.
The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything—even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon ‘moderation’ in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things………..Their number is negligible and they are stupid.
You say that the foreign policy of the two Administrations is the same. I suppose that even the most violent critic would agree that it is well for us to have friends in the world, to encourage them to oppose communism both in its external form and in its internal manifestations, to promote trade in the world that would be mutually profitable between us and our friends (and it must be mutually profitable or it will dry up), and to attempt the promotion of peace in the world, negotiating from a position of moral, intellectual, economic and military strength. No matter what the party is in power, it must perforce follow a program that is related to these general purposes and aspirations. But the great difference is in how it is done and, particularly, in the results achieved.
That experience is that these individuals have no idea of what the ‘foreign policy’ of the previous Administration was and what the present one is. They have heard certain slogans, such as ‘give away programs.’ They have no slightest idea as to what has been the effect of these programs in sustaining American security and prosperity. Moreover, they have no idea whatsoever as to comparative size of them now as compared to even two or three years ago.
You say that these critics also complain about the continuance of ‘controls,’ presumably over our economy. There is nothing in your letter that shows such complete ignorance as to what has actually happened as does this term. When we came into office there were Federal controls exercised over prices, wages, rents, as well as over the allocation and use of raw materials. The first thing this Administration did was to set about the elimination of those controls. This it did amid the most dire predictions of disaster, ‘run away’ inflation, and so on and so on. We were proved right, but I must say that if the people of the United States do not even remember what took place, one is almost tempted to regret the agony of study, analysis and decision that was then our daily ration.
You also talk about ‘bad political advice’ I am getting. I always assumed that lawyers attempted accuracy in their statements. How do you know that I am getting any political advice? Next, if I do get political advice, how do you know that it is not weighted in the direction that you seem to think it should be—although I am tempted at times to believe that you are just thrashing around rather than thinking anything through to a definite conclusion? So how can you say I am getting ‘bad’ advice; why don’t you just assume I am stupid, trying to wreck the nation, and leave our Constitution in tatters?
Incidentally, I notice that everybody seems to be a great Constitutionalist until his idea of what the Constitution ought to do is violated—then he suddenly becomes very strong for amendments or some peculiar and individualistic interpretation of his own.
Finally, I must assure you again that I am delighted to get your own honest criticisms, particularly if you will only take the trouble to lay down the facts on which you reach what seem to me to be some remarkable conclusions. But the mere repetition of aphorisms and political slogans and newspaper headlines leaves me cold.
Timeless, and I love it. I’d be hard pressed to pick out my favorite response.
Go Ike. I like Ike.
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