In my early newspapering days I took an interest in Senator Everett Dirksen, Illinois. He was minority leader of the U. S. Senate.
My interest probably came from working for a man whose interest in politics was deep. My publisher was Enoch ‘Ink? White, and he was one of the writers of our present state constitution.
Dirksen’s low-voiced, slower delivery of a speech was a magnet to me. Today’s politicians speak fast, double-talk, over-talk and otherwise seem to speak numbers of words, as opposed to Sen. Dirksen’s mellow delivery of well-chosen words..
The Senator’s answer to the question on his stand on liquor sales, asked in 1968, I think by Harry Reasoner, has stayed in my mind ever since. It’s the greatest avoidance to a ‘gotcha? question I’ve witnessed.
‘You asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is just how I stand on this question.
‘If, when you say whiskey, you mean the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, yes, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacles of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation and despair, shame and helplessness and hopelessness; then certainly I am against it with all of my power.
‘But, if when you say whiskey, you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the stuff that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty morning; if you mean the drink that enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness and to forget, if only for a while, life’s great tragedies and heartbreaks and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sales of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm, to build highways, hospitals and schools, then certainly I am in favor of it.
‘This is my stand. I will not retreat from it; I will not compromise.?
Don’t you love it?
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Here’s a story of a dog named Mace. It’s fresh out of the U. P.’s humor magazine, The Porcupine Press.
There once was a handyman who had a dog named Mace.
Mace was a great dog, except he had one weird habit. He liked to eat grass — not just a bit, but in quantities that would make a lawnmower blush.
And, nothing it seemed, would cure him of it.
One day, the handyman lost his wrench in the tall grass while he was working outside. He looked and looked, but it was nowhere to be found.
As it was getting dark, he gave up for the night and decided to look the next morning. When he awoke, he went outside and saw that his dog had eaten all the grass in the area, around where he had been working, and his wrench now lay in plain sight, glinting in the sun.
Going out to get his wrench, he called the dog over to him and said, ‘A grazing Mace, how sweet the hound, that saved a wrench for me.?