Monday, 09 November 2009

• Adlai Stevenson, Why He Rocked.

  Every few months I get to thinking about my favorite American of the past century, Adlai Stevenson.
  
  He was a man who firmly believed that education was the only true path to righteousness. He was an egghead with an iconic wit, and hardly anyone in America under the age of 70 remembers who he was.
  
  Adlai Stevenson was, in my opinion, the greatest President America never had the pleasure of having. He ran for President twice, and was defeated in 2 consecutive landslides. Eisenhower was the ultimate military hero, so it's really no surprise.
  
  When Jack Kennedy took office, he could have picked anyone to be the ambassador to the UN. He was a former rival of Stevenson, and supposedly wasn't too fond of him, but he picked him anyway. During the Cuban Missile Crisis Stevenson proved his worth when he embarrassed the Soviet representative by proving that there were, in fact, missile basis in Cuba. This is the source of his most famous quote: "Don't wait for the translation, answer yes or no!"
  
  Here's a great clip from the movie 13 Days about the Cuban Missile Crisis that illustrates the famous encounter:
  
  
  
  What Stevenson was best out, however, was being extremely quotable. Every time I venture over to his Wikiquote page I'm taken aback at how relevant many of the things he said throughout his career are still applicable today, almost 60 years later.
  
  For example:
  
  "I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them." (Death panels come to mind).
  
  "Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime."
  
  "Your days are short here; this is the last of your springs. And now in the serenity and quiet of this lovely place, touch the depths of truth, feel the hem of Heaven. You will go away with old, good friends. And don't forget when you leave why you came."
  
  "Men who have offered their lives for their country know that patriotism is not the fear of something; it is the love of something."
  
  "Nature is indifferent to the survival of the human species, including Americans." (Today it seems like the human species, especially Americans, are indifferent to the survival of nature.)
  
  "I profoundly believe that there is on this horizon, as yet only dimly perceived, a new dawn of conscience. In that purer light, people will come to see themselves in each other, which is to say they will make themselves known to one another by their similarities rather than by their differences. Man's knowledge of things will begin to be matched by man's knowledge of self."
  
  "I have said what I meant and meant what I said. I have not done as well as I should like to have done, but I have done my best, frankly and forthrightly; no man can do more, and you are entitled to no less." (This is from his concession speech).
  
  "But shouting is not a substitute for thinking and reason is not the subversion but the salvation of freedom." (If ever I could say just one thing to Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, or Glenn Beck...)
  
  "In matters of national security emotion is no substitute for intelligence, nor rigidity for prudence. To act coolly, intelligently and prudently in perilous circumstances is the test of a man — and also a nation."
  
  "Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set."
  
  "The elephant has a thick skin, a head full of ivory, and as everyone who has seen a circus parade knows, proceeds best by grasping the tail of its predecessor."
  
  "Nixon is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump for a speech on conservation."
  
  "The Republicans stroke platitudes until they purr like epigrams."
  
  "You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad."
  
  "There are worse things than losing an election; the worst thing is to lose one's convictions and not tell the people the truth." (This was in response to an assertion that his support for a ban on nuclear testing would cost him a lot of votes, if not the election. We need politicians like this again.)
  
  "The best reason I can think of for not running for President of the United States is that you have to shave twice a day."
  
  "Some war hero is always getting in my way." (Said when his car was stopped so Charles De Gaulle's motorcade could pass.)
  
  "Freedom rings where opinions clash."
  
  
  I'll finish with my favorite one liner. The biggest Republican critics of Stevenson often said that his biggest problem was his intellectual air (yes, these people actually claimed that the biggest problem with a man running for the Presidency was his intelligence), to which Stevenson often replied "Via ovum cranium difficilis est," (the way of the egghead is hard.)
  
  
  
  

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