Michael Harrington's America

My high school in St. Louis had humble beginnings 200 years ago but has produced many remarkable graduates, other than myself!

The "St. Louis Academy for Young Gentlemen" was founded in 1818 and soon became St. Louis College, then in 1832, St. Louis University, the first university west of the Mississippi, with the first medical school and law school in the area.  I spent eight years at the university in various capacities as well as four years at the affiliated Jesuit preparatory school.  What I learned there has been the foundation of my personal and professional life.

I was reminded of the outstanding record of achievement at St. Louis U. High this week in a New Yorker article by David Remnick, "Left Wing of the Possible," a quote from Michael Harrington, class of '44.  Harrington, who became a leading socialist, author, professor and public intellectual, wrote "The Other America."  Remnick shows how this best-selling study of poverty in America caught the attention of President Kennedy in 1963 and led him to begin what would be completed by his successor: the war on poverty, including Medicare, Medicaid, and expanded social security benefits. As a result of this action by the Democratic leadership, poverty declined from 22% in 1959 to 11% in 1973.

Although Harrington, who moved on from St. Louis to the University of Chicago and the Yale Law School, drifted from his Catholic faith, he remained, like many others, a Catholic in spirit.  He was inspired by his Jesuit schooling to be concerned with the common good, with social justice--in marked contrast to the prevailing political climate of recent years, where even most liberal-moderates are indebted to corporations, big money, and self-interest.

Despite his radical allegiances, Harrington was valued by the Kennedys and deserves to be remembered for having had an impact on liberal public policy. I can easily imagine what he might say about today's polarized political arena, which marginalizes the poor and needy, ignores the common good,  and seems determined to undo all of the social progress made prior to January, 2017.

I am proud to be a graduate of the same distinguished school that produced Michael Harrington

A dream that became a nightmare

The murder of John F. Kennedy 50 years ago this month is probably the most traumatic event of my life, in part because I was young and impressionable when I heard the news. Kennedy was the embodiment of all I wanted to be at the age of 21: smart, successful, glamorous, witty, cool.

The news of his death came to me in my first year of teaching as a graduate student at the University of Illinois, and the voice of Walter Cronkite on that occasion still sends chills down my spine: "The President died today at 1 p.m."  I cannot watch videos of his Dallas trip, even now.

Death had never entered my life until then, and it was unthinkable that violence could take out the President of the United States, especially a man of such promise. I had heard his brother, Robert, campaign for then-Senator Kennedy in 1960 at St. Louis University, but was too young to vote for him. I was always proud that the first Catholic president was so classy.

I didn't know, of course, of the dark side. What I have learned over the years of this complex character still cannot erase the promise of idealism that he presented to the world and to my generation. His brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, director of the Peace Corps, was our commencement speaker in St. Louis in 1962. It was the best of times. How could it all go so wrong?

We will never know what was taken from us: that is the tragedy that still gnaws at those who loved Kennedy, even if we had questions about his decisions and inexperience, his lies and affairs.

It seems from what I have read that he grew from a cold warrior to a peacemaker in the last year of his life. As James K. Galbraith of the Univ. of Texas writes in the NYTimes, JFK moved in Oct. 1963 to end the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, which, I am convinced, would not have been escalated if he had lived. His 1963 speech at American University, which led to the nuclear test ban treaty, his beginning work on civil rights, and his handling of the Cuban missile crisis showed the emergence of a real leader.

I don't understand his infidelities, his recklessness and selfishness except for the context of the constant pain he endured--without complaining. He had a lifelong sense, I think, that his health problems would not give him a full life. Much--too much--has been written about the Kennedy family and Greek tragedy. Much that followed his administration in the decades after his death has always seemed to me a downward spiral into more and more violence.

Suffice it to say that he was not shallow, as often perceived, but a serious student of history who mastered the art of language. And he was becoming a true leader who could have changed the history of the late 20th century. For those of us who loved him as the embodiment of our youthful ideals, he remains unique and forever young.

Pain, Suffering, and JFK

Reading Chris Matthews' recent book, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero, reveals (at least to me) some new facets of this president's complex character. Along with the glamor and charisma, the womanizing and idealism, and all the rest, there is the skinny, lonely kid who learned early on that he was not likely to live long. He also had to endure amazing coldness on the part of his ambitious family.

His favorite poem: "I Have a Rendzvous with Death." His family and friends are unanimous in saying, "he never complained"--even after multiple hospitalizations for pneumonia, stomach pain, severe back pain and surgeries, injections, Addison's disease, etc.

Instead of suffering, he chose humor, looking for people with whom he could share a laugh. And he turned to reading, creating an inner life based on the old heroic model of what Hemingway called grace under pressure. He was determined to live every minute as if it were his last, no matter what the doctors said, no matter how great the pain.

I suggested earlier that pain is inevitable; suffering is optional. The two terms are often used interchangeably, yet suffering, for me, is the mental anguish and worry that we tend to fall back on when faced with pain. There are times, and JFK is an example, of how we can choose not to suffer.

As I was reading this book, my wife, in another instance of the synchronicity that often occurs in my life, handed me a 2006 article by Margaret Roche Macey, who was then dealing with terminal cancer.

She begins with a reflection on watching late into the night for the moment when darkness comes and overtakes the light: to her surprise, it never actually came. Instead, "the darkness actually grew [since]...it had always been there just waiting for the light to leave..."

She then asks, Do we likewise always carry our death within us rather than wait to meet it in a hospital bed? From this question comes an insight that God (light) is within (inside the darkness), "at the center of all that you most fear."

JFK developed a strong will; Macey developed a deep sense of prayer leading to an insight that death, like darkness, is not an "other" experience--separate from us--but an inseparable part of life and thus not something to be feared.

Both Kennedy and Macey seemed to transcend pain and avoid suffering by turning inward to the Spirit. As I deal with my own (minor) back pain now, these experiences of courage and faith are of inestimable importance, as I know they are to many others.