I am hopeful that this Presidential challenge may alleviate this sense of political helplessness and restore to many people a belief in the processes of American politics and of American government : Sen Eugene McCarthy comments on his presidential run against Lyndon Johnson in 1968.
Eugene McCarthy's quotes and poetry tell you much more about this quiet but deeply principled patriot ( who supported National Health Insurance in 1948, who was the only member of Congress willing to publicly debate Joseph McCarthy in 1954, who opposed the Vietnam war in 1968 and inspired RFK to run for president and who went to court against our flawed and corrupt elections system in 1975 ) than any biography could offer ~ and his last poetic shot from his brittled bow was the truest.
Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.
It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things that people might remember.
The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.
HERE'S ONE OF HIS POEMS he recited on his 80th birthday;
THE PUBLIC MAN
He walks even in daylight with his arms outstretched.
Fishlike, he shies at shadows,
his own following him, nose to the ground,
like a blind bloodhound.
Grey mists float through the cavities of his skull,
he feeds the sterile steer, and cows of no desire,
on the mast of bitter grapes.
He shades his eyes against fireflies;
and his own life, which once burned bright,
is now yellow tallow.
His words rise like water twice used from the cistern pumps,
and then go out, in a wavery line, like beagles in search of rabbits.
Like a gull crying with a tired voice, he looks back often into the fog.
Each night he holds his stone head between his hands
while his elbows sink into the tabletop.
Sam Smith, The Progressive Review , writes " THE LAST TIME I saw Gene he was observing his 89th birthday in his apartment with the help of a lobster sent over by the Palm Restaurant. Gene was not able to move or talk much and when he did speak it was almost inaudible. But I listened anyway, fascinated that, even at this sad final stage, the words - though barely comprehensible - still seemed poetic. It was as though he was working on his last verse.... BUT HE HAD already written it:
Now it is certain that there is no magic stone
there is no secret to be found.
One must go with the mind's winnowed learning,
no more than the child's handhold on a willow leaning over the lake
or on a sumac root at the edge of the bluff.
All ignorance is checked, all betrayals scratched.
The coat is hung on the peg, the cigar laid on beveled table's edge,
the cue chosen and chalked, the balls racked for the final break;
all cards have been drawn, all bets called,
the dice warm as blood in the palm shaken for the final cast;
the glove has been thrown on the ground, the last choice of weapons made,
a book for one poem, the poem for a line, a line for a word.
"Broken things are powerful," said Yeats, but things about to break are stronger still.
The last shot from the brittle bow is the truest.
