Michael Davidow's Blog: The Henry Bell Project - Posts Tagged "hiram-johnson"
In Memoriam
“I was a Taft man, in fifty-two. A Goldwater man, in sixty-four. And a Reagan man, in sixty-eight. This year, we never had a chance. Party unity. Am I right, Henry? Just like Rockefeller always talked about.” “Did he? Rockefeller?” Bell’s head continued to throb, and his tongue felt like flannel. “You know what I mean, Henry.” “Sure. You’ve gone for losers, your whole life. But I work for a winner now, and I have no time for this.”
I usually shy away from calling SPLIT THIRTY an “historical novel.” I’m not sure about that genre. I was not so much trying to peg Manhattan in 1972 as to use that time and place to tell a story about the human condition.
One part of SPLIT THIRTY is purely historical, though, and I have actually been concerned that people might not get it. It concerns Bell’s identity as a liberal Republican. I fear people might think he was an outlier of sorts. But he wasn’t. Not much, at any rate.
Recall that the Democrats had the solid South to themselves for a century; if any southerner had issues with Jim Crow, that southerner (black or white) turned to the GOP. Also recall that our big city machines were Democratic to the marrow, coast to coast; if any urbanite had issues with corruption, that urbanite turned to the GOP, too. The cause of progressivism and “good government” tended to be a Republican cause. Its heroes were Theodore Roosevelt, Robert Lafayette, and Hiram Johnson. Republicans were not only liberals. They were good at it, too.
Politics being what it is, though, nothing runs pure. Fear of corruption too easily bled into fear of the immigrant; when America’s blacks moved north, the Republicans lost their edge in civil rights, too. The cranks of the west joined the haters of the east in such numbers that the party of Wendell Willkie eventually doubled as the party of Barry Goldwater (just as the Democrats claimed both Eleanor Roosevelt and Tailgunner Joe). And in fact, Bell’s convictions had already become the minority position in 1972. He knew that. He hated it. But he was never lonely. He always had friends.
Anyway, I mention this for Memorial Day (rather than touting Bell’s war record, which was something he himself, after all, never liked to talk about), because Memorial Day dates from the Civil War — and Bell is from Ohio, which takes its Republicanism from the source: tribal memories of U.S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and Little Phil Sheridan. Have a wonderful summer, all.
I usually shy away from calling SPLIT THIRTY an “historical novel.” I’m not sure about that genre. I was not so much trying to peg Manhattan in 1972 as to use that time and place to tell a story about the human condition.
One part of SPLIT THIRTY is purely historical, though, and I have actually been concerned that people might not get it. It concerns Bell’s identity as a liberal Republican. I fear people might think he was an outlier of sorts. But he wasn’t. Not much, at any rate.
Recall that the Democrats had the solid South to themselves for a century; if any southerner had issues with Jim Crow, that southerner (black or white) turned to the GOP. Also recall that our big city machines were Democratic to the marrow, coast to coast; if any urbanite had issues with corruption, that urbanite turned to the GOP, too. The cause of progressivism and “good government” tended to be a Republican cause. Its heroes were Theodore Roosevelt, Robert Lafayette, and Hiram Johnson. Republicans were not only liberals. They were good at it, too.
Politics being what it is, though, nothing runs pure. Fear of corruption too easily bled into fear of the immigrant; when America’s blacks moved north, the Republicans lost their edge in civil rights, too. The cranks of the west joined the haters of the east in such numbers that the party of Wendell Willkie eventually doubled as the party of Barry Goldwater (just as the Democrats claimed both Eleanor Roosevelt and Tailgunner Joe). And in fact, Bell’s convictions had already become the minority position in 1972. He knew that. He hated it. But he was never lonely. He always had friends.
Anyway, I mention this for Memorial Day (rather than touting Bell’s war record, which was something he himself, after all, never liked to talk about), because Memorial Day dates from the Civil War — and Bell is from Ohio, which takes its Republicanism from the source: tribal memories of U.S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and Little Phil Sheridan. Have a wonderful summer, all.
