JFK in 1946: We can carry our tax burdens
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Speech in Boston by John F. Kennedy on June 14, 1946, when was running for Congress
At the outset tonight, I wish to extend my most sincere thanks to the hundreds of men and women from all walks of life who have taken an active interest in my efforts to give to the 11th Congressional District the representation in Washington which it deserves. The end of the long, hard road we have traveled together is now in sight. Let us be steadfast and untiring until our work is done.
To the thousands of voters from all parts of the district who have pledged their support of my candidacy, I say this. ..Rain or shine, we will fill the polling places and demonstrate once more that the people, and not the politicians, are the source of strength of our American democracy.
I have aspired to the office of your Congressman because I believe that my education, training, and experience in national and international affairs make me qualified to represent you. During the global war just past I tried to serve my country with all the strength and devotion to duty at my command. As your Congressmen, I shall try to serve you in the same way.
During recent broadcasts, I have made public my position on what I consider to be the vital issues of this campaign. I have endorsed the housing legislation enacted by the Congress. But Acts of Congress do not build houses. The letter, and the spirit of these laws, must be implemented by vigorous action to see that the huge productive capacity of American industry is geared to produce, without red tape and delay, modern, permanent and low cost housing for our people. Those who experienced the hardship and sacrifices of war at home and abroad are worthy of the best homes we can provide. This is vital for the normal development of family life, the keystone of our American way of life. Here in the 11th district we have skilled manpower in abundance. I intend to see that we get our fair share of the materials and equipment with which to work.
I have urged, and will support, the development of the Port of Boston so that it may return to its rightful place among the seaports of the world. Decaying docks are symptoms of disease within our economy. What is needed is dynamic leadership. I offer that dynamic leadership to you.
Hand in hand, with our seaport will go our airport as a key to our industrial future. The "Hub of the Air Universe" must be more than a slogan; it must become a reality. Our seaport and airport are the outlets through which the products of our industries reach the markets of the world. A busy, growing port means jobs for our men and women in mills, factories, and offices. A prosperous industrial economy means prosperity for our small businessmen and service establishments.
I intend to see that Massachusetts retains its place as a leading manufacturing center for our traditional products. I will join any efforts to encourage the location of new industries here. We have a backlog of skilled manpower second to none in the nation. We have the plant capacity and engineering know how. We have adequate capital. But dynamic leadership is needed to bring these elements together with new force and vitality. I offer that leadership.
I will oppose with all my strength any attempt to transfer by means of subsidy or otherwise, the industries of Massachusetts and New England to any other section of the country. I will fight to the bitter end any effort to give other sections advantages in rail and water transportation at the expense of Massachusetts and New England.
Having lived and fought with our veterans in war, I feel that I know and understand their problems in peace. The G.I. Bill of Rights has made the government a sponsor for veterans who desire additional education. But this legislation will be an empty gesture if the gates of our schools and colleges remain closed because of inadequate facilities. These men have had three, four, and five years carved out of their lives; they cannot wait any longer to make themselves ready for useful lives. Facilities are needed immediately, and in this the federal government can and should cooperate with the states. Employers must respond by expanding opportunities for on-the-job training so that those who need to develop skills in the trades will have the chance to acquire those skills.
For the veteran who requires hospitalization I have urged and will support legislation to improve and expand hospital facilities, and to obtain more doctors and nurses of finest professional caliber to staff them.
These steps will mean less time spent in waiting for admission to hospitals, and less time in actual treatment without lowering its quality in any way.
For the disabled veteran who is at a competitive disadvantage in our economy, I shall ask that the government meet its obligations in full. The processing of claims can be speeded up. The amount of compensation should be commensurate with the right of these men to live in comfort and dignity. The hospitalized and disabled veterans should be the primary concern of a grateful nation; they shall be my primary concern in Washington.
These undertakings, together with the normal operations of the Federal Government, will impose heavy tax burdens on the American people. But a prosperous America with growing production and a mounting national income can carry these burdens whether in the form of direct or hidden taxes. Unnecessary and wasteful expenditures in many departments of the government can be drastically reduced by careful scrutiny of appropriations. If waste can be cut down our national finances will be placed on a sound basis, and allow the government to carry forward its program to meet the great social needs of the nation.
With regard to our relationships with other nations, I have advocated the maintenance of a strong army and navy to insure the peace which we have won at so tragic a cost. As the most powerful nation on earth we must stand ready to assume the obligations which such a position entails. This means a willingness to cooperate with other nations and to compromise our differences; but it also means a readiness to oppose tyranny and oppression no matter under what form of government these evils choose to masquerade.
The United States is the hope of free people everywhere. Let us not offer them a leadership that is weak and indecisive, ever ready to abandon moral principles. Let us rather show them a strong and vigorous America, firm in its convictions and unyielding in its principles – an America which will lead the world to peace with justice.
My position on all of these issues has been made clear throughout this campaign, and I have restated it tonight. But programs and platforms have been offered before, only to be abandoned as political expediency should dictate. A politician's pledge is good until the polls are closed on Election Day.
The watchword of this campaign has been "The new generation offers a leader." The new generation refers not to age, but to a state of mind. It embraces all those who are ready to throw off the shackles of the old line politicians, and reaffirm their faith in American democracy. I ask for your confidence and support, so that together we may give the 11th district sound and progressive representation instead of political opportunism. With a deep sense of sincerity and humility I promise to serve, in the Congress of the United States, all the people of the district.
Source: David F. Powers Personal Papers, Box 28, "WCOP Radio Broadcast, MA, 14 June 1946." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
This is who I am
“Magic Hand (Blue)’’ (lithograph with nail decals), by Jha Moon, in her show “Magic Hands,’’ at the Nesto Gallery, at Milton Academy, Milton, Mass. through Feb. 21.
The gallery says:
“Jiha Moon’s gestural paintings, mixed media, ceramic sculpture and installation explore fluid identities and the global movement of people and their cultures.’’
Chris Powell: Would she run with giddy superficiality?
In downtown New Britain, Conn. The city was once an industrial dynamo.
MANCHESTER, Conn.
Outlining last week her potential candidacy for the Republican nomination for governor of Connecticut, New Britain's Republican mayor, Erin Stewart, said that while her likely Democratic opponent, Gov. Ned Lamont, is a nice guy, "he's not evoking excitement in anyone."
But hadn't Connecticut just had too much excitement from the first few days of the new administration of President Donald Trump? Who wants more?
Asked what she would do differently than Lamont, Stewart chirped, "Everything!" -- which was just evasion.
Stewart couldn't say much more for herself than that she had revived New Britain in her 11 years as mayor, as if the governor hadn't been a big help with that, and that Connecticut needs a "new generation of leadership," as if anyone cares much that she is 37 and the governor is 71.
Any Republican who can win six elections for mayor in a city as Democratic as New Britain must have at least congeniality going for her, but as Stewart introduced her potential candidacy she was giddy and superficial. Like any Republican running for governor in a state as Democratic as Connecticut, Stewart will have to give voters better reasons to replace the entrenched regime.
There are such reasons, but if, as expected, Lamont seeks a third term next year, his not being as exciting as Trump won't be one of them. Those reasons will have to involve policy and arise from insightful analysis that explodes the conventional wisdom that Connecticut is in great shape and offers compelling alternatives.
Since Connecticut's Republican Party has been reduced to a small minority in the General Assembly and lacks any statewide constitutional officers or members of Congress, maybe wishful thinking will persuade it that a bright, young personality is its best chance. After all, there is no one of much renown and ambition on the party's bench.
But whoever the Republican nominee is, giddy superficiality will wear thin fast, especially since news organizations won't give any Republican the fawning treatment they give Democrats.
SCAPEGOATING ISN'T FREE: New Haven's firing of four police officers involved in the case of an arrested man who became paralyzed during his transport to police headquarters in 2022 was politically correct. But it has started to cost the city money.
The officer who drove the van carrying the man has been reinstated by the state Board of Mediation and Arbitration, which determined that firing him was grossly excessive for his supposed offense. The officer continued to drive the van to police headquarters instead of waiting for an ambulance after the man complained he had been badly injured, his neck broken when the van stopped short to avoid a collision and he went flying off his seat. The van's passenger compartment had no seatbelts.
So the state board replaced the officer's firing with a 15-day unpaid suspension, and now he will receive a year and a half of back pay.
The state board has upheld the firing of an officer who was accused of treating the injured man callously at headquarters. The appeals of the two other fired officers continue.
It was a terrible incident and the city paid the man $45 million to settle his damage lawsuit, but the proximate cause of his injury wasn't any misconduct by officers but the city's longstanding failure to install seatbelts in prisoner vans. City government made scapegoats of the officers to satisfy public anger.
So now New Haven will pay for city government's negligence a second time.
PROFITABLE PUNISHMENT: An employee of the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services has been charged with creating fraudulent voter registration cards during a registration event in Torrington last September. She is accused of changing party affiliation entries on the cards from unaffiliated or Republican to Democratic.
Judging from recent state government employee disciplinary cases in the Public Defender Services Commission, the Administrative Services Department, and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, she could be in big trouble. That is, she may be facing a year or two of paid leave.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).
Clark University is launching a climate and environment school
Edited from a New England Council report:
“Clark University, in Worcester, has announced the establishment of the School of Climate, Environment, and Society. A $10 million donation from philanthropist and former Clark trustee Vickie Riccardo and her daughters, Jocelyn and Alyssa Spencer, let the school to hire a new dean, Lou Leonard, and begin to launch its initial research programs.
“Opening in fall 2025 on its Worcester campus, the new school aims to help undergraduate and graduate students advance in such disciplines as political science, earth science and sustainable and climate-resilient development, preparing them for careers in tackling the climate crisis.
“‘If we can unleash the energy and the talent of higher education to get after these global challenges, it would probably make as big a difference as anything else that we could do, because we’ve got all this talent that’s insufficiently mobilized at a time when, literally, the world is burning, and we all need to be at the table,’ said Leonard.’’
Llewellyn King: Deconstructing Trumpian myths about the federal bureaucracy
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
The trouble with governing from myth rather than fact is that you break that which isn’t broken and end up with the very opposite of what you set out to achieve.
The personnel decisions of the Trump administration are driven by the myth — repeated throughout the campaign and earlier in conservative circles — that the bureaucracy is an extra branch of government, powerful, left-leaning and determined to impede change.
Presidents, including political opposites Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, have run against Washington, and then grew the government. It is easy to say that the employees of the government are the problem; that fits with the myth.
The government workforce has no lobby, and its unions are limited in their power by law. They are subject to castigation by myth and have to take it in silence.
The myths about the bureaucracy are just that, myths. But they stifle good government. If you are told long enough that you are the problem, you might be tempted to act that out.
The government may well need trimming. It does appear to be overstaffed, but it is something that needs a scalpel, not a saw.
The Trump administration’s invitation to federal employees to accept a buyout or face uncertainty will be counterproductive.
Anyone who is familiar with the idea of reducing the workforce with buyouts knows what happens: The best and ablest leave because they can prosper elsewhere; the dross remains.
It won’t so much reduce the federal payroll by tens of thousands of workers as it will scour out its talent. Brains out, time servers in.
I am told by people in the government, work has already come to a standstill as demoralized workers debate their options. The government just got less efficient, its productivity went down.
This assault followed another de facto attack on the most productive in government: the one-size-fits-all return-to-office order. By and large, it might be better if more employees worked in their offices, but not all.
Again, there is a talent factor.
Devoted scientists and engineers — and the government employs tens of thousands of them in places like the national laboratories, NASA, NIH, USDA, NSA and throughout the civilian-military.
In the age of computers and artificial intelligence, these knowledge workers are the aristocrats. Many are more productive at home and have built their lives in recent years working there two or more days a week.
The return-to-office order is disruptive and counterproductive. The workplace has changed, and we have changed. We have technologies we didn’t have even five years ago.
The challenge has to be to find new ways of managing remote work, not banishing it.
The trouble with the administration’s return-to-office order is that one size doesn’t fit all. There are seldom simple solutions to complex problems unless a solution is embraced that is more radical than useful. You can cure tooth decay by pulling out all the teeth and fitting false ones, but that is hardly a solution.
Any officer knows that the troops he has are the troops who will save his life or otherwise. They are a general issue, but they are the fighters he or she has at their back. So, too, with the federal workforce.
A Cabinet secretary once told me during an interview that his staff was the “lame, the blind and the halt.” When I got back to the office before writing a line, his office called to implore me not to use the quote.
Criticizing staff is a poor way to get the best out of them: It is leadership in reverse.
Day in and day out, a country is run by its civil service; it is the outfit that delivers or falls down. It isn’t a deep state, a malevolent, secret organization, cherishing power, out to humiliate its political masters. It is also not a monolithic whole, organized and equipped with motives of its own.
It is a large, sometimes efficient — and often less so — organization of individuals: the silent backbone of any country.
On Twitter: @llewellynking2
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. He based in Rhode Island.
John Long: Trans-Atlantic travelers
Northern Lapwing
— Photo by Andreas Trepte
Just down the road from the cedar-shingled Conanicut Friends Meetinghouse (1786), at the junction of North Road and Weeden Lane, in Jamestown, R.I., and over Windmist Farm’s lichen-covered stone wall on the north side of a furrowed field, we spot an amazing visitor: a Northern Lapwing, Vanellus vanellus, in his elegant attire, including a backward-slanted wispy crest, and a cape, as if he were planning to attend an opera.
Normally Lapwings live in northern Europe, but my friend Steve spots this one near the eastern end of a Windmist’s field. Kildeer are also feeding near our visitor, who is near the middle of a tawny, furrowed field. The Newport-Pell Bridge’s towers rise in the distance. Cornell Ornithology Lab tells us that Lapwings’ feathers are iridescent in strong light, but Steve and I are too far away to glimpse those stunning details.
How does a Northern Lapwing fly thousands of miles across the Atlantic, seemingly without resting, and finally land on an island in the middle of Narragansett Bay? Did a northeast storm blow it off course?
Could Northern Lapwings hitch rides on oil and gas tankers or offshore cable-laying vessels that cross the Atlantic from northern Europe to Narragansett Bay?
My friend Capt. Howard McVay, a retired Narragansett Bay ship pilot, tells me:
“Ospreys frequently land on the up-wind side of the incoming vessel’s bridge wing in search of fish. I have seen them many times. They have landed within 15 feet of me on occasion. Once they spot their prey, they are off.’’
It’s a lovely winter afternoon, the wind has died down from the preceding day’s gale, and sky is Delft-blue without clouds. Normally we would notice the farm’s aroma—a musty scent of soil and hay--except for today’s biting cold.
Other bird watchers had parked along Weeden Lane before Steve and I arrived. They kindly allowed us to view through their scopes. A half dozen men were wearing winter coats, gloves and hats pulled down while focusing various spotting scopes mounted on tripods. One birder said that he’d driven all the way from Windsor Locks, Conn., (97 miles one way) that morning.
Are Northern Lapwings circumpolar visitors briefly resting along the way, making looping flights from such touchstones as Iceland, Greenland, Labrador and finally arriving at Jamestown? How can Northern Lapwings navigate such long distances?
Is Jamestown an ancient, perfect sojourn destination—their meetinghouse on acres of pristine pastures, maple-tree-lined stone walls, combination stone-and-weathered-shingled barns rimmed by the farm’s sloping pastures and ending in a saltwater marsh at Marsh Meadows Wildlife Preserve, which is a haven for migrating waterfowl? Hit this link.
John Long is a Warwick, R.I.-based writer.
‘Motion and stillness’
From Ira Garber’s show ‘‘Kinetic Landscapes,’’ at Panopticon Gallery, Boston, Feb. 13-April 28.
The Providence-based photographer explains:
‘‘‘Kinetic Landscapes’ is based on expanding earlier single-image panoramic photographs. In the motion images, I am mesmerized by that split second of reversing direction: when it goes right, of that second of becoming weightless. The landscape series holds similar meaning for me but with a focus on stillness. The overlapping component of these images is from modifying the camera back to allow for a continuous and overlapping image across the entire roll. There was no way to know what the assembled roll would look like until processed. It unfolds by chance, in a way similar to the chance taken by those in the photo. Motion and stillness is the way I am working, and at the same time, it is what I am looking to describe.”
New England in a previous trade war….
From generative AI
“The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 significantly harmed the New England economy by drastically reducing exports, particularly in the textile industry, as other countries retaliated with their own tariffs, leading to a decline in international trade and further exacerbating the Great Depression in the region; this resulted in job losses, factory closures, and depressed wages in key New England manufacturing sectors.
Key points about the Smoot-Hawley impact on New England:
Textile industry hit hard:
New England was a major center for textile production, and with increased tariffs on imported goods, foreign markets retaliated by reducing their purchases of New England textiles, causing significant economic hardship in the region.
Reduced export markets:
The tariff act led to a sharp decline in U.S. exports overall, as other countries imposed retaliatory tariffs, which directly affected New England businesses heavily reliant on international trade.
Job losses and factory closures:
Due to reduced demand for exported goods, many textile factories in New England were forced to scale back production or shut down, resulting in widespread job losses.
Wage depression:
With high unemployment in the region, wages for textile workers in New England also fell, further impacting the local economy.”
Character-building
Photo by Eugene Crist
“There has been more talk about the weather around here this year than common, but there has been more weather to talk about. For about a month now we have had solid cold—firm, business-like cold that stalked in and took charge of the countryside as a brisk housewife might take charge of someone else’s kitchen in an emergency. Clean, hard, purposeful cold, unyielding and unremitting. Some days have been clear and cold, others have been stormy and cold. We have had cold with snow and cold without snow, windy cold and quiet cold, rough cold and indulgent peace-loving cold. But always cold.’’
From “Cold Weather,” by E.B. White (1899-1985), of Brooklin, Maine, from his series “One Man’s Meat,’’ in Harper’s Magazine in 1944.
Support Art
From left, Élan Cadiz, “SCAFFOLD Equity of Treatment” (pen, pencil, acrylic, and flash paint on Shizen paper). Right, Rosalind Daniels, “Construction Reflected” (quilted fiber), in the show “Scaffolding, a AVA Gallery and Art Center, Lebanon,N.H., through March 1.
The gallery explains: “This unique group exhibition features a variety of artwork installed throughout all three levels of AVA’s beautiful historic textile mill building. The exhibition is themed around the term ‘scaffold’ or ‘scaffolding,’ suggesting lifting or providing support.’’
Cold clay
“Winter Landscape,” by Steve Branfman, is his show “Fifty Years Above the Wheel,’’ Feb. 16-May 4, in Duxbury, Mass. at the Art Complex Museum.
Naomi Cahn/Leah A. Plunkett: States trying to limit teens’ exposure to social media
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.
Children should be seen and not heard, or so the old saying goes. A new version of this adage is now playing out across the United States, as more states are passing laws about how children and teens should use social media.
In 2024, approximately half of all U.S. states passed at least 50 bills that make it harder for children and teens to spend time online without any supervision.
Some of the new laws in places such as Maryland, Florida, Georgia and Minnesota include provisions that require parental consent before a child or teenager under the age of 18 can use a social media app, for example. Other new laws prevent targeted marketing to teens based on the personal information they share online. Others recognize child influencers who have active social media followings as workers.
In 1998, long before the age of Instagram or TikTok, the federal government set a minimal baseline for internet safety for children under the age of 13 with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. This law, known as COPPA, prevents websites from sharing children’s personal information, among other measures.
As law professors who study children’s online lives and the law, we are tracking state governments that are providing new protections to children when they use social media.
So far, almost all of these new protections are happening at the state level – it remains to be seen how the Trump administration will, if at all, weigh in on how children and teens are spending time on social media.
Almost half of teens ages 13 to 17 said in 2024 they are “almost constantly” online and virtually all of them use the internet every day.
And approximately 40% of children ages 8 to 12 use social media on a daily basis.
Research shows that adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media have an increased risk of anxiety and depression.
Almost half of teens have faced online bullying or harassment, with older teen girls most likely to have experienced this. Social media use has been linked to self-harm in some cases.
In 2023, 41 states and the District of Columbia sued Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, claiming that it was harming children. Although Meta tried to have the case dismissed, it is still moving forward.
States including New York and California have made a number of legal changes since 2023 that make it safer for adolescents to spend time online.
California, for example, has expanded information protection for young social media users by limiting apps from collecting kids’ and teens’ geolocation data.
Utah and Florida have raised the age for social media use. Children under the age of 14 cannot open their own social media account, and the platforms are supposed to shut down any such accounts used by children in those states.
In 2024, the Utah Legislature determined that social media was similar to regulated “products and activities” like cars and medication that create risks for minors.
Utah’s new law requires social media platforms to verify a user’s age, such as by requiring a photo ID.
A 2024 Tennessee law allows minors to open their own accounts but requires that social media companies ensure that anyone under the age of 18 has parental consent to do so.
Some states, including Texas and Florida, are trying to create a different experience for minors once they have an account on a social media platform. They are blocking apps from sending targeted advertisements to minors or, in states such as New York, curating social media feeds based on an algorithm instead of based on the minors’ own choices.
A growing number of states have also focused on creating more protections for children influencers and vloggers, who regularly post short videos and images on social media and often have other young people following their content. So far, California, Illinois and Minnesota have passed child digital entertainer laws since 2023.
All of these laws set up financial protections for child influencers. Illinois’ law requires child influencers to receive a portion of the profits they make from their content. Minnesota’s law includes privacy protections: forbidding children under the age of 14 from working as influencers and giving them the right to later delete content, even when their parents have created the post or video.
These laws face different legal challenges. For example, some private industry groups claim these laws restrict free speech or the rights of parents. The U.S. Supreme Court is now considering – for the first time since 1997 – the constitutionality of age restrictions for social media usage.
States across the political spectrum, as well as social media companies themselves, are creating more protections for kids whose online activity might suggest that federal law reform will finally happen.
Members of a dance group in Times Square on Jan. 14, 2025, record videos to be used for social media. Adam Gray/Getty Images
Federal action on social media
Congress has considered new online privacy legislation for children in the past 25 years, including banning targeted ads. But nothing has been enacted.
There is no clear indication that the Trump administration will make any substantial changes in existing law on children and internet privacy. While federal agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission, could take the lead on protecting children online, there has been little public discussion of issues involving children and media access.
Trump’s choice for surgeon general, Janette Nesheiwat, said in 2024, “Social media has had a tremendous negative impact on all aspects of society, especially our younger generations.” It’s unclear how widely this view is shared within the new administration.
On other social media issues, such as the future of TikTok, Trump’s nominees and advisers have been divided. Particularly in an administration in which “the president owns a social media company, and one of his main associates owns another,” the future scope of federal action to protect children online is uncertain. This is likely to prompt states to advance laws that create more protections for children on social media.
Even though social media platforms have national and global reach, we believe that state-by-state leadership might be the best way to make laws in which the needs and rights of children and their families are seen, heard and protected.
Naomi Cahn is a professor of law at the University of Virginia. Leah A. Plunkett is a professor of law and associate dean of learning experience at Harvard University.
William Morgan: A watercolor thank you from New England
Painting by Dorothy Worden.
Posted on Jan. 31, 2025 in New England Diary (newenglanddiary.com)
English watercolor artist Dorothy Worden does not have much of an art historical presence – an Internet search turns up only that she was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1868, and she likely met her husband, the painter William E. Osborn, when they were both members of the vibrant early 20th-Century art colony at St Ives, in Cornwall. This Worden watercolor turned up for sale at the Acushnet River Antiques Mall, in New Bedford, priced at $45.
Given the sparseness of details of Worden’s life, we know nothing of any trips that she might have made to the United States. This scene, nevertheless, is indubitably rural New England, a village in the Berkshires or Vermont. And the watercolor is an unusual but clearly a very heartfelt note of gratitude. “Great Blessings … I am well, Thanks to you, and hope for an exhibition this coming year.”
Who was the Dr. Constantine, the dedicatee of the pastoral picture? The tone suggests that he was more than an emergency room doctor, maybe a psychiatrist, perhaps at one of the private clinics tucked in the hills of western New England, such as the Austin Riggs Center, in Stockbridge, Mass.
Painted, one would guess, in the 1920s or ‘30s, where has this picture been for almost a century? Did the healing doctor treasure this expression of thanks? It survived somehow, and made it to the seemingly inevitable estate sale, and then to the antiques mall. And now it has been purchased (I did not buy it), maybe to be framed and revered, a mild sort of adoration for a forgotten English painter. Or not.
A chronicler of things architectural in New England, William Morgan is the author of Monadnock Summer: the Architectural Legacy of Dublin, New Hampshire, and The Cape Cod Cottage, which will be published in March. He’s also the author of Academia: Collegiate Gothic Architecture in the United States, which includes major examples of the style in New England.
‘Have you no sense of decency?’
Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, later to be the Trump family’s much feared chief lawyer and fixer.
Joseph N. Welch, partner at the Boston law firm of Hale & Dorr and Joseph McCarthy nemesis.
From the U.S. Senate Web site
June 9, 1954
Wisconsin Republican senator Joseph R. McCarthy rocketed to public attention in 1950 with his allegations that hundreds of Communists had infiltrated the State Department and other federal agencies. These charges struck a particularly responsive note at a time of deepening national anxiety about the spread of world communism.
McCarthy relentlessly continued his anticommunist campaign into 1953, when he gained a new platform as chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He quickly put his imprint on that subcommittee, shifting its focus from investigating fraud and waste in the executive branch to hunting for Communists. He conducted scores of hearings, calling hundreds of witnesses in both public and closed sessions.
A dispute over his hiring of staff without consulting other committee members prompted the panel's three Democrats to resign in mid-1953. Republican senators also stopped attending, in part because so many of the hearings were called on short notice or held away from the nation's capital. As a result, McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn (later to be the Trump family’s chief lawyer and fixer and renown for his ruthlessness, corruption and hypocrisy) largely ran the show by themselves, relentlessly grilling and insulting witnesses. Harvard law dean Ervin Griswold described McCarthy's role as "judge, jury, prosecutor, castigator, and press agent, all in one."
In the spring of 1954, McCarthy picked a fight with the U.S. Army, charging lax security at a top-secret army facility. The army responded that the senator had sought preferential treatment for a recently drafted subcommittee aide. Amidst this controversy, McCarthy temporarily stepped down as chairman for the duration of the three-month nationally televised spectacle known to history as the Army-McCarthy hearings.
The army hired Boston lawyer Joseph Welch to make its case. At a session on June 9, 1954, McCarthy charged that one of Welch's attorneys had ties to a Communist organization. As an amazed television audience looked on, Welch responded with the immortal lines that ultimately ended McCarthy's career: "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness." When McCarthy tried to continue his attack, Welch angrily interrupted, "Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"
Overnight, McCarthy's immense national popularity evaporated. Censured by his Senate colleagues, ostracized by his party, and ignored by the press, McCarthy died three years later, 48 years old and a broken man.
For more information: U.S. Congress. Senate. Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations (McCarthy Hearings 1953-54), edited by Donald A. Ritchie and Elizabeth Bolling. Washington: GPO, 2003. S. Prt. 107-84. Available online.
On second thought, to hell with the whales
The ferry Nantucket at Oak Bluffs, on Martha’s Vineyard.
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s "Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
In its last days, the Biden administration decided to block new rules that would have forced some ferries to Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and Provincetown to be slowed to 11.5 miles an hour at certain times of the year to protect North Atlantic Right Whales, of which there are fewer than 400 left. Humans are driving them toward extinction, mostly via hitting them with boats and entangling them in fishing lines. It’s unknown how their extinction would affect the ecosystems of the waters off the New England coast.
Many rich people, from around America and beyond, like to go to Nantucket and The Vineyard, where they have hyper-expensive houses. Indeed, in the last half-century, the very rich have taken over much of the islands, which has made them unaffordable for many of the natives. The Vineyard is well known as a summer place for well-heeled Democrats, such as the Obamas. Joe Biden, for his part, has favored Nantucket, as do many Republican plutocrats.
Downhill skating
“Tamarack at Stratton” (oil on linen), by Jocelyn Sandor Urban, at Vermont Artisan Designs, Brattleboro.
Boston’s downtown plan gets some boos
Boston’s “Brutalist” City Hall.
From The Boston Guardian (New England Diary’s editor, Robert Whitcomb, is chairman of The Boston Guardian.)
By Jules Roscoe
BOSTON
The city’s new Downtown zoning plan has yet another draft, this time with a new district along Washington Street that will allow buildings of up to 500 feet tall, and Downtown residents are not happy.
At a recent virtual public meeting, they berated Boston Planning Department (BPD) officials over the new PLAN: Downtown proposal, which they said all but scrapped six years of work by a city selected community and expert advisory board.
“When we were talking about PLAN:
Downtown, and we’ve been talking about it for six years, we were talking about 155 feet,” Martha McNamara, a preservationist who served on the advisory board, said in the meeting.
“What we now have is a strip of 500 feet that runs through the center of this historic and vibrant neighborhood. What this amendment tells me is that you have wasted my time.”
PLAN: Downtown originated in 2018 as a way to revitalize a neighborhood that had not been zoned since 1989. The new plan was intended to simplify the area to make it easier for developers, while preserving important historic landmarks and creating an inviting mixed-use district for residents.
Under the latest iteration of the zoning plan, released by Mayor Michelle Wu’s office on January 8, Downtown will have a new “SKY-R” district, which encompasses Washington and Stewart Streets. In this district, buildings are limited to a height of 155 feet, unless over 60 percent of building use is residential, in which case the maximum height is 500 feet. Housing was the Planning Department’s biggest selling point in the meeting.
“Key corridors like Washington Street can really support critical housing growth for the city,” senior planner Andrew Nahmias said in the meeting. “Overall, this [zone] is meant to reinforce the spine of Washington Street, while recognizing the sensitivity of some of the historic fabric there.”
Residents have until February 4 to comment on the draft. In the virtual meeting on January 15, however, they came out in full force. Attendance in the Zoom meeting hovered around 230 people, and the meeting lasted a full two hours. The most common concern was timing.
“With all due respect, this plan was dropped in our laps less than a week ago,” said Ryan St Marie, the manager of a luxury residential building that would be in the new SKY-R district. “This short time period is a slap in the face. I guarantee there would be 500 people on this call if you gave us proper notice. The fact that you’re giving us three weeks to respond, not appropriate.”
The other overwhelming concern among residents was that the new draft looked nothing like the previous iteration of the plan, issued last April. Rishi Shukla, the head of the Downtown Boston Residents’ Association who served on the advisory board, said that the previous plan had supported about 80 percent of what the board had suggested, but that the new plan looked nothing like it.
“The increase of height along the entirety of Washington Street was literally never contemplated because it was such a ridiculous notion, even back then,” Shukla said in a phone call. “The idea that we’re talking about that now as a solution is just. It’s a head scratcher.”
Kairos Shen, the head of the BPD since September, said he thought the current draft was a good compromise between the competing needs of developers and residents. Shen ran the planning department before the Walsh administration and was responsible for developing much of the Seaport.
“There’s been a lot of concern about some of the changes, and whether you will have enough time to actually review them,” Shen said at the end of the meeting. “So I’ve registered them. I think me being here tonight is representative of how serious we are taking the issues that have been raised.”
Two days after the meeting, the Planning Department announced it would hold another “office hours” meeting the next Wednesday for residents to voice more concerns.
“Within City Hall, my understanding from sources is this set off a bit of a firestorm internally,” Shukla said in a phone call. “Nobody was expecting the participation that they saw.”
God knows, most of us need it in these crazy times
“A Break from the Madness” (oil), by Kate Huntington in a group show opening Feb. 8, at Sitka Gallery, Newport, R.I.
Touro Synagogue, built in 1763. It’s the oldest existing synagogue in the United States.
Photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel
Llewellyn King: The struggle to save the printed word
Reading the July 21, 1969 Washington Post, before its coverage of the Watergate scandal made it very famous around the world.
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
The printed word is to be treasured.
Two decades ago, I would have written newspapers are to be treasured. But the morning newspaper of old — manufactured in a factory in the middle of the night, shoved onto a truck and trusted to a child for delivery — is largely over. It follows the demise of its predecessor, the afternoon newspaper. These fell to competition from television in the 1960s and 1970s.
The word nowadays is largely carried digitally, even though it might have the imprimatur of a print publication. All the really big names in print now have more virtual readers than traditional ones. These readers may never have the tactile enjoyment, the feel of “the paper” they read, but they read. Increasingly, I am one of those.
I plow through The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. I dip into The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times.
I also read — and this is an interesting development — a number of magazines that are de facto dailies. These include The Economist, The New Yorker and The Spectator.
The Economist is the only publication to which I have a digital and a paper subscription.
Much as I have loved newspapers down through the years, I am resigned to the fact there will be fewer going forward, and a generation of young people will find them more a curiosity than anything else.
But the importance of the written word hasn’t diminished. I make the point about the written word — and I distinguish it purposely from the broadcast word — because it has staying power.
I have spent my entire career working on newspapers and making television programs. It is words that are written on paper or online that last, that are referenced down through time.
Overnight television has an impact, but it fades quickly; the advertising industry has scads of data on this. The printed word — using that term to embrace words on paper and online — has staying power.
People often remind me of something I wrote decades ago. Few remember something I said on television years ago. Or months ago. But people remember your face.
My regard for the printed word brings me to The Washington Post, where the news staff is aligned against the owner, Jeff Bezos.
There are two issues here.
The staff feels that Bezos has sold them out to President Donald Trump and the forces of MAGA.
Bezos bought the paper without any interest in being a newspaperman, in enjoying the pleasures and pain of news ownership. He didn’t understand that you don’t own a newspaper like you own a yacht.
A newspaper is a live, active, rambunctious and roiling thing. You have to enjoy the fray to own one. Hearst did, Pulitzer did, Murdoch did. You don’t retail words the way Amazon sells pizza crusts.
Not only must the newspaper proprietor deal with the news and its inherent controversies, but he or she also must deal with journalists, a breed apart, disinclined to any discipline besides deadlines. By nature and practice, they are opponents of authority.
The Post has been mostly untouched by Bezos, except for his decision to spike an editorial endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential race. The staff took it hard.
Bezos was undeterred and took what had become the billionaire’s pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to become, to staff fears, Trump’s liegeman, or at least to reassure Trump. Then Bezos got a seat at the inaugural.
Readers of The Post also took it hard and unsubscribed en masse. Thirty percent of those were among the critical digital subscriber ranks, indicating how political its readership is and just how difficult it is for the paper to please all the constituencies it must serve.
I was an assistant editor at The Post in the glory days of editor Ben Bradlee and the ownership of the pressure-resistant Graham family, under matriarch Katherine Graham. When I was at the paper, I was president of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. The Guild negotiated what turned out to be the largest wage increase for journalists in any Guild contract. As I remember, it was 67 percent over three years.
Even so, the membership complained. The Post editors and writers are good at complaining with a high sense of self-regard. Len Downie, who was to rise to the executive editorship of the paper, declared, “King has sold us out.”
It was a contract that benefitted both the management of The Post and journalism in general.
It was a loud reminder of how poorly journalists are compensated and how this affects the flow of talent into the trade.
The driving force behind the contract from the union side was its professional head, the remarkably gifted Brian Flores and the equally gifted Guild chairman at The Post, John Reistrup.
Under Bezos, The Post first looked as though it would become a great force in the digital world, while the printed paper survived unspectacularly. Bezos clearly saw the digital potential.
But things unraveled and The Post started losing money. It lost $100 million last year.
It is still a good and maybe a great paper. But it needs to get its sense of mission back. That sense of mission can’t be at war with its owner.
The Post clearly would benefit from a new owner, but who has pockets deep enough and skin thick enough? It is a question Bezos and the querulous staff both need to ask themselves as the fate of the paper is uncertain.
On Twitter: @llewellynking2
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. He’s based in Rhode Island.
White House Chronicle
