I met an older gentleman during a
recent visit to Pennsylvania. He looked familiar, tall and bearded. A top hat
sat on the bench next to him and I imagined the hat probably accentuated his
height and bearing when he wore it.
I sat down at his invitation to take a
load off and we chatted some. He’d been a lawyer in his younger years, he said,
and then somehow, “Got involved with the government.” I’d held public office
once and, with that in common, our conversation turned to politics.
"I was a Republican," he said.
"So was I. Different party now."
"Yeah, for me, too. When I got voted into office,” the
old boy told me, “they called me a radical. Said I’d destroy the Union.”
I told him about getting appointed to
complete an unexpired term and about a letter to the editor appearing in the
newspaper calling me the least qualified candidate. My new friend slapped his
knee and said he’d been called the same thing.
“Thing is,” he told me, “politics is
an ugly business. You might get elected with a clear mandate from the voters,
but you’ll have a devil of a time accomplishing much because of all the
politicians. In my day, we had very few public servants and too many
politicians in government.”
Well, I said, that hadn’t changed much
since he was in office. He laughed and said somethings never change.
It turned out this guy knew something
about the Civil War and we chatted at great length about that terrible
conflict. The battle of Gettysburg, we agreed, did not decide the outcome of
the war but it did accomplish a number of things for the Union cause. The three
days of fighting bled the Confederate army some and the fighting marked the
last time the Confederates mounted a large-scale invasion of the northern
states.
“That was the problem with the
generals,” my pal said. “They talked about grand plans and sweeping strategies.
They wanted to capture cities and control space. What they needed to do was
attack the Confederate army. When Lee’s army finally surrendered at Appomattox,
it wasn’t because of all the cities and space controlled by the Federal armies.
Lee had to quit because his army had been shot to pieces and would only suffer
more if the fighting was prolonged. We might have gotten that done here in
Pennsylvania if Meade had been more aggressive.”
“But Lee wanted Meade to attack,” I blustered. “Lee wanted to fight a
defensive battle. Meade would have walked into a trap if he’d tried to follow
Lee.”
“Others have said that,” my bench mate
said with a nod. “But Lee was not forced to surrender until twenty-one months
later.”
“The other Confederate armies
eventually followed,” I said.
“Yes they did, but then we botched the
peace.”
I noted out loud that we have a
tendency to screw things up after wars end. World War One did not turn out to
be the war that ended wars, I said, it only served to start the second world
war. We still don’t have peace between the Koreas and I expressed doubt we’d
accomplish anything like lasting peace in the middle east.
My friend nodded and was quiet for a
time. Then he asked about my time in government, whether I’d been elected to
keep the seat I’d held.
“I didn’t stand for election,” I said.
“I didn’t enjoy the company I was keeping.”
My new friend slapped his knee again. “Well,”
he said at last, “I learned one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The secret to leadership is that some
of the people will hate you, no matter what you do. Some will always be on your
side. They key to being successful in public office is to concentrate on the
bunch in between.”
“That’s what Leo Durocher used to
say,” I said with a smile.
“I don’t know Leo.”
“He used to be a baseball manager,” I
explained.
“I remember baseball. I guess it is
pretty popular nowadays.”
I nodded and sat a while longer before
shaking hands with the older man. I stood up to leave. I had to pick up my
wife, I told him, we planned to have dinner and see a movie.
“If you’re going to the theater, take
a bodyguard with you,” he recommended.
I nodded and headed off.
