Courage for Our Times
by Caroline Kennedy
During
the debate on the Patients' Bill of Rights, I took my daughter, Rose, to see her
Great Uncle Teddy at work in the United States Senate. When we arrived, he was
speaking on the floor, so we waited in the colorful hallway outside the Senate
Chamber. We spotted a few senators talking quietly with their staff members.
Around a corner, throngs of visitors shuffled past as pages and interns ran for
the elevators, and lobbyists waited by the marble busts -- a typical morning in
the Capitol.
Thrilled to see us when he emerged from the chamber, Teddy led us up stairs,
around corners, into side chambers in search of his colleagues and friends. We
seemed to be at the end of our tour when he grabbed Rose's arm and said,
"You haven't seen the Senate Reception Room." Off we went again,
loping to keep up, until we turned a corner and stopped. I looked up at the
ceiling and saw portraits of legendary nineteenth-century senators, Daniel
Webster, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun -- men who had followed their conscience in
pursuit of the national interest -- as I listened to Teddy tell the story of how
my father had gotten the idea for his Pulitzer prize-winning book, Profiles
in Courage.
My father's own political career, that of his brother
Bobby, and now for so many years the work Teddy has done, inspired a generation
of Americans to believe in the power of government and to share the conviction
that politics can truly be a noble profession. As I stood in that room, I felt a
continuity of spirit reaching across time and into the future as I looked at
Teddy and Rose.
In Profiles in Courage, my father told the stories of eight senators
who acted on principle and in the national interest, even though it put their
own political careers at risk. One was Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, the
greatest orator of his time, who voted for the Compromise of 1850, which
prevented the South from seceding and preserved the Union for an additional, and
critical, ten years. His vote placed him at odds with his constituents and his
party, and it cost him a chance to be president.
Another was Thomas Hart Benton,
the fiery Missouri senator who fought to keep slavery from expanding West
despite representing a slaveholding constituency that ultimately dismissed him
from office after thirty years of statesmanship.
Perhaps the most dramatic story
is that of Edmund G. Ross, newly elected from Kansas, who followed his
conscience, rather than the wishes of his party, and cast the deciding vote
against the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, knowing it would cost him
his career. "I ... looked down into my open grave," Ross later wrote
of the moments before he cast his vote. Neither Ross nor the seven other
Republican senators who voted with him were ever returned to the Senate.
Each of these men displayed a rare form of courage, sacrificing their own
future, and that of their families, to do what they believed was right for our
country. Their example comes down to us across the years, their stories are part
of our history, and their spirit lives on. The John F. Kennedy Profile in
Courage Award is presented annually to an elected official who carries on this
tradition. When we created the award in 1990, some doubted we would be able to
find politicians worthy of the honor. They were wrong. This book (Profiles
in Courage for our Time) tells the stories of men and women at all
levels of government, in all parts of our country, across the political
spectrum, who have all stood fast for the ideals of America.
The courage celebrated here comes in many forms. It is the courage to
compromise, as well as the courage to stand alone, the courage to cross party
lines and build consensus, as well as the courage to stay the course. Sometimes
one single selfless act sums up a career. At other times, a politician must
follow the law, or his conscience, over a course of time, hoping that ultimately
his courage will be recognized when passions have cooled.
At first, and then again last year, we sought to honor politicians like those
in the original book, whose singular acts of courage in protecting the national
interest put their own career at risk. When President Gerald R. Ford pardoned
former President Richard Nixon, barely one month after taking office at the
height of the Watergate scandal, he was almost universally condemned. Yet that
act of conscience in the national interest, though it may have cost Ford the
presidency, has stood the test of time.
Many of the stories in my father's book revolved around the crisis of slavery
that tore our country apart in the nineteenth century. The modern struggle for
civil rights has produced counterparts of equal bravery. There are men like
Congressman Carl Elliott from Alabama and Congressman Charles Weltner of
Georgia. Elliott fought for equal opportunity in education and was redistricted
out of his congressional seat in retaliation for his principled stand. Weltner
took an oath to support his party ticket until segregationist Lester Maddox
became the candidate for governor, whereupon Weltner followed his conscience and
resigned his seat, rather than violate his oath or his belief that segregation
was wrong.
The Committee revisited the civil rights movement in 2001 on the fortieth
anniversary of the Freedom Rides, when we presented Congressman John Lewis with
a Lifetime Achievement Profile in Courage Award. In spite of brutal beatings and
more than forty arrests, Lewis has never wavered in his commitment to civil
rights, human rights, nonviolence, and securing for all Americans perhaps the
most fundamental right in a democracy: the right to vote.
Local battles are often among the most intense political fights, for public
servants are placed in conflict with friends, neighbors, and colleagues with
whom they share a lifetime of experience. Often too, their family's security is
at risk. Rage, anger, and hostility can be directed not only at public
officials, but also at those they love.
Inspiring courage was demonstrated by
Judge Charles Price when he ruled against another judge's defiantly
unconstitutional courtroom display of the Ten Commandments. The Award was also given
to County Attorney Nickolas Murnion, who stood alone for the rule of law against
the irrational and heavily armed Freemen, and to School Superintendent Corkin
Cherubini, who took on an entrenched system of race-based tracking in the
schools of Calhoun County, Georgia.
Other awards recognize that new forms of courage are required to meet the
challenges of our changing political landscape. In modern times, regional
interests often become subsumed by special interests. Some of today's most
difficult conflicts revolve around those who would bend the system to serve
their own ends. The politicians who take them on do so at grave risk. These
battles may require the courage to battle party leadership rather than local
constituents, yet the fight is just as fierce and the stakes are just as high.
Congressmen Mike Synar and Henry B. Gonzalez, Governor Jim Florio, and Senators
John McCain and Russell Feingold were willing to risk their careers to preserve
the integrity of our system.
New groups of Americans -- women, African Americans, Latinos -- have entered the
political system, embracing a different kind of courage: the courage to
compromise. Those entering the political system from historically
disenfranchised groups are often taking a great risk simply by running for
office. Once elected, they frequently are pitted against established and
powerful interests. At times, they risk not only their political advancement but
their physical safety, even though they remain popular with their constituents.
Former California State Senator, now U.S. Representative Hilda Solis, who
brought the issue of environmental justice to the forefront on behalf of the
people of her ravaged district, exemplifies this kind of courage.
The courage to compromise was honored in a different way when we presented a
silver lantern to the Irish Peacemakers in a special ceremony in 1998. As
political leaders who signed the Good Friday agreement described the fear they
overcame in reaching out to their historic enemies in the spirit of peace, we
were all reminded that the need for leadership is constant and continuing. These
men and women from across the political spectrum gave life to the principle that
each citizen has a responsibility to contribute by answering the call of his own
conscience. As we work to spread democracy around the world, we must also
recognize and reward international acts of political courage that may exist
within systems different from our own.
Political courage is celebrated in this book, but there are other forms of
courage that share its spirit. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the
World Trade Center, the extraordinary bravery of our public servants -- police
officers, firefighters, search and rescue teams, and elected public officials --
reminded all Americans how much we depend on courageous leadership in times of
crisis and how grateful we are to those who live their lives with honor.
My father ended his book with the following words that bear repeating now:
"In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage,
whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience -- the
loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his
fellow men -- each man must decide for himself the course he will follow.
The stories of past courage can define that ingredient -- they can teach,
they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply
courage itself. For this, each man must look into his own soul." --
John F. Kennedy, Profiles
in Courage
-- CAROLINE KENNEDY October 1, 2001
This
article is excerpted from:
 Profiles in Courage for Our Times
by
Caroline Kennedy.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Hyperion. ©2002. http://www.hyperionbooks.com
Info/Order
this book.
About the Author
Caroline
Kennedy is the editor of the New York Times bestselling The Best-Loved Poems of
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and co-author of The Right to Privacy and In Our
Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action. She serves as president of the John F.
Kennedy Library Foundation. Books by Caroline Kennedy.
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