AMERICAN OPINION Essay on Character: LAWRENCE PATTON McDONALD (19 35-i983)

he following is based on whe n a ll men dou bt yo u ," extensive first -person in• hauntingly appropriate. T terviews with Congress• "But the mourners who as• man Lawrence Patton Me• sembled at Constitution Hall to Donald's family, friends, and honor McDonald were never congress ional staff, and on first• among his doubters," Mr. Dart hand interviews by the author wrote. "[His doubtersI were lib• with the Democrat dur• eral s who dismissed his arch• ing his nin e years in Congress. conservative and anti-Commu• Origina lly intended as an ap• nist views as anachro nisms pendix to the book, Day of the from the . The mour• Cobra, the essay was omitted ners came as America's conser• from the Thomas Nelson work vative phalanx, 3,700 strong , because of its length . It is pre• filling the historic hall on a hot sented here on the occasion of the autumn afternoon to remember second anniversary of the KAL one of their own. To this gath• 007 mid-air mas sacre and offers ering, Larry McDonald , the an assessment of the forces and Georgia congressman who was influences that -shaped Con • ----- killed along with 268 other per• gressman McDonald's chara cter sons on a Korean jetliner, has and career. already become a martyr." Because La w rence Patt on Mr. Dart did not know that the reading of Kipling's "If' was McDonald was the first elected a commentary on Congress man official in American history to be murdered by a foreign power - one he he came to hold his views can only be McDonald's character and chi ldhood. had sp ent his entire career warning grasped by understanding the elements From the time he was a small boy grow• against - he now occupies a uniqueplace that comprised his character. For char• ing up in , the framed poem was in American history. While he is remem • acter, in the final analysis, is the sum the sole item that hun g on the walls in bered for his uncompromising opposition total ofwhat we are, as opposed to what the bedroom he shared with his older to totalitarian ,how and why we may believe ourselves to be. brother, Harold. On September 12, 1983, the Atlanta "No one ever said a thing about it," J effrey St. John is the editor of The New Constitution's Wash ingto n corres pon• recalled Dr. Harold McDonald, Jr. "We American and the author of Day of the dent Bob Dart chose as the lead para• just grew up looking at it." Cobra, an examination of the Soviet de• grap h for his story on the memorial The mother of the boys, Mrs. Harold struction of Korean Ai rlines Fligh t 007. service for Congressman Lawre nce McDonald, Sr., known as "Callie," re• He is a veteran pri nt and broadcast jou r• McDonald (D-GA ) t he fact t hat Dr . called that she always loved Kipling's nalistlcomm entator, the author of four McDonald's favorite poem, "If," was read poem and had memorized it. Poor in ma• other books, and the recipient oftwo Em• to the nearly 4,000 angry mourners. Dart terial possessions but rich in matters of mys for his work in television. called one line, "If you can trust yourself the mind an d spirit, she cut the Kipling

35 TH ~ ~ NEWAMERICAN / SEPTEMBER 30, 1985 poem out of a volume of English verse nocence with entry into World War I. A About that time, her future husband, because there was not much else the fam• family cousin, George S. Patton, Jr., was Dr. Harold McDonald, Sr., was just out ily could afford to hang in the boys' bed• a colonel in that conflict and later, in of a Georgia medical school, and special• room. World War II, would become one of the izing in urology. He was the son of a "You never know what influences peo• most famous U.S. gene ral field com• hard-working and talented Atlanta phy• ple," she said. "I hung it in a gold frame manders in twentieth-century history. sician, Dr. Paul McDonald. A stern but in the boys' bedroom when th ey were lit• Lawrence Patton McDonald was only highly respected physician known for his tle and just kept it there. I guess that 10 years old when General Patton was integrity and deep dedication to his call• was th e beginning of Larry's reading it. killed in a motor vehicle accident in Ger• ing, Dr. Paul "practiced medicine until But he always loved it. I heard him use many in 1945. Thirty years later, when he was 87 years old," his grandson Har• part of it during his election campaigns. Larry was elected to Congress, he would old recalled. It always seemed to have meant a great keep a picture of his distant relative in Dr. Paul came from an age when the deal to him." his Washington office, perhaps as a re• code of personal conduct held that mo• minder that in his own lifetime real he• rality was the respect you paid to self, Family Roots roes lived and did great things on the and manners the respect you paid to oth• Born in 1905 in the rural hills ofGalax, stage of hi story. Patton, lik e Larry's ers. And, as his gra ndson noted, "He Virginia , Callie Patton was one of seven other heroes George Washington, Robert never took off his coat or vest until he children. Her fath er raised apples and E. Lee, and Thomas "Stonewall" Jack• went to bed." cherries and was a general storekeeper son, was a Christian warrior who rep• at a time when Henry Ford was still r esented t he em bod ime n t of the Depression of the '30s thinking about the Model-T auto. She authentic American hero : th e man of ac• Callie Grace Patton married Harold grew up loving the outdoors and nature tion and of mind, possessed of eigh• McDonald in 1928, a year before the of southwest Virginia, and she would teent h-century va lues t hat placed a great stock market crash that would pass on to her son Larry her love of both premium on loyalty, candor and fidelity plunge the nation into the depth s of the nature and literature. to religious principles that time and cir• worst economic depression in its history. Her family moved to Atl anta from cumstances did not make unserviceable. In Georgia and Atlanta, an even deeper th eir 30-acre rural farm -general store While attending Georgia State College sta te of economic distress had persisted environment when she was 12; it was a for Women in 1925, Callie Patton ma• from the time of th e surrender of the time when America was about to lose its jored in home economics. "So I fed the South to the North in 1865. long isolation from the world and its in- boys well," she recalled. "My husband got all of $15 a month at

Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., during the September 11,1983, memorial service for Rep. Lawrence P. McDonald, a victim of the KAL 007 massacre. Almost 4,000 of his supporters gathered in anger and grief.

THE N EW AMERICAN / SEPTEMBER 30,1985 36 Brothers and Boyhood "He liked Fu Manchu novels," Dr. Har• old McDonald said of his brother Larry. "Fu Manchu has for decades been the symbol for a worldwide evil conspiracy against the forces of good. Sherlock Holmes was my favorite because he used a lot of deductive reasoning. "We didn't have any money. We didn't have a car. My father was a penny• pincher - we had a nice home, but we cut our own grass and mother did all the cooking. We had no allowance. We planted and harvested our own garden, and even did our own canning. Mother ironed every shirt. We were very middle class." The McDonald boys grew up in the ::J area of Atlanta which would be the be- :; ~ ginning of the city's suburbs later in the ~ postwar years. They were without the :Jj distraction of television, but with the ~ ur benefit of radio that stimulated an entire iO ::J generation of young Americans to use z ~ their minds to paint pictures in the imag- ~ ination. "He was a relatively non-competitive "I would call Larry McDonald a mod• person," remembered Harold McDonald ern-day Cicero," said Thomas Toles, of his brother. "I liked to play games; he Kathryn McDonald: "I would have his press aide. "There will never be liked to collect things, nature things. We loved to have had my children have another one like him in our lifetime; lived in the country near woods,so it was the benefit of his (Larry's) influence, he was what novelist Taylor Cald• a trade off;he'd play baseball with me if his fantastic personality and mind." well called in one of her books a 'Pil• I'd go hunting in the woods with him to lar of Iron.' " collect bugs, snakes and other nature with the little fellow." things. Larry always had a fascination Sensitive to the suffering in God's na• the hospital;" Mrs. McDonald would re• with nature, particularly snakes, and be• ture, and born into a family of physicians call, adding that, "they get quite a dif• came quite knowledgeable and expert on who made medicine a way of life, Larry ferent sum now." the subject." Callie McDonald added that McDonald as a very small boy made up Harold Jr. was born in 1933 and Law• "he also came to know his birds . When his mind, his mother said, that he was rence Patton McDonald was born on he was a Cub Scout he did a bird project, going to be a doctor like his father and April 1, 1935, both Depression babies. drew them to scale and won first prize. grandfather. Harold was going to play But they had the advantage and influ• He had an artistic side." baseball professionally until he was 35 ence of a father and a grandfather who Larry McDonald's love of nature and and then attend medical school. were hard, tough men whotook adversity living things was an element of his char• "Larry was a very determined little fel• as it came and made do with what was acter he inherited from his mother, who low," his mother related of her son, who at hand or could be produced by hard also led him to love literature. Both qual• was nine pounds at birth and big-boned, work. ities came together when he was seven and grew to stand 6 feet 2 inches tall and Dr. Paul McDonald's account books re• years old and in bed with a bout of the weigh over 200 pounds in his maturity. veal that in bad times he accepted chick• measles . His mother recalled reading "But he was a very interesting, happy ens and other items as substitutes for his aloud to him from The Yearling, the 1939 little fellow. When he got something into fee. Dr. Paul had lost a child named Law- Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The story, his mind that he wanted to do, he did it. - renee in childhood, and that lost life was set in the wilderness of the Florida Ev• I guess he got that from his father, who virtually reincarnated when his daugh• erglades , is about a young boy and the was very determined about what he ter-in-law named her second son Law• tender attachment he formed to a year- wanted to do. I'm a much easier-going rence. ling deer. . person." The McDonald boysgrew up in the dec• "I didn't read ahead," Callie McDonald ades of the Great Depression and World related, "and when I got to where the Cultural and Family Influences War II when everyonein the world knew little yearling was killed, Larry just In the American South of the 1930s who were the good guys and who were burst into tears and cried all night long. and 1940s, close-knit family ties and the bad. He was so sensitive and sympathetic "Honor thy Father and Mother" were

THENEWAMERICAN I SEPTEMBER 30, 1985 37 a8 THE NEWAMERICAN I SEPTEMBER so ,1985 taken as social and religious gospel, no traced back before the American Revo• ofa natural brilliance. Rather, according matter how authoritarian and rigid such lution and still further back to England to him, it was the end product of his attitudes may appear to today's permis• and Scotland with the Donald Clan. But, broth er's serious application to study to sive society. Th e McDonald brothers it was the visits of the president ofTexas the exclusion of almost every other ac• rarely disobeyed their stern father and A&M to the McDonald household that tivity in his teenage years. t he ir more artistic, literary-minded gave him his first hunger for history, "When I starte d to summer school, mother. But when they did, she was not which he would never lose. Larry did too,"he recalled. "When he got hesitant to switch them. Mrs. Kathryn McDonald recalled her out of high school, he sta rted to college She remembered one instance, with a husband's fond memories of th at re• in June rather than wait until Septem• trace of steel in her voice: "I got Harold markable man's visits: "He would take ber. He didn't skip any grades; he just first, and switched him. He went hopping Larry on his lap and tell history stories, went through three summers and was up and down and out of the house. 1said, instead of fairy tales. He would tell him accepted in medical school at age 17. all right , Larry, come here , you're next real stories, of real people, and it fasci• Larry was bright but he wasn't scholar• - and switched him. Larry with tears nated Larry." ship bright. He just went to school and streaming down his face put both hands According to Larry McDonald's was dead serious about studying. He on my shoulders, and looking me straight brother, another important influ ence didn't play football; he wasn't big on in the eye said , 'Mother, I'm not crying that developed in both of them an early dates; he wasn't a history buff; he was a because you're whipping me; I'm crying interest in history and the world at large serious scholar. What used to really burn because 1 disobeyed you.' " He was only was the direct result of visits to their Larry up were people whose main aim in eight years old. home of Everett Patton, an older brother life was two beers and television. He In the years when the boys were grow• of their mother. couldn't tolerate that. When I was square ing up, their father was busy with his "He was the only person we knew," dancing in college instead ofstudying, he medical practice , leaving home in the Harold remembered, "who knew every• disowned me for that." morning sometimes before they were t hing in the world - h e read the awake and returning after they had gone eve ry day and Medicine Molded Their Minds to bed. When, however, the family took lived in the Philippines before World War The McDonald brothers, from the time dinner together, the discussion at the ta• II. During the war, he was chief dentist they were old enough to comprehend ble took on the atmosphere of a debating on Admiral Chester Nimitz's staff. He what was going on around them, were society. was in many ways very similar to Larry exposed to an endless stream of inten• "Larry learned his debating skills at because he had thi s incredible talent for sively focused discussions about medi• the table with our father," Dr. Harold retaining a massive amount of informa• cine, particularly urology.They were also McDonald, Jr., recalled. "He wasn't the tion and then reading it back to you in a influenced by a wide variety of people type of parent who discusses issues; he'd constant stream." who were the patients of their father and be telling you what was.right. You could Mrs. Callie McDonald t hinks that grandfather, the latter a general prac• respond but you never went head to head what solidified Larry's passion for his• titioner who maintained an office in his with Dad. If you won one, he'd claim you tory was the year he spent at Davidson home. were nitpicking. Dad would always bring College in Charlotte, N.C., where he "His home office had rockers on the up an argument and sometimes they studied under a professor of history who porch and patients waiting," Dr. Harold were contentious and they didn't always was a classicist. Jr. related. "It was a familiar scene to sound friendly. He was tough, but after Although the McDonald family was hear about doctors and medical prob• a while you realized Dad would argue Methodist ,both boys were sent to private lems. Frequently, someone was staying just as strongly the point you were ar• and parochial schools because, in those at the house on his way to a medical con• guing two weeks before! He was dog• days, private schools, and particularly vention and Dad was forever on the matic, domineering, rarely gracious, and parochial schools, in the South still phone talking about medicine, urology. often autocratic-sounding." maintained a remnant ofthe classical ed• Long before we knew anything about ac• ucational tradition that put a premium counting, tax problems, and literature, it Childhood Brush With History on learning and self-discipline. Larry's was a familiar scene to hear doctors and Later during his career as a U.S. Con• mother maintains that her son's deeply• medical problems. We in the family took gressman from Georgia's 7th District, held religious convictions were initially our medicine seriously." Larry McDonald would be highly con• set when he came under the influence of scious of the importance of history, in• the Grey Nuns and Marist Fathers at A Classic Southerner cluding contemporary events. He was Christ the King Grade School in Atlanta. Dr. Daniel Jordan, for 25years a friend aware of his own ancestors whom he Later, Larry would attend a non-denom• of Larry McDonald and a fellow Geor• inational high school. He finished high gian, said after his murd er aboard Ko• ....The main body of the KAL 007 school in two years and pre-medical col• rean Airlines Flight 007 on , memorial, in , Korea, is com• lege in two years, and entered Emory 1983, that he believed Larry exemplified posed of 269 pieces of bronze, one University Medical School when he was the classic Southerner in though t, values piece in honor of each victim. The only 17. and actions. pedestal has the name ofeach victim Dr. Harold McDonald, Jr., insists that "His values were certainly not human• engraved on a tablet at the base. this accomplishment was not the product istic," Dr. Jordan observed. "His expres-

THENEWAMERI CAN / SEPTEMBER 30, 1985 39 sions and descriptions of life and history the course of his career and life. Intern• were not based on the humanistic view ing as a physician at Bethesda Nava l that puts a heavy stress on personal plea• Hospital, he later took flight surgeon sures and pursuits. Rather, they were on training at the School of Aviation Medi• a much higher level, a belief that man cine in Pensacola, Florida. may think he disposes but it is God who Lar ry's marriage to an Icelandic na• disposes . He did have a certain amount tional who was the daughter of a self• of cha uvinism in him when it came to made businessman , while he was sta• women, that a woman was certainly no tioned in , produced three chil• equal in performance ofduty but that she dren: a son, Tryggvi Paul, and t wo must be protected and honored for the daughters, Callie Grace and Mary Eliz• functions and duti es that she can and abeth. His marriage foundere d and dis• should perform . . . . solved in divorce princi pally because of "He .exemplified all of my concepts of his passionate preoccupation with poli• what I see in the traditional Southerner tics. He believed it was a weapon to fight that go back a hundred years or more," both the growth of Communism abroad Dr. Jordan went on, "not in the planta• and what he discern ed as the destruction tion slave-owner stereotype, but in the of what remained of the American Con• code of chivalry, the idea of manners , stituti onal Republ ic at home. courteousness, graciousness, and the This awa kening to danger began, ac• general code ofthe gentleman. Within all cording to Dr. Daniel J ordan, while he this was a fully developed, mature per• was stationed in Reykjavik, Iceland , as sonality who took his place and assumed a flight surgeon to U.S. naval squadrons his duties in a society without being con• and as physician to diplomatic personnel scious of class." at the Il .S, Embassy. His brother recalls Thomas J efferson's generation argued that he had never heard Larry once men• for aristocracy based not on birth, but on tion the threat of Communis m prior to virtue, tal ent and merit. The ranks of the going to Iceland. early leaders of the American Republic "He went to the commanding officer in were filled with men who did not need or Iceland ," observed Dr. Harold McDonald, want to enter politica l life as the means Jr., "when he thought th e U.S. Embassy to establish their self-esteem or self• Capt. Lawrence P. McDonald appeared to be doing things advanta• worth , or, as has been too often the case (USNR) on active duty as an urolo• geous to the Communists, who were very in this century, to obtain public office as gist at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, influential in the country. He was told a way to assure financial security and in January 1983. His medical training something that rang in his ears: 'You the process plund er the commonwealth taught him to respect evidence and don't understand the big picture.' He be• while pretending to serve it. experience. gan to think, 'Maybe I do.' " In the shattered and defeated South after the Civil War, which had lost a "Dad was dead set against it," observe d Emergence of a Politician whole generation of leaders who took se• Dr. Ha rold McDonald, J r. "Mother sup• "He came back from Iceland after dis• riously the Code of th e Gentl eman, poli• ported Larry. Then afte r Larry won and charging his Nava l Reserve active duty tics came to attract men who more and it looked like he was going to stay there, obligations and began reading political more held public officeas a career, rather and it was clear he was running on prin• hi st ory a nd books on forei gn poli cy, than as a calling of one's duty. The gen• ciple rather than just to be in Congress, sometimes two or three a week," said his erations of Dr. Paul McDonald and Dr. Dad really liked the idea and publicly brother. "He also looked around for any• Harold McDonald, Sr., were full of ste rn, supporte d him in political efforts from one else concerned about Communism, principled men and women who watched then on. We all were proud that he main • and the only organi zation he foun d the politics of their day with disdain, tained the strong pri nciples that he held trying to doanything was The J ohn Birch seeing it become the profession of the un• to." Society. Larry believed in saving the principled. Atlanta doctors beyond the McDonald country from Communism as strongly as family conservatively estimate that by a missionary to Africa in the nineteenth Opposition to a Political Career choosing to serve in Congress , Dr. Law• cent ury believed in saving the souls of It was understandable, therefore, that rence P. McDonald gave up a minimum the people." when Larry McDonald announced to his of $100,000 a year, which he might have Two years of residency in general sur• father that he was planning to give up earned had he pursued his initial career gery at Grady Memorial Hospital in At• what was clearly a brilliant as well as a in medicine. lanta and t hree years of urologica l financiall y secure medical practice for It was during- his last year in medical training in surgery at the University of the volatile life of elective politics, his school in Atlanta (he received his M.D. Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor were father was horrified and adamant in his in 1957) that he decided tojoin the Nava l combined with a growing, inte nse inter• opposition. Reserve , a decision that would cha nge est in politics. It was while he was in

40 THENEWAM ERI CAN / SEPTE MBER 30, 1985 Michigan that he first ran for a public when he returned from Michigan , com- and talked; we talked about books; we office, the Ann Arbor City Council, and bined with a medical practice with his talked abo ut hi story; a nd he nearl y lost. father and brother, were what eventually missed his plane. He talked about what "He took a great deal of abuse in those led to a divorce from his wife. It was in the ancient Roman Senate did to the em• days," observed his close friend , Dr. J or• 1975, when he was in California giving pire because its members lacked princi• dan . "He would be heckled from the au• a speech a year afte r his election to Con- pIe. He ta lked also about elected officials dience when giving a speech against the gress , that he met Kathryn J ackson. She who, lacking honor and convictions and dangers of Communism. Initiall y, he did had worked with many politicians in a willingness to take a stand to save their not respond well to this kind of abuse. California and came to dislike them as a country, are doomed to defeat." The abuse he received in most of his ca• breed because th ey seemed to stand for Kathryn J ackson was beautiful- and reer, even when he went to Congress, everything and , therefore, for nothing. she had bra ins. They were married in was unreal. I don't think people realized "He was definitely my knight , my glad- June of 1976. They had two children, the degree of abuse and outright hate he iator," Mrs. McDonald said after Larry's Lawren ce Patton McDonald , Jr., and was exposed to beginning as far back as murd er, "and he came charging out to Lauren Aileen McDonald, two years old 1962-63. But in the last decade of his California in November 1975. I told him and eight month s re spectively, when life, when his powers were developed at I didn't date poli ticians and just as their fath er was murd ered. their fullest , he demonstrated an ability quickly he said: 'Will you make an ex- In th e congressional re-election cam- to handle whatever came along. His ene• ception?' paigns, the young couple conferred a cer- mies and detractors were, in fact, frus• "He followed me to the hotel bar - he tain degree of gla mour on the 7th trated by his ability to handle himself in didn't drink or was seldom even in a bar Congress ional Distri ct of northern Geor• any public situation. He could just over• - after his speech and came right to the gia, made up of a mixture of rural fun• whelm anyone with his vast knowledge tabl e where I was sitting with two other dam entalists and urb an middl e-class, of a subject, and his appearance and gen• ladies who had come just to hear Larry white-collar Atlanta suburbanites. His uinely gentleman-like manner were a because he was so handsome and single. supporters ignored both the Atlanta me• combination that made him invincible." He came right up to the tabl e and asked, dia's constant attacks on the Congress• 'Pardon me, may I join you?' I said, 'No! man and their attempts to make him out Meeting-of-the-Minds Marriage I am just leaving,' and th e other two girls to be a representative of rich, sinister, Larry McDonald's political activities could have killed me. But he sat down out-of-state interests who funded and "When Larry got something into his mind that he wanted to do, he did it," related his mother.

41 THE NEWAM ERICAN / SEPTE MBE R 30, 1985 controlled an equally sinister group , The have come closest to finding a historical . parallel. "The nearest historical compar• "His personal magnetism allowed him ison I can make to Larry McDonald," he to swing a number of voters to his side observed , "is John Randolph of Roanoke who didn't always agree with him ," Dr. [Virginia]. He was like Randolph and Jordan noted, "joining about 30 to 35 per• many early figures in the American cent of the district that made up his po• Revolution in that they fought for prin• litical base that did not agree with him. ciple against great odds and were willing Opponents knew that taking on Larry in to lay down their lives for what they be• a head-to-head confrontation meant lieved in ." being destroyed. His political enemies in John Randolph of Roanoke (1773• the news media in Atlanta and in Geor• 1833) sat in the House of Representa• gia's regular Democratic organization tives , and later in the Senate, between feared him less for his views than his 1799 and 1828. Less personable and effectiveness, his charismatic personal• charismatic than Larry McDonald, he ity, his intelligence, and his overwhelm• nevertheless represented for 29 years a ing knowledge. This infuriated the congressional district in southwestern Atlanta media, because no one was sup• Virginia where, interestingly, Larry posed to know things as well as they did. McDonald's mother, Callie Grace Patton, And when he could overcome their Tommy Toles said , "and was a very force• was born and lived until age 12. Mrs. knowledge , it was infuriating because he ful individual. One of his greatest assets McDonald, who lost both her husband was on the other side; they could have was his persistence. He never quit. He and her son Larry within a six-week pe• tolerated him if he had been one ofthem." never gave up. He never slowed down. riod, said that if she had ever pursued He was not a person to exercise caution her interest in a literary career she A Charismatic Conservative simply because the newspapers criticized would have taken the pen name Grace According to his brother, Larry Me• him. Randolph. Donald never had much patience with "I would call Larry McDonald a mod• The career of John Randolph of Roa• people whose interests centered on pas• ern-day Cicero," he added. "There will noke in the House , like McDonald's, fea• times like football while the country and never be another one like him in our life• tured a lonely struggle against the the world, as he thought, were rushing time; he was what novelist Taylor Cald• majority who refused to face facts , and toward their destruction. Paradoxically, well called in one of her books a 'Pillar those who chose to act out of expediency "In his district," brother Harold said, of Iron.' He was the one who stood at the rather than principle. Randolph was one "Larry got along great with people who gate and cried forth the warning about ofthe few Southerners who had the cour• worked in a factory. He'd go into a factory the enemy without and within and, like age 35 years before the Civil War to de• and find that those people had a kindred Cicero, he was assassinated." nounce slavery as "a cancer" on the face feeling for him." Larry McDonald's for• Cicero (106 B.C.-43 B.C.) was a states• of the South, and he accurately forecast eign affairs advisor, Hilaire du Berrier, man, scholar, lawyer, writer and up• that a civil war would result if the North may have provided the key to his appeal. holder of republican principles during or South refused to let the evil institution "Larry was a comer," he wrote. "All the the civil wars that destroyed the Roman die by the sheer weight of its own defi• things which he had said and for which Republic. Dr. Jordan believes that the ciencies. the American press had sneered at him analogy is apt only in that both Cicero Although a century and a half sepa• were proving valid. He was the most and McDonald were proven accurate in rated their two congressional careers, handsome, personable, and most artic• their warnings and both were murdered. Larry McDonald's character most resem• ulate man in the House of Representa• Cicero was captured, beheaded and his bles Randolph's as a lonely, principled tives .. . . Among the qualities that make hands were cut off and nailed to the ros• defender of personal liberty. Both were for greatness, he had the rare gift of in• trum of the Roman Senate. Dr. Jordan Southerners, both Constitutionalists, spiring confidence in the hearts of those prefers to think of Larry McDonald as and both were Christian political war• in his presence and he had an indefinable more like Nathan Hale (1755-1776), the riors who died defending with their last ring of verity in his voice. Above all, he American War of Independence hero breath the idea that the individual is sov• was honest and a patriot." caught spying against the British who ereign and answerable ultimately, not to Tommy Toles, his press aide and di• before he was hanged uttered the famous the god of government, but to the God rector of staff affairs in the 7th District, words that he regretted he had but one whom both believed governs and guides thought of him as the most honorable life to lose for his country. His utterance all things. and loyal person he had known. Toles, a and act of bravery assured him a special "He was never afraid to do the unpop• veteran Georgia newspaperman, could spot in the pantheon of American pa• ular thing," observed his widow Kathryn, say that about few other men in the triots as a young martyr in the cause of "because he was totally secure within st a t e's public life. liberty. himself. He could dare to he unpopular However , Larry McDonald's religious and unaccepted, and that didn 't bother A Modern-Day Cicero advisor and close friend, the Rev. Joseph him . He was the total gladiator for th e "He had great personal charisma," Morecraft III , a biblical scholar, may right cause." •

42 / SEPTEMBER 30, 1985 IF

-, If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream-and not make dreams your master; If you can think-and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same: If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings, And never breathe a word about your loss: If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so .hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, _Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much: If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, -, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!

RUDYARD KIPLING

THE NEW AMERICAN / SEPTEMBER 30, 1985 43