by H. N. Burdett
In the first month of this year, the State of Maryland lost two legendary progressive lawmakers -- one a Republican, the other a Democrat; one a former United States Senator, the other a onetime Prince George's County State Senator.
But the two men were perhaps similar in more respects than they were different. U.S. Senator Charles McCurdy Mathias and State Senator Royal Vose Hart were both quintessential gentlemen, deliberative, unflappable and both possessed the quality that distinguishes a statesman from a politician: adherence to principle over political expediency.
While neither Mathias or Hart could by any stretch of the imagination be called a loose cannon, each learned that sometimes political parties demand too much.
Early in his career, Mathias sensed that the Republican Party's big tent that once welcomed those who professed a wide range of political philosophies was shrinking down to the size of a pup tent where only conservatives need apply.
Meanwhile, Roy Hart had a role in ending the last vestiges of machine rule in the Democratic Party of Maryland. His own entry into elective politics came at a time when virtually every major subdivision was further sliced into virtual fiefdoms of political bosses: among them, Iron Mike Birmingham in Baltimore County, Louis Phipps and Ralph Lowman in Anne Arundel; Jack Pollack and Irv Kovens and the Curran-O'Malley machine in Baltimore city, and the Sasscer machine in Hart's own Prince George's County.
Exclusionary politics went against the grain of both Mathias and Hart and both spent much of their own political lives fighting against what they felt ran counter to the spirit and the letter of democracy.
As a leader of the Independent Democrats of Prince George's County, Hart was an integral part of the movement that sounded the death knell for machine politics in Maryland. But Mathias bore witness to the outrage of his party distancing itself ever farther from its Lincolnian roots, preferring the path of ideological fealty that can only lead to self-destruction absent a miraculous eleventh-hour infusion of rationality.
Along the way, both Mathias and Hart had their triumphs. Mathias in his zeal to pull his party and his country out of its obsession with winning the unwinnable war in Vietnam was virtually always out of step in the march of history, as perceived by his GOP brethren. But then former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam misadventure, died a broken and repentent wreck of a man, while Mathias went to his rest as perhaps the most beloved Maryland statesman of his era.
Roy Hart ironically proved himself to be ahead of his time in his epic battle to end the 306-year Maryland prohibition against interracial marriage, as miscegenation came to be ridiculed and vilified in all but the the most remote precincts of the deepest south. And ahead of his time once again, as the author of the first fair housing bill enacted by a state legislature south of the Mason-Dixon line. The law was petitioned to referendum where it was overturned by a 69,000 vote margin. Little more than a year later new federal housing guidelines were instituted that were even stricter than the Hart bill, which amounted to, if not exactly sweet revenge, at least bittersweet vindication .
What set Mac Mathias and Roy Hart apart from most politicians is that they were two lawmakers less concerned about the next election than they were about the next generation. Such men never die, they achieve immortality through the measure of their spirit, by the depth of their conscience and, most of all, by the many lives they touch and thereby enhance.
Your blogger has done an excellent job in calling our attention to the loss of two great Maryland statesmen. With regard to Senator Hart, I think it is worth adding that he was extraordinary in non-public ways, as well (although his traits may not have been wholly unrelated to the work he accomplished as a lawmaker). In short, Roy Hart had the most remarkable temperament of anyone I have ever known--balanced, confident, centered, warm and focused--with an intellect so keen, a wit so ready and an intuition so uncanny that it was impossible to know him without admiring him. Those who knew him best, among whom I gratefully count myself, loved him.
ReplyDeleteRikki Fleisher
Baltimore, Maryland
The great part of the story is the author worked on a campaign against Senator Mathias. So while we may be of different parties we can appreciate the differences.
ReplyDeletePsiadvocacy is absolutely correct. I was indeed Barb Mikulski's communications director in her 1974 campaign to unseat Mac. Barb can testify to the fact that she had to use all of her considerable powers of persuasion and a little more, to get me to sign on. I'll admit that when I entered the voting booth in November of 1974, I was more than a little uncomfortable. This was the only time I'd ever pulled the lever for a candidate opposing Mac,who was my idea of as close to perfect as a U.S. Senator can get. I don't regret working for Barb that year, not at all. The campaign was by far the most civil I've ever participated in or even observed from afar. It was the model of what a political campaign should be: the candidates focused on the issues and I can't remember any mud being slung at all. I continue to love Barb dearly and, in fact, I've long contended that Maryland has for years had the best U.S. Senate representation of any of the 50 states. Mikulski and Ben Cardin certainly have upheld that tradition.
ReplyDeleteH.N. Burdett, Potomac Digest