The Pittsburgh Press (January 17, 1946)
I DARE SAY —
People
By Florence Fisher Parry
As a self-confessed, razor-backed black Republican who has always voted the straight Republican ticket and probably always will, any praise that this scribe might accord our new mayor, David L. Lawrence, might seem to be out of character. I feel constrained, however to add my voice to the spontaneous acclaim that has been given him.
At a luncheon given in his honor by the Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Lawrence made a speech, reported in the newspapers of that day, and so familiar to you all.
But only those who heard the mayor’s talk are in position to accord it the full praise that it deserves, for the address was not only one of the best written testaments of good-will and good intentions, it was one of the most realistic, hard-hitting, sensible talks it has been my good fortune to hear.
Mayor Lawrence made a magnificent impression. His physical vigor and his personal charm combined to inspire all his listeners with respect, confidence and genuine liking. Here, we told ourselves, is a hard worker, a hard-hitter, a good man. He knows his stuff. He’ll be a successful mayor.
Let us be grateful for an honest citizen in the driver’s seat of Pittsburgh’s new streamlined, peacetime City Hall.
The Happy Warrior
Winston Churchill is paying us a visit. Welcome, Happy Warrior!
There are many reasons why we like Winston Churchill. He is, first of all, the very embodiment of Great Britain as we picture her at her best: ruddy, vigorous, imbued with a full, rich acquaintanceship with the durable satisfactions of life – which is to say, a happy home, a high sense of citizenship, unshakable patriotism, and a zest for life’s fullest flavors.
Winston Churchill is a man of vast capacities of enjoyment and humor, honest hatreds, a fine scorn, the bounties of leisure and the sweet rewards of hard work. He has a strong sense of history and its august drama. He knows himself to be an actor in that drama and so is conscious of the necessity of giving a fine performance.
This obligation follows him throughout his every activity. He lays a straight row of bricks. He navigates a true course. He paints a good picture. He savors a full meal. He tells a good story. He prays a strong prayer. He is a wrathful and a tender man. His patience, inexhaustible, stops short at hysteria and neuroticism. He is a healthy man of healthy appetites and tastes.
He is a realist. He is for England.
Would that America could boast of such a man!
Supreme justice
The return of Mr. Justice Jackson to the Supreme Court bench reminds us how much greater man this American is than we had given him credit for being. His contribution to the records of the law enlarges mankind’s whole concept of justice and its administration, and takes its place beside the highest abstracts of law that have been handed down to us from Roman time.
If ever a man rose to the circumstance, it was Justice Jacson at the Nuernberg trial; and our Supreme Court takes on again the mantle of great dignity.
The politician
What’s in a face? What can we read there of character?
The performance of James F. Byrnes, Secretary of State, has been, we must confess, far better than his typical politician’s face might promise.
It’s curious about faces. There are some that are stamped as with a rubber stamp: Politician. With all due respect to the memory of a good man, Al Smith had a politician’s face. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s face was, in spite of its classic anatomy, a politician’s face. Winston Churchill’s face is definitely a politician’s face.
It is hard to define. It is a kind of artful know-how not to be found in such faces as, say, Wilson or Hoover or Wendell Willkie. Whatever it is, it is definitely revealed in the face of James F. Byrnes; and it comes to us as a kind of secret relief that back of this politician’s face there evidently resides high statesmanship.
Young man with a future
The face that interests me quite the most these days is that of Capt. Harold Edward Stassen, three times governor of Minnesota, and this correspondent’s bet for the Republican presidential candidacy of 1948.
I recommend to you the article in the January Harper’s Magazine written by John Gunther, and to be incorporated in a forthcoming book not yet published (“Inside the United States”). “Stassen: The Young Man Going Somewhere” is the title of the article.
Republicans, reading it, will have a new birth of hope.
John Gunther tells us that Stassen believes in three things:
- Himself.
- World peace.
- The people – if you give them an even break.