Transcript of the 7th annual Eugene J. McCarthy Lecture: Cokie Roberts
(September 18, 2013)
President Hemesath: Good evening and welcome. I am Michael Hemesath, President of Saint John’s University, and I am honored to be with you this evening for the seventh annual Eugene McCarthy Lecture, Conscience and Courage in Public Life.
We are privileged to have with us this evening CSB & SJU Provost Rita Knuesel, former President of the College of Saint Benedict, Sister Colman O’Connell; a number of Saint Ben’s and Saint John’s Trustees (who do keep us on the straight and narrow). Also joining us this evening are McCarthy family members including the Senator’s sister-in-law Muriel, his daughter Ellen McCarthy and her husband Charlie Howell, long-time supporters of the work of the McCarthy Center
Gene McCarthy was a special person for many reasons. For starters, he graduated from Saint John’s with top academic honors at age 19, while also excelling in baseball and hockey. Gene taught here, was a member of the monastic community for a short period of time, and he would visit the campus and community often during his days in Congress and the Senate and later as a presidential candidate. [Note: You may add any personal anecdote you have about Eugene McCarthy or Cokie Roberts if you wish.]
We are grateful to Katharine and Dan Whalen for endowing the Eugene J. McCarthy Center for Public Policy and Civic Engagement at Saint John’s. Through the center’s programs, internships and other student opportunities, we carry on Senator McCarthy’s commitment to the common good and civic engagement. While the Whalens are unable to be with us this evening, please join me in acknowledging their wonderful and generous support. [Applause]
And now, I would like to introduce Dr. Matt Lindstrom, the Edward L. Henry Professor of Political Science and Director of the McCarthy Center.
Tyler Brown: I am honored to be able to introduce the 7th annual Eugene J. McCarthy Lecturer: Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs Roberts— more commonly referred to as Cokie Roberts. Upon hearing her full name for the first time, it immediately occurred to me that if Ms. Roberts was short on experience and accolades, I could double the length of this introduction by using her full name a few times.
Fortunately, experience and accolades are not things that Cokie Roberts is short on to say the least. Throughout her 40-year career, Ms. Roberts has achieved remarkable distinction as a journalist, author, political pundit, and humanitarian. A graduate of Wellesley College, a prestigious liberal arts school in Massachusetts, Ms. Roberts has been a foreign correspondent for CBS, a congressional correspondent for National Public Radio, and the co-anchor of ABC’s This Week. In addition to serving as a political analyst for ABC News and NPR, Ms. Roberts currently writes a weekly column with her husband Steven and has authored critically acclaimed New York Times bestsellers such as Founding Mothers, Ladies of Liberty, From this Day Forward, and We Are Our Mothers' Daughters. She is also a proud mother of 2 and grandmother of 6.
Deemed a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress, Ms. Roberts has won, among a vast array of awards: three Emmys, the Edward R. Murrow Award for Outstanding Contributions to Public Radio, the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress, 25 honorary degrees, and an appointment to the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation. She also is in the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame and has been named one of the 50 greatest female broadcasters of all time by the American Women in Radio and Television.
Throughout all of this success, Ms. Roberts has exemplified many of the values which the Eugene J. McCarthy Center was founded upon. As a public servant and presidential candidate, Eugene McCarthy challenged the status quo and sought to inspire a critical, intellectually-driven analysis of political issues. Whether reporting on a groundbreaking story, sharing her opinion in an op-ed, or giving a voice to some of history’s most captivating figures in a bestselling book, Ms. Roberts has conducted herself in this same way, providing a unique and intelligent perspective which consistently challenges societal paradigms.
We are truly blessed to have you here Ms. Roberts. Ladies and gentleman, let’s give a big, Bennie and Johnnie welcome to Cokie Roberts.
7:15
Thank you, thank you very much. Thank you so much it is a great treat, a real thrill to be here with the Johnnies and most especially the Bennies. And I know it is the centennial of the College of St. Benedict so that is something to celebrate for the whole year and beyond and that is a great accomplishment for a wonderful institution. And I had the opportunity today to meet with some of the students and they are terrific, it was a really good session. But I have to say, Tyler had already let me know via the website before I got here how very astute the students are because I went on to the McCarthy Center website to do my homework because, you know, girls do homework, and there was Tyler and I said, “What are you reading?” He said, “Ladies of Liberty by Cokie Roberts.” Very good, Tyler. I must say, the most intriguing thing on that site was “Politics and a Pint”. I think Eugene McCarthy would approve.
I thought I had known Eugene McCarthy my whole life, but as I did some research for this, I realized I didn’t meet him until I was five years old. I met him only a couple of years after Ellen “met” him, and he and Abigail McCarthy were an enormous presence in my life and in my family’s life, my whole growing up years. Eugene and my dad, Hale Boggs served in Congress together, Abigail and my mom Lindy Boggs worked together in all kinds of activities trying to improve the world, but also improve the fortunes of the Democratic Party. And I must say that, Tyler, the head of Young College Republicans, was very kind to introduce me. He does good work.
Abigail and my mother were very good friends until Abigail died, and she was such a wonderful person of grace, wisdom, and intellect. Then, when Ellen was old enough to go to Sacred Heart, our families became even closer than they had been because of the Congressional connection. And Ellen, my much younger friend, remains my friend- just recently, she was kind enough to come see my mother. So, there is a lot of connection here that I feel very strongly about.
I remember Eugene McCarthy in all the ways that you of course have heard about him. He was witty, smart, he was irreverent in all the right ways. He was charming when he wanted to be. But my firmest and most grateful memory of Eugene McCarthy was at my own wedding, which was, well, my wedding anniversary was last week, so it was 47 years ago. I recommend marrying nice Jewish guys.
It was 1966, my father was majority whip in the House, my mother was running everything and she came to him and she said, “Hale, how many members of the house do you want to have?” He didn’t want to answer, but finally he said, “All the Democrats.”
It was after the ’64 landslide, and so there were more than 300 democrats in the House, and so by the time we had them and their spouses and some friendly republicans and even members of the Senate were coming, and their spouses, and their entire extended family, and then people we actually liked. It came down to 1500 people, 1500 people, and my mother cooked for the whole thing. I know, it’s appalling.
I was married in the yard of the house where I still live and my daughter got married in the same spot thirty one years later, and you can be assured it did not occur to me to cook.
My basic reaction was always, “You know, it’s fine, as long as the people I wanted were there it was fine. We’re still living off the wedding presents. I have to tell you that members of the Senate- by then it was Senator McCarthy- give you wedding presents that are pieces of glass that have their own names on them so they look like you stole them from their offices. I have a Hubert Humphrey candy jar. Anyway, what I had not reckoned with was the receiving line for 1500 people. What Eugene McCarthy did was keep me with champagne through that entire receiving line. So I will be forever grateful to him. Of course, he learned that here.
This institution was so, so key in his life, and did shape so much of who he was. I must say, I didn’t know until I was reading up for this that he had actually (13) joined for a while, that he was in office, and I did learn that he went straight from the Abbey to military intelligence, which makes me wonder what you were teaching him here. Now these days it is really scary. It is though, to be serious of course, fitting that the lecture, in his name,is titled conscience and courage in public life.
There was a huge part of me that wanted to take the opportunity of this title (13:55) to talk about my parents. My father, member of the House from New Orleans, Louisiana, the Deep South, in the Congressional Leadership, risked his political life by supporting civil rights, and risked our own lives. The cross burned on the lawn and everything. My mother, Lindy Boggs, went into Congress after my father was killed in a plane crash while campaigning for a fellow member. She became an enormous champion of causes to help the poor and disadvantaged, and especially African Americans and especially women. Ladies, before my mother was in Congress, you did not have equal access to credit. Be grateful to her for that. And then, she served as ambassador to the Vatican, where she brought to the attention of the Vatican hierarchy and the entire international community the issue of human trafficking and sex slavery, something that not only needed attention, but also that everybody was shocked to have this nicey-nicey old lady bringing to their attention (15:26). And they did pay attention.
She also raised the ire of her party continually because she was staunchly pro-life, and that was a huge part of who she was. She believed in life and the ability of everyone in society to live it equally. She not only preached that belief, but she lived it every day. But my amazing mother just died recently, so I couldn’t get through that speech without blubbering up here, and she would kill me for that. So I will not take that opportunity. I will tell you that when she went to the Vatican, she took the job as ambassador to the Vatican at the age of 81, you know, a new job in a new country. We all thought it was a great idea, you know, that Mama would have a great capstone to her career in public service where she could serve both her country and her church, and we’d get to go to Rome all the time. That was all good. But then, what happened to this country happened, and Mama found herself representing Bill Clinton to the Pope. Now think of it- it was the toughest job in the diplomatic service.
Then she went home to Bourbon Street where she lived, and I mean Bourbon Street, not out some place, she lived right smack dab in the middle of all the honky tonk of Bourbon Street. If you’ve been to Bourbon Street, you’ve been past Mama’s house. In fact, when my children were small, we’d walk past the strippers and the other neighbors and through the woods and over the hills to Grandmother’s house we’d go. Then she moved from Bourbon Street to the Vatican, and I teased her that the costumes hadn’t changed. It was still guys in dresses.
My mother came here and gave the graduation speech at the College of St. Benedict in 1983 and she would have been thrilled to know, well, she probably did know, that 20 years later the college established the Institute for Women’s Leadership, which is so incredibly important. Its mission of recognizing women as the shapers of our world is one that she would completely agree with and applaud. And she’d be especially pleased to know that it is named for sister Nancy Hynes. She felt very strongly, very strongly, that nuns were the original feminists and role models for young women. After all, she always said, she always saw women running the schools when she was growing up, running the hospitals, the social service agencies. It never occurred to her that women couldn’t be in charge. You’ve met Sister Coleman. You know that’s true.
And I had a similar experience growing up in the 1950’s, as did Ellen, where we were taught by the society of the Sacred Heart who took us seriously, as girls in the 1950’s; that was a radical notion. They taught us that we could be anything that we wanted to be, except priests. They were bitter about that. They’ve gotten a little more bitter. I did notice that just in this issue of the Catholic Reporter that Benedictine Sister Vivian Ivantic, age 100, is saying, “When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a priest, and I am not giving up on it.” She said this as she celebrated her 80th year in the order. I think it is probably safe to say that women religious had an impact on Eugene McCarthy as well. There is this beautiful bio that St. John’s has published and sent to me, and it tells a great deal about his life and wonderful pictures of him here, telling us that he came to the St. John’s prep at the age of 15. Before that, he (quote) “attended the local Catholic schools in Watkins. It’s as if he arrived as a blank slate here at St. John’s.” You know what? Too late! Those formative years before adolescence, those were up to his family and the nuns, women who I believe, have shown more courage in carrying out the dictates of their consciences and awakening the consciences of the nation and any other citizens. They have, historically, been more involved in public life than many realize. Nuns have always been the great agents of change in our society, the people representing the perilous, and they have almost always had to do it by battling both the civil and ecclesiastical powers.
Now, you’re going to have to bear with me for a little bit of history here because that’s what I do: I write history books. You can ask Tyler. And I will give you some of this fabulous history. In 1727, the Ursulines were sent to New Orleans to set up hospitals for French soldiers stationed there. Within a year after they got there, they had established schools for the French colonists, but they had also, think of this, this is the early 18th century, they also established schools for Native Americans and free Blacks. It was remarkable. They soon opened an orphanage as well. Then the French Parliament starting sending over these filles-cassettes (22:00) women, marriageable women for the French soldiers and colonists. Think how vulnerable those women were. The Ursulines made sure that they were protected and taken in. The bishop of course had a fit and said, “This is not your writ; nobody told you to do that.” But these were the people on the ground. They were dealing with reality, not some dictate, and they were meeting people that the clerics in Paris and the French planters would never meet. They were having to do the work of making all this desperate, tiny, new, burgeoning society work together. That is something that the nuns in our society continue to do.
The immediate past president of the leadership conference of women religious, Pat Farrell, told NPR, “Women-religious stand in very close proximity to people at the margins, to people with very painful, difficult situations in our lives. That is our gift to the church.” And what a gift it has been, not only to the church, but also to the country. Now, the Ursulines were lucky; their bishop was thousands of miles away.
By the time Rose Philippine Duchesne came to America to found the Sacred Heart order in this country, it was not so easy. She had been promised by Bishop Dubourg that she would be working with the Indians. This was her dream job. How she came up with this, I have no idea, what her mental image was over there in France about what it would be like to work with Native Americans. Who knows? But that’s what she had been promised and that’s what she wanted to do. And she and this other group of three intrepid French women come to America in 1818. They have this harrowing voyage, this mutiny on the ship, a ship wreck, it was unbelievable. But they finally arrive in St. Louis collect the money that had been sent to establish these Indian missions and the Bishop said No, he’d be keeping that money and that she would never be meeting any Indians. He dispatched her instead to St. Charles, Missouri, telling her that it was the city of the future and that St. Louis would never amount to anything. We have all this correspondence.