Don't Give Up the Ship!
DORIS HADDOCK'S 90th BIRTHDAY SPEECH
January 24, 2000, Cumberland, MD
Thank you all very much indeed. What a wonderful birthday this is--here in the exquisite setting of historic Cumberland, Maryland. It is such a treat to be in a place so much older than myself.
President Washington, I have learned, was here in 1794 to review the federal troops sent here to discourage a little rebellion called the Whiskey Insurrection--a disagreement over the advisability of a tax on distilled spirits, levied by the rather new federal government.
President Washington noted this in his diary: "After an early breakfast we set out for Cumberland--and about 11 O'clock arrived there... I passed along the line of the Army; & was conducted to a house, the residence of Major Lynn of the Maryland line... where I was well lodged, & civilly entertained."
Well, I know how he felt.
That residence, by the way, is just over there, across the way. You see how the past is cherished and respected in Cumberland.
How much more than buildings must we cherish and respect the institutions that provide, after long and bloody years of defense, our freedoms as a self-governing people. I am headed to a city where those institutions are being sold for scrap--a place far downhill from here.
But before we depart from this place, let us look around at the beauty of America. Let us look at a town where there is no other way for public servants to be except honorable. If a mayor or constable or executive of such a town as this should sell out the interests of his townspeople for the sake of a campaign contribution, a career would be over and shame would come to a family. This is the real America. Down the hill is another America, where there is no shame, and where the buying and selling of America's interests are not called bribery though that is what they are, and where the stealing of real power away from what we founded as a government of, by and for the people is not called a coup or a treason, though that is what it oozes toward.
So we Americans stand here no longer concerned about the tax on our whiskey. We can bear that; we can drink to that. But we cannot bear the greater damage that is being done to us by far more intoxicating poisons: power, money, and prestige: distractions that blind the vision and poison the souls of those within the Beltway in an epidemic of disdain for the American People--whom they take as a mere market for their political products.
A flood of special interest money has carried away our own representatives and our own senators, and all that is left of them--at least for those of us who do not write $100,000 checks--are the shadows of their cardboard cutouts. If you doubt it, write a letter to them and see what rubber stamp drivel you get back. For all we know, they might all have died ten years ago and the same letters continue to be sent out.
Now, standing here on the back of this charming caboose, why would I spoil my own birthday party with a bunch of politics? Well, because I love politics and this is my party.
I love it to death and I shall love it to unto death. It was the dinnertable meat and potatoes of my wonderful, 62-year marriage. It is what we talk about on Tuesdays in my little town, at a thing we call the Tuesday Morning Academy. It is what self-governing Americans must hold in steady fascination and endless conversation if we are to be free.
My husband Jim died several years ago after a ten year struggle. At the end, he said that he was ready to go and that he did not want any more food or water. It took him eleven days and nights before he was successful. My son Jim, my grandson Raphael, sat with him at night and I held his hand during the eleven heartbreaking days. After ten years of caregiving, it is difficult for an old wife to adjust, especially when the mate was such a sparkler--such a person of light and life and red-blooded activism. He was fun. And how do you wake up each morning in a world where the fellow you would run to with a new thought to share is nowhere to be found? Where he does not answer your call through the house?
My dear friend Elizabeth died too, shortly after Jim, and also after a long period of caregiving that did wear me out.
I am not trying to make anyone feel sorry for what happens in a long life. All things end. But I want to say something important about it, and that is why I bring it up. I stand here on the tail end of a caboose. And so it was when Jim and Elizabeth were gone. Life seemed very much over--all the picnics, all the hikes, all the frosty ski trips. I was deeply depressed and I know that many people today are in that same place. And what I want to say to them, and to all of you to remember for that day ahead when you think you are standing at the end of your life, is, damn it, don't give up the ship.
I know I am mixing my transportation metaphors with trains and ships, but it is my 90th birthday and I have just walked 3,000 miles and I shall mix metaphors all day long if I please.
For those of you who have lived a long life and think your are finished with it, I tell you that, if you will pray for courage and look to the needs of your community rather than yourself, a great energy and happiness will come to you. Indeed, your community needs your wisdom and your patience. Your family needs you, too, whether or not they believe it. Your country needs you.
Friends, look at this country, our genius republic--this great sailing vessel we have built that we might find our way to the future together as free and equal citizens, as friends and partners in self-governance. Though it is two and a quarter centuries old, the paint still smells new some days, and the flags still snap in the wind. But what a price we have paid for it! I do not have to remind you of the rows upon rows of marble stones that mark the sacrifices our friends and our children and our fathers and their fathers have made to build this great craft and keep it safe, do I?
But now, in a time when people are so stressed in their lives and are so unaware of what it means to truly live well--to live free, to live with enough leisure and confidence to be the stewards of their own lives and communities--in this time, we strangely find ourselves having to explain why it is a bad thing if mulitnational corporations control our elections, and why it is a bad thing if our elected leaders no longer represent the interests of the people.
I know that some of these people just need to be awakend. We can do that. We can show them a future they will want. But there are others who know very well what has been lost in this nation over the last few decades and they have lowered their fists slowly in despair. To them, to my generation and the generation younger and the generation older, I cry to you, please--don't give up the ship.
Work with us to return our self-government to the human scale. Help us defeat those Members of Congress who will not take even the first step toward reform, which everyone with a brain and a soul knows is the simple act of outlawing the huge soft money contributions that now flood elections with special interest dollars and special interest obligations.
We care nothing for the taxes on whiskey, because they are nothing to us anymore. We pay $150 billion dollars a year in extra taxes because tax breaks are being sold for campaign contributions, and we pick up that tab.
Where do we march to make a fight of this? Not against our government, but against those inside and outside of it who have set up their cash registers in our temples of democracy. Where are they? Downhill from here in a place that smugly dismisses the rage of Americans.
Let them become suddenly uneasy. Let them notice that the birds and the dogs are strangely silent. Something is brewing, and it is called an election. It will be the last one for many of them. I pledge myself to that, and I am full of energy yet and full of years.
Thank you for helping me celebrate one of the great days of my life--I know that many of you have come a very long way. Let's adjourn to make our plans for Washington, and have some cake together.
Recent posting after a BBC interview:
Dear Granny, I am British, not an American, but your
address to your people in Dearborn on July 23, 1999, made me an
American in spirit. What is happening in America is happening
everywhere, but unfortunately most people feel powerless to change
it. Your optimism is wonderful and I sincerely hope that you can help
to change America, because America was founded on the hope of
creating a New World. We are all waiting for that New World. May your
dream sow the seed of regeneration in the garden of our minds.
Peter Preston, Zielona Gora, PL, - Wednesday, January 26, 2000.
An email:
Dear Ms. Haddock, "Let's adjourn
to make our plans for Washington, and have some cake together."
Happy, happy birthday! We will bake a cake in our house to celebrate
your birthday and your march which excites all of us to action. I
hope you don't mind, but I have some old bananas and a handful of
walnuts, so banana bread birthday cake it is! I am an activist in my
own home town - we constantly fight the special interests of deep
pockets, but what really concerns me is that those folks get the
rubber stamped approval from our government - we must see an end to
special interests running amok, and a beginning to campaign reform.
Thank you for every step. I can't tell you how much strength it gives
me to carry on what probably would seem insignificant to you, in my
small town, but knowing that grass roots efforts can be truly
effective is what it is all about. Your are quite a grand woman. Take
good care of your feet.
Jennifer (and girls, Heather, Sarah and Megan
and husband, Michael)