Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [98]
In addition to our campaigning on the high school campus, we spent Saturday afternoons knocking on doors in Saginaw, a blue-collar town that didn’t have much use for Republicans. We soldiered on nonetheless, and we did our best for the man everyone called Tricky Dick.
I was a freshman, so I needed to get special permission to campaign off campus for Nixon. This was granted, so long as I agreed to do some extra chores at the home of the diocese’s auxiliary bishop (and the seminary’s former rector), James Hickey.
It was early October 1968, and my job was to help drain and clean the bishop’s outdoor pool. Bishop Hickey remained close to the goings-on at the seminary he helped to found a decade ago, and in turn that meant he had heard about our efforts for Richard Nixon.
“I hear you’re interested in politics,” he said to me, as I mopped up the pool’s interior.
“Yes, Bishop. My family has always paid attention to government and stuff.”
“I see. But why Nixon?”
I was nervous enough because I hadn’t the slightest idea how to clean a pool. I was afraid I might give the wrong answer—and it would be “good-bye priesthood.”
“The war is wrong. Killing people is wrong. He will end the war.”
“Will he, now?” the Bishop said, looking at me squarely over the top of his wire-rim spectacles.
“Uh, that’s what he says. Six months and no war.”
“You know this man has a—how shall we say it?—a history of not telling the truth.”
I was now in huge trouble. The next thing I expected to hear was that I was committing a mortal sin by helping Richard Nixon.
“I remember when he first ran for the Senate in California,” the Bishop continued. “Made up a bunch of things about his lady opponent that weren’t true. Awful things. People didn’t find out until later. But it was too late. He was already a senator then.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. The October temperature was dropping, and the water from the hose that would splash on me was cold and unpleasant. I did not want to listen to this sermon. Besides—what’s a bishop doing with his own swimming pool?
“I didn’t know that,” I said respectfully. “I wasn’t for him in 1960,” I added, hoping that would give me some dispensation.
“How old were you in 1960?”
“First grade. I even memorized President Kennedy’s inaugural address.”
“Can you still recite it?
Of course I could. I’d been giving the speech to the nuns for years for extra credit.
“Well, let me hear a little of it.”
And so there I stood, mop and squeegee in hand, and gave him my favorite part:
“The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”
He enjoyed that. So I thought I’d continue with another one, this time with the Kennedy accent:
“To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required—not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”
“Very impressive!” he offered, an approving smile on his face. “These are important words. Never forget them.”
He paused.
“And, of course, I’m not telling you how to vote, but if you would, please do me a favor and reflect on those words you just recited to me.”
The war,