Legacy: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  ‘You a professor or something?’

  ‘Army major.’ The younger cop saluted and said: ‘Sorry to have caused you any inconvenience,’ and off they went.

  When we reached my parents’ snug house and felt the warmth of both the place and the occupants, we relaxed, and since the Sunday papers had been full of the fact that I was to testify tomorrow, Mom and Dad had to be aware of my tension, but they were almost amusingly casual, careful to avoid any mention of Iran, the contras, or the man they knew to be my associate, Oliver North.

  As they moved about setting the table while I read the sports pages, I thought how truly American they were and how close they stood to the heart of our mainstream. My father was a certified military hero with a wooden leg to prove it, and my mother … that quiet, powerful lady was a civilian heroine laden with her own kind of honors.

  Born on the edge of Philadelphia to a family of little means, Rachael Denham went to a public school, where her marks were so striking that she won a scholarship to Bryn Mawr, but because she could not afford a college dormitory or buy even a used car, she had to commute each day on the Pennsylvania Railroad, walking six blocks to the station and a long distance from the Bryn Mawr platform to the college. The travel must have done her good, because she earned phenomenal grades and a better scholarship each year.

  As a military man I didn’t like Bryn Mawr very much because it was one of those Quaker schools which preach pacifism, and that never gets a nation very far. But it is also a college which requires students to write term papers, and I don’t see how anyone can get a serious education without doing that. Anyway, in the winter term of her junior year, in 1948, a serious professor—as you can see, I like that word serious—gave her a political-science assignment that baffled her: ‘In the decades ahead, malapportionment is bound to be a red-hot political issue. Find out the facts about Pennsylvania.’ That was all. He’d never discussed apportionment of any kind in class, so she was on her own.

  Well, I’ve seen her paper. It could have been published, because in her dogged way she reported not only on Pennsylvania but on nine other states, too, revealing just what her professor hoped she would: that across America people who lived in cities and large towns were grotesquely discriminated against in favor of people who lived in small towns or on farms. As the professor had known when he assigned the paper, her home state of Pennsylvania was among the worst. It had sixty-seven counties, many of them wooded rural areas with few people, many more deer, and of great value only in the four weeks of hunting season. It also had two big cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with large populations. But because there was a tradition that each county must have its own representation in the lower house, ridiculous imbalances occurred which the rural legislators would not allow to be corrected. When my mother saw the raw data, she cried: ‘Find me an adding machine!’ and with it she produced a series of charts whose squiggly lines portrayed an ugly situation:

  For example, here is Forest County with 4,944 and it has its representative, and here’s the city of Chester with 66,039, but it also gets one seat. So a farmer voting in Forest has 13.36 times as much civic power as the city clerk in Chester. I think conservative Pennsylvania, afraid of what it calls ‘the corruption of big cities,’ wants to keep it that way.

  Her charts demonstrated that in the state Senate, which exercised great power, the situation was equally unfair:

  I show you three small counties with a combined population of 101, 210, and they have one senator, but here is an urban area with 441, 518 people, and it has one senator too, which means that the farmer is four times as important as the city man.

  Mother prepared figures showing how an absurdly small minority in the rural community could determine what happened in the legislature. She concluded by pointing out:

  And because Pennsylvania sends congressmen to Washington in accordance with local districting, our federal legislature is also grossly affected by the overrepresentation of rural areas and underrepresentation of cities. This imbalance results in national legislation that is sometimes absurd.

  I’m told that many young people have the course of their lives determined by the term papers they write in college, and that was certainly the case with my mother. The facts she uncovered in researching this one paper so captivated her that she spent what should have been her senior year as an aide to a Pennsylvania senator in Washington. In her next year back at Bryn Mawr, she organized a conference attended by students from all parts of the nation: ‘Malapportionment in State Legislatures,’ and her opening speech to the delegates dealt with ‘The Refusal of the Tennessee Legislature to Reapportion.’

  My wife and I have a copy:

  The Tennessee constitution requires a fresh reapportionment of districts following each decennial census, but rural legislators, who vastly outnumber urban, refuse to make any changes which might diminish their numbers. The result? Since 1901 there has been no reapportionment in Tennessee, and the cities suffer. Is there any force within the state capable of making the state conform to its own law? None.

  It was the long discussion conducted at that convention which convinced my mother, and many bright young people like her, that the only agency powerful enough to make the states obey their own laws—and there were half a dozen as badly out of balance as Tennessee—was the United States Supreme Court. ‘Because,’ she pointed out, with an astuteness far beyond her years, ‘the federal Congress is itself voted into power by districts which are also just as badly unbalanced.’

  ‘Not senators,’ a young man from Alabama corrected. ‘They’re elected statewide,’ and she replied: ‘You’re right. But most of them get to be senators by being congressmen first. They band together to protect the bad old system which produced them.’

  By accident my mother had stumbled upon her life’s work. Before she left Bryn Mawr she was an expert in apportionment, and by the time she got her Ph.D. from Smith, she was being invited to address various state legislatures and counsel on problems facing them when new census figures came in. Her numerous publications on the subject attracted such favorable attention that she was offered positions at various universities, including Chicago, but because she wanted to be near Congress, she chose Georgetown, which made it easy for her to heckle the government in its shameful failure to do what clearly had to be done. In an article published in 1960 she wrote:

  I am totally frustrated. Every concerned man and woman in the United States knows what ought to be done to assure justice to the people of the cities, but there is no way to force action. What in common sense can we do? Congress will never take steps to launch a constitutional amendment. State legislatures refuse to cleanse themselves. You and I are powerless to do anything. Where can a citizen look for help?

  But she did not allow her obsession to become a monomania: ‘Always I kept before me the example of Emily Starr, who sacrificed her personal happiness on the altar of political reform, and I wanted none of that. I kept my voice down when consulting with legislators. I wore good-looking clothes and was deferential to elderly men who had spent their lives in government. But when the going got tough … boy, did I stick it to them!’

  One of the most vivid memories of my life is sitting with her and my two sisters and hearing her tell how she met our father, ‘the war hero’ as she always referred to him when teasing: ‘I was an underpaid, undernourished beginning professor at Bryn Mawr, just getting my feet wet in the academic world. And to tell you the truth, I was a wee bit desperate about finding a husband. Then your father appeared on campus to speak at an assembly of some kind. Marvelous uniform, medals on his chest, wooden leg adding mystery. Oh, did I ever fall in love.’

  ‘Did his leg sort of off-steer you?’ my sister once asked, and Mother gave a remarkably frank answer: ‘Some women in the faculty club asked that, and I told them: “So far as I know, the left leg has nothing to do with love or the production of fertile sperm,” and you adorable kids are the proof of that.’

 
Then came the exciting news. The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments regarding the failure of state legislatures to reapportion, and what state do you suppose they chose as the prime example? The very one my mother had identified years before: Tennessee! The case was called Baker v. Carr, and Mother was invited to testify as an amicus curiae, informed friend of the court, or as she told us: ‘In my case an arnica curiae, since I am a woman.’

  We have copies of her argument:

  When the American people can find redress in no other agency of government, none, and we have exhausted them all, we must throw ourselves on the mercy of this Court, which was established to provide remedy in just such impasses. You are our defense against frustration and despair. Only your Court can order justice to be done.

  On 26 March 1962, when I was eleven years old, Mother sat with us at home listening to the radio as the news came that the Supreme Court had agreed with her, 6 to 2, meaning that at long last, the states would be forced to break the logjam which had imprisoned the cities. She did not exult. She listened to several different stations giving guesses as to what Baker v. Carr meant, then she prepared supper.

  That night fellow professors and newspaper people trooped in to congratulate her, and she told them: ‘The tools are always there to mend our democracy. Problem is, find someone to use them.’

  ‘Won’t you be pretty busy now, advising the various legislatures?’ a reporter asked, and she said: ‘That’s what I’ve been doing for the past dozen years, and frankly, I didn’t accomplish much. The decision promises nothing. It’s how we use it that counts.’

  After supper we sat for a while, talking about everything but what I would be doing the next day. When Nancy and I left, Mother walked with us to our car, and said quietly: ‘Norm, your father and I were tremendously proud when you were invited to work in the White House. We hope we can be just as proud of the manner in which you leave.’

  Norman

  Starr

  1951–

  On Monday, Nancy rose early, laid out my uniform, and attached the neat rows of colorful ribbons which attested to my years in service. The American military hands out decorations the way a Sunday School gives awards for attendance, but they do impress civilians, and that was the purpose today. But if I did wear some medals for actions of only routine consequence, I had no medal testifying to the considerable contributions I had made to the security of our nation in Central America. You win some, you lose some.

  While I was shaving, Nancy sprang a surprise which I did not appreciate. She called into the bathroom: ‘I asked Dad to stop by for breakfast,’ and I was about to groan ‘Not today,’ when I restrained myself, because Professor Makinowsky was a major reason why his daughter was such an admirable wife and citizen.

  I had courted Nancy Makin for nearly two disorganized years before I learned that she had shortened her name, but as we became more serious, she said one day: ‘I want you to meet my father. He’s something, professor of history in a jerkwater two-year college, and a great man. Name’s Makinowsky from a corner where Poland and Czechoslovakia touched.’

  When he appeared that day, he was a professor out of Central Casting: short like Nancy, big head of unruly black hair, inquisitive like her, and a joy to talk with. His degrees were a mixed bag, one from Prague, two from those big, grubby institutions in New York City that don’t play football, so he never progressed beyond the little school in Maryland, where he became the most popular teacher on campus.

  Now, when he looked at me standing there in my uniform with its rows of bright ribbons, he broke into laughter: ‘When we landed in England on our way to Normandy in World War II with our medals glaring, a British Tommy shouted: “Blimey! Their whole bloody army is heroes!” ’

  Nancy interrupted, because like always, she was determined to talk sense: ‘I wanted Father to tell you a story, Norman. One that’s influenced me profoundly.’ Nancy uses the word profound a good deal, because she likes to allocate her time to profound subjects.

  Makinowsky, holding his coffee cup in both hands, peered over the rim, pondering how to start. Then, coughing deferentially, he said: ‘One of the most reassuring court decisions of my lifetime has attracted little attention. But I stress it with my students. The facts were straightforward. A married couple in a Western state, I think it might have been Utah. They weren’t nice people, really, ran a house of prostitution, using three older women whom they treated abominably. Then one Fourth of July they suddenly decided to give the “girls” a vacation, all expenses paid. Drove them to Yellowstone Park, treated them to a great time, and as they drove home to put the girls back to work, they said “Girls, we appreciate your help,” and the girls said “Thanks.”

  ‘Well, the Utah authorities arrested the couple for violating the Mann Act, bringing the women back across the Utah state line for immoral purposes. Caught dead to rights, no contest, big fine and long prison sentences for the culprits.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ I asked, my irritation showing at such a rambling interruption on a day of some importance to me.

  ‘Like I said, it went to the state court, and some judge wrote a most moving decision. Said the facts in the case were irrefutable, the Mann Act had been transgressed, a crime had been committed, and the punishment was not unreasonable. But, he added, sometimes the law hands down a judgment which offends the rule of common sense. This was an example. The state of Utah could properly have arrested this couple at any time during the past dozen years for wrongs that they were committing, but they waited until the pair was doing the right thing … bringing their girls back from a paid holiday. The sense of propriety on which society must rely had been offended. Case reversed. Couple set free.’

  My father-in-law’s narration hit me like a round of mortar fire. The sense of propriety had been offended. I looked at this grizzled fighter, survivor of the dreadful wars of Central Europe, patient teacher of young Americans who were striving to formulate their own judgments of right and wrong, and I suddenly understood what he was saying: ‘You think that for United States military officers to stand before the public in full uniform and take the Fifth Amendment offends the rule of common sense?’

  ‘Norman, you have every right to take the Fifth. Tens of millions of people in Europe and around the world wish their governments gave them such a right. No more tortures, no more of what the Soviets did to my brother to make him incriminate himself.’

  ‘But for military officers whose job it is …’ My voice trailed off.

  ‘Yes, it is offensive. Your job is to protect the nation, not yourself.’

  It must have been apparent to Nancy and her father that I was frightened of what might happen to my wife if I went to prison, for they both started to offer solutions at once. Nancy prevailed: ‘I told you I can still handle data processing. I can sweat it out,’ and her father said: “I have savings.’

  I dropped my head and mumbled: ‘Takes a refugee from God-knows-where to teach me my own law.’

  Makinowsky said reassuringly: ‘Norman, in the Watergate crisis it required an Italian judge, Sirica, a Polish lawyer, Jaworski, and a black congress-woman from Texas, Jordan, whose grandfather had probably been a slave, to sort things out. And maybe save our Union. You don’t always have to find a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant whose ancestors served in the Revolution to do the job. Maybe it takes some simple peasant from Czechoslovakia to point out the truth.’ His voice became sharp, and with his daughter beside him, he repeated: ‘Some things are offensive to the rule of common sense. And what you’re about to do is one of them.’

  At this moment Zack McMaster came into the kitchen, saw me in my uniform, ribbons in order, and said: ‘Good, I see you’re ready.’

  I was indeed, but not for what Zack wanted me to do, and as I looked at him in his proper three-piece suit, I was struck by one of those blinding flashes which can sometimes illuminate a human life, or, I think, the life of a nation. I knew that I would not face the Senate Committee alone. With me woul
d be: Old Jared Starr defiantly signing a declaration which might have caused him to be hanged. Simon Starr, silent in the great debate, powerful in the nighttime argument. Fat old Edmund Starr, sometimes not sure of the legal facts but always determined to uphold what John Marshall assured him was the reasonable decision. Hugh Starr, faithfully supporting Robert E. Lee in a forlorn cause. And courageous Emily Starr, standing alone, against scorn and humiliation and abandonment, to do a job which had to be done.

  They were my peers, my counselors, they and my wife and my good father-in-law, and I had come perilously close to ignoring them. I now saw the Constitution which my ancestors had helped create, interpret and enlarge as a treasured legacy whose provisions bind the various regions and interests of our nation together. Philosophically as evanescent as a whispering wind, structurally more powerful than steel cables, that superb document will be effective only if each new generation believes in it—and keeps it renewed.

  Slipping out of my military blouse and into an ordinary suit jacket that more or less went with my trousers, I told a startled McMaster: ‘I’m ready,’ and off we marched to the Senate.

  The Constitution of the United States

  We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

  Article I

  SECTION 1 All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.