The Secret Knowledge

“as I set in that there coort, surrounded be me fellow-journalists, spies, perjurers, an’ other statesmen, that I’d give four dollars if th’ prisident iv th’ coort’d call out “Monsoo Dooley, take th’ stand.’

“ ‘ Here,’ says I; an I’d thread me way with dignity through th’ Fr’rinch gin’rals an’ ministers on th’ flure, an’ give me hand to th’ prisident to kiss. If he went anny further, I’d break his head. No man’ll kiss me, Hinnissy, an’ live. What’s that ye say? He wudden’t want to? Well, niver mind.

“ ‘ Here,’ ” says I, ‘ mong colonel, what d’ye want with me?’

“ ‘ What d’ye know about this case, mong bar-tinder.’

“ ’Nawthin’,’ says I. ‘But I know as much as annywan else.’ ”

—Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley in the

Hearts of His Countrymen

I am a guy who got his nose broke playing high school football.

I remember very well what it is to look for work. It is my experience that being self-supporting is like shooting free throws: if you hit, you get to shoot again, if not, not.

I believe, like Coach Lombardi, that every man wants to test himself, and is never happier than when he “lays on the field of battle, exhausted, and victorious.”

The Chicago literary tradition is born not out of its Universities, but out of the sports desk and the city desk of its newspapers. Hemingway revolutionized English prose. His inspiration was the telegraph, whose use, at Western Union, taught this: every word costs something.

This, of course, is the essence of poetry, which is the essence of great prose. Chicagoan literature came from the newspaper, whose purpose, in those days, was to Tell What Happened. Hemingway’s epiphany was reported, earlier, by Keats as “ ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’—that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” I would add, to Keats’s summation only this: “Don’t let the other fellow piss on your back and tell you it’s raining.”

I believe one might theoretically forgive one who cheats at business, but never one who cheats at cards; for business adversaries operate at arm’s length, the cardplayer under the assumption that his position will be conducted under the strict rules of the game, period.

That was my first political epiphany.

And now, I have written a political book.

What are the qualifications for a Political Writer?

They are, I believe, the same as those of an aspiring critic: an inability to write for the Sports Page.

I was born in Hyde Park and grew up on the South Side of Chicago. I hold no brief against someone who is not interested in sports, but I could never trust someone who claimed such an interest, in order to advance his own agenda, and then could neither name a member, past or present, of his self-apostrophised “Home Team,” nor correctly pronounce the name of their ballpark.¹⁰⁷

I can forgive someone who lies, but if he can’t think on his feet, he has no business representing my interests. If he can’t lie to me, how can I expect him to lie, on my behalf, to the other guy?

I have written a political book not because I am an expert but because I am a citizen. I have published a political book because other citizens wrote a Constitution denying to our Government the power to control Speech.

I am the beneficiary of those who lived and died to defend our Constitution. I need no permission to publish my work—only the endorsement of another citizen or group who believe they may, financially or otherwise, profit from its publication.

For many, what may be accepted as common sense is only that which comes out of the mouths of experts. But Harry Truman said the smartest man is the farmer, for, while he works all day, he’s thinking.

I would add that the smartest man is the immigrant, for he has to assess each situation afresh, and mechanically. Which is to say he starts with no misconceptions, and so is very difficult to misdirect—his ability to eat depends upon his ability to figure out the way things work.

Things work in ways both wonderful and stunning, when set next to the way we think they work.¹⁰⁸

The gap between the two grows naturally, through use and elaboration. It is capable of misuse by those who can profit from it: the politician who would like more patronage money to dispense, the entrepreneur who is selling snake oil, and the investment banker who may be his brother.

What is the difference between equality and fairness? A standard may be applied to the former, which the latter will not bear. The cry for “fairness” is the child’s cry. It is, indeed, the first sentence dealing with the abstract which the child speaks, “It’s not fair.”

“Fair,” then, may mean “What I want,” or, in the altruist, “The way I believe the world should be,” but it is, finally, subjective; and an insistence on this subjective standard opens the way both for evil in the name of good (busing), and for the unprincipled exploiters of any system, (Lenin, Mao, or their contemporaries of various ranks and denominations).

Equality can only, practically, mean, equality before the law—this is to say that everybody gets his turn to be heard out by a judicial system which, in the way of the world, is overworked, and indifferent, and may be misguided, or indeed, corrupt.

The question is, “Whom would I want on the jury trying me?” The answer, “Persons like myself,” brings us down to the Courthouse when it is our turn to serve, with personal and civic pride counterbalancing the inconvenience.

You and I would want, on a jury tying our case, not the expert, not the hypothetical or overeducated, but the plumber, the grocer, the carpet salesman, the firefighter, the Marine—a regular person just like you or me.

For our case, were it, God forbid, before a court, would be, in our estimation simple, and we would want our jurors wary of abstractions—capable of and experienced in differentiating between simple things: the debt was paid, the debt was not paid; he struck me first; he promised X and did Y. These are the things the average, undeluded, and undeludable worker deals with every day, the things with which we deal when we