The nastiness season in political campaigns

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And then there is Ralph Nader. I doubt that his decision to run as an independent candidate for president will make much difference this time, but there is always the 2000 election in which his independent candidacy may have worked against Al Gore in Florida. Nader has stood for many worthwhile causes, and I hate to see him wind down his public years as a possible spoiler.

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While we are on the subject of nastiness, isn’t the Bush administration being rather self-defeating in carrying on the feud over Cuba to the next generation? Raul Castro may be just as bad as his brother Fidel by our lights, even worse, but wouldn’t it make sense to talk with him and find what possible new relationships he has in mind before condemning him to unending outcast status?

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Some political nastiness also has appeared in Salisbury with the charges by blog and radio, that the selectmen and other officials have engaged in lies and deception about the proposed purchase of the Luke-Fitting property for a new transfer station and the old Illinois Tool Works plant for a new firehouse. Nonpartisan committees have studied both projects extensively and have recommended their purchase as being in the town’s interest. A town meeting to vote on the $3.3 million firehouse purchase will be held on Friday, Feb. 29, at 7:30 p.m. at the Congregational Church.

I attended the informational meeting during the snowstorm last Friday night and have talked extensively with officials involved. It seems to me that they have made a persuasive case in good faith about the need to move quickly before the opportunity is lost. Lakeville Hose Company and Fire District officers have urged the consolidation of the archaic fire district into a single entity under the town government. A piece of really good news is that with anticipated state and federal grants, the likelihood is that both purchases can be financed without a tax increase.

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But the same person, who has been alleging bad faith on the part of town officials, now is calling for a referendum vote. While this may sound reasonable, the practical result can be mischievous. It is an easy way for naysayers to clothe themselves in anonymity without taking public responsibility for their actions. I am familiar with the situation in Pelham, N.Y., after we moved to Salisbury in 1971. School budgets went down to defeat multiple times after harried officials had cut every last dime they felt they could responsibly cut. A more recent local instance is the new firehouse in Kent, the cost of which escalated painfully after the initial proposal was defeated in referendum and had to be reworked, culminating in the town spending more and getting less.

I like to think that we don’t do things this way in Salisbury — that we have good government because officials are genuinely accountable and try hard to keep town facilities abreast of future needs, while seizing every opportunity to save money. The firehouse and transfer station purchases deserve the support of people who are interested in more than stirring up controversy.

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There was a memorial service last Saturday for a much-admired citizen of Salisbury, Evelyn Firth. She will be remembered for many contributions, especially in public health nursing, but I like to think of her as the longtime proprietor of an innovative and sometimes zany gift shop, Diabolique. So many of her contemporaries attended the memorial that Noble Horizons ran a special bus to and from the service.

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Only a very modest obituary about Constance Morris appeared in last week’s papers to describe the death of a remarkable woman at the age of 98. Constance was the daughter of the renowned jurist, federal Appellate Court Judge Learned Hand, and was the widow of Newbold Morris, a liberal Republican who was twice a candidate for mayor of New York after Fiorello LaGuardia, and who later served as parks commissioner.

Connie Morris preferred to be know as a distinguished painter in her own right and a gracious hostess at her home on Knibloe Hill Road in Sharon, and she certainly was both. But she could not escape the legacy of Learned Hand and his brother Augustus, who was also a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. It was often said that one of the greatest mistakes of Franklin D. Roosevelt was his failure to appoint Learned Hand to the Supreme Court. In advocating a philosophy that was not too sure it was right, Learned Hand quoted the admonition of Oliver Cromwell to the Church of Scotland: "I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think that you may be mistaken." Pretty good advice for all of us.