America Back on Track - Softcover

We live in a time of remarkable human achievement and progress that would have been almost unimaginable to our ancestors. Not long ago, our optimistic vision of the world seemed to tell us that the sky was the limit. But now, with the breakthroughs in science and technology ranging from the mapping of the human genome to the discovery of new galaxies waiting to be explored, we realize that the sky is just the beginning.

At the same time, we find ourselves sliding back into a world that would have been all too familiar to our ancestors. War and violence, hunger and poverty, injustice and abuse of power are as old as the human race. But they are not an unchangeable result of our DNA. We know from our history and our not too distant past that the right leadership can summon, as President Lincoln said, “the better angels of our nature” and inspire us to meet our challenges and make the world a better place. We can start here at home by putting America back on track to reclaim its legacy of opportunity and possibility.

For me, in a very personal way, recalling the examples and lessons of my own early years has helped me understand the direction I think America must take again.

I grew up in a large Irish Catholic family as the youngest of nine children. By their words, their actions, and their love, our parents instilled in all of us the importance of the ties that bind us together—our faith, our family, and our love of this great country. They inspired in us a curiosity to learn and a desire to leave this world better than we found it.

One of my most vivid childhood memories is of our family gatherings around the table at dinnertime. Conversation was lively and interesting, prompted by questions from my mother and father about events of the day. With nine of us eager to impress our parents as well as one another, it was hard to get a word in unless you had something interesting to say. We learned early that the way to be an active part of dinner conversation was to have read a book, to have learned something new in school, or, as we got older, to have traveled to new places. Our parents opened our nine young minds to the world that way, and it’s been a wonderful lifelong gift.

I was also blessed to have had a special relationship with my mother’s father, John F. Fitzgerald. Grampa’s lively personality, endearing charm, and beautiful singing voice earned him the nickname Honey Fitz. He had a love of people and a way with words that led to his election to the Massachusetts State Senate in 1892 and the United States House of Representatives in 1894, and to his inauguration as mayor of Boston in 1906. As a young schoolboy I was fortunate to be able to spend nearly every Sunday in Boston with Grampa. I was his avid student and he was an eager tutor. He loved people, and he seemed to talk to everyone. I heard stories of how he campaigned for office, riding on the train from Boston to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, where so many Bostonians vacationed. He’d walk through all twelve cars, shaking hands and trading stories, and by the time they reached Maine, Grampa knew almost everyone. Then he’d get right back on the train and come back to Boston with a new group of travelers who were returning home, and he’d do the same thing all over again. That was Grampa. He connected with people and found novel ways to do it wherever he was—in front of the Old North Church, in a hotel while on a vacation in Florida, in the kitchens of Boston restaurants, shaking hands with chefs, waiters, and busboys. He knew how to win votes, and he kept up his outreach to people from all walks of life long after he left office. He was always interested in learning something new, hearing people’s concerns, and staying current on the issues that mattered most to them. Grampa talked, but more important, he listened.

He was also a student of history, and he made it come alive for me. “There’s Bunker Hill, Teddy. Let me tell you about the battle there.” And on he’d go, re-creating the scene for me with his unique enthusiasm. He seemed to know every detail of the American Revolution, but what I remember most was his deep faith in the result of the revolution: the American dream. To him it meant equal opportunity, and opposition to prejudice wherever it existed. As the son of Irish immigrants, he’d suffered from prejudice himself. He told me about the signs in local shop windows that read NO IRISH NEED APPLY. But he also told me how he saw America persevere, overcome bigotry, and create opportunity for these new immigrants. He had fought in those battles himself, and he inspired me to do the same.

In fact, all eight of my great-grandparents reached for that dream. They had come from Ireland to these shores within eighteen months of one another in the middle of the nineteenth century to escape the massive famine in their homeland. They dreamed of finding good jobs, starting their own businesses, and giving their children a decent education. A nation dedicated to equality unleashed the energies of such people, and they loved America because of it. Grampa was determined to continue waging that battle so others could take the same road.

My family’s religious views also demanded dedication to the needs and concerns of the least among us, and my parents passed that gift of faith on to all of their children. Every day we prayed at home or in church, and often at both places. My sisters and brothers and I all attended formal classes in religion and received the sacraments in our church. Our parents believed these lessons of faith would mold the people we would become.

At the same time, they believed deeply in freedom of religion, without interference from government. They had endured ethnic and religious prejudice, and they wanted to end it. Freedom to worship in our faith could only be possible if others were free to worship in theirs.

Still, the lessons we drew from our religious faith influenced our values and our vision of what America should be. For me, the most profound message is in the Gospel of Matthew: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.” Similar themes are found in most of the great books of religion or philosophy. That sense of community and compassion, the belief that we are all in this together, has echoes in every moral system, whether religious or secular, and is at the heart of the great promise of America.

I had just become a teenager when World War II ended, but I was deeply moved by the stories my brother Jack brought home from the war—and by the ultimate sacrifice my brother Joe had made on a highly dangerous mission in the service of our country. I met many of Jack’s friends who had fought in the war, and I saw how proud they all were to have been part of something so much larger than themselves.

I was fourteen when Jack ran for Congress in 1946, but I remember what he told me shortly after he took office. He was taking me around Washington, pointing out the different landmarks. He showed me the White House, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, and finally the Capitol and the House and Senate office buildings. I loved it. Jack had the same knack as Grampa for bringing history alive. But the thing that is seared in my memory and that has influenced the rest of my life is what my brother said to me at the end of our day of touring. “It’s good that you’re interested in seeing these buildings, Teddy. But I hope you also take an interest in what goes on inside them.”

Jack’s words had an impact on me, but I didn’t realize how much until 1954, when the Supreme Court handed down the landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The Court declared segregation in the schools to be unconstitutional, and my eyes were opened to the awesome power of our government to create change for the good. I was still in college, but my future path started to become clearer to me. I heeded my brother’s advice to take an interest in what happened inside the buildings in Washington, and I began to acquire a deeper understanding of government and its institutions. America worked, I realized, because its three separate but equal branches monitored one another. When two of those branches failed to protect the rights of Americans, the third often rose to the occasion. In the Brown decision, the Supreme Court stood up when Congress and the president did not.

The Court’s 1954 decision focused the nation’s attention on the racial inequality that still plagued America nearly a century after the Civil War. It was a time when Martin Luther King, Jr., began to lead the way forward. He had earned a doctoral degree at Boston University School of Theology in 1955, at a time when I was becoming deeply interested in politics. Although I didn’t meet him personally until the 1960s, I was riveted, as was much of the nation, by his unsurpassed eloquence and moral force.

By the time my brother was elected president in 1960, the issue of racial equality had become central to the American agenda. In 1962, I was honored to be elected to represent Massachusetts in the United States Senate and to join with others to be a voice for positive change. I made my maiden speech in the Senate in support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and I was proud to be part of the great battle for equality.

For much of my career we were winning the battle, step by step. But it was by no means easy. Violence, tragedy, bloodshed, and loss marred those early years. But Dr. King and the many foot soldiers he inspired had created a powerful nonviolent movement that kept the issue at the forefront of our national discourse. At the national level, Presi...