The Great American Saloon Series
Thomas, Brian
ness of Soviet history, and it provided an arsenal of facts that could be used against anyone connected with the Stalin era, including Stalin himself. The narrator of Khrushchev Remembers claims...
...Beneath the marlin is a counter which conceals two taps...
...He said that if they spruced up the interior decorating they could rent it out for parties and make more money...
...Therefore, I propose to the comrades to find a way to remove Stalin from that position and appoint to it another man who in all respects differs from Stalin only in superiority--namely, more patient, more loyal, more polite and more attentive to comrades, less capricious, etc...
...Or sometimes one of the bosses would have his softball team in for a party...
...it is not a trifle, or it is such a trifle as may acquire a decisive significance...
...So watch it kid...
...is expected to retain the Senate seat he and his father have held for more than 40 years...
...the Central Committee takes the place of the organization...
...Tunney's weakness as an incumbent was reflected by the difficulty he had in fending off a primary challenge from former SDS leader Tom Hayden...
...In this fundamental respect, Khrushchev remained to the end a political Stalinist...
...Former Indianapolis mayor and Rhodes Scholar Richard G. Lugar has combined folksy manners with political sawy to build a wide lead over the incumbent...
...idealistic Roger MacBride, the Libertarian Party nominee from Jefferson's Virginia...
...Like Danforth, Lugar has moved to the right with the drift of his party...
...Republicans hold high hopes of gaining the seat of retiring Missouri Democrat Sen...
...In the Old Dominion of Virginia, Harry Flood Byrd, Jr...
...to get to the taproom you must go through the loading dock, pass under the paint-peeling stare of George Schoenling (who still refuses to give people change for a quarter --"No profit in it for me...
...Bella Abzug for the Democratic nomination in New York...
...and finally the dictator takes the place of the Central Committee...
...Khrushchev can condemn Stalin's "excesses," but he cannot challenge Stalin's right to rule, for to do so would be to cast doubt on Khrushchev's own reign as well...
...Warren E. Hearnes to seek the Senate seat, but he is the decided underdog against the state's attorney general John C. Danforth...
...Buckley is stressing his record against liberalized abortion laws as well as his support for independent schools...
...i ables and chairs are provided, but most people prefer to lounge around the counter within easy reach of the beer...
...Stuart Symington...
...Yet Khrushchev's anti-Stalinism is peculiarly limited...
...When I am in Cincinnati t always pay a visit to the taproom to have some free beer and find out how much (or how little) my favorite brewery has changed...
...The high ceiling is crisscrossed with pipes which are painted the same ugly beige as the porcelain brick walls, and the sole decorations consist of a few of Schoenling's promotional gewgaws strewn about and a stuffed marlin landed on someone's Florida vacation years ago hanging high on a rear wall...
...The Alternative: An American Spectator November 1976 23...
...route to the electionnight celebration...
...In Indiana, another young Republican moderate hopes to topple three-term Sen...
...We just come here to drink beer, and we don't care if it looks like a dump...
...Yet there are other Presidential candidates afield worth remarking: Eugene McCarthy, who surprises with the occasional intelligent propositions that pop up from his grabbag of woolly notions...
...And there are also contenders for state and Congressional office who are notable sometimes for good sense, sometimes for mountebankery...
...Both Khrushchev and Stalin clawed their way to power, and both held on to it as long as they could...
...On the other hand, Stalin came to power because he was extraordinarily despotic...
...His brother William heads both Washington University and the Danforth Foundation, and John himself is a trustee of Yale University...
...Despite the added wisdom of hindsight, Khrushchev's condemnation of Stalin is not so different from that offered by Lenin in 1923: Stalin is too rude, and this fault, entirely supportable in relations among us Communists, becomes insupportable in the office of General Secretary...
...Zumwalt has spoken out lately as a strong Joseph P. Duggan is assistant managing editor of The Alternative...
...The clearest evidence for this is that Byrd, for the second time in six years, is seeking reelection as an Independent...
...He tends to view Stalinism as a personal vice rather than a political one, a vice that is not so much a defect of government as of character...
...Most of my breaks and meals I spent swilling delicious amber fluid with my fellow employees, smug in the knowledge that at any other job I would have spent a chunk of my paycheck on beer, while at Schoenling the beer was understood as a part of the already substantial wage...
...Hearnes is, by his party's standards, a conservative, having led his delegation in support of Henry Jackson at the 1972 Democratic National Convention...
...And that is the problem...
...The patronage of regulars and the calm dedication to the consumption of alcohol essential to a great saloon are lacking...
...In the course of a summer spent in Schoenling's bottle shop, I worked nine hours a day, six days a week, for about ten weeks, and discovered first-hand the infuriating array of taxes and union dues which plague the working stiff, acquired a number of cuts and lacerations from flying glass, learned how to operate a forklift, and drank gallons of "Cincinnati's Finest" in the taproom...
...The Republican incumbent, James L. Buckley, elected as a Conservative six years ago, is imperilled by the heavy Democratic majority among registered voters...
...Khrushchev was a less cruel and less powerful tyrant than Stalin, but his rule cannot be described as anything other than tyrannical...
...It is the complex of institutions and practices, the regime which Khrushchev inherited from Stalin and within which Khrushchev made his career...
...Founded by Ed and George Schoenling shortly after Prohibition was repealed, this brewery is one of the last local establishments in a town which once boasted of over forty different brands bottled within its city limits...
...But the legendary Byrd machine no longer holds tight reins upon the state Democratic Party...
...Hayakawa, whose uncommon campaign speeches include ample quotes from such as Irving Kristol, is running well in the polls at present, but at age 70 he may not have the stamina to sustain a vigorous Campaign...
...When Danforth won election in 1968 as Missouri's first Republican state official in nearly thirty years, he was young, liberal for a Republican, and considered arrogant...
...Stalinism, however, is not just a quality of character...
...each of his three Senate terms he has won as an underdog...
...After being trooped through a guided tour, visitors are herded into an ersatz beer garden with tasteful decor harkening back to some heartier era and treated to an hour or so of phony yo-ho-me-lads atmosphere before being bundled out onto the street...
...Joseph P. Duggan The Good, the Bad, and the Imbecile A critw's choice of the outstanding poktica/races this year~ As the 1976 ejection campaign limps into its final weeks, the televised debates have focused attention on the major Presidential contenders, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford...
...He states unequivocally, " I consider Stalinism a bad quality...
...Daniel Patrick Moynihan, sometime professor of government at Harvard, eloquent defender of world freedom as United States Ambassador to the United Nations, narrowly defeated Rep...
...Hayakawa, the tweedy, Japanese-American semanticist...
...In his later years Khrushchev objected to Stalin's despotism because it had been insufficiently benevolent...
...Democrats remain in shock and disarray since the winner of the divisive party primary, Rep...
...On a recent visit I took a fastidious friend with me who made a wisecrack about how seedy the taproom was...
...Buckley is also recognized as a leading Republican advocate of environmental legislation...
...I said, "But it's fine the way it is...
...Do not be deceived--this is the taproom...
...California's Sen...
...Vance Hartke...
...Khrushchev, like Stalin, was such a dictator...
...You're paying for the atmosphere...
...There is no guided tour at Schoenling...
...Lester Maddox, the sallow Southern-fried chicken tycoon whose house specialty was Jim Crow...
...Jerry Litton, perished with his family when their private plane crashed en...
...Danforth, patrician heir to the Ralston-Purina fortune and an Episcopal priest, is from a family prominent in American education...
...I even remember one night when I came in off the night shift and found the place teeming with rookie cops drinking, playing cards, and feeling terribly wicked for imbibing while in uniform (even though they were officially off-duty...
...And anyway, the price is right...
...The Democratic nominee this time out is former Chief of Naval Operations Elmo R Zumwalt, Jr...
...traverse an engine room with its deafening roar and stench of ammonia, and ascend an abrupt flight of stairs into what appears at first to be a locker room in a decrepit YMCA...
...22 The Alternative: An American Spectator November 1976 People who worked nearby would come in on their lunchbreak or after hours and sip a few brews, and reminisce fondly about the days when you could go to a different taproom every night for a month and still not cover them all...
...His stand against federal aid to New York City may also cost him support there, but has won him admiration for holding to principle...
...John V. Tunney faces a close contest with Republican S.I...
...Usually you will find only employees slouched around the counter, telling lurid horror-stories about the less safety-conscious days when unwary newcomers like your narrator were always falling into vats or getting a shirtsleeve caught in a whizzing conveyor belt...
...Benevolence is far removed from the qualities that make for success as a despot...
...Democratic leaders have chosen former Gov...
...This circumstance may seem an insignificant trifle, but I think that from the point of view of the relation between Stalin and Trotsky...
...It soon became apparent that the taproom included among its clientele more than employees and customers who had just bought a keg down at the loading dock...
...Catholics, who gave Buckley crucial support in his first election, are seen to be the swing vote in this contest between Irishmen...
...Over the years, though, he has become a party moderate and has won wide respect from Republicans and Democrats alike...
...But today the slick national bottlers have transformed what was once a genteel, civilized feature of the neighborhood brewery into a weapon in their public relations arsenal...
...In between guzzles, Brian Thomas studies philosophy at Brown University...
...An oldtime taproom was a place where the "friends of the brewery" could go for some free beer...
...The narrator of Khrushchev Remembers claims to despise "those who still quake before Stalin's dirty underwear...
...Even Trotsky, writing in 1904, identified this danger in the Leninist party: The organization of the Party takes the place of the Party itself...
...THE GREAT AMERICAN SALOON SERIES by Brian Thomas The Taproom of the Schoenling Brewery The proliferation of singles bars and artsy, cloying coffeehouses has made finding a good place to drink beer as difficult as getting a summer job, but I am pleased to report that there is a place where one can do both--at the Schoenling Brewery on Central Parkway in Cincinnati...
...Allow me to introduce a sampling: Regrettably, the most sensible Senate challenger is opposing the most sensible incumbent...
...But Hartke, despite a reputation for corruption, should not be ruled out of the running...
...After a Reds game the taproom would become more boisterous as reeling fans stumbled in and stationed themselves at the chrome udders...
...Hayakawa, a political moderate, endeared himself to conservatives as president of San Francisco State College with his firm stand against radical violence...
...The Soviet regime may be described in non-Marxist terms as an attempt to establish a benevolent despotism...
Vol. 10 • November 1976 • No. 2
