WASHINGTON REPORT: Going Home:
Sisyphus
WASHINGTON REPORT
There's all sorts of ways to figure out what's going on politically in the country these days. There're the professional documents of the "think-tanks," such as the Brookings...
...If not, a public official denies his constituents his full potential...
...While in the hammock, Hungate said he found that the years eroded his tolerance, his stamina, his patience...
...That event was the Nixon conspiracy against representative government, the "Watergate" affair...
...All the while, Hungate relates, he compared being in public life with being in a hammock-"it's hard to get into, and perhaps equally hard to get out of...
...But apparently it was an unfortunate event that provided the decisive push in his decision to leave...
...But his reasons for retiring, given little attention in the press, are disquieting...
...But the "system" soon made it clear that only chairmanship of the full Judiciary Committee would give him the latitude he would need to bring his legislative ideas in bill form before the House of Representatives...
...I have gradually become aware that my enthusiasm for public service has been waning under the weight of my frustrated hopes," Hungate continued, "others' unreasonable pressures, and the job's persistent demands...
...WASHINGTON REPORT There's all sorts of ways to figure out what's going on politically in the country these days...
...But, as others in Congress have found, he found himself a "very junior partner in a large firm...
...One hopes that the Hungates of the country are being drawn to public service, not discouraged...
...The words were those of Representative Hungate, Democrat, who was last seen nationally by grateful Americans as he and his colleagues on the Judiciary Committee last summer successfully stated the case for the ouster of Nixon from the presidency...
...sisyphusstory...
...heavy demands from constituents, once accepted, began to provoke him into annoyance...
...Hungate came to acknowledge that he was no longer willing to abide by Jefferson's dictum: "When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself public property...
...There're the voluminous books written by political "scientists" (God rest Euclid and Galileo...
...As a result, Hungate appropriately said, "in the last decade, politics has gone from the age of 'Camelot,' when all things were possible, to the age of 'Watergate,' when all things are suspect...
...But . . . "An office-holder," Hungate said in a statement, "must continually ask himself if he is serving the public interest to the best of his ability...
...But he's noticeably above average -the conscientious, strong B-average American who helps get things done in the public and private institutions of our land...
...As Hungate relates it, he figured that one term (two years) in the House would be sufficient to implement his Vietnam policy and his proposals for reform of the Code of Military Justice...
...Not to put a gloss on it, Hungate, Harvard law degree and all, is not at age 52 the brightest or ablest or most influential man in either the Missouri delegation or in the House of Representatives, where he sits...
...And so Hungate thought and thought about it and polled the "four senior members of Hungate and Hungate" and decided to break camp when the 94th Congress concludes late next year...
...Others in the Congress feel as depressed over the backlash of "Watergate" as Hungate does...
...Public service, he said, must consequently be a "passion...
...A finishing chapter that began as a result of three ambitions he had as a child-to be President of the U.S., to pitch for the Chicago Cubs and to sing like Bradley Kincaid...
...With humor, he wished the House and his successor well...
...And on the day before Independence Day last month, an elected politician, somewhat obscure except to his constituents, a majority of whom has elected him to Congress six times, spoke his mind...
...Criticism began to hurt...
...However, an insider in his craft has occasionally a thing or two worth sharing...
...Like most of us, he's replaceable, but he's served well in the House and his type is needed in more, not in fewer, numbers...
...A case may be made that more members of Congress should act as Hungate is-refusing to stay on after the sap stops running...
...The editorial pages and syndicated columns have an attraction out of habit primarily to those aging who seek re-enforcement of opinions formed before this age of anxiety...
...And there're the more digestible, off-the-cuff pieces by the Jimmy Breslins of newspapering-street-corner seers barred from the athenaeums of America, where men in high places, and a few selected women, gather for extended weekend intellectual introspection...
...Bill Hungate announced July 3 that he was going to chuck his House seat and return to Pike County, Missouri, to finish out his working years in the practice of the law...
...sisyphus...
...He announced his retirement without self-pity or bitterness...
...He decided to take another term, and another term and another . . . Sufficient seniority brought him a Judiciary Committee subcommittee chairmanship (on criminal justice...
...May their successors be those who will join in helping to sharpen our national convictions, preserve the battle for survival of personal liberty over the demands of the State, and fuel our hopes, not our fears for America...
...For those who prefer to be lectured at, there're the Sunday sermons in the churches and on television...
...There're the Gallup and Harris polls...
...Hungate's Ninth Missouri Congressional District includes Mark Twain's country, and Hungate, with an unruly shock of white hair, appropriately intersperses a little Hannibal humor into the most serious of his congressional pronouncements...
...Ultimately, Hungate settled for a seat, in the House of Representatives consistent with others in Pike County, Missouri, who "love and understand politics as a fish understands swimming...
...There're the occasional interviews with everyday Americans that appear in the newspapers...
...There're the professional documents of the "think-tanks," such as the Brookings Institution or the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions...
...Yet some will stay, others, along with United States Representative William Leonard Hungate (D-Missouri), will also serve notices of retirement...
...He also found that not only had his duties become burdensome but also Americans' dissatisfaction with the Congress grew and grew and grew beyond the point of being rational...
...The tide is running against parliamentary institutions which so far have occupied only an inch of time in world history...
Vol. 102 • August 1975 • No. 11
