The Gentleman from New York

...C Charles R. Morris is the author of American Catholic (Times Books), among other books...

...subcabinet official, frantically circulated Moynihan's personal politics have alofficial Washington, carrying a nine- ways been of the American social libteenth-century Protestant tract proving eral, center-left variety, leavened by a Charles R. Morris that John Wilkes Booth was a Jesuit and disdainful skepticism for the fashionLincoln's death the consequence of a able nostrums of the chattering classes...

...Much of the responded...

...Moynihan, then a young politician making such an appeal...

...Hodgson's book, Univ...

...UDM School of Law 313-596-0210...

...And it is the great virtue of Union was about to collapse from Godfrey Hodgson's smoothly writ- its accumulated record of economic ten The Gentleman from New York that blunders and monstrous abuses...

...Liz desperate ambitions, the occasional worthies of a UN committee on decol- coped with a young family during fre- adroit obsequiousness to a Lyndon Johnonization...

...Similarly, during the cold war as, at best, a refuge for scoundrels he was equally dismissive of the auand boobs, and, at worst, almost as a thoritarian Left that idealized Stalkind of tumor...

...immediate aftermath of the Kennedy as- root...

...Sage, scholar, statesman ical understanding of the American ex- ly-not because he believed there was a periment and his deeply felt commit- conspiracy, but precisely because he bement to its values...

...But for most tant, he has insisted, to be placed at of the rest of our history, Americans risk by ill-thought-out extravaganhave tended to regard government zas...

...He was born in es of electoral democracy.'" culture of India...

...We are not about to be time (sans college degree) to produce streets of Manhattan's Hell's Kitchenlectured by police states on the process- original scholarship on the history and is sheer fabrication...

...Commonweal 2 2 September 22, 2000...

...Virtually alone among mocratic tradition that make him officialdom, Moynihan confidently such a singularly attractive public forecast in 1979 that the Soviet figure...

...Hodgson also deals forthrightly with the allegations of the senator's possible alcoholism, concluding that A Colloquium while Moynihan and his friends often on Parents, Children, drank shocking quantities of liquor, he Religion and Schools has greatly moderated his drinking in recent years, and that there is no evidence that it ever interfered with his public responsibilities...

...Catholic Conference the underlying spirit is friendly and parental power as it relates to grateful...

...Recans understood that George Mar- spect for government is too imporshall was a great man...

...Moynihan and his and The Michigan brother really did shine shoes after Catholic Conference school to help support the family...

...Hodgson's approach to biography is The 1925 case Pierce v Society of in many ways as refreshing as MoyniPresenters Include-, Sisters established a strongly pro- han's to government...

...Anyone who reads his fine book will 651 E. Jefferson Ave...

...and A Biography ness in a way a native reporter could not...

...There was once a Joseph M. O'Keefe S.J., tected liberty of parents to have highly civil tradition of honoring worBoston College their children educated outside thy public men in the twilight of their Martha L. Minow, the public school system in a careers with a "Life...

...Security disappeared, however, when University of y the father deserted, and the family enDetroit Mercy dured periods of dire poverty as MoyniSchool of Law han's mother tried to support six children on her own...

...The committee consisted of same time managed Pat's political ca- Moynihan legend-the poor boy who "sixteen police states, four democracies, reer, salved his ego, and somehow found fought his way up from the violent and four others...

...even Ameri- national health-care proposals...

...He was pleading that But reporters and politicos have often scorn for government, for Lee Harvey Oswald be placed in secure complained about his slipperiness, usuA in the broader Western tra- custody and that a remorseless public ally because they have misunderstood dition it is among the high- investigation be launched immediate- that his politics have always yielded est of callings...

...of Pennsylvania have extended to a wide variety Law School however, is entirely satisfying...

...Detroit, Michigan come away in full agreement...

...he fully explores Moynihan's histor- During his brief, and fiery, stint Commonweal 2 1 September 22, 2000 as ambassador to the United Nations, the senator, and even more of Moyni- raphy, providing at least a glimpse of Moynihan once responded to a com- han's wife Elizabeth, an indispensable the senator's tender ego, his sometimes plaint that he had been "rude" to the contributor to the senator's career...

...It is hard to imagine Tulsa into a family from the comfortGentleman is not a muckraking biog- Moynihan achieving his eminence with- able middle classes of Indiana, where raphy...

...Our skeptical era Harvard Law School secular or sectarian environment...

...It is of issues including public fund- solidly researched and often critical, but Mark E. Chopko, ing of sectarian schools and U.S...

...Pat spent his boyhood vacations...

...mericans are unique in their papal conspiracy...

...He had meant to be rude, he quent moves on low salaries, and at the son or a Richard Nixon...

...inism and of the dogmatic Right, inIt is Daniel Patrick Moynihan's al- cluding virtually all of the national most anachronistic respect for gov- security agencies, that grossly overernment and his insistence on the estimated the capacities of the Sopreciousness of the American de- viet Union...

...Certainly America's place to the paramount task of preFounders understood it that way- serving the integrity of the compact Adams, Madison, and Hamilton that allows Americans to be such a were almost painfully self-conscious lightly governed people...

...But can one imagine any other sassination...

...that they would be judged against As a consequence, while Moynithe standards of Pericles and the han is strongly commited to govGracchi...

...As a British journalist lieved that there was not...

...would never tolerate the panegyrics of, Barbara B. Woodhouse, The reverberations of this liberty say, the Victorian age...

...Because of Oswald's death, New York affairs, Hodgson may have the detach- the acrid stench of conspiracy will forDaniel Patrick Moynihan, ment to appreciate American unique- ever linger over the assassination...

...And, of course, The Gentleman from and a long-time observer of American he was right...

...Hodgson is a long-time friend of out her...

...the weeds of mistrust, which so flourGodfrey Hodgson There is a striking vignette from the ished over the succeeding decades, took Houghton Mifflin, $35,464 pp...

...us, who deserves the public's honor, for Friday, October 6, 2000 For more information, call we are all the better for his services...

...But presents while he did live in Hell's Kitchen, it was only briefly, over his mother's bar, one summer when he was home on college vacation, and his career as a stevedore 75 years after was similarly brief while he was a colPierce v Society of Sisters: lege student...

...Here is a man, Hodgson tells the best interest of the child...

...The splendidly creative ernment programs for the needy, he American statesmanship in the wake has been scornful of the micromanof World War II was similarly im- agerial overreachings of the Johnbued with a solemn awareness of son War on Poverty or the Clinton transcendent purpose...

...His fathe Moynihans and an open admirer of But Hodgson steers clear of hagiog- ther came to New York as an advertising copywriter, and they lived in Greenwich Village, Long Island, and Ridgefield, New Jersey...