Word: dirksen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Washington, Dirksen spent his evenings at law school, and after one or two tries passed the bar. In the House, he took Republican Whip Joe Martin's advice, kept his nose clean and worked hard. Though he counted himself a conservative, a protectionist and an isolationist, he hewed to no strict party line, voted "aye" on a number of F.D.R.'s New Deal programs. He voted against both Lend-Lease and extending the draft, but he changed his mind in September 1941, when he exhorted the Congress to show a ''unity of purpose'' behind...
Princess & Politics. Dirksen and Ropp produced two other notable theatricals. One was a one-act allegory called The Slave with Two Faces, in which Ev cavorted on stage wearing a ram's-head mask, black socks, short black tights and nothing else. "I remember thinking," recalls one witness, "that the party lines would be buzzing tomorrow." The other was Percy MacKaye's A Thousand, Years Ago, in which Ev played a pulsating lover panting after the charms of the Princess of Pekin. He won her, of course-and he kept he, for the "princess" was played...
Fortunately for the Republican Party-not to say Broadway-Dirksen's strict, God-fearing mother did not take kindly to the idea of her son becoming a professional actor. Dirksen therefore hitched his wagon to a political star. He announced for city finance commissioner in 1926 and won. Four years later, he decided to run against Peoria's incumbent Republican Congressman, William E. Hull. One key issue: the importation to the U.S. of blackstrap molasses, a vital question for Pekin's corn-processing and distillery businesses. Ev lost, but on the day after election he began campaigning...
...Doctor. Then one morning in 1947, at the age of 51, Dirksen's booming political career suddenly quieted. He awoke with "cobwebs" before him, and they would not be brushed away. Doctors called it chorioretinitis-inflammation in the retina of his right eye. Medication did little good, and one physician recommended removal of the eye. Dirksen decided to seek further consultations at Johns Hopkins Hospital. On the train, Dirksen recalls, "I got down on my knees and uttered my prayers, whether blindness would be my lot." At Johns Hopkins, the specialist also urged removal...
There is nothing very mysterious about Dirksen's methods as leader. Sitting across the aisle from him when he took over was Democrat Lyndon Johnson, one of the most talented leaders in Senate history. Dirksen watched Johnson and learned from him. But where Johnson often scraped off some hide when he was trying to smooth Senate fur, Dirksen's techniques are gentler. Says he: "The longer one is identified with public life, especially at the national level, the more one is persuaded, as an ancient philosopher said, that politics is the art of the possible." In dealing with...