The Fighting Liberal

I'm And by over 30 ,000 members of Nebraska's for public television In the first half of this century, George Norris was Nebraska's best

-known, best -loved, and sometimes best -hated politician. His ideas changed this nation. He was a staunch Republican who was described as a fighting liberal, yet was elected year after year by conservative voters. I believe that in all my fights, I have stood for the best interests of the common people. I was first in the legislature 17 years ago, and you find yourself walking into the George W. Norris chamber, and I knew of his presence from the time I was in the legislature on. David Landis is a Nebraska state senator from Lincoln. He is also an actor

and educator. He's developed a one -man play based on Norris' own words. Norris is almost a nemesis because Norris, if you were to look over your shoulder and talk to you, who would say, what does your conscience say is right? Do what your conscience says. Be ready to go home if you're wrong, but do what your conscience says. It is an honor to be here, but when you've been dead for over 40 years, it's an honor to be most anywhere. Normally, when I'm invited to speak to an audience, I'm called upon to account for myself. The best account I can offer for myself is this. I would rather go down to

my political grave with a clear conscience than ride in the chariot of victory as a congressional stool pigeon. Before he could ride the chariot of victory, Norris had to work long and hard. He served in a Congress run by political bosses and fought against them. He helped power the nation by building dams. He worked to make the owners of that power the people themselves, and he fought to deliver the power to rural residents for the first time. His grand experiment for better government is Nebraska's one -house nonpartisan legislature.

Yet in the heat of political battle, Norris could lose sight of the issues. He could turn vindictive and emotional. But both opponents and supporters could agree that Norris was courageous. His hardest work was reserved for common people facing difficult times. When Norris was the quintessential Nebraska, he was independent. He was a man of strong convictions, and he was a man who did what he thought was right regardless of what anybody in power or anybody in his own constituency told him to do. My mother used to call me Willie.

George William Norris, born in Sandusky County, Ohio, a boy in a family of 11 girls. I learned early on what it meant to work on a farm with horses for power. It was backbreaking and callous making. And at night, I remember how dark it was in that small farmhouse. My mother, Mary Magdalene Norris, who tells you right off, she was a religious woman, doesn't it? She would gather us around the coal oil lamp and read from the good book. She believed in God, and she believed in the Republican Party. After all, Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. But her faith in Lincoln and in the Lord must have been tested when the Civil War came along. I didn't know much about the Civil War when my brother John Henry went away. I

was just three years old. But I remember the concern of my mother's face when she got a letter from him. He wrote, Abraham Lincoln was a hint and opened the fight. And on that account lost more men than any other. Just as we were ordered to charge on some breast works and a battery, I was struck just below the hip. The ball passed through both legs and came out on the other side. At the time, I could not walk, but crawl out of range and afterwards, walked nearly all the way to the hospital. I am entirely out of danger. He was wrong. The wound didn't kill him. But the infection did. Just eight days after he wrote that letter. But my mother still believed in Lincoln and what we were fighting for.

And she taught me well. My mother believed in education. And it was at the Mount Carmel School that I discovered I had a passion for debating. At that time, debating societies were all over the country. They were a natural offspring of the old town hall meeting. They were populated mostly by farmers and we debated the issues of the day. Those debates carried him through college and formed the basis of his lifelong interest in politics. This is where they really got a feel for polyametry procedure and understood very early on how the system works.

I was 22 when I received my law degree and was admitted to the bar in Indiana. But I didn't have any money. So I talked for a while, traveled for a while, trying my hand. My mother had land in Nebraska and I decided to see what that was like. I can never forget the day I reached Beaver City. I walked up the gentle slope to the divide overlooking the town. The skies were clear and blue. The sun was brilliant and pleasantly warm. The evidence in front of my eyes was convincing that this land would produce. God was smiling upon this country. I was full of hope and ambition, moved by the glory of the new country. And certain in my heart that here on the prairie

there would be a civilization second to none in the world. Norris was not alone in his enthusiasm. Thousands of settlers looking for better life saw Nebraska as the promised land. Norris built an office building and started practicing law in Beaver City. The year was 1893. That same year a severe panic and depression hit destroying the dreams of many settlers. Crop failures, low commodity prices and hot dry winds fan the frustrations of farmers. They blamed the government, the banks, big business, the railroads, all for cutting into their profits. Popular movement

ran like wildfire through the plains, states, and these are the young Turks of the day. Challenging not so much the system in Washington, but the economic structure of the nation as industrialism was really making itself the dominant theme. Norris's law practice was as erratic as the crop prices. He supplemented his income by becoming a collection agent for mortgage loan companies. It wasn't a job that he liked, but he needed the money. As he collected their debts, Norris talked with the people he was foreclosing. He listened, but he wasn't ready to conform to the populist philosophy. Norris was not about to move to the populist fold.

And you have to keep in mind the Republican party, certainly in the North, was the party that won the Civil War, that opposed slavery, was the party of Lincoln, the Democrats were equated with traders, etc. Norris had been defending the Republican party for so long that his friends convinced him he should run for prosecuting attorney of Furnace County, Norris lost to a populist. For years later, he ran for district judge. This time, he defeated the populist judge by two votes. Those years, as a district judge, were the most satisfactory years of my life. My sympathies were to be broadened, my understanding of life

enriched, and my conceptions of simple justice strengthened. This time, Norris was seeing foreclosures from a different viewpoint. He identified with the farmers. Here I thought I saw the proper place for the court to fortify and strengthen justice by simply continuing the case, and giving the defendants an opportunity to make payment whenever conditions were clearly warranted. That is, whenever they were men and women who loved their farm homes and were honest and upright. They had failed only in that nature had failed them. It was during this time that Norris married Pluma Lashley, the daughter of a prominent local business owner. They moved to McCook. Their first child, a boy, was born dead. Three girls followed,

but during the last birth, Pluma died. Norris was a single parent of three young daughters. Two years later, Norris courted a McCook schoolteacher, Miss Ellie Leonard. She became the matriarch of the family and presided over their home in McCook. It was from that base that Norris built his political career. In 1902, Judge Norris challenged A .C. Schellenberger for his seat in the House of Representatives. In a series of increasingly heated debates, Schellenberger attacked Norris as a lawyer, a tool of the railroads, and no friend of the farmer. Norris fired back that his opponent spent more time in his bank than on his farm. The heat of the debate precipitated an incident of

which I was never very proud. There was a great crop of corn in Nebraska that year. One of the best crops ever produced and corn picking was at its peak. I challenged Mr. Schellenberger to a corn husking contest. I pledged that I would withdraw from the contest if I did not husk more corn than Mr. Schellenberger, with the understanding that he would do the same if he lost. It was unstatesman -like, foolish, but it had a wonderful effect on my audience. And nowadays, the politics on the state were controlled by two major corporations, the Union Pacific Railroad and the Chicago -Burling Quincy Railroad. So they divided their power, and they are a task of agreement. The Union Pacific controlled the politics north of the platter ever, and left the

area south of the platter ever to the Burling. So, the north being attractive, young, active, republican, and the south of the platter region, the Burling Railroad, sending to Congress, they're a boy. But after a 181 -vote victory over Schellenberger, the railroads found out he wasn't their boy. He hardly lit in Congress till he established these independence from any kind of corporate control. He became a part of a liberal insurrection, overthrown, fell on a Bosch cannon, a rule of the house, or every nowadays, or the First Man.

The speaker, if he didn't like you, he never would recognize you, you could never get the floor. The speaker chose the chairman of all the committees, so the speaker dominated that house. In 1908, Norris first offered a motion to take away Speaker Cannon's power to name committee chairs. Bosch cannon ruled the motion out of order. Norris knew he'd have to wait for the right moment to challenge the speaker. Two years later, his chance came. Cannon ruled that a bill was in order because it dealt with a constitutional provision. Norris quickly rose and argued that his proposal for selecting committee chairs had the same constitutional priority. It was the hour for which I had been waiting patiently.

I had carried the resolution with me for so long that the paper upon which it was written had become so scattered, it scarcely hung together. Everybody thought it was a joke, and then he pulled out this piece of paper. And that started the so -called insurgency revolt, which was probably the most exciting tumultuous incident ever to occur in the history of the house of representatives. I remember feeling a curious detachment from the ripple of surprise and a new tenseness that set in as the resolution was read. And every number of the house knew full well the stakes of this battle. It stripped the speaker of his power, thoroughly and effectively. For two days, the house debated the issue.

Cannon had to make sure now that every one of his supporters was on the floor, but Norris picked up the support of the progressives plus the democratic minority. The Democrats wanted amendments. After long negotiations, Norris agreed and his motion was adopted by a vote of 191 to 153. Cannon was a realist, knew that he had lost. Cannon never held a grudge against Norris, so he realized he was beaten in his own game and that Norris had bested him. This gave national attention. He became a national figure. Halfway around the world, Europe was entering its second

year of war and America was being dragged in by the sinking of merchant ships. Much of the public wanted to fight back. Norris had been sworn in as the new U .S. Senator from Nebraska in 1912. He was now dealing with foreign affairs. In the last few days of the 1917 congressional session, President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to arm merchant ships. Norris was alarmed, worried that arming merchant ships was one step short of war. With only 72 hours before the Senate was scheduled to adjourn, Norris and others began an extended debate. The president denounced it as a filibuster. Under Wilson's dynamic leadership, the country staged one of the most tremendous debate. Newspapers around the country called Norris and his allies traitors.

And then, of course, in the famous Roland Kirby cartoon where the Kaiser is pinning an eye and cross on the Senate is devoted against the armship bill. And he knew now that he was running counter to a good part of American public opinion as expressed in the press and elsewhere. Norris and 12 other senators held the floor. Congress adjourned, but the victory was short lived. 38 hours later, President Wilson said he didn't need Congress after all. He announced that his executive powers allowed him to arm the ships. The newspapers heralded the decision. The war

resolution, perhaps more than any other issue, raised the question, should a member of Congress always follow what he believes to be the majority sentiment of his district, or should he obey his own conscience? There were editorial saying that he no longer represented the views of the state and that he should resign. And there were political calls that he should step down. He came back to Lincoln to speak, to explain his position, and not a single person was willing to introduce him. So he thought his career was totally at an end. So he walked out on the stage by himself. A cold blooded proposition from one bond holder to another. Wall Street sat behind Mahogany desks, coldly calculating the time until war could be declared. And every drop of blood spilled in the trenches, every tear shed by mothers at home could be converted into gold for its filthy pockets. You shall not coin into

gold the lifeblood of our brothers. I learned my own first lessons in patriotism at my mother's knee, and I remember her grief when my brother was killed in the civil war. My mother would turn in her grave if she thought ever failed to do my duty by my flag. But I have not been engaged in fighting against it. I have been working to the end that no dollar sign shall be put above the flag that my brother's blood helped to wash clean. There was a strongly affirmative response to his speech, and the cries for his early retirement ceased. Questions of his patriotism

haunted Norris. Soon after his speech, President Wilson called Congress back to declare war and make the world safe for democracy. I remember my opening words in the debate over the declaration. While I am most emphatically and sincerely opposed to taking any steps towards engaging in this war, if we do enter it, all of my power, all of my energy will be behind our flag to carry it to victory. The fact is that there will always be a need for politicians who have that kind of courage and that kind of integrity and that kind of willingness to stand up for the national interest. As I now look back over the years, I feel that I was right. Right or wrong, I

adhered to the only course which satisfied my own conscience. The early 20s found the American people weary of war. Their new religion was business. Norris instinctively knew what the 1920s census proclaimed that America was now an urban nation, bright lights, big city. But in rural America, like the hills of Tennessee, people lived not much better than their ancestors.

The fire was sometimes a pseudo -sacred kind of thing. There was a fellow named Ras Lindemood whose people had moved the fire when he came in there in Pioneer Times. And the fire was never allowed to go out. John Rice Irwin was born in the big valley of the Tennessee River. He remembers living without electricity. So you kept the fire going because you wouldn't have to rebuild it with a piece of flood and steel. But you also kept it going to cook in. You also kept it going after a few generations just because it had been going all the time. Without electricity, life in Appalachio revolved around the fire. It was a life made tougher by natural disasters. Destructive floods tore through the valley. Erosion washed

away fragile topsoil. So farmers cleared more marginal land and then erosion destroyed that soil. It was a common sight to drive along and just see entire hills looking almost like the moon. Some land was cleared that was so steep that you could not tend it even by mues. So when the land gave out, people were on the verge of starvation. They were living in a little one -room cabin trying to live out of the woods. Fish a little, hunt a little. Norris sensed the Tennessee and the entire country was going to need more and more electrical power. He knew what it was like to live on a farm without power. And he was determined to get electricity to rural areas. He pushed for the public to own the power systems.

It was along the Tennessee River in Muscle Shoals, Alabama that Norris found an arena to fight big business over the power issue. With the signing of the National Defense Act by President Wilson in 1916, Muscle Shoals was selected by the government as the site for its $12 million dollar. As part of the war effort, the country needed nitrates for bombs. Nitrates could be extracted from the air if you had massive amounts of electricity. So the plan was to build a hydroelectric dam at Muscle Shoals. But the war ended before the first dam was finished. Enter Henry Ford. In a dual capacity, Henry Ford offered to operate the project privately. Before his Senate committee, Ford said he'd abolish poverty, make wages higher and provide good homes for everyone, saving this heritage of nature and giant work of man. Norris thought Ford was trying to buy a $100 million dollar project for $5 million. He proposed

that the government finish the dam on its own and in fact build more throughout the valley. After four years of congressional hearings and debate, Ford gave up and the government finished Muscle Shoals. But Norris had bigger plans. President Roosevelt sent Congress a message soon after he had gone to the White House in 1933. Norris, with FDR support, wanted to build a series of dams throughout the entire Tennessee Valley. Each would supply jobs and electricity. It was an ambitious piece of social engineering. With enthusiastic acclaim, the Tennessee Valley Authority Act was passed and TVA was born. Now was begun the sweeping program of regional economic and social planning involving the entire Tennessee watershed. The TVA began by building roads and towns to support their workers.

The first dam and the town nearby were named in honor of Norris. From villages and cities, for each broad man I see, things are nothing to win in sunny Tennessee. All up and down to valley, they heard grand alarm. The government means business is working like a charm. With the TVA coming, with Roosevelt coming to office, there was hope that jobs would be available to help some cash flow come. And so my father came up this way to make application to work for TVA. Sarah Hilton's family was one of the thousands who flocked to Tennessee looking for work. FDR and the TVA put them to work, including

Sarah's dad. The government has seen her just name our wedding day. He worked with the TVA agricultural experience. They had a dairy, they had a creamery, and milk was delivered and eggs were delivered and dress chickens were delivered right here to the town as the houses went up and people moved in. Despite the new jobs, the TVA disrupted the lives of many who lived in the valley. Homes, farms, towns, even the cemeteries were about to be flooded, all had to be moved. I remember one story, they told about my great aunt, Nan Rice, and they came to tell her they were going to have to buy her land, she was going to have to leave. And some people were resisting

it this legally. And she said, well, my total ambition in life is to live here in this beautiful, peaceful valley, the rest of my day. And she said, but you say that what you're doing is going to be good for people, it's going to help a lot of people. And if that is true, then I'm ready to go. TVA promised John Rice's family that their new home would have electricity, but they never got it. You know, it's a strange thing. We lived within less than a mile of the main truck line, and I guess the TVA had some big of an area that they just couldn't do it. We lived there until 1942. You know, it seemed like a lifetime to me, those seven years. But it was an exciting time with

the new things going on with TVA and jobs and hope were so alive that everybody seemed to be livelyer and keen on the possibilities that lay ahead. When the TVA bought Rastlandamood's home, the last thing he moved was his fire. He put a pile of dirt on the old truck and brought the cold out and left big valley, you know. They all went with the beard and moved out with his fire. He said, I never go to sleep overnight. Never even dough was around the fireplace. I don't dream of the home back in big valley. You know,

With the TVA, the Tennessee region began to light up, but in the rest of rural America, darkness prevailed. When the sun went down, kerosene or oil lanterns flickered dimly on kitchen tables and isolated farmhouses. Children gathered close to the flame to work on their lessons. I

would have liked to add the city life that some of the kids that I knew lived in town with that electricity, but everyone said it was a total impossibility that we would ever get rural electrification. Wilbur Doc Klepping remembers how far farmers were willing to go to get electricity. The farm that I lived on didn't have electricity, so we milked cows by lanterns and done without them. And then an old friend of mine, he said, Doc, I believe I can find you a good old Delco plant. I know you can make them run. So I got the batteries and the Delco generator for 30 bucks, and so we put it out in the pump house, and we run it every day. They didn't have very much power, but we had lights in the barn then, and in

the house, and I even put a 32 -volt motor on the life -sporting machine. It was a simple matter of equity, justice, and progress, that the farmers should have the benefit of cheap electricity. In fact, the farmers' need for power was greater than the city dwellers. It could be used to pump water, grind feed, and meet the needs of the dairy. In 1935, 90 % of all American farms without lighter power. The cities are lighted. The country is still in the dark. As in Tennessee, Norris found that private power companies weren't going to string rural electric lines. Under the Norris plan, a new rural electrification administration would give low -interest loans to cooperative districts. The farmers in the districts would build the power lines to their own homes. In 1935, Aria is born, lights up north,

south, east, west. They're lifting the pole. Back in revolutionary days in this country, we used to plant a pole and call it Liberty Tree. This pole has been a Liberty Tree to thousands of farm families. Doc Klepping went on to serve on the board of his local Aria district for 41 years. I knew nothing about what made our system work. They said, we'll teach you. All you got to do is say, you'll come. Well, I went, and I got interested in it. Then I could see all the incursions of running a system, delivering power to all these remote places. And that's what really dedicated me to the work of Aria. As Aria districts organized and poles

began to stretch into the most remote areas of the nation, rural life was fundamentally changed. Now, Norris turned his attention to who should own the power. Norris argued that without the profit motive, public companies could supply cheaper electricity. The power trust is the greatest monopolistic corporation that has been organized for private greed. They have used some of the most disgraceful, distasteful, and disreputable means to control the natural resources of this nation. It has bought and sold legislatures. It has managed to invest farm organizations. It has not hesitated to enter the sacred walls of churches. Norris was probably the spiritual father, the political father of an emerging concept, that the federal government had a role to play

in keeping these resources out of the hands of gigantic corporations to exploit. I became a storm center because it seemed to me that the development and conservation of our great natural resources are always to be under public control, public ownership and public operation. The private power companies didn't agree. Norris found the idea tough to sell nationally, so he turned his attention to his home state of Nebraska. The private power companies were pretty powerful politically, so it took a big push from George Douglas Norris and President Roosevelt to make it possible for the public power companies to issue

bonds and achieve the buyout of the private power companies in Nebraska. The stockholders of the private power companies were being paid enough so they simply couldn't turn it down. The dye was finally cast, which allowed Omaha Public Power District to be formed and to buy out the Omaha private power company. This was quite out of step for a conservative state like Nebraska to be going from private power to all public power. As a result, Nebraska still today is the only state in the union where all electricity is owned and operated by the people. It's been one of the most magnificent things that ever

happened to rural America, everyone of us. And it's worked and it still works and it always will work and let somebody screws it all up. I've never made a more complete campaign in Nebraska. I've traveled every section of the state, nearly wearing out my automobile because I believe in our state and its government.

The TVA, the REA, Public Power, limits on political bosses. It had taken over 30 years of hard work, but with these bills, Norris changed the nation. He was now over 70 years old, but there was at least one more fight, the fight for a one -house non -partisan legislator in Nebraska. The Unicameral Plan expressed his most basic beliefs. Government should be efficient, fair and compassionate. The two -house legislator is a relic of the past. In the one -house legislator, there is no way a member can evade his duty. Under the Unicameral Plan, it is easy for the ordinary citizens to place responsibility where it belongs.

If one house could always blame the other house or rely on the other house to kill something while they hypocritically voted for it, then people would never know who was responsible for the good and the bad that our government gave us. The idea for a Nebraska Unicameral was not new, but when Norris committed his political capital and even his own money to hire petition circulators, support grew. It was a fight to even get the proposal on the 1934 ballot. Norris had to stump the state in support of the petition drive. Opposition was strong. Many prominent politicians and both political parties hated it. That's understandable because Norris was determined to make the Unicameral non -partisan, to limit the power that political

parties enjoyed. Men in the legislature, elected on a partisan political platform, are inclined to follow the bidding and the dictates of party machines and party bosses. Norris had watched the bosses operate both on and off the floor of Congress, most ominously behind closed doors. He wanted to open up the legislative process to public scrutiny by simplifying it. With the Unicameral, you would make the role of lobbyists and pressure groups a lot more difficult in terms of gaining access to members of the legislature and members of the legislature being able in a sense to hide their connection. So everything now is out in the open and

the people could pinpoint responsibility. Not everyone who has served in the legislature agrees. Often I have worried about that because a one -house legislature with a small membership presents a less difficult job to lobbyists in the legislature. I suspect that it's easier for lobbyists to get to know the legislators. State government should be a business institution. The governor, its president, the legislature, the board of directors, the people, the stockholders. There is no logical argument in favor of a two -house legislature. Norris distrusted big business, but in the middle of the depression, the argument that government should run like a business was popular. The real factors are the result of them.

Nebraska, getting the Unicameral legislature, it occurred during the depression, where the average person was destitute and they were little for a way to save money. And they thought that one -house legislature would be half as expensive as a two -house legislature and the government would cost less. It also didn't hurt that two other popular ideas were on the ballot, repeal of prohibition and paramutual horse racing. The opposition still thought they were winning the race. On the eve of the election, the politicians in Nebraska were confident the amendment would be defeated overwhelming. However, when the people went to the polls and marked their ballots, surprisingly it had been approved by a majority of 92 ,000 new votes.

You'd have to ask other states why they haven't picked it up. It requires overcoming a certain inertia brought about by tradition. It would require a displacement, a certain number of people in office now who went to hold onto those offices. No system was perfect. I jokingly wanted people from other states asked me about the one -house legislature. You know, it's only happens by the two -house legislature. The best guarantee of good government as the character, the vision and the intelligence of the people who operate the government.

Over the years, Norris and the Republican Party gradually parted company. In 1930, the party tried to confuse voters by running a grocer from Broken Bo who just happened to be named George W. Norris. It's an indication of how bitter the opposition to Norris was within his own party. And one of the reasons why the next time he came up in 1936, the year that I first laid eyes on him, he ran as an independent. It took a petition drive and a push from President Roosevelt to get Norris on the ballot as an independent. Norris won a close three -way race.

I became convinced finally there is in reality no difference between a Republican political machine and a democratic political machine. Gradually, it came clear to me that the evil in American life, the corruption that takes its toll on the American people uses political parties for its convenience. In 1942, the Republicans nominated a strong candidate, State Party Chairman Ken Weary. He attacked everything Norris had worked for. It seems to me that the approval of my life work is at stake. During all the period of service in Congress, my conscience has been my only master. He did something he never did before.

He took his constituency for granted. He never went back to campaign until the weekend before the election. Norris was ill and tired and exhausted. He felt his people had deserted him and he was defeated. Norris had never experienced that. From the time he was first elected district judge, Adam Cook, he took up and all his defeat for the United States son, and he had never tasted political defeat. He should have obviously shrugged it off, it shouldn't have hurt him. But it shows that even an idealist like Norris is still human and it still hurts. They have people say or through.

He did something that very few defeated members of Congress do. He went back to Macook. He was offered a seat on TVA, he was offered other jobs, but he went back to his constituency. Then he was literally Nebraska's third senator because people came to see him from all over the state asking his advice. People flew in from Washington to discuss things with him. Norris was significant because he showed something that in today's age, most people don't even consider that one person who was persistent. Who is courageous, who does his or her homework can make a difference. Norris's courage inspired

generations that followed. At the prompting of his speech writer Ted Sorenson, president John F. Kennedy included Norris in his book Profiles in Courage. Kennedy said, a democracy that has no George Norris to point to, no monument of individual conscience in a sea of popular rule is not worthy to bear the name. I think as is so often true in the politics, if a voice can be heard above the tumult, one clear voice standing up for what's right and explaining logical and simple terms and putting the problem in perspective, people will pay attention to that. Norris said something back in 1927. There's one of my favorite quotes that I never heard people talking about today,

and that was this. The only worthwhile pay for public service are the satisfied conscience. He said, I'd rather be writing my own heart than I have the approval of the whole world. I don't hear political figures saying that anymore. There was a warm spring afternoon when mother, who had been busy throughout the day, called to me to assist her in planting a tree. She had dug a hole. She wanted me to hold the seedling upright while she shoveled the dirt in around its roots and packed it tightly. I looked at her and it came to me she was tired. The warmth of the afternoon and her exertions had brought small beads of perspiration to her brow. So I asked her, why do you work so hard, mother? We now have more fruit than we can possibly use.

You'll be dead long before this tree comes into bearing. Her answer was slow and coming, while she measured her words carefully. I may never see this tree in bearing well, but somebody will. So many times in battle in Congress, my mother's words of that summer afternoon came back to me. There is the substance of the faith that nations prosper and grow strong when they do that which today contributes to the happiness and well -being of those who follow us. Thank you

very much. The

fighting liberal is available on videocasset for $25 .50, called GPN at 1 ,000 ,000 ,000. Thank you very much. I became

convinced finally there is in reality no difference between a Republican political machine and a democratic political machine. Gradually it came clear to me that the evil in American life, the corruption that takes its toll on the American people uses political parties for its convenience. George W. Norris, a politician for the 20th century, the man who set the standard for politics of conscience is the fighting liberal. George W. Norris said something back in 1927, and that was this. The only

worthwhile pay for a public service of your satisfied conscience is that I'd rather be right in my own heart than I have the criminal of the whole world. I never heard political figures saying that anymore. George W. Norris, 40 years for the populace, looked back at the courageous career of the fighting liberal. My mother used to call me Willie. George William Norris, born in Sandusky County,

Ohio, my mother, Mary Magdalene Norris, had to tell you right off she was a religious woman. She would gather us around the coal oil lamp and read from the good book. She believed in God and she believed in the Republican Party. George W. Norris, 40 years for the populace, looked back at the courageous career of the fighting liberal.

liberal.