Why We Fight for the “Lost Causes”
Why We Fight for the “Lost Causes”
Frank Capra made a stirring film that chronicled inside political dealings, pork projects tucked into bills designed to bring relief to the people, big media bought and paid for and self-serving politicians. The film was released in 1939.
In the difficult Depression years leading up to the Second World War, Capra saw disturbing trends in Washington and he attempted to take them on. Witness the scene where Jeff Smith conducts a filibuster on the Senate floor fighting this kind of corruption. Big Media, represented by Jim Taylor, suppresses any mention of Smith’s legitimate revelations. Smith’s little four page paper tries to refute the Taylor machine but in the end the camera fades to the giant web press printing the official media spin that it is Jefferson Smith who is a crook, not the self-serving Taylor.
In the movie’s final scene, Smith makes this impassioned speech from the Senate floor: “I guess this is just another lost cause, Mr. Paine. All you people don't know about lost causes. Mr. Paine does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for. And he fought for them once, for the only reason any man ever fights for them. Because of just one, plain, simple rule: "Love thy neighbor."
And in this world today full of hatred, a man who knows that one rule has a great trust. You know that rule, Mr. Paine. And I loved you for it -- just as my father did. And you know that you fight for the lost causes harder than for any others. Yes, you even die for them -- like a man we both knew, Mr. Paine.
You think I'm licked. You all think I'm licked! Well, I'm not licked! And I'm going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause, even if this room gets filled with lies like these; and the Taylors and all their armies come marching into this place. Somebody will listen to me. Som(body) –” [1.]
Mr. Smith Was There in 1939!
Frank Capra's classic film takes on corruption in Washington.
Frank Capra thought that the swamp needed to be drained... in 1939! He created in Jimmy Stewart his 'everyman' character: Jefferson Smith. Jefferson Smith begins his Washington career with a trip to the Lincoln Memorial. Donald Trump begins his career in Washington with a trip to that same memorial. He acknowledged and thanked the scores of 'regular' Americans who worked to send him there.
Jimmy Stewart's classic film: Mr.Smith Goes to Washington.
Everyone Should See This Film
This Classic Tale [click to watch] of a man of integrity who finds himself in the United States Senate, and who ultimately has to fight for that integrity, is one that we would do well to heed today!
“Capra was able to make this film so good because he both believed in the American ideal, and understood how easily it could be co-opted and undermined by the unscrupulous and the greedy. America, he's telling us, should be celebrated because it’s the kind of country that can produce a Jefferson Smith; but at the same time, we must always be on our guard, because it’s also capable of destroying one.” -- Gina Dalfonzo [2.]
Jimmy Stewart as Senator Smith visiting the Lincoln Memorial.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
Bliss Copy, as reproduced on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial.
During the War Between the States, the unfinished Washington Monument was used as a slaughterhouse and the monument grounds were used as a drill field. When work resumed after the conflict, marble quarried from a different vein in the quarry left a permanent line at the stopping point. [3.]
