Vice President
Board of Aldermen
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Specifically, he compared the Somerville of today to Somerville as
he remembered it in 1973, a Somerville full of families and
children; where people knew who their neighbors were, and looked
out for each other. He expressed concern that the search for
personal prosperity was jeopardizing our civic soul.
This year, Somerville is faced with an economic downturn of massive
proportions. Hardship alone cannot make us a more virtuous or
caring city. Yet difficulty and peril could stimulate the soul of
this city in a beneficial way.
The difficulties that loom ahead are not just for Somerville. Last
month the newspapers reported that our nation faces its worst
fiscal situation since WW2. On top of that misfortune, we hover on
the brink of a war that has the potential to become another world
war.
It is my most ardent prayer at this time that our nation does not
go to war.
Yet the great decisions of war and peace, and the big decisions
shaping our economic recovery - or lack of it - will be made in
Washington. Those of us in local government can express our desire
for peaceful solutions to conflict, and for economic recovery, but
our principal job is staying the course.
Our day to day work is on the 'home front,' promoting and
safeguarding the health, safety, and welfare of Somerville's
people. As Alderman White has revealed to me, this duty includes
attention to the development - or decline - of our civic soul.
I believe the yearning we might feel to return to 1973, or to other
years past, is partly a sense of missing our elders - particularly
those folks who came of age during the Great Depression and World
War 2 -- those my colleague Alderman Connolly refers to as "the
greatest generation."
Every year, the surviving members of this generation grow fewer in
number. We miss them personally. We miss the embodiment in society
of the values they represent.
Additionally, we experience the unsettling knowledge that we are
becoming the elders of society - 'aldermen' means 'elder men,'
after all. It's worth asking what we can learn from this generation
that will help us take on their role as elders, and to fulfill it
honorably.
So I talked to some experts - to my parents, and to friends who
lived through the Great Depression and WW2 - about what sustained
people then, and brought this nation so creditably through those
difficult days. Here's what they told me:
Our elders practiced thrift. They experienced rationing, cutting
back, making do, using up, doing without. We can do the same. Our
elders saved scrap metal, cotton rags, food, old vinyl records -
for the war effort, and because they could not afford waste. We can
practice less rigorous economies, and conserve much that is of
value.
Our elders had a strong work ethic. They applied themselves to the
tasks at hand. They took care of the young, the old, the sick, and
when necessary, the wounded. They went the extra distance, spent
the extra time and effort, doing what needed to be done. We are as
capable as they of finding what work needs to be done in our
community, and doing it.
Our elders were as generous as their circumstances permitted.
"Everyone helped everyone," I've been told. Women with little to
spend on food for their families managed to feed neighbors down on
their luck, and even hobos. My father says that, during the Great
Depression, business people, anyone with a little to spare, would
hire others, not just to provide needed income, but for the dignity
of purposeful labor.
Our elders made sacrifices - but here I have a confession to make.
Last week, when the Somerville Journal ran an article about whether
Dilboy Stadium would be funded, and the governor's spokesman's
comment was that "[t]here are huge challenges ahead that will
require sacrifices of us all," I got angry. I asked whoever was
nearby what sacrifice Gov. Romney had ever made. I was assured that
spending the winter in Massachusetts was a great sacrifice for
someone was used to being out on the ski slopes of Utah.
In retrospect, I'm a bit embarrassed by this exchange. We all need
to vent sometimes, but it's a mistake to get distracted by other
people's behavior, whatever we think of it. Some may invoke the
virtue of sacrifice for their own motives, but sacrifice does not
become less noble for it.
It is the sober truth that we have all benefitted from the
sacrifices of those who came before us, including those sacrifices
that we justly honor as "supreme." Most of us here are unlikely to
have to make the kind of sacrifices that our elders made. The least
we can do is to try with grace and good humor to make some smaller
sacrifices, of time, convenience, and effort, in working for the
common good.
Although no one I talked to mentioned it explicitly, I think part
of what helped our elders through the great challenges of their
century was the feeling of being united in a common purpose. I
don't mean only the war time sense of having a common enemy. I mean
the notion, as valid now as it was in the past, that our world is
an unpredictable place, far beyond our individual powers of control
- AND WE ARE ALL IN IT TOGETHER.
If we must conceive of having a common enemy, that enemy should be
Complacency, on the one hand, and Fear, on the other. Complacency
leads to laziness, and abandonment of the effort to make things
better. Fear leads to panic and despair. These are not helpful
qualities for a community trying to rediscover the civic virtues.
Look to the left of you, the right of you, in front of you, in back
of you, at yourself, in this room, and on your street. We are the
solution. We are neighbors. Each one of us has a family. Somerville
is still a city of families, a city of children. Not all families
look like the typical family did in 1973, but love and relationship
remain.
Some of us are grown-up children, taking care of aging parents.
Some of us live without children, some have grown children. Some of
us have young children - look at the streets around our schools
weekday mornings if you doubt that this is still a city of
children.
We have all the diverse needs of a diverse community, but we also
have the human resources necessary to fill those needs. We still
have material wealth, the legacy of many years of material wealth.
We have also the legacy of good example that has taken us from
colony to commonwealth, from remote outpost to the most powerful
among nations in roughly two hundred years. I feel confident that
we can apply this magnificent inheritance to the demands of today.
Vice President
Board of Aldermen
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