Last week, when I was browsing in the gift shop of the Nebraska state capitol, I picked up a copy of the autobiography of George W. Norris, the Progressive titan who represented the state in Congress at the beginning of the last century. In 1910, as a young congressman, Norris organized the bipartisan revolt that brought down "Uncle Joe" Cannon, the despotic Speaker of the House from Illinois. Twenty-three years later, as a senator, Norris introduced the bill that would create the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the New Deal's greatest triumphs. He was one of the mainsprings of the effort to investigate fully the Teapot Dome Scandal, even though it involved a number of his fellow Republicans. In the first third of the 20th century, there is hardly a progressive policy or a good-government initiative that doesn't have his fingerprints on it somewhere.

Senator George Norris Getty Images

But Norris's most significant moment as a public figure came in March of 1917. The country was sliding into World War I, an idea that appalled him. President Woodrow Wilson offered a bill that would allow him to arm American merchant ships, something that Norris and several other senators thought would inevitably enmesh the country in the European conflict. With the clock running out on that session of Congress, behind the leadership of Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin, a group of men including Norris filibustered the bill. That last night of that filibuster lurched completely beyond control. LaFollette threatened to throw a spittoon at presiding Senator Joseph Robinson, who refused to recognize him, and it also saw Senator Ollie James come at LaFollette with a homemade shiv. But the 12 senators in opposition pulled it off. They ran out the clock and the bill did not pass during that session. Wilson fumed famously about "a small group of willful men."

(This is the origin of the filibuster rule we have today. Wilson called a special session of Congress and it passed what is now known as the cloture rule. Norris, as contrarian as ever, voted for it.)

By this time, the war fever in the country was nearly molten. Norris knew that his role in the filibuster would run headlong into great momentum towards war that was energizing the nation, even in Nebraska. He was called a friend of the Kaiser, and worse. He writes:

Wave after wave of indignation swept the country in unanimous condemnation. My own people at home generally condemned me with bitterness for my part in [the filibuster] and asserted that I was misrepresenting my state in the United States Senate.

So what did he do? Did he stay in Washington? Did he develop an impromptu case of the croup and vanish from sight? Did he go on an extended fishing trip to the fjords?

No, here's what George Norris did. He scheduled an appearance in Lincoln in order to, as he puts it in his book, "meet my accusers." Not only that, but he booked the biggest auditorium in town and he even paid for the rental out of his own pocket. LaFollette told him it was a fool's errand. Local politicians declined to introduce him, fearing that the event would break down in a brawl. The chairman of the Nebraska Progressive Party suggested that Norris "could get sick" and spirit himself out of town on a late-night train. Norris declined and he stepped onto the stage. The crowd applauded, surprising him considerably. "I was delighted," he wrote, "that I was not hissed."

"I remember I said first of all that I had come from Washington to my home state to tell the people the truth about what had happened, and that up to this time the newspapers had not told the truth."

This seemed to me to be a fairly striking anecdote, since a great number of Republican congresscritters, members of the same party to which George Norris belonged, including Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin, appeared to be more than a little reluctant to venture back to their districts, lest they be confronted by their agitated constituencies. (Ryan, it should be noted, was available to go to Tennessee, which is not in his district, but where, for the bargain price of 10-grand, you could have your picture taken with him.) When did we raise such a generation of poltroons, I wondered? How did that all start?

Getty Images

I was going to write about this for Monday. I was still wondering about it when the events in Charlottesville happened over the weekend, and the Speaker, and the president*, and a great number of other putative national leaders ran for cover. I respect people like Cory Gardner, and Chuck Grassley, and Marco Rubio, for at least being willing to call a racist a racist. But Ryan embarrassed himself in banality and the president* simply embarrassed himself, spewing meaningless tweets and burbling out in public whatever Steve Bannon or Stephen Miller whispered to him 15 minutes earlier.

He wasn't a national leader. He wasn't even the counterfeit of a national leader that helped get him elected. He was an incoherent, unlettered old man with a deeply troubling allergy to the truth. For the first time since FDR was elected, we have a president* unable to state simply that he opposes Nazis. This was the best chance—and the easiest chance—he ever will have to turn people around on himself and his administration, and he bungled it so badly that it is fair to speculate that the president* couldn't call Nazis for what they are because he didn't want to alienate some of his most reliable voters.

He wasn't a national leader. He wasn't even the counterfeit of a national leader that helped get him elected.

So when did they all become such godawful chickenshits? I know that the rise of television, and the comforting embrace of big money has allowed them to hold at a distance the people they represent, but there's something else at work here. The disrespect that too many politicians have cultivated in their constituents toward politics and self-government has now boomeranged on us and on them. If your elected officials tell you often enough that the government in which they serve is some destructive alien entity then, pretty soon, you're going to look at them and decide that they're part of that entity, too. Maybe you vote them out. Most likely you don't. But neither side respects the mutual obligation they share to make government work. You don't need them anymore, and they don't need you.

The president* should be in Charlottesville. He should have been in Minneapolis when the mosque there was bombed. He should, in his own way, and in his own voice, summon the wisdom and empathy that his predecessor called upon in the wake of the shooting at Mother Emanuel in Charleston, South Carolina.

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About two weeks after he arranged the meeting in Lincoln, George Norris was back on the Senate floor for the purpose of voting against Woodrow Wilson's declaration of war against Germany and its allies. In his speech explaining his vote, Norris put his teeth right down to the bone.

We have loaned many hundreds of millions of dollars to the Allies in this controversy…there is no doubt in my mind but the enormous amount of money loaned to the Allies in this war has been instrumental in bringing out a public sentiment in favor of our country taking a course that would make every bond worth a hundred cents on the dollar and make a payment of every debt certain and sure….

It is now demanded that the American citizens shall be used as insurance policies to guarantee the safe delivery of munitions of war to belligerent nations. The enormous profits of munitions manufacturers, stock brokers, and bond dealers must be still further increased by our entrance into the war…We are going to war on the command of gold.

He sent the chamber into an uproar. (Senator John Sharp Williams of Mississippi said, "I am getting very tired of somebody saying this is a Wall Street war. It is a lie." He said that Norris's speech "grazed the edge of treason.") Afterwards, Norris was spied upon. His family was harassed. Wilson slipped into a kind of authoritarian mania from which he never recovered. But Norris never backed up an inch from his participation in the filibuster. Nor did he ever apologize for what he'd said before becoming one of only six votes in the Senate against the declaration of war. And he always, always, went home again. You represent people in their government. That's just what you do.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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