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To call the heroic deeds the world saw in Somerset "conservative" is not to make a political or economic point. For all I know, the heroes in Somerset may be economic or political liberals (even radicals). But the culture and the virtues they exhibited are those Americans cherish from the best in the nation's past. It is true that conservatives tend to praise these virtues more often than liberals do, but these are virtues that in fact inspire all, left and right alike. It is well understood that UA #93 brought a new birth of patriotism, a new love for the land of the brave. But the four days from Wednesday, July 24, until the wee hours of Sunday morning, July 28, brought a new birth of respect for the phrases "middle America" and "blue-collar workers." They showed all of us the heroism, toughness, and mental inventiveness of the humble people of America who at work get dirt on their faces and calluses on their hands. What a people! From the cops and firemen at the World Trade Center to the miners and rescuers and families at Somerset this July, we have seen a beauty of the American soul that we of the highly educated elites know too little of, and from day to day too little admire. The sheer intelligence of the rescue operation, its magnificent competence, and above all the sweet and determined spirit in which the women and men of Somerset went about their grim work was a sheer joy to behold. Governor Schweiker was also just fine. He showed what exercising authority looks like, and what insisting upon the principle of authority can do to inspire high spirits, focus collective intelligence, and soothe grieving spirits. An indefatigable and understated cheerleader for the rescuers, the families, and, yes, the press, the governor insisted with no equivocation that no one under his authority was to say a word to the press until the families were first given every scrap of news about their loved ones. He made "families first" stick, and the solid folks around him stuck with him on that point with admirable scrupulosity, gladly and proudly, without any apologies, and with a sweetness that calmed the press. I have never seen the national (even international) press so thoroughly tamed and so well behaved. There was a strict cordon around the work site to keep journalists (except for the pool reporters) and all other outsiders away, and another cordon around the families for exactly the same purpose. The rules were clear and the reasons were explicit and sound. The press understood, and obeyed. The sense of community among rescuers, families, residents of surrounding towns and, as it turned out, among the nine men underground was so powerful it could not be missed. These were people who understand instinctively what it is to sacrifice one's own self-assertion to the urgent needs of the group, and to work as a high-spirited, attentive, docile, alert, and creative team. To hell with what liberals might say or do. They knew what they were doing, and they did things their way. This operation was not politically correct. Not infrequently, it was not even grammatically correct. But in the universal language of the human spirit, it was not only correct but elegant. Down in the darkness 80 yards below ground level, the nine trapped miners, suddenly inundated by an unexpected flood of dirty cold water, quickly warned the second shift (about to enter their area) out of harm's way. Swiftly they figured out which direction was the safest retreat for themselves, and got themselves up to it post haste. Then, huddled together as the cold water (groundwater temperature is regularly 53 degrees) rose up to and over their waists, they formed a pact to live or die together. They tied themselves together with rope, so that if rescuers found one of them dead they would find all. Then they concentrated on keeping one another warm enough to survive and in high enough spirits to keep fighting for survival. They kept up persistent tapping, but could not know that after the second day their signals were not getting through, because the drilling between them and the men above made too much noise. With nothing to eat, and no clean water to drink, after a few hours they also had no light. They were forced to bend over, or to squat, because the passageway in which they took refuge was only forty-eight inches high. They could not sit, because the water was too high. They took turns making each other comfortable, and as warm as could be against the cold water pressing insistently against their bodies. For 77 hours (having lost track of time, in the dark and the monotony), these tough men held on. They knew their friends were coming after them. The hot air piped down to them after the first eight long hours told them that. But they had known from the beginning that there was no drilling equipment in the Somerset area powerful enough to get them out. Further, they had no way of letting those up above know precisely where they were. In that event, a drilling operation (if and when equipment was ever brought in) might miss them entirely. Meanwhile, the cooperation and efficient teamwork of the rescuers up above was amazing to watch. Everybody seemed at attention, alert and quick to react. Muscles must have ached with painful weariness as hour after hour passed, and one whole day of work faded into two — some went forty-eight hours with barely two hours for sleep. The rescuers were aiming at perfection. They thought everything through, down to its smallest details, with careful backup plans for every contingency they could foresee. The achievement of the people of Somerset (and volunteers and specialists from around the nation) in bringing out "nine for nine," while keeping up the spirits of the families with briefings on the hour every hour, and carefully feeding the press with intelligent explanations for everything they were doing, was a deed of great beauty. This was an effort totally focused on the right to life of brothers in distress, a compassionate conservatism if there ever was one. Nine individuals were in desperate need, and a whole community stopped everything else and concentrated all its attention on getting them out. Competence, excellence, teamwork, the spirit of community, discipline, the willing acceptance of every nuance of command set forth by an intelligent, directing authority, compassion for one another, prayer, faith, trust, and pride in one another — these precious dispositions were deployed hour after hour in a remarkable display of classic conservative virtues. The beautiful deeds of ordinary working people and the leaders they trusted on two different occasions now in Somerset, Pa., in September of last year and July of this year, deserve to be memorialized and kept fresh in our memories. This is what we want America to be. This is how we hope that Americans will always act. But virtues such as those on display in Somerset are not delivered by storks; they have to be taught, appropriated in personal actions day after day, exercised, intelligently explained and developed against rival courses of action, and constantly perfected. Such habits are nourished only by a limited set of cultural ecologies. They are not found in all cultures or among all peoples. They are perishable; present in one generation, they can be relaxed in the next, and forgotten (if not mocked) by the generation after that. We should thank God that they still exist in the beautiful rolling hills and valleys of Somerset and many other counties of this great land. Finally, if it is not too inappropriate, I would like to close with a word of gratitude to my grandfather, Stephen Novak, who worked in the mines just to the north of Somerset, when he first came to this country from the rolling hills of Eastern Slovakia. Stephen died in a wagon accident in 1911, when my father was only a year old, so I never got to know Stephen, or even to see him or hear his voice. But his courage in leaving his own family behind in "the old country," and in enduring the hardships of work in the pitch darkness underground, during the days when an average of 3,000 men died in U.S. mines every year (yes, almost ten every day), formed the human capital that launched me and my family into the privilege of living as Americans. The people of Somerset have reminded me, with gratitude, of the working families who were our neighbors as I grew up in Johnstown, a city toughened by its own disasters in the great floods of 1889, 1936, and 1977, a city of survivors, too. For me, this event has been an especially emotional experience. But its validity reaches far beyond the small circle of my own humble family's memories. It belongs to the ages.
— Michael
Novak, the George F. Jewett scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute. Mr. Novak is the author, most recently, of On
Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding. |
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the tiny District of Columbia, with its even tinier percentage of conservatives
and neoconservatives, it is my high privilege to nominate as the Conservative
Capital of the World the small town of Somerset, Pa. The rolling hills
near Somerset became the final resting place of the heroic passengers
and crew of United Airlines Flight #93 on September 11, 2001. They also
hosted the "miracle at the mine" during the night of July 27-28,
2002, when nine miners trapped in cold water 241 feet underground were
by an amazing feat of conservative discipline, competence, professionalism,
and unyielding faith, brought up into new life from virtually certain
death.
