The Great Man has twice been the guest on Peter Robinson’s popular Uncommon Knowledge interview series. The first sit-down came in 2012 (conducted on, of all places, a National Review cruise!), when Jim discussed the themes of his important new book, Freedom at Risk: Reflections on Politics, Liberty, and the State — a stirring defense of federalism.
Four years later, Peter once again interviewed Jim, about his family, upbringing, and the need to combat emerging socialist public policies.
And then there is Brother Bill’s July 1971 Firing Line interview with the freshly minted United States senator — the episode is titled “The Problems of a Conservative Legislator.” For wisdom, for nostalgia, it’s wonderful.
As a prelude to the final treat: In his delightful memoir, Gleanings from an Unplanned Life, Jim recounts a tale from his days as a Yale undergrad and staff member of the school paper, the Yale Daily News: his doings on that infamous December weekend in 1941, when he found himself an eyewitness to history. It is a wonderful vignette, and one that reveals a surprising act of impishness.
I learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor on the radio while driving back to Yale from Sharon [Connecticut], where I had spent the weekend. On my arrival, I rushed to the News to help put out the war issue. For whatever reason, Yale’s president, Charles Seymour, had declined to issue a statement for the occasion. So three of the sophomore editors, Stu Little, Seth Taft, and I, decided on a stratagem for extracting one from him. Seth found a drum somewhere and then the three of us went to the Old Campus (where Yale’s freshman are housed) and started marching through it, drum beating, while yelling “To Hell with Hirohito [the Japanese emperor]; on to Tokyo.” We felt a little silly at first, but soon some freshmen began falling in line behind us and taking up the chant. Like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, we were soon leading a chain of students wherever we chose to go. After circling the campus, we moved through two of the residential colleges, then up Hillhouse Avenue to President Seymour’s house. By that time we had three or 400 students in tow and Seymour had no choice but to come out and utter appropriately stirring words about country and duty, including the duty to study even harder to prepare ourselves for service to the nation. We then abandoned our chain to its own devices and rushed back to the News with our story.
It was an exhilarating experience, and we were too keyed up to consider going to bed. We decided, instead, to drive to Washington in the hope that Seth’s uncle, Senator Robert A. Taft, might be able to get us into the Capitol to hear President Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war. We drove all night (there were no superhighways in those days) and reached the city at around 9:00 in the morning. We had breakfast at the home of Seth’s grandmother, Mrs. William Howard Taft, and then went on to the senator’s office to try our luck. Unfortunately, two other classmates had been there ahead of us, the senator’s son, Lloyd, and his roommate, Bob Sweet. Lloyd would be taking his mother’s seat in the House gallery, and his roommate would be smuggled in in the guise of a page. Senator Taft suggested, however, that we accompany his wife to the Senate side where we could listen to the President’s speech on her battery-operated radio, which was then something of a novelty. When Mrs. Taft arrived, the senator escorted us to the Capitol. On arriving there, Mrs. Taft led us to a room off the Senate floor. It was there that we heard Roosevelt request that Congress declare that we had been in a state of war since the prior day, the “day that will live in infamy.” Following the conclusion of Roosevelt’s speech, we moved to the Senate gallery where we saw the senators vote their approval of the declaration.
And now the final treat. Jim, one of the few living World War II veterans (he enlisted a year after the above anecdote), in 2014 sat for a detailed interview for Central Connecticut State University’s “Veterans History Project.”
It is an unvarnished account of service aboard the unglamorously named LST-1013.
