Philadelphia Reflections

Fisher on Meeting With the Enemy

Last night I went to yet another of the endless round of parties that a political candidate discovers is his life. This one was a fundraiser for a dilapidated cemetery that needs help with its weeds and neglect, even if George Fox the founder of Quakerism was the original founder, and William Penn its original funder. Almost immediately, someone thought it was natural to have me meet the cartoonist for the Philadelphia Inquirer . Although she regularly portrays my political party, and sometimes my political beliefs, with what anyone would call a partisan slant, she turned out to be a charming freckle-faced blonde. Straight and athletic, she seems to row on the Schuylkill to keep in shape, and all in all is a charming company. She quite readily admits to being upset about all the hate mail she gets from the victims of her cartoons, but cheerfully keeps it up. I didn't ask where she went to college, but there seemed to be the characteristic Bryn Mawr mixture of forcefulness and good breeding. The good breeding which is so visibly lacking in Nancy Pelosi, let's say.

So it seemed to me I was observing another one of a succession of examples of people with water-tight compartments in their thinking. She was visibly upset by the recent episode of the torching of the new Chestnut Hill Meetinghouse. It would appear that the Quakers used some non-union labor which was so resented that person or person unknown used welding equipment to cut the steel girders, trying to topple the place at night. This is behavior so characteristic of unions of the past, that pretty much everyone feels he knows who did it, and why. In fact, it wouldn't have any intimidation value if people did not think that. And yet our cartoonist is a union member and keeps right on supporting them. I think she is troubled, but somehow she is not converted.

And maybe I am getting an idea of where the vicious partisanship in politics idea gets its start. Are we really going back to the Molly Maguires?

Originally published: Monday, September 23, 2013; most-recently modified: Friday, May 17, 2019