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AMERICAN OPINIONEssay on Character:

LAWRENCEPATTONMcDONALD

(19 35 - i 9 8 3 )

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he following is based onextensive first -person interviews with Congress

an Lawrence Patton Me's family, friends, andngressional staff, and on first

interviews by the authori th the Georgia Democrat durg his nin e years in Congress.Origina lly in tended as an apendix to the book, Day of theobra, the essay was omittedrom the Thomas Nelson workbecause of its length. It is presented hereon the occasion of thesecond anniversary of the KAL007 mid-air mas sacre and offersan assessment of the forces andinfluences tha t -shaped Con gressman McDonald's characterand career.Becau se Lawrence PattonMcDonald was the first electedofficial in American history to bemurdered by a foreign power - one hehad spent hi s entire career warningagainst - he nowoccupies a uniqueplacein American history. While he is remembered for his uncompromising oppositionto totalitarian Communism, how andwhyJ effrey St . John is the editor of The NewAmerican and the au thor of Day of theCobra, an examination of the Soviet destruction of Korean Ai rlin es Flight 007.He is a veteran pri nt and broadcast journalistlcommentator, the author of fourother books, and the recipient of two Em mys for his work in television.

he came to hold his views can only begrasped by understanding the elementsthat comprised his character. For character, in the final analysis, is the sumtotal of what we are, as opposed to whatwe may believe ourselves to be.On September 12, 1983, the AtlantaConstitution's Wash ington correspondent Bob Dart chose as the lead paragrap h for his story on the memorialservice for Congres s man La w re nc eMcDonal d (D-GA) t he fact tha t Dr .McDonald's favorite poem, "If," was readto the nearly4,000 angry mourners . Dartcalled one line, "If you can trus t yourself

whe n a ll men dou b t yo u ,"hauntingly appropriate."But the mourners who assembled at Constitution Hall tohonor McDona ld were neveramong his doubters," Mr. Dartwrote. "[His doubters Iwere liberal s who dismissed his archconservative and anti-Communist views as ana chroni smsfrom the Cold War . The mourners came as America's conservative phalanx, 3,700 strong ,filling the historic hall on a hotautumn after noon to rememberone of their own. To this ga thering, Larry McDona ld , t heGeorgia congressman who waskilled along with 268 othe r persons on a Korean jetliner , hasal ready become a martyr."Mr. Dart did not know tha tthe reading of Kipling's "If ' wasa commentary on CongressmanMcDonald's cha racter and childhood.From the time he was a small boy growing up in Atlant a , the framed poem was

the sole item that hung on the walls inthe bedroom he shared with his olderbrother , Harold."No one ever said a thing about it ,"recalled Dr. Harold McDonald , Jr . "Wejust grew up looking at it."The mother of the boys, Mrs. HaroldMcDonald, Sr. , known as "Callie," recalled tha t she always loved Kipling'spoem and had memorized it. Poor in material possessions but rich in matters ofthe mind and spirit, she cut the Kipling

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poem out of a volume of English versebecause there was not much else the family could afford to ha ng in the boys' bedroom."You never know what influences people," she said. "I hu ng it in a gold framein the boys' bedroom when they were little and just kept it there. I guess tha twas th e beginning of Larry's reading it .But he always loved it . I heard him usepar t of it during his election campaigns.It always seemed to have mean t a greatdeal to him."Family RootsBorn in 1905 in the rural hills ofGalax,Virginia, Callie Patton was one of sevenchildren. He r fath er raised apples andcherries and was a general storekeeperat a time when Hen ry Ford was stillthinking about the Model-T au to. Shegrew up loving the outdoors and natureof southwest Virginia, and she wouldpass on to her son Lar ry her love ofbothnatu re and literatu re.He r family moved to Atl a nta fromtheir 30-acre ru ral farm -general storeenvironment when she was 12; it was atime when America was about to lose itslong isolation from the world and its in-

nocence with entry into World War I. Afamily cousin , George S. Pat ton, Jr ., wasa colonel in tha t conflict and later , inWorld War II, would become one of themost famous U.S. gene r a l field commanders in twentieth-century history.Lawrence Patton McDonald was only10 years old when General Patton waskilled in a motor vehicle acciden t in Germany in 1945. Thirt y year s later, whenLar ry was elected to Congress, he wouldkeep a picture of his distant relative inhis Washington office, perhap s as a reminder that in his own lifetime real heroes lived and did great things on thestage of hi story. Patton , lik e Larry'sother heroes George Washington , Rober tE. Lee, and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, was a Christ ian warrior who repr esented t he embodime nt of th eauthentic American hero : th e man of action and of mind, possessed of eighte enth-cent ury va lue s t hat plac ed apremium on loyalty, candor and fidelityto religious principles tha t time and circumstances did not make unserviceable.While at tendingGeorgia State Collegefor Women in 1925, Callie Patton majored in home economics. "So I fed theboys well," she recalled.

About tha t time, her future husbandDr. Harold McDonald, Sr., was just outof a Georgia medical school, and specializing in urology. He was the son of ahard-working and ta lented Atlan ta physician , Dr. Paul McDonald . A ste rn buthighly respected physician known for hisin tegrity and deep dedication to his calling, Dr. Paul "practiced medicine untilhe was 87 years old," his grandson Harold recalled.Dr. Paul came from an age when thecode of personal conduct held tha t moral ity was the respect you paid to selfand man ners the respect you paid to others. And, as his grandson noted, "Henever took off his coat or vest until hewent to bed."Depression of th e '30sCallie Gra ce Patton married HaroldMcDonald in 1928, a year before thegreat stock market crash tha t wouldplunge the nation into the depths of theworst economic depression in its historyIn Georgia and Atlanta, an even deepersta te of economic distress had persistedfrom the time of th e surrender of theSouth to the North in 1865."My husband got all of$15 a month at

Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., d u r in g t h e S ep t em b er 11,1983, memo rial s erv i ce fo r Rep. Lawrence P.McDonald, a victim of th e KAL 007 massacre. Almost 4,000 of hi s supporters gathered in a n ge r a nd grief.

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would call LarryMcDonald a modCicero," said Thomas Toles,s press aide. "There will never be

one like him in our lifetime;was what novelist Taylor Caldcalled in one of her books a 'Pilr of Iron.' "

e hospital;" Mrs. McDonald would re, adding that, "they get quite a diferent sum now."Harold Jr. was born in 1933 and Lawence Patton McDonald was born onpril 1, 1935, both Depression babies.But they had the advantage and influnce of a father and a grandfather whowere hard, tough men whotook adversityas it came and made do with what wasat hand or could be produced by hardwork.Dr. Paul McDonald's account books reveal that in bad times he accepted chickns and other items as substitutes for hisee.Dr. Paul had lost a child named Law-renee in childhood, and that lost lifewasvirtually reincarnated when his daughter-in-law named her second son Lawrence.The McDonaldboysgrew up in the decdes of the Great Depression and WorldWar II when everyonein the world knewwho were the good guys and who werehe bad.

Brothers and Boyhood"He liked Fu Manchu novels,"Dr. Harold McDonald said of his brother Larry."Fu Manchu has for decades been thesymbol for a worldwide evil conspiracyaga inst the forces of good. SherlockHolmes was my favorite because he useda lot of deductive reasoning."Wedidn't have any money. We didn'thave a car. My father was a pennypincher - we had a nice home, but wecut our own grass and mother did all thecooking. We had no allowance. Weplanted and harvested our own garden,and even did our own canning. Motherironed every shirt. We were very middleclass."The McDonald boys grew up in the

::J area of Atlanta which would be the be-:; ginning of the city's suburbs later in thepostwar years. They were without the:Jj distraction of television, but with theur benefit ofradio that stimulated an entireiO::J generation of young Americans to usez their minds to paint pictures in the imag-ination."He was a relatively non-competitiveperson," remembered Harold McDonaldof his brother. "I liked to play games ; heliked to collect things, nature things. Welived in the country near woods,so it wasa trade off;he'd play baseball with me ifI'd go hunting in the woods with him tocollect bugs, snakes and other naturethings. Larry always had a fascinationwith nature, particularly snakes, and became quite knowledgeable and expert onthe subject ."Callie McDonald added that"he also came to know his birds . Whenhe was a Cub Scout he did a bird project,drew them to scale and won first prize.He had an artistic side."Larry McDonald's love of nature andliving things was an element ofhis character he inherited from his mother, whoalso led him to loveliterature. Both qualities came together when he was sevenyears old and in bed with a bout of themeasles . His mother recalled readingaloud to him fromThe Yearling, the 1939Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The story,set in the wilderness of the Florida Everglades , is about a young boy and thetender attachment he formed to a year-ling deer. ."I didn't read ahead," CallieMcDonaldrelated, "and when I got to where thelittle yearling was killed, Larry justburst into tears and cried all night long.He was so sensitive and sympathetic

Kathryn McDonald: "I would haveloved to have had my children havethe benefit of his (Larry's) influence,his fantastic personality and mind."with the little fellow."Sensitive to the suffering in God's nature, and born into a family ofphysicianswho made medicine a way of life, LarryMcDonald as a very small boy made uphis mind, his mother said, that he wasgoing to be a doctor like his father andgrandfather. Harold was going to playbaseball professionally until he was 35and then attend medical school."Larry was a very determined little fellow," his mother related of her son, whowas nine pounds at birth and big-bonedand grew to stand 6 feet 2 inches tall andweigh over 200 pounds in his maturity"But he was a very interesting, happylittle fellow.When he got something intohis mind that he wanted to do, he did itI guess he got that from his father, whowas very determined about what hewanted to do. I'm a much easier-goingperson."Cultural and Family InfluencesIn the American South of the 1930sand 1940s, close-knit family ties and"Honor thy Father and Mother" were

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taken as social and religious gospel, nomatter how authoritarian and rigid suchattitudes may appear to today's permissive society. The McDonald brothersrarely disobeyed their stern father andt heir more a rtis tic, literary-mindedmother. But when they did, she was nothesitant to switch them.She remembered one instance, with atrace of steel in her voice: "I got Haroldirst , and switched him. He went hoppingp and down and out ofthe house. 1said,ll right , Larry, come here, you're nextand switched him. Larry with tearstreaming down his face put both handsmyshoulders, and lookingmestraightn the eye said , 'Mother, I'm not cryingcause you're whipping me; I'm cryingcause 1 disobeyed you.' " He was onlyght years old.In the years when the boys were growng up, their father was busy with his

al practice , leaving home in theg sometimes before they wereake and returning after they had goneo bed. When, however, the family tooker together, the discussion at the tae took on the atmosphere of a debatingociety."Larry learned his debating skills ate table with our father," Dr. Harold, Jr . , recalled. "He wasn't theype of parent who discusses issues; he'de telling you what was.right. You couldespond but you never went head to headith Dad. If you wonone, he'd claim youe nitpicking. Dad would always bringp an argument and sometimes theyere contentious and they didn't alwaysound friendly. He was tough, but aftera while you realized Dad would argueas strongly the point you were arguing two weeks before! He was dogmatic, domineering, rarely gracious, andoften autocratic-sounding."Childhood Brush With HistoryLater during his career as a U.S. Congressman from Georgia's 7th District,Larry McDonald would be highly conscious of the importance of history, including contemporary events. He wasaware of his own ancestors whom he

....The main body of the KAL 007memorial, in Seoul, Korea, is composed of 269 pieces of bronze, onepiece in honor of each victim. Thepedestal has the name ofeach victimengraved on a tablet at the base.THENEWAMERICAN / SEPTEMBER 30,1985

traced back before the American Revolution and still further back to Englandand Scotland with the Donald Clan. But ,it was the visits of the president ofTexasA&M to the McDonald household thatgave him his first hunger for history,which he would never lose.Mrs. Kathryn McDonald recalled herhusband 's fond memories of th at remarkable man 's visits: "He would takeLarry on his lap and tell history stories,instead of fairy tal es. He would tell himreal stories, of real people, and it fascinated Larry."According to Larry McDonald's

brother , another important influ encethat developed in both of them an earlyinterest in history and the world at largewas the direct result of visits to theirhomeof Everett Patton, an older brotherof their mother."He was the only person we knew,"Harold remembered, "who knew everyt hing in th e world - h e read theCongressional Record eve ry day andlived in the Philippines beforeWorldWarII. During the war, he was chief dentiston Admiral Chester Nimitz's staff. Hewas in many ways very similar to Larrybecause he had thi s incredible talent forretaining a massive amount of information and then reading it back to you in aconstant stream."Mrs . Callie McDonald t hinks th a twhat solidified Larry's passion for history was the year he spent at DavidsonCollege in Charlotte , N.C., where hestudied under a professor of history whowas a classicist.Although the McDonald family wasMethodist , both boyswere sent to privateand parochial schools because, in thosedays, private schools, and particularly

parochial schools, in the South s ti llmaintained a remnant ofthe classical educational tradition that put a premiumon learning and self-discipline. Larry'smother maintains that her son's deeplyheld religious convictions were initiallyset when he came under the influence ofthe Grey Nuns and Marist Fathers atChrist the KingGrade Schoolin Atlanta.Later, Larry would attend a non-denominational high school. He finished highschool in two years and pre-medical college in two years, and entered EmoryUniversity Medical Schoolwhen he wasonly 17.Dr. Harold McDonald, Jr ., insists thatthis accomplishmentwas not the product

ofa natural brilliance. Rather, accordingto him, it was the end product of hisbrother's serious application to study tothe exclusion of almost every oth er activity in his teenage years."When I started to summer school,Larry did too,"he recalled. "When he gotout of high school, he started to collegein June rather than wait until Septem

ber. He didn't skip any grades; he justwent th rough th ree summers and wasaccepted in medical school at age 17.Larry was bright but he wasn 't scholarship bright. He just went to school andwas dead serious about studying. Hedidn't play football; he wasn't big ondates; he wasn't a history buff; he was aserious scholar . What used to really burnLarry up were people whose main aim inlife was two beers and television. Hecouldn't tolerate that. When I was squaredancing in college instead ofstudying, hedisowned me for that."Medicine Molded Their MindsThe McDonald brothers, from the timethey were old enough to comprehendwhat was going on around them, wereexposed to an endless st ream of intensively focused discussions about medicine, par ticularly urology.Theywere alsoinfluenced by a wide variety of peoplewhowere the patients of their father andgrandfather , the latter a general practitioner who maintained an office in hishome."His home office had rockers on theporch and patients waiting," Dr. HaroldJr. related. "It was a familiar scene tohear about doctors and medical problems. Frequently, someone was stayingat the house on his way to a medical convention and Dad was forever on thephone talking about medicine, urology.Long before we knew anything about accounting, tax problems, and literature, itwas a familiar scene to hear doctors andmedical problems. We in the family tookour medicine seriously."A Classic SouthernerDr.Daniel Jordan, for 25years a friendof Larry McDonald and a fellow Georgian , said after his murder aboard Ko-rean Airlines Flight 007 on September 1,1983, that he believed Larry exemplifiedthe classic Southerner in thought,valuesand actions."His values were certainly not humanistic," Dr. Jordan observed. "His expres-

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sions and descriptions of life and historywere not based on the humanistic viewthat puts a heavy stress on personal pleasures and pursuits. Rather , they were ona much higher level, a belief tha t manmay th ink he disposes but it is God whodisposes . He did have a certa in amountof chauvinism in him when it came towomen, tha t a woman was certa inly noequal in performance ofduty but that shemust be protected and honored for thefunctions and duti es that she can andshould perform . . . ."He .exemplified all of my concepts ofwhat I see in the traditional Southernerthat go back a hundred years or more,"Dr. Jordan went on, "not in the plantation slave-owner stereotype, but in thecode of chivalry , the idea of manners,courteousness , graciousness , and thegeneral code ofthe gentleman.Within allthis was a fully developed, mature personality who took his place and assumedhis duties in a society without being conscious of class."Thomas J efferson's generation arguedfor aristocracy based not on birth, but onvirtue, tal ent and merit. The ranks of theearly leaders of the American Republicwere filled with men who did not need orwant to enter political life as the meansto establish their self-esteem or selfworth , or, as has been too often the casein this century, to obtain public officeasa way to assure financial security and inthe process plunder the commonwealthwhile pretending to serve it.In the shat tered and defeated Southafter the Civil War , which had lost awhole generation of leaders who took seriously the Code of th e Gentl eman, politics came to attract men who more andmore held public office as a career , ratherthan as a calling of one's duty. The generations of Dr. Paul McDonald and Dr.Harold McDonald, Sr ., were full of ste rn,principled men and women who watchedthe politics of their day with disdain,seeing it become the profession of the unprincipled.Opposi t ion to a Political CareerIt was understandable, therefore, thatwhen Larry McDonald announced to hisfather tha t he was planning to give upwhat was clearly a brilliant as well as afinanciall y secure medical practice forthe volatile life of elective politics, hisfather was horrified and adamant in hisopposition.40

Capt. Lawrence P. McDonald(USNR) on active duty as an urologist at th e Bethesda Naval Hospital,January 1983. His medical trainingtaught him to re spec t evidence andexperience."Dad was dead set against it," observedDr. Ha rold McDonald, J r. "Mother supported Larry. Then after Larry won andit looked like he was going to stay there,and it was clear he was running on principle rather than just to be in Congress,Dad really liked the idea and publiclysupported him in political efforts fromthen on. We all were proud that he maintained the strong pri nciples that he held

to."Atlanta doctors beyond the McDonaldfami ly conservatively estimate that bychoosing to serve in Congress , Dr. Lawrence P. McDonald gave up a minimumof $100,000 a year, which he might haveearned had he pursued his initial careerin medicine.It was during- his last year in medicalschool in Atlanta (he received his M.D.in 1957) that he decided tojoin the Nava lReserve, a decision that would change

the course of his career and life. Interning as a physician at Bethesda NavHospital, he later took flight surgeotraining at the School of Aviation Medcine in Pensacola, Florida.Larry's marriage to an Icelandic ntional who was the daughter of a selmade businessman , while he was stationed in Iceland , produced th ree chidren: a son, Tryggvi Pau l , and twdaughters, Callie Grace and Mary Eliabeth. His marriage foundered and disolved in divorce principally because ohis passionate preoccupation with poltics. He believed it was a weapon to fighboth the growth of Communism abroaand what he discerned as the destructioof what remained of the American Constitutional Republ ic at home.This awakening to danger began , according to Dr. Daniel J ordan, while hwas stationed in Reykjavik, Iceland , aa flight surgeon to U.S. naval squadronand as physician to diplomatic personneat the Il .S, Embassy. His brother recallthat he had never heard Larry oncemention the threat of Communism prior tgoing to Iceland."He went to the commanding officer iIceland ,"observed Dr. HaroldMcDonaldJr ., "when he thought th e U.S. Embassappeared to be doing things advantageous to the Communists, who were verinfluential in the country. He was tolsomething that rang in his ears: 'Yodon't understand the big picture.' He began to think, 'Maybe I do.' "Emergence of a Politician"He came back from Iceland after discharging his Nava l Reserve act ive dutobligations and began reading politicahi s tor y and book s on foreign policysometimes two or three a week," said hibrother. "He also looked around for anyone else concerned about Communismand the only organi zation he fountrying to doanything was The J ohn BircSociety. Larry believed in saving thcountry from Communism as st rongly aa missionary to Africa in the nineteentcentury believed in saving the souls othe people."Two years of residency in general surgery at Grady Memor ia l Hospital in Alan ta and three years of uro logicatraining in surgery at the University oMichigan Hospit al in Ann Arbor wercombined with a growing, intense inteest in politics. It was while he was i

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chigan that he first ra n for a publice, the Ann Arbor City Council, and."He took a great deal of abu se in those," observed his close friend , Dr. J or. "He would be heckled from the auwhen giving a speech agains t thengers of Communism. Initially, he didrespond well to th is kind of abuse.e abuse he received in most of his ca, even when he went to Congress,s un real. I don't think people realizede degree of abuse and outright hate heexposed to beginning as far back as. But in the last decade of hise, when his powers were developed atfullest , he demonstrated an abilityhandle whatever came along. His enees and detractors were , in fact , frused by his ability to handle himself iny public situation. He could just overelm anyone with his vast knowledgea subject, and his appeara nce and genely gentleman-like manner were ambina tion that made him invincible."

when he returned from Michigan , com- and talked; we talked about books; webined with a medical pr actice with his t alked abo ut hi story; a nd he nearlyfat her and brother, were what eventually missed his plane. He talked about whatled to a divorce from his wife. It was in the ancient Roman Senate did to the em1975, when he was in California giving pire because it s members lacked princia speech a year afte r his election to Con- pIe. He ta lked also about elected officialsgress , that he met Kath ryn J ackson. She who, lacking honor and convictions andhad worked with many politicians in a willingness to take a stand to save theirCalifornia and came to dislike them as a country, are doomed to defeat."breed because they seemed to st and for Kath ryn J ackson was beautiful- andevery thing and , therefore, for nothing. she had brains. They were married in"He was definitely my knight , my glad- June of 1976. They had two children,iator," Mrs. McDonald said after Lar ry's Lawrence Pa tt on McDonald , Jr . , andmurder , "and he came charging out to Lau ren Aileen McDonald, two years oldCalifornia in November 1975. I told him and eigh t month s re spectively, whenI didn 't date poli ticians and ju st as their fath er was murd ered.quickly he said: 'Will you make an ex- In the congressional re-election cam-ception?' paigns, the young couple conferred a cer-"He followed me to th e hotel ba r - he tain degr ee of glamou r on th e 7t hdidn't drink or was seldom even in a ba r Congressional District ofnorthern Geor- after his speech and came right to the gia, made up of a mixtu re of rural funtabl e where I was sitting with two other damen tali st s and urb an middl e-class,ladies who had come ju st to hea r Lar ry white-collar Atlan ta suburbanites. Hisbecause he was so handsome and single. supporters ignored both the Atlant a meHe came right up to the tabl e and asked, dia's constant attacks on the Congress'Pardon me, may I join you?' I said, 'No! man and their attempts to make him out-of-the-MindsMarriage I am just leaving,' and the other two girls to be a representative of rich , sinister,Lar ry McDonald's political activities could have killed me. But he sat down out-of-state interest s who funded and

"WhenLarry got something into his mind that he wanted to do, he did it," related his mother.

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controlled an equally sinister group , TheJohn Birch Society."His personal magnetism allowed himto swing a number of voters to his sidewho didn't always agree with him ," Dr.Jordan noted, "joining about 30 to 35 percent of the district that made up his political base that did not agree with him.Opponents knew that taking on Larry ina head-to-head confrontation meantbeing destroyed. His political enemies inthe news media in Atlanta and in Georgia's regular Democratic organizationfeared him less for his views than hiseffectiveness, his charismatic personality, his intelligence, and his overwhelming knowledge . This infuriated theAtlanta media, because no one was supposed to know things as well as they did.And when he could overcome theirknowledge , it was infuriating because hewas on the other side; they could havetolerated him ifhe had been one of them."A Charismatic ConservativeAccording to his brother, Larry MeDonald never had much patience withpeople whose interests centered on pastimes like football while the country andthe world, as he thought, were rushingtoward their destruction. Paradoxically,"In his district," brother Harold said,"Larry got along great with people whoworked in a factory. He'd gointo a factoryand find that those people had a kindredfeeling for him." Larry McDonald's foreign affairs advisor, Hilaire du Berrier,may have provided the key to his appeal."Larrywas a comer," he wrote. "Allthethings which he had said and for whichthe American press had sneered at himwere proving valid. He was the mosthandsome, personable, and most a rticulate man in the House of Representatives . . . . Among the qualities that makefor greatness, he had the rare gift of inspiring confidence in the hearts of thosein his presence and he had an indefinablering of verity in his voice. Above all, hewas honest and a pat riot."Tommy Toles, his press aide and director of staff affairs in the 7th District,thought of him as the most honorableand loyal person he had known. Toles, aveteran Georgia newspaperman, couldsay that about few other men in thest a te 's public life.AModern-Day Cicero"He had great personal charisma,"42

TommyToles said , "and was a very forceful individual. One of his greatest assetswas his persistence. He never quit. Henever gave up. He never slowed down.He was not a person to exercise cautionsimply because the newspapers criticizedhim."I would call Larry McDonald a modern-day Cicero," he added. "There willnever be another one like him in our lifetime; he was what novelist Taylor Caldwell called in one of her books a 'Pillarof Iron.' He was the one who stood at thegate and cried forth the warning aboutthe enemy without and within and, likeCicero, he was assassinated."Cicero (106B.C.-43 B.C.)was a statesman, scholar, lawyer, writer and upholder of republican principles duringthe civil wars that destroyed the RomanRepublic. Dr. Jordan believes that theanalogy is ap t only in that both Ciceroand McDonald were proven accurate in

their warnings and both were murdered.Cicero was captured, beheaded and hishands were cut off and nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Senate. Dr. Jordanprefers to think of Larry McDonald asmore like Nathan Hale (1755-1776), theAmerican War of Independence herocaught spying against the British whobefore he was hanged uttered the famouswords that he regretted he had bu t onelife to lose for his country. His utteranceand act of bravery assured him a specialspot in the pantheon of American patriots as a young martyr in the cause ofliberty.However , Larry McDonald's religiousadvisor and close friend , the Rev. JosephMorecraft III , a biblical scholar, may

have come closest to finding a historicparallel. "The nearest historical compaison I can make to Larry McDonald," hobserved , "is John Randolph of Roanok[Virginia]. He was like Randolph anmany ear ly figures in th e AmericaRevolution in that they fought for priciple against great odds and were willinto lay down their lives for what they blieved in ."John Randolph of Roanoke (17731833) sa t in the House of Representatives , and later in the Sena te, betwee1799 and 1828. Less personable ancharismatic than Larry McDonald, hnevertheless represented for 29 yearscongressional district in southwesterVirginia where , interestingly, LarrMcDonald's mother, Callie Grace Pattonwas born and lived until age 12. MrsMcDonald , who lost both her husbanand her son Larry within a six-week period, said that if she had ever pursueher interes t in a literary career shwould have t aken the pen name GracRandolph.The career of John Randolph of Roanoke in the House , like McDonald's, featured a lonely struggle against thmajority who refused to face facts , andthose who chose to act out of expediencrather than principle. Randolph was onof the few Southerners who had the courage 35 years before the Civil War to denounce slavery as "a cancer" on the facof the South, and he accurately forecasthat a civil war would result if the Nortor South refused to let the evil institutiodie by the sheer weight of its own defciencies.Although a century and a half separated their two congressional careersLarry McDonald's character most resembles Randolph's as a lonely, principledefender of personal liberty. Both werSoutherners , both Constitutionalistsand both were Christian political warriors who died defending with their lasbreath the idea that the individual is sovereign and answerable ultimately, not tthe god of government, but to the Gowhom both believed governs and guideall things."He was never afraid to do the unpopular thing,"observed his widowKathryn"because he was totally secure withihimself. He could dare to he unpopulaand unaccepted, and that didn 't bothehim. He was the total gladiator for thright cause."

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If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,_Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much:If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds' worth of distance run,Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!

IFIf you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you;If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too:If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,Or being hated don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;If you can dream-and not make dreams your master;

If you can think-and not make thoughts your aim,If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same:If you can bear to hear the truth you've spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss:If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,And so .hold on when there is nothing in youExcept the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

RUDYARD KIPLING

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