Mario Cuomo

by O'Shaughnessy, William;

  But now let me tell you the most important thing I know.

  It will take more than all those material things for you to have a really satisfying life. At some point, you will probably find that filling your own basket with goodies, satisfying your own wants and desires for personal comfort, will not be enough to make you truly happy. Chances are you will discover that to be fulfilled requires some fundamental belief, some basic purpose in life that gives you a sense of meaningfulness and significance and that answers the question: Why were we born in the first place? Without an answer, all the accumulating of material goods can become nothing more than a frantic fidgeting, a frenetic attempt to fill the space between birth and eternity.

  It happens to a lot of people who spend their whole life so involved with the challenge of just staying alive in some decent condition that they don’t get to think much about why they were born in the first place. Others get past the struggle then wander aimlessly as they approach the end, satisfying whatever appetites are left until there are no more appetites, or strength to feed them. They look for answers in the world around them, in the words of wiser people, in the leadership of some heroic figure. But the answers prove elusive, no Moses comes to them, and they die without ever having an answer.

  Don’t let it happen to you.

  You don’t need another Moses.

  I think there is an idea that can give you all the direction you need, an idea simple enough for everyone to understand, sensible enough for everyone to understand, sensible enough for everyone to accept, sweet enough to inspire us. It’s the idea that is the basis of the Judeo-Christian tradition that helped give birth to America and that helps sustain our nation to this day. It began with the Jewish people about four thousand years ago, who described it in two Hebrew principles—Tzedakah and Tikkun Olam. Tzedakah means that all of us, wherever we’re born, whatever our color or accent, are children of one God, brothers and sisters who owe one another respect and dignity. And the second principle, Tikkun Olam, tells us we should find ways to come together in order to repair the universe, to make it stronger and sweeter. The Christians borrowed both principles. The first we call charity: the obligation to love one another. And the second teaches us—as it taught the Jews—that God made the world but did not finish it; that he left the world to us so that we could, side by side and working together, collaborate in completing the work of creation by making this world as good as it can possibly be.

  Because God knows how grand the world is and how small we are, He is not going to expect any miracles from you. All he asks is that you do what you can. If you rise to great power and are able to end a war, or find a cure for cancer, wonderful. But if the best you can do is comfort a single soul in need of simple friendship—well, that’s wonderful too.

  If one does what one can to make things better, that’s all God will ask.

  It’s a job you can work at every minute that you live, and it’s a job that can make your life worth living, no matter what else happens.

  So—Live. Learn. Love.

  And have a Happy New Millennium.

  Grandpa

  It’s no stretch to call Mario Cuomo a superb writer or to suggest he could have been a successful writer wholly apart from his political career in the public arena. Although well versed in the classic and timeless works of scholars, philosophers, and theologians, the governor admired the strong, muscular, passionate, on-your-sleeve contemporary writings of his pals Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill as well as the graceful columns of the sportswriter Jimmy Cannon. It should be remembered that a young Mario Cuomo did indeed spend time as a sportswriter on the staff of the St. John’s campus newspaper.

  We spoke often of the unique genius of Jimmy Cannon, the great Hearst and New York Post sportswriter (who died alone in his room near Times Square). Everybody knows Cannon’s beautiful line about Joe Louis: “He was a credit to his race—the human race.” But Mario and I loved Cannon’s exquisite take on Sugar Ray Robinson when life turned sad and difficult for the greatest prizefighter of our time: “When a hawk falls, pigeons rule the sky.”

  And Cuomo the Wordsmith was also greatly taken by another haunting line from the pen of Jimmy Cannon when Sugar Ray was getting belted around late in his career by second-class pugilists. He described the sad spectacle: “Nijinsky is dancing in the hallways of Times Square to the sound of a kazoo.”

  I remember telling the governor after one of these conversations: “Yeah, and if you go down, we’ll never forgive ourselves.”

  Mario treasured a signed first edition of Christ in Concrete by Pietro di Donato, a powerful narrative of the struggles and culture of New York’s Italian immigrant laborers that his friend Breslin called “the greatest American novel ever written.”

  In later years and all during his political career he crafted his major speeches himself, writing them out by hand, as he did with his sensitive and touching personal letters and pronouncements. Sometimes he read early drafts of his speeches to members of his family and friends, including a white-haired Westchester broadcaster.

  The power of Mario’s speeches depended in great part on his presence and grace at the lectern, his poise, his personality, and on what Ted Sorensen would call “the skill of his movements and gestures.” Also on his strong, resonant voice, what his friend the historian Harold Holzer called his “magnificent instrument.” Like a maestro of vocabulary, he used rhetorical devices: alliteration and metaphor. He had a poetic literary sensibility, and like his idol Mr. Lincoln, Mario was aware of the right rhythm and pace and cadence and sound that infused his memorable public orations.

  And yet, despite his considerable gifts, his facile mind, and the power of his oratory, Mario was gracious, self-effacing—and often uncomfortable—when accepting praise from his many admirers. Once on taking the lectern after an extravagant introduction followed by prolonged applause, he uttered this gorgeous acknowledgment of all the encomiums and flattery directed his way: “You are among those who weigh my many faults, imperfections, and inadequacies less diligently than you assess what you may find commendable in my persona and stewardship.”

  I never heard him swear or curse or utter a profanity. Nor did I ever hear Mario, as the old saying goes, “take the Lord’s name in vain.” He could be rough under the boards on a basketball court, as his sons, Andrew and Chris—and a legion of young staffers and state troopers—have testified. And as a professional baseball player with the Brunswick Pirates, he once famously threw a punch at a guy who happened to be wearing a catcher’s mask. Definitely not a smart move. And legend has it he once threatened to deck Mike Long, the Conservative Party chairman. There are abroad in the land some with a keen knowledge of matters pugilistic—and political—who will swear the actual plunking, the physical part of the altercation with Long, actually happened. Over the years I had several opportunities to delve more deeply into the contretemps with both the governor and the chairman. But I thought, on those occasions, that discretion was the better part of valor. So I took a pass—wisely, I think.

  He could push (punch) back, but always in a civil tone. I recently found a note dating back to Mario’s run for governor against Lewis Lehrman: “The Republican mailings play upon every unhappy chord that society knows. Show me a weakness, show me a frailty, show me a fear, and there is a piece of Republican literature to address it.” Sound familiar?

  Mario rarely let me get away with anything. When he heard about my “campaign” to ban clichés and business-speak phrases from our airwaves some years ago, he fired right back with a very funny rejoinder against my tongue-in-cheek and not at all successful attempt at censorship. Accompanying this text is a note we dispatched to our talk-show hosts, which found its way to the governor.

  Once again I proved to be absolutely no match for the man.

  Mario and I spoke often of my Westchester neighbor Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, the Great Squire of Pocantico Hills, who was one of his predecessors as governor. And my friends among the dwindling
group of moderates who to this day still call ourselves “Rockefeller Republicans” will forgive me for noting Mario’s intellectual prowess and facility and for comparing his scholarly inclinations to those of the great Rockefeller, who once famously, after reading a pithy quotation from the thirteenth-century Dominican friar Thomas Aquinas, instructed an aide: “Let’s get this guy in; he sounds terrific!” (Despite this little vignette, which has grown in legend, I rush to tell admirers of the dynamic and magnificent Rockefeller that I am still very much with them—in name and spirit and affection and admiration—for Nelson. Mario understood and often referred to me as “a Rockefeller Republican who doesn’t wear socks”!)

  The governor worked cocktail parties and receptions like a society maestro, and never once did I ever hear him “flunk the interrogatory”—for example, when someone inquired after his welfare, he would reply “I’m fine” or “Not bad for an old guy” . . . he then always came back with an “And how are you?” Unlike many contemporary politicians, he waited for an answer. But during Mario’s twelve years as governor there were to be sure some slightly “uncomfortable” moments. I remember one such in about 1983 at Pocantico Hills near Tarrytown when the governor had to appear at a tony, upper-crust reception to “officially” accept from the Rockefeller family the magnificent gift of 1,233 pristine and verdant acres overlooking the Hudson River.

  He arrived on a lovely afternoon to be greeted by several generations of the fabled Rockefeller clan: brothers Laurance and David (Nelson was gone by then), cousins, nephews, nieces, retainers, and local officials.

  It wasn’t exactly Mario’s crowd, but he good-naturedly went with the flow, briefly hyperventilated, gathered himself, and gamely went into the tony, upscale gathering. He was very glad to encounter Nelson’s widow, Happy, who, over the years, told many and all who would listen that she was “crazy about Mario and Matilda.” They had a nice visit.

  But accompanying this flash of déjà vu from that historic occasion, I also distinctly recall that every time Laurance—or his brother David—tried to engage the governor, Mario would pivot and move on to someone else. One moment he was having a heart-to-heart talk with the head groundskeeper of the Rockefeller properties while the senior Rockefellers tried mightily to get his attention. I even took it upon myself to put a shoulder into it to block his escape. Later I gently reminded Mario that he should have been perhaps a little “more attentive” to “The Brothers,” as the senior members of the clan were known. Mario smiled and said, “Brother Bill . . . I forgot to brush up on my beetles (David Rockefeller was a renowned collector of the rare insects), and I was afraid he was going to go there,” he added with a wink.

  On this rare occasion, the gov may have been out of his comfort zone for the moment in the rarefied atmosphere of Pocantico Hills, but the wonderfully generous Rockefellers never noticed as several followed him to his waiting helicopter as Mario returned to Albany with the deed to those gorgeous 1,233 acres, which today constitute one of the nicest public parks in the Hudson Valley.

  Over the years I often repaired to Mario’s wisdom and counsel for help and guidance on matters of what we used to refer to as “faith and morals,” which designation covered all manner of things and topics. For instance, I taxed his good and generous nature just a few years ago when I had to appear on October 1, 2013, before a packed house of supporters for a judicial candidate: New York State Appellate Supreme Court Judge Daniel Angiolillo. I borrowed so freely from the great man for my remarks that night, I thought surely he was going to sue me for plagiarism when he called the next morning to see if I was able to comport myself properly before a prestigious group that was made up of mostly lawyers and other judges. This is what I said:

  First of all, permit me to thank you for the gift of your presence, as well as the generosity of your purse.

  So many of you, as I look around the room, have been admirers and supporters of the judge for a long, long time; and I won’t intrude for very long on your evening.

  We’ve come on this beautiful Indian summer night because we need something to believe in. To hold on to. And to be guided by. Something wiser than our own quick personal impulses, and something sweeter than the taste of a political victory.

  Our presence here tonight is a tribute not only to a gifted and able jurist. But it is a tribute as well, I think, to what one of the most graceful and articulate of your profession—Mario Cuomo—calls “Our Lady of the Law.”

  As the lawyers here assembled know, the Constitution, our more than two-hundred-year-old legacy of law and justice, has been the foundation, the rock on which we have built all that is good about America. For more than two hundred years “Our Lady of the Law” has proven stronger than the errors or sins or omissions of her acolytes, which is what lawyers are, and has made us better than we would have been.

  But you know all of these things. They teach them in law school. And you practice them every day as officers of the court.

  But you also know and are aware that the law does not apply to every single case or circumstance or even, perhaps, to every day and age. So judges must take a wonderful instrument, the Constitution—or statute or precedent—and try to lay them over and apply them to each case. They must try to fit the Law to reality.

  To work well, the Law, in the care and keeping of a judge, has to have the restraint that comes with fairness, and it also must have tension to move and bend and be compassionate—firm, but flexible—to deal with each new circumstance.

  What qualities, then, should we have a right to expect from the men and women we raise up from among us to interpret and define that Rule of Law?

  They must have:

  Experience

  Intelligence

  Integrity

  Wisdom

  and Compassion

  So where do you find people with such qualities? Where must a governor who appoints them or those who elect them find such people? Not in every lawyer. Or in every judge.

  To whom, then, do you entrust the power to restructure families? To take a business or diminish our purse and holding. Who maintains this Rule of Law? What protects it? Not a rifle or a bayonet or a prison cell. Only a good mind, accompanied by the precious, sound instinct of a judge who is both wise and good.

  We found such an individual—albeit with too many vowels in his name—fourteen years ago.

  And so here we are now in 2013 with another opportunity to reaffirm our confidence and admiration for an appellate judge with a collegial, compassionate, and loving touch, with a gentle heart to interpret the law, but with a firmness and power to apply it.

  So, as I mercifully yield, I would ask again: Where do you find these qualities? Not in every lawyer, or even in every judge.

  But we found all of it—and more—in the compassionate and caring heart of Mr. Justice Daniel Angiolillo.

  And we must continue his brilliant service, despite the registration numbers, despite the political winds.

  There is no Republican or Democratic way to interpret or dispense justice.

  We’ve got to re-elect Mr. Justice Dan Angiolillo!

  P.S.: We lost.

  Mario touched more people than one could possibly count, in ways that often changed their lives. Such was his influence on people that his legacy will live on for many, many years. Rabbi Joseph Postanik, executive director of the New York Board of Rabbis, spoke of Mario’s lasting legacy when he delivered “An Appreciation: Governor Mario Cuomo.” These are his words:

  General Douglas MacArthur wrote the following spiritual legacy to his son: “Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will reach into the future, yet never forget his past.”

  I shared those words with Mario Cuomo the last time I spoke with him. I told him the word for inheritance in Hebrew has as its root the word for river because we believe the real bequest of a parent to a child is not that which is transmitted upon death, but t
aught throughout life. Thus, Governor Cuomo and his loving wife, Matilda, were able to see a living legacy of commitment to community pass from generation to generation. He taught us to look forward, and still look back at a glorious past.

  At the funeral, Governor Andrew Cuomo gave a moving tribute in which he spoke of the love and respect of a child for a parent. How touching it is when we hear [that] children are proud of their parents. It is said children want three things from their parents: “a hand to hold, a shoulder upon which to lean, and above all an example from which to learn.”

  When I spoke with the governor at the wake of his father, I mentioned that we spend much time expanding our professional résumés, but ultimately our kids remember most not the hours we spent in the office but the concentrated hours we spent with them. As the late Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts said, “No one at the end of life ever says, ‘I should have spent more time in the business.’ ”

  Matilda Cuomo reminded me of her husband’s close friend, the man the Roman Catholic governor called his “rabbi,” Israel Mowshowitz, my predecessor at the New York Board of Rabbis, and Cuomo’s neighbor in Queens—who was rabbi at Hillcrest Jewish Center. Cuomo gave him the title of special assistant for community affairs in the governor’s office, where he negotiated issues between the state and religious groups. Matilda told me how much they miss the good rabbi, and how closely intertwined their families still are.

  The governor’s funeral was both simple and elegant, personal and yet far-reaching. I think each of us attending the funeral hoped our children would speak of us one day with the depth of love expressed at the service. Vice President [Joseph] Biden and Senator [Charles] Schumer came to the wake; Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Bill DeBlasio were at the funeral, as were the Clintons and other dignitaries, as well as the working people of New York Mario cared about so much.