The Negotiator

by George Mitchell

  For many years my father worked as a laborer at a division of the local utility company. In 1950 the utility discontinued the division and he lost his job. The ensuing crisis nearly destroyed him. He was fifty years old and had worked steadily since he was ten. For nearly a year he was out of work. My mother’s income barely supported us. As the year stretched on, my father’s depression intensified and his mood darkened. I was sixteen, in my last year in high school. Immature, insensitive to the poison of despair that was consuming him, I didn’t comprehend what my father was going through. We argued often, to my mother’s dismay. He tried very hard, but he couldn’t get a job, and each failure drove the downward cycle of despair and deepened his loss of self-esteem. It was by far the worst year of my life. After months of discord we were both emotionally worn out, and a gloomy, sullen silence descended on us. He withdrew even deeper into himself and seemed to physically shrink as well. For a long time we didn’t speak. Our eyes rarely met. Finally, just as his self-esteem had all but vanished, he found a job as a janitor at Colby College in Waterville. For him, and for our family, it was a life-saving reprieve.

  To this day I have difficulty restraining my anger when I hear someone engage in blanket condemnation of the unemployed. Having lived through the tragedy of unemployment, I know that most of those out of work would prefer to be working. Yet without precisely saying so, the message of many who seek to exploit the issue is to the contrary: they’re lazy, dependent, and don’t want to work. Those critics without any conscience equate all of the unemployed with welfare cheats. Whenever I hear such remarks, I angrily think (and often, if the situation permits, say), “My father wasn’t like that. He wanted to work, he tried very hard to find a job, and I’m sure that most of those who are out of work now are like him. They are human beings, many of them living through the despair and the wrenching and soul-killing loss of self-esteem that nearly destroyed my father.”

  Fortunately Colby College needed a janitor. It didn’t seem like much of a job, but it suited my father. He loved books and magazines, so just being at an institution of higher learning all day was a pleasure for him. His intelligence was soon recognized and he was put in charge of all the janitors and maids and then of most of the grounds crew as well. As a result he thoroughly enjoyed the last fifteen years of his working life, even though he earned very little money during that time.

  I learned from my father’s experience that there is dignity in every human being and in every form of work. My father took pride in his work as a janitor and as a groundskeeper. He brought excellence to the job, which in turn gave him back his dignity and self-esteem. In fact it saved his life. Once he started to work at Colby, his despair gradually gave way to optimism. After a year of slouching and stooping he stood straight again. The mist vanished from his blue eyes and they regained their sparkle. The difficult times were fewer and fewer and finally disappeared. He again laughed and joked and took an interest in what and how I was doing. I felt as though we had come out of a long dark tunnel into bright sunshine.

  Although he was not a learned man, when my father became interested in a subject, he pursued it avidly. Perhaps because he could rarely travel, he was fascinated by geography. I can still recall as a small boy sitting with him at the kitchen table, poring over maps of the world. There I first learned about the Alps and the Himalayan Mountains; the Nile, the Amazon, and the great rivers of Russia; the Straits of Magellan and Malacca. Because of him I became interested in the subject. After he retired from Colby, and for the next seven years until his death, whenever I returned to Waterville to visit, I prepared a geography quiz for him. I studied maps and atlases, trying to stump him. But I never did. I remember clearly the quiz I gave him on my last visit before his sudden death in July 1972. I asked him three questions, of increasing difficulty: Which country has the most cities with a population of more than one million? How many such cities are there in that country? Name them. Without hesitation he answered: China (obviously); fourteen (not so obvious); and then, methodically, with brief pauses, Peking, Shanghai, Canton, Chungking, Mukden, and so on down the list. Perfect! I told him I’d stump him the next time. We both laughed, and he gave me a long, close hug when I left to return to Washington. I never saw him alive again.

  My parents knew little of history or political science, but they understood the meaning of America because they valued freedom and opportunity. They conveyed their values to their children by example more than by words. Though it was not often expressed aloud, their message was clear. Their values were simple, universal in reach, and enduring in strength: faith, family, work, country. My mother’s faith was total and unquestioning, an integral part of her life. After she stopped working, she attended church every day. But her faith involved more than ritual, more than just listening to the gospel or reciting it; it meant living its message in daily life. She integrated faith, love, and charity into a life of meaning, even though she lacked education, wealth, or status. Often in my life, when facing a difficult challenge, I, with my college and law school degrees, tried to figure out what my mother would do. She had more common sense and good moral judgment than anyone I’ve ever known.

  My parents’ commitment to family was deep and unwavering. Nothing came before their children. Ever. My father’s goal in life was to see that all of his children graduated from college. And we all did. By current standards we were poor, but we never felt poor; we lived the way everyone we knew lived. Not once, ever, did we go hungry; our home never lacked heat in the winter; though there were lots of hand-me-downs we were always adequately dressed. To us it was a normal life: family, church, school, work, sports.

  THE TWO PENNY BRIDGE

  A favorite pastime of children in Head of Falls was trying to sneak across the Two Penny Bridge. From the time the paper mill in Winslow opened, just prior to the turn of the century, many men from Waterville worked at the mill. Because they had to make a long trip across the only bridge that spanned the river, an especially difficult trip in the winter, a petition was presented to the Waterville City Council in 1898 urging the construction of a footbridge. The council rejected the proposal as too expensive. Two local businessmen then obtained a charter from the state legislature and proceeded to build a private, toll footbridge. On the Winslow side it was located near the paper mill; on the Waterville side it was located at the foot of Temple Street, right next to the Head of Falls. I could see the bridge from the back window of our house, just a few feet away.

  The bridge opened in April 1901, and the toll was two cents. It did a brisk business. Unfortunately in that December there occurred on the Kennebec one of the worst floods in nearly a century and the bridge was washed away. Undaunted, the owners rebuilt and reopened it in 1903. The new bridge was 570 feet long and six feet wide. The toll was still two cents, where it remained until 1960, when it was raised to five cents. The bridge was in operation until 1973, when declining traffic forced its closure. It has since been listed on the National Register of Historic Landmarks, renovated and reopened to the public, toll free.

  The toll booth was located near the Waterville end of the bridge. Since the bridge is only six feet wide, the bridge keeper could easily see anyone walking in either direction. His only blind spot was right below the door to the toll booth. By crawling along the side of the bridge and just below the booth, it was sometimes possible to sneak across without paying the toll, especially if other people were crossing at the same time. So it became a challenge to the kids in our neighborhood to get across the bridge for free.

  I was not quite five in the summer of 1938, when I made my first trip across the bridge. It was a windy day and the bridge was swaying. Many times from a distance I had seen it sway, but I had never before felt it. Needless to say, it felt like it was swinging high enough to throw me off. I was frightened and wanted to turn back, but I was even more afraid of being called a sissy. I was with four older boys, all of whom had done it before, so I kept going. We crawled past the toll booth and
then stood up and ran across. It felt good to have made it, even better to get off that swaying bridge. Now we were in Winslow. We had nothing to do there, of course. The point of it all was to cross the bridge, not to get to Winslow. We had no money, nowhere to go, nothing to do. So we got ready to do the only thing we could think of: go back across. That called for a different strategy. Since the booth was near the Waterville end, it made no sense to crawl all the way across from the Winslow end. The return strategy was to wait until adults were crossing, walk behind them as casually as possible, and then run full speed off the other end. It was midafternoon and there weren’t many people using the bridge, so we just waited for the next shift change at the mill, when there would be lots of workers crossing back to Waterville. We got back easily. As we ran off the bridge, one of the older boys paid me what was then the ultimate compliment: he told the others, “He’s okay.”

  That winter was long and difficult for me. Some of the homes on Head of Falls were built at the top of a small hill that sloped sharply down to the river; the others were at the very bottom, right on the riverbank. Connecting the two groups was a gravel footpath. When it snowed, the path was used for sliding by children from both groups. One particularly heavy snowstorm was followed by a clear, cold, sunlit day. My brother Paul, then twelve years old, was sliding with a friend. I heard their laughter and wanted to be part of the fun, so I asked if I could join them. There was only one sled, so Paul hesitated. I pleaded and he gave in. There wasn’t enough room for the three of us to sit comfortably on the sled, so Paul sat in the middle, and I sat in front, snuggled close to him; his feet were on the steering pedals in the front, while my legs were spread wide, on top of and outside of his. It took a while to get settled, but once the sled started it quickly picked up speed. About two-thirds of the way down the hill the sled veered to the left, directly into a large post holding up a wooden fence that lined the side of the path. My left leg, sticking out the side of the sled, took the full force of the collision; several bones were broken. After the sharp pain the only thing I remember is my mother carrying me in her arms down the hill to our home. I spent months in a full leg cast and “baby crutches,” filled with regret at how much trouble I’d caused Paul. As the firstborn he was plainly our mother’s favorite; her nickname for him was “Sunshine.” But on that day, and several more afterward, there was no sunshine for Paul. Gradually I recovered; there were no permanent effects, and in time sunshine returned.

  FRONT STREET

  In 1938 we made what was for my family a major move: we crossed the railroad tracks. After the birth of my sister, Barbara, all five children slept in one tiny bedroom, Paul and John in one bed, Robbie and me in another, and Barbara’s crib crammed in between. Once Barbara grew out of the crib, we had to move. My father bought an old house on Front Street, which runs directly adjacent and parallel to the tracks, so we were now actually closer to the tracks than we had been in Head of Falls. But the move was symbolic because we were, literally and figuratively, out of Head of Falls and on the right side of the tracks. My father took great pride in being able to move us there. That September I started school at St. Joseph’s Maronite Parochial School, located just off Front Street, about three blocks from our house. The school was operated by the parish. The instructors were nuns of the Ursuline Order, deeply religious and dedicated teachers. Strict discipline was maintained, and heavy emphasis was placed on learning the basics. We attended Mass daily. Then, as now, the young boys assisted in the Masses as altar boys. There I learned early the value of knowing more than one language.

  Maron was a priest and hermit who lived in the early part of the fifth century in the mountains of what is now central Lebanon. He devoted his life to prayer and good works, living simply and frugally. Eventually the Maronite Church was created in his name. In the sixteenth century it permanently joined with and became part of the Roman Catholic Church. Although its liturgy and practices were once significantly different from those of the Roman Catholic faith, over time the differences have diminished and the two are now virtually indistinguishable, especially as they operate in the United States.

  In 1938 one difference was that all Masses at St. Joseph’s were held in Arabic, the language of Syria and Lebanon, while Masses at most Roman Catholic churches were in Latin. Now, except for one Arabic Mass a week, all Masses at St. Joseph’s and other Catholic churches in the United States are in English. Although my mother and father both spoke Arabic, they rarely did so when we children were around, as they, like many immigrants, were anxious that we be Americanized as quickly and completely as possible. Thus to this day I can say and understand only a few words in Arabic.

  The first time I served as an altar boy I was paired with Henry Nagem, a happy-go-lucky older boy. He knew even less Arabic than I did. The priest was the church pastor, Father Joseph Awad, a stern, intimidating figure. Both Henry and I were nervous as the Mass began. Things went well until near the end, when one of us was supposed to get Father Awad’s cap, which he had placed at the side of the altar at the beginning of the Mass. We both forgot, and a long, motionless silence occurred. Then Father Awad, in a low, stern voice said something neither of us understood. He repeated it three or four times in a voice rising with anger. I looked at Henry; he looked at me. My legs were shaking. He was sweating. Finally an exasperated parishioner yelled out, “His hat, he wants you to get his hat, you dumbbells!” We collided and nearly fell, scrambling to get Father Awad’s cap. Afterward, in the rectory, he reprimanded us and made us stay there and memorize the Arabic words necessary to serve Mass, including the word for cap, pronounced “boor-nite-ah.” I will never forget it.

  Serving as an altar boy was my introduction to public speaking. The church was usually full at Sunday Mass, and one of us always read the epistle; it was an honor and a challenge. My father insisted that I learn to speak in public and encouraged my reading of the epistle. To make sure I could be heard and understood throughout the church, he made me practice at home: I would stand in the back hallway while he sat in the living room at the far end of our house. There were three rooms between us and I couldn’t see him, but I read the epistle over and over, louder and louder, pronouncing every syllable clearly, until he could hear and understand every word. Although I objected at first, once I found that I could do it well, I looked forward to the Sunday readings.

  My brother Robbie and I shared a bedroom, as did my two older brothers. My sister, Barbara, the youngest, had her own bedroom, as did my parents. In retrospect the only real inconvenience came from seven people sharing a single, very tiny bathroom. That led to occasional waiting lines, but we learned to take our turn. Over time, as Paul and then Johnny went off to college, the waiting time decreased.

  Barbara, the youngest of five children, and the only girl, didn’t have a natural playmate in the family, but she handled it well, becoming highly successful and fiercely independent; she now tends to lead, and occasionally to dominate, family discussions. As one of my brothers once said, “The four of us against Barbara: an even battle.”

  SPORTS

  I got into politics because of basketball. In Waterville one of the most important things in life was high school basketball, and my three older brothers were all great players. Then I came along. I was not as good as they were. In fact I was not as good as anyone else’s brother. When I was fourteen I began to be known as Johnny Mitchell’s kid brother, the one who isn’t any good. As you might expect, I developed a massive inferiority complex and a highly competitive attitude toward my brothers. I hoped it would just be a passing phase. But it wasn’t. Even after high school and college, I continued to be known as the Mitchell brother who wasn’t any good. So I resolved to outdo my brothers, to become more famous than my brother Johnny, nicknamed “the Swisher” for his prowess on the basketball court. As proof that I’ve succeeded, one of the high points in my life was the day after my election to a full term in the Senate. The Portland paper ran a big picture of the victory celebration
the night before. It showed me waving to the cheering crowd, and draped over me, mugging for the camera, is my brother Johnny. The caption read, “Senator George Mitchell, celebrating his surprise election victory, being cheered on by an unidentified supporter.”

  Our lives revolved around team sports: baseball all summer, some football, and especially basketball. While in high school I could not have named either of Maine’s U.S. senators, but I knew exactly what Ted Williams’s batting average was every day. We played sports almost daily, for as long as possible. Right after school, from early fall to late spring, if work didn’t interrupt, we went to the Boys Club. There boys of all ages played basketball until the Club closed at nine o’clock.

  I was younger and smaller than most of my classmates—sixteen when I graduated from high school, twenty when I graduated from college. My father explained to me over and over again that the reason I didn’t seem to be as good an athlete as my brothers was that I was always playing against boys older than I was; in the meantime, he said, I was actually better off because I was getting through school faster. What he said may have been logical, but it did nothing to ease the hurt and constant embarrassment.