Sullivan: Fix the rotting maw of civil relationships

In the summer of 1907, Wall Street had a little freakout. The sale of a major copper production… In the summer of 1907, Wall Street had a little freakout. The sale of a major copper production company had gone sour, and because of the intensely complicated and esoteric workings of the national economy, credit began to contract and people began to feverishly withdraw their money from some banks perceived as weak. The formula is fairly routine — contraction, panic, further contraction — and it should be familiar to those of us who’ve been awake over the past few years.

In response to this most recent recession, the government stepped in with former President George W. Bush’s Troubled Asset Relief Program and later President Barack Obama’s stimulus package. These governmental responses were necessary — somewhat akin to cauterizing your own bullet wound as you’re fleeing from an assailant. Since the measures passed, the economy is showing signs of life. But in any case, as unemployment lingers, the body politic’s still in a great amount of pain, and nobody’s happy with one another.

In 1907, however, recovery came in a different form — the form of a septuagenarian J. P. Morgan. This was the man who wielded more power on Wall Street than anyone before or after. When Morgan’s banks and trusts began to fail, he stepped in, organizing relief committees of financiers to raise millions of dollars to ensure liquidity in certain failing companies. This was not charity, of course. While realizing that a prosperous economy was to his benefit, Morgan made calculated decisions that propped up certain firms but allowed others to fail.

Incredible as these personal monetary commitments were, even more incredible was the way that the business community banded not only together but with the Secretary of the Treasury George Cortelyou, who provided $25 million to the relief cause from government coffers. A combination of the private and public sectors working together to stave off economic disaster? I can barely conceive a similar cooperation today.

But in light of the political response to the recent shootings in Tucson, Ariz., politicians should start learning these collaborative skills. Beginning on Sunday morning, on a special edition of “Meet the Press,” our elected representatives decided to wage war on hyperbolic rhetoric in politics — all while subtly sniping the other side for being guiltier than themselves. We must live up to better standards in our rhetoric, politicians of all stripes have shouted. Of course this is an admirable goal, but when viewed in the light of the relief action in 1907, it seems almost a paltry pledge.

Is holding our tongue from the most vicious invective we can imagine really the best we can do to honor those murdered or maimed? I have seen too many politicians hiss “my friends across the aisle” with venom so intense that I wonder how it does not poison those from whom it originates, that civil language does not inspire confidence in me.

In 1907, individuals and the government came together for the benefit of the larger group. But today an inhospitably adversarial culture has surpassed itself.

The problem we face today is not one of excessive rhetoric or targets on congressional maps. It is a problem of a hugely adversarial culture among the powerful. The laissez-faire economists assume the worst of any regulatory measure, while regulators and progressives assume greed and avarice in business men and women. Even if you don’t use language of violence, the underlying attitude of adversarial confrontation is deadly to the proper, hopefully harmonious functioning of government and private business.

Horrific as the tragedy in Tucson was, it was not the product of overexposure to Fox News. It was a random act of violence just like those that occur every day in this country. To take this event and make weightless pledges of civility is weak. It is a decision derived from the least amount of introspection possible. This is a country where random acts of violence occurred before political invective and will continue long after it is gone. We cannot really allow ourselves to avoid looking deeper into the rotting maw of civil relationships.

Write Brendan at b.james.sullivan@gmail.com.