Now, not many of you know this, but as well as being a senior research associate at The Corporate Library, I am also the artistic director of a small, professional theatre company in Camden, Maine, my hometown – Everyman Repertory Theatre, in case you were wondering. And our next play – Conversations at Midnight – is actually by Camden-raised poet Edna St. Vincent Millay.
Written in 1937 it may have been, but, oh my goodness, it has lost none of its relevance. It’s a collection of men sitting around after the port has been around the table a few times, and the brandy’s come out, talking about war, politics, religion, women, modern appliances, horse racing, shooting, air travel, business, music, and mushrooms. Not subjects that are likely ever to go out of style.
“OK. OK. Where is he going with this one?" I hear you cry. What the hell is this blog about?
I’m getting there.
At one point, in the second act, the arch conservative in the group is foolish enough to defend the Supreme Court….
“Aha, now I see where he’s going….”
This provokes the following speech (it’s in verse, so bear with me):
Not corrupt? Is it only money that corrupts? Mortality
Corrupts! How often
Do you meet a man of eighty with his faculties unimpaired? – with his memory exact? No matter how honourable, no matter how wise
He is at sixty, your Judge who has a job for life, his arteries will harden and his brain will soften,
And he’ll be interpreting justice for the living while he’s dying, - if he does it until he dies!
It’s as ridiculous to have a man of eighty as to have a boy of eighteen
Interpreting the Constitution; what we need is the man in between.
See what I mean? Right on the nose. There’s been stupid decisions and stupid decisions, but allowing that corporations have a constitutional right to spend unlimited amounts of money to promote or defeat candidates is one of the most stupid.
Paul Hodgson - Senior Research Associate
