LIFE AND TIME

January 27, 2010
EDITORIAL | APPRECIATIONS
A Responsible Man
By ROBERT B. SEMPLE Jr.
The news that Charles “Mac” Mathias had died at 87 of Parkinson’s disease aroused fond memories of a
slightly round and rumpled man who drove a battered blue station wagon to his Senate office and
sometimes brought his black Labrador retriever with him.
It also brought back memories of a time when legislative combat could be as fierce as it is now but when
there seemed to be more room for independent judgment — or, more accurately, when there were more
legislators willing to ignore their party’s disciplinarians and demagogues and act on principle alone. Mr.
Mathias, a Republican variously described as moderate or liberal, was just such a person. He represented
Maryland for 26 years in Congress, eight in the House and 18 in the Senate, before retiring in 1987.
Though he never considered leaving the Republican Party and supported Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972,
he was one of President Nixon’s most nettlesome opponents on legislation and the Vietnam War. He was an
early champion of campaign finance reform (never accepting a contribution, after Watergate, of more than
$100) and opposed the death penalty.
His signature issue was civil rights. It is not much remembered, but when President John F. Kennedy failed
to submit a promised civil rights bill, three Republicans introduced one of their own. This inspired Mr.
Kennedy to deliver on his promise, and it built Republican support for what became the Civil Rights Act of
1964. The three were Representatives William McCullough, John Lindsay and Mr. Mathias.
The lofty way to describe him would be to say that he voted his conscience. But as he saw it, he was simply
voting for things that everyone of conscience ought to support: respect for constitutional rights, respect for
the environment, respect for the balance of powers.
He once told The Times’s Tom Wicker that the senators he most admired were Democrats J. William
Fulbright, Mike Mansfield and Philip Hart, and Republicans John Sherman Cooper, Jacob Javits, George
Aiken and Clifford Case.
Why these? “Individual responsibility,” he answered. “Each one of these people would take an issue on his
own responsibility. They wouldn’t have to have the cover of some ideology. They’d simply come to the
conclusion that this was the right thing for the country.” That describes Mac Mathias.
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company