now I am hissed

A man at work advised me once that when things seem bad, it passes; things get better.  Below, from Schlesinger journals, the professor gives himself that advice.  ("...I must remind myself...")

------------------------- [excerpt, Journals, 1952 - 2000, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.] -----------------

1968

May 27

[during Bobby Kennedy's primary campaign]  Now I am hissed at practically every public appearance in this city [nyc].  I have just been out to get the morning Times, and inevitably someone harangued and denounced me on Third Avenue -- again a McCarthyite.  I think these people are crazy.  But I do feel curiously isolated here.

Before I totally succumb to self-pity, I must remind myself of other times in life when I have been bitterly attacked for brief periods --

when I wrote the piece on the American Comunist Party for Life in 1946;

when I supported JFK and wrote Kennedy or Nixon in 1960;

when I wrote the Cuba White Paper in 1961;

when A Thousand Days began to come out in Life in 1965. 

All these things passed away because I was right on the issue.  I am right on the issue today -- RFK at least -- and no doubt in time things will improve here too.


June 9

It is beyond belief, but it has happened -- it has happened again.

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{Journals.  1952 - 2000.  Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.  Edited by Andrew Schlesinger and Stephen Schlesinger.  Copyright 2007, Penguin.}

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