Men, Women And Tears

By Philip Dunne

President George Bush, while watching on television his nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Clarence Thomas, describe to the Senate Judiciary Committee the lack of indoor plumbing and other deprivations of his humble childhood, informs us that he was moved to tears. In his own words: "I choked up on it."

This is not the first time this year that the Chief Executive has indulged in a manly effusion of moisture. On June 6 he told a gathering of Southern Baptists that last January, while praying just before he let slip the dogs of war, "I had the tears start down the cheeks." There was even a hint of further tears in his eyes as he made this confession, which, according to newspaper reports, was rewarded by the crowd with a prolonged standing ovation.

Since then there have been a few negative reactions from critics who seem to consider tears a sign of weakness in the human male. Unfortunately, it appears that there are still some among us who refuse to move with the times, and remain captives of an outworn Victorian ethic.

The notion that men should not display their emotions in public, and most specifically that they should never shed tears, was enshrined during the 19th century in the Spartan code of English public schools, which popularized the doctrine of the stiff upper lip, and was articulated by many writers, from early Victorian Charles Kingsley ("Men must work, and women must weep") to late Victorian "Mr. Dooley" ("Among men . . . wet eye manes dhry heart").

In this more enlightened age we no longer deny the boon of tears to half our population, nor the joys of honest labor to the other half. Today, doubly reversing Kingsley, women must work -- or else -- and men, far from keeping a stiff upper lip, must "let it all hang out," especially if they hope to get ahead in politics. There are cogent historical precedents.

A case in point is the 1952 presidential election, when vice-presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon averted political disaster for the ticket of Dwight D. Eisenhower and himself when he delivered his famous Checkers speech. As California's junior Senator, he had accepted a regular allowance from a group of wealthy Los Angeles businessmen, and there appeared to be real danger that he would be dropped from the ticket. In his speech, he neglected to answer the charges directly, but informed a listening electorate, with quavering voice and moistened eye, that he was a virtual pauper, whose sole assets were a little dog named Checkers and his wife's cloth coat.

Nixon's judicious employment of his tear ducts enthralled the nation and helped propel his ticket to victory over Adlai E. Stevenson, who even in defeat clung to the discredited Victorian ethic by quoting Abraham Lincoln's anecdote about a little boy who stubbed his toe and said that it hurt too much to laugh but he was too big to cry. Poor Stevenson, a prisoner of the past, deserved to be a loser. For the more up-to-date Nixon, the prize was the vice presidency and, 16 years later, the White House itself.

All who can remember 1952 experienced a sharp jolt of deja vu 35 years later during the Iran-contra hearings of 1987. When the Reagan Administration nominated Lieut. Colonel Oliver North as its designated fall guy, North's brilliant attorney, Brendan Sullivan Jr., had his client not only boldly defy Marine Corps protocol by appearing before the congressional panel in full uniform with a chestful of decorations but also present his defense with the same quaver of voice and modicum of manly moisture in the eye that had served Nixon so well. The result was a tidal wave of Olliemania that swept the country, made lying to Congress a paradigm of patriotism, and is still fondly recalled by those who relish the fine art of political lachrymosity.

A little later, in a semipolitical setting, television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, confessing to a sin or two here and there, employed the same strategy but different tactics, opting for all-out bawling on camera. And, just as it worked for the fictional Elmer Gantry, so, in a rare case of art imitating art, it rewarded Elmer's analogue in real life.

But still, none of these stellar performances can compare with that of President Bush. Like the old vaudevillian Ted Healy with his famous triple slap across the faces of the Three Stooges, the President achieved three objectives with one stroke: to evoke a nation's sympathy for a brave man's tears, to present this effusion of salt water in a religious setting, and to remind us of a Commander in Chief's brilliant military triumph in the gulf.

Future Presidents who find themselves faced with the awful prospect of sending men and women into battle will be comforted and inspired by his example. It is a pity that such of his predecessors in the White House as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, each bearing on his shoulders the burden of a nation in dire peril, should be forced by the Victorian ethic to forgo the solace of a good cry. And then there was General George Washington at Valley Forge, who reportedly cried as seldom as he lied.

But it must be admitted that to one entire class of American citizens, the + strictures of an antediluvian past still seem to apply. Representative Patricia Schroeder, announcing her withdrawal from the 1988 presidential race for lack of funds, was greeted by her supporters with such a storm of affectionate protest that she was moved to tears. For this she was castigated, not only by supercilious males but also by a gaggle of superheated feminists, as just another weak woman, temperamentally unfitted for the presidency.

If there is a moral to all of this, it could be that in today's political climate, men may weep, but women must prove themselves made of sterner stuff.