Editorial A man of principle

Obituary after obituary last week referred to Paul O’Dwyer as a politician. They noted his 12 races for elective office and his two victories, both to the New York City Council. They quoted him as having once said that “politics is the only machinery around on which you can really straighten things out.” And indeed, for most New Yorkers, politics is the lens through which they viewed the man’s remarkably long and effective career.

Obituary after obituary last week referred to Paul O’Dwyer as a politician. They noted his 12 races for elective office and his two victories, both to the New York City Council. They quoted him as having once said that “politics is the only machinery around on which you can really straighten things out.” And indeed, for most New Yorkers, politics is the lens through which they viewed the man’s remarkably long and effective career.

But if O’Dwyer, who died last week just shy of his 91st birthday, was truly a politician, it certainly wasn’t by any conventional definition. The get-reelected-at-any cost ethos that drives today’s campaigns were anathema to him. His motives were much purer. Principle, not the lust for power, drove his agenda. He was, to be sure, a man in politics, not of politics.

An outsider even when rare electoral victory made him technically an insider, O’Dwyer was forever fighting from the fringes. He built his law and political careers pushing issues that mattered to his natural constituency of working-class, poor, powerless, and oppressed people – in New York and elsewhere, including Northern Ireland. If his staunchly liberal positions were frequently at odds with the Catholic church and conservative Irish Americans, so be it; he wanted to be right, not popular.

O’Dwyer’s wake and funeral last week were remarkable for the cross-section of mourners they attracted. Ireland’s president, Mary McAleese, attended his wake just hours before returning to Dublin. Also on hand were mayors present and past, Republican and Democrat. There were governors and congressman and political operatives of every stripe. But for all the well-tailored suits present, there were also some tattered sports coat about, the kind taken out of mothballs for weddings and funerals, worn by humble people whose lives O’Dwyer had touched in some small way. These were Paul O’Dwyer’s people. And their presence no doubt would have pleased him.

But if O’Dwyer, who died last week just shy of his 91st birthday, was truly a politician, it certainly wasn’t by any conventional definition. The get-reelected-at-any cost ethos that drives today’s campaigns were anathema to him. His motives were much purer. Principle, not the lust for power, drove his agenda. He was, to be sure, a man in politics, not of politics.

An outsider even when rare electoral victory made him technically an insider, O’Dwyer was forever fighting from the fringes. He built his law and political careers pushing issues that mattered to his natural constituency of working-class, poor, powerless, and oppressed people – in New York and elsewhere, including Northern Ireland. If his staunchly liberal positions were frequently at odds with the Catholic church and conservative Irish Americans, so be it; he wanted to be right, not popular.

O’Dwyer’s wake and funeral last week were remarkable for the cross-section of mourners they attracted. Ireland’s president, Mary McAleese, attended his wake just hours before returning to Dublin. Also on hand were mayors present and past, Republican and Democrat. There were governors and congressman and political operatives of every stripe. But for all the well-tailored suits present, there were also some tattered sports coat about, the kind taken out of mothballs for weddings and funerals, worn by humble people whose lives O’Dwyer had touched in some small way. These were Paul O’Dwyer’s people. And their presence no doubt would have pleased him.