Politicians from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan have invoked John Winthrop’s “city upon a hill” phrase for political effect but few have embodied the phrase in the manner of Governor Deval Patrick, who seemingly alone among America’s governors is willing to extend a welcome to immigrant children who have flooded across our Southern borders. Winthrop’s speech was much more than a memorable phrase; it was a Model of Christian Charity, a call for those who enjoy the blessings of life to care for the less well off. Deval Patrick is brave in his willingness to live up to the commonwealth’s foundational document.
Here is part of what Governor Patrick had to say yesterday as reported by the Boston Globe’s Jim O’Sullivan and Maria Sacchetti:
“My inclination is to remember what happened when a ship full of Jewish children tried to come to the United States in 1939 and the United States turned them away, and many of them went to their deaths in Nazi concentration camps,” Patrick said when a reporter asked how he viewed the border crisis. “I think we are a bigger-hearted people than that as Americans, and certainly as residents of Massachusetts.”
“There’s a humanitarian reason to try to find a solution, try to find a way to help,” he said Wednesday. “These are children, coming from incredibly dangerous places. And we have to do something sensible and humane while we process them for whatever the next step is.”
This is an interesting characteristic of Governor Patrick; his outreach might seem radical but it’s tendered to the deepest commitments of our commonwealth. He’s our Puritan Conservative. As Winthrop preached to the immigrants approaching the shore of Massachusetts:
we need look no further then to that of 1 John 3:17, “He who hath this world’s goods and seeth his brother to need and shuts up his compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” Which comes punctually to this conclusion: If thy brother be in want and thou canst help him, thou needst not make doubt of what thou shouldst do; if thou lovest God thou must help him.
Let’s remember that Winthrop didn’t mean everybody; he meant the members of the community who accepted the strictures of Puritan life. That brings us to one of the great questions of political life: who belongs? Who belongs in our community, who is a member, or who at least has some characteristics that command our obligation to help – poor children with nowhere else to turn?
I say Governor Patrick is brave in this as the Globe story identifies no other governor who has been as willing to extend a hand. The obviously ambitious governors have turned their backs.
Governor Patrick’s position is likely to be unpopular and is fraught with difficulty. In the Globe House Minority Leader Brad Jones raises questions the governor will need to answer: “I think it raises a bunch more questions than the governor has been willing or able to answer at this point: How many? At what cost? How long?” We are to some extent at the mercy of a federal government that is an unreliable partner on immigration issues. Governor Patrick values and vision haven’t always been matched by a firm hand on the administrative till.
I don’t recall which gubernatorial portrait Governor Patrick chose to hang behind his desk but at least for a short time, perhaps he could place John Winthrop up there. The governor is living up to the meaning of the “city upon a hill.”