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¶ … Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor. Specifically, it will review the book, discussing the relevancy of a 50-year-old book to modern political affairs. "The Last Hurrah" is a half-century old, and some of its political ideas seem archaic, but many of them still hold true today, and that is part of the problem with modern American politics, the process is still overrun by the few and the mighty.
The times are changing in "The Last Hurrah," and that is one reason that seasoned Boston politician Frank Skeffington loses his last election. His career, fraught with scandal and hints of unethical behavior, was typical of the time. Our politicians may have cleaned up a little, but the scandals still stalk them, and so, not much has really changed from "The Last Hurrah" to the current state of political affairs. Today's politicians are just slicker and more schooled in marketing themselves to Americans increasingly interested in consumerism and the appearance of their candidates.
Skeffington's character was loosely based on James Michael Curley, who was both mayor of Boston and governor of...
Curley served time in jail for mail fraud, and had been convicted of fraud before his election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1911. Curley enjoyed an immensely successful political career, despite his convictions. Skeffington shows the same charm and likeableness that people remember Curley for, and this is just one of the commonalities between the real person and the character.
Skeffington understands his constituents extremely well, and this knowledge has served him well in the past. At one point, he tells his nephew Adam, "my position is slightly complicated because I'm not just an elected official of the city, I'm a tribal chieftain as well. It's a necessary kind of dual office holding, you might say; without the second I wouldn't be the first" (O'Connor 1957). He holds the electorate in a kind of contempt, and yet works extremely hard to be their friend at the same time. Unfortunately, he never seems to recognize just how his extreme power could help the entire city, and so he doles out personal favors and ignores large sections of the people he could help the…
References
O'Connor, Edwin. 1957. The Last Hurrah. New York: Bantam.
They felt that it was time the people were let free to practice what they believe and express their views and the only way to achieve this was to adopt democracy since theocracy did not provide a chance for such freedom. The other factor that probably led the founding fathers to rebel against theocracy was the fact the Church of England was being controlled by the king (Simpson, 1955).
Freed from original sin, the City of God is the perfection of harmony between God and human beings. In his book, Augustine then finally dispels the idea of the Roman Empire being the earthly establishment of God's kingdom. It was simply too imperfect. Hence, he promoted the separation of Church and state as entities with two distinct purposes on earth. Because of this separation, Augustine holds that Christians cannot feel
" 1 January 1802. Library of Congress. 19 September 2010 . Primary source document from the Library of Congress, the original text of the correspondence between Jefferson and the Danbury Baptists. Johnston, P. "A Historical Argument Against the Separation of Church and State." January 2008. Right Remedy. September 2010 . Authored by a clergyman, this website collected quotations from a number of political figures, legal documents, and primary source materials to show that
For Madison, the Constitution provides for a distinction between what he calls the "authority of human laws and the "natural rights of Man," the latter including the right of religious choice. In the same document, Madison opposes interference from the government in matters religious on the grounds of five reasons. The most significant of these is the third reason: "They seem to imply and certainly nourish the erroneous idea of
Wade, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa v. Casey; Stenberg v. Carhart, where the courts, with public concurrence, have debated the question of whether or not a partially birth child is indeed a person whose right to live should be challenged. The separation of powers should have prevented the courts from taking on the moral question of abortion. The elected representatives should have been responsible for legislating laws that would govern
Spanish and Portuguese governments had also been infused with religious power on top of their political power. The eighteenth century saw the Church take over much of the affairs of everyday life in the New World. As the Franciscan and Jesuit orders moved into the spotlight, the Church gained the ultimate authority. A swell of missionaries swarmed into Spain's northern colonies and installed small power hubs in the form of