Crowds are like alcoholic beverages. They can make you a little tipsy. Or, one might say, they go to your head.
A story is told about Hale Boggs, the 17th Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives. It seems that the congressman had just given a speech — a smashing triumph, at least in his mind.
He and his wife were leaving the auditorium, driven away in a limo. Feeling pretty puffed-up, he referred to himself as he uttered:
You know Lindy, there just aren’t that many great men anymore.
At that moment, Lindy Boggs, herself no wallflower, couldn’t bear her husband’s overblown ego. Her response punctured his balloon:
You are certainly right, dear. And what’s more, there is one less than you think!
Our audiences matter to most of us. Do the listeners and watchers “cheer, boo, or raise a hullabaloo,” as an old song suggests?
Perhaps because the majority find the stage intimidating, we admire those who command it. Moreover, more than a few of us search for a godlike or fatherly figure to “make it all better” and lead the way.
We remember gifted teachers, public speakers, and musicians who touched our hearts while walking the concert hall’s high wire.
Unless one turns away from political rancor, our hopes are invested in those who dominate the political version of the podium. They sometimes appear young, energetic, witty, and handsome, like John Fitzgerald Kennedy, or patriarchal, wise, and comforting, like Ronald Reagan.
Most who take the stage begin their training for a reason other than future admiration. However, once the cheering starts, the seduction of their soul becomes challenging to prevent.
Perhaps one should say a mutual seduction occurs. The spellbinding oratory of the speaker sweeps the audience away, while the former is lured by the crowd’s roar and the body of people who surround him.
He is wanted. Think Elvis or the Beatles.
Ambition is complicated. At its best, ambitious scientists, builders, writers, and leaders have, like Moses, helped us find the way to the promised land of enlightenment, health, beauty, and victory.
At its worst, they use whatever advantage celebrity provides to further their desires.
Some towering figures fall into both categories. The enthusiasm of an adoring public produces rule-breaking opportunities that are hard to resist.
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People have been killed because of their ambition by those who wished to defeat it. Think of political assassinations.
After he and his Senate cohorts murdered Julius Caesar, Shakespeare’s Brutus spoke these words to justify his actions, claiming affection for Caesar but fear of his ambition:
Had you rather Caesar were living and
die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live
all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him;
as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was
valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I
slew him.
Too often, athletes, performers, and politicians stay on the stage well past their use-by date. If they are prominent and admired enough, not even their diminishing talents cause them to suffer involuntary removal from a position of glorified status or power.
Some do know when to leave, however. I asked a retired Chicago Symphony woodwind player how he decided to resign from his decades-long tenure with the CSO.
Well, I thought it better to hear people tell me I still played well and should have stayed than for them to say, ‘Yeah, I guess it was time to go.’
Famous baseball players like Joe DiMaggio and Sandy Koufax displayed the same wisdom, departing the field of play on their own terms.
And yet it is easy to simplify the question of ambition by suggesting that continuing one’s work is fueled only by its intoxicating benefits. There is the love of the job, joy in performance, desire to repair the world, and all the factors that motivate people to create and better the condition of humanity.
On the subject of creativity, I heard Herbert von Karajan perform two concerts at Carnegie Hall with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the last year of his life. The conductor’s chronic back issues prevented him from walking to the podium without assistance.
Once on the platform, he mounted a modified bicycle seat that gave the illusion of him standing, but he must have been in excruciating pain.
Karajan offered a lesson in willpower. For the aged maestro, making beautiful music was worth everything. During each performance, time’s passage, and Karajan’s infirmity disappeared. He and his life became the music, and the fusion sustained him.
I will close this essay with evidence that ambition can be set aside even in politics.
Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois once said, “The hardest thing in any political campaign is how to win without proving you are unworthy of winning.”
Stevenson was the Democratic Party nominee for President in 1952 and 1956. He also was beaten twice at the ballot box, both times by Dwight Eisenhower.
Early in his first run for the nation’s highest office, the candidate met with Texas Governor Shivers to discuss ownership of the offshore oil adjacent to states like Texas, Louisiana, and California.
The states hoped that Stevenson would, at least, stay noncommital on the contentious question of rights the Federal Government also wanted.
As the conference proceeded, however, Stevenson made clear his stance in favor of the Federal Government: he would not remain neutral on the issue but publically indicate his opposition to the states’ position.
One person in attendance pointed out the political disadvantage to the office seeker if he did so:
“But Governor Stevenson, if you insist on doing that, you can’t win.”
“I don’t have to win.”
Ambition needn’t be everything.
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The first of three photos is Henry Grossman’s album cover photo for The Beatles — All You Need is Love and Baby, You’re a Rich Man, 1967.
Next comes the cover of Modern Screen Magazine featuring Elvis Presley when he was leaving to join the army in June 1958.
Finally, a shot that came to be called Adlai Bares His Sole or Adlai’s Worn Sole from a Stevenson campaign appearance in 1952 in Flint, Michigan. It won the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for Photography and was captured by William M. Gallagher.
All of these were sourced from Wikimedia Commons.
