32 pages • 1 hour read
John F. KennedyProfiles in Courage
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1955A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4 Summary
Part 4 of Profiles in Courage focuses on the first half of the 20th century and America's new role in the world, and the sacrifices and anxieties that accompany this new role. Part 4 describes the careers of two senators, George Norris and Robert Taft, who risk their careers to establish precedents in this new era.
The first of these men, Senator George Norris, is a Republican from Nebraska. As a senator, he leads a filibuster of an initiative to arm American shipping in the days before America's entry into World War I. Although personally a pacifist, Senator Norris maintains that this measure would erode Congress's sole power to declare war, and unofficially put America on a path to war. Senator Norris is correct. When the president circumvents Congress following his successful filibuster, the country is soon at war.
Robert A. Taft, the son of President Taft, is a conservative Republican from Ohio. In 1948, during the course of the Nuremberg trials for Nazi war criminals, he protests the use of ex post facto laws to justify their execution, citing the controversial and troubling legal principle of trying individuals for legal actions. For this, Taft is aggressively criticized by members of both parties, and even labeled a Nazi sympathizer. However, being a strict constitutionalist, he does not relent, insisting that the powers of the courts must be limited, even in extraordinary situations and in the face of manifest evil. Beyond their principles, Kennedy poses that the failures of each senator—Norris to keep America out of the war, and Taft to commute the death sentences of these war criminals—illustrates another dimension of political courage: the articulation of principles for the sake of posterity.
Part 4 Analysis
Part 4 focuses on America's role on the international stage in the first half of the 20th century. While this is sensible in context with the rapid expansion of America's influence on the defining events of the 20th century, it also provides Kennedy with an opportunity to illustrate different types of political courage, and what affects them. Kennedy continues to illustrate his belief that courage in the Senate is largely a matter of philosophical principle, rather than legislative process. To wit, Senator George Norris and Senator Robert Taft find themselves embroiled not in matters of law, but principle. For George Norris, while the ostensible issue is a report advising the arming of merchant ships, the real issue is war, and in particular the ability of Congress to be the sole entity capable of declaring war. Norris accuses President Wilson of working not only to involve the country in an unnecessary European war, but simultaneously working to shift power to the presidency and away from Congress. For Kennedy, Norris represents a man of principle, someone who fights against both the dangerous jingoism of the time and the machinations of entrenched political elites. In an effort to impress his simplicity and authenticity, Kennedy frequently mentions Norris’s "shoestring tie," a symbol of his humble roots and unpretentiousness.
Robert Taft represents a different approach to the idea of political courage. Kennedy underscores that Taft's decision to comment on the Nuremberg Trials was practically and politically unnecessary, and roundly considered to be a blunder; despite this, Kennedy uses this controversial case to explore Taft's own peculiar convictions, and Taft's belief in the US Constitution as law. In Taft's view, for a court to try and execute an individual without a basis in established law was a dangerous expansion of the power of courts, and a reduction of the power of legislatures to create laws, in addition to the power of citizens to elect.
