Nation: Peddler's Grandson

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The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline. The principles on which the Conservative political position is based have been established by a process that has nothing to do with the social, economic and political landscape that changes from decade to decade and from century to century. These principles are derived from the nature of man, and from the truths that God has revealed about His creation. Circumstances do change. So do the problems that are shaped by circumstances. But the principles that govern the solution of the problems do not. The Conservative approach is nothing more or less than an attempt to apply the wisdom and experience and the revealed truths of the past to the problems of today.

—The Conscience of a Conservative

In April 1961, a few days after the Bay of Pigs, the author of these lines entered the oval office of the White House to see his personal friend and political foe, Jack Kennedy. The President had just stepped out for a few minutes. The visitor waited, and decided to sit—in the President's rocking chair. Moments later, Kennedy walked in and, seeing the visitor comfortably ensconced in his chair, broke up laughing. "You think you want this job?" joked Kennedy. Replied Senator Barry Goldwater: "Good God, no!"

Though he is now his party's presidential nominee, there is some reason to believe that Goldwater would still rather be Right than President. He long resisted the demands of his followers that he declare his candidacy. A man without personal guile, Goldwater was not just being coy. It was the conservative cause he cared about, not the achievement of personal power; it was a matter of principles, not politics. "I'm not a philosopher," he said. "I'm a salesman trying to sell the conservative view of government." As far as holding the nation's highest office was concerned, Barry was doubt-ridden. "I'm not even sure that I've got the brains to be President of the U.S.," he once said. And there was another problem: "I've got a Jewish name. I don't know if the country is ready for me."

"Big Mike." The family name was originally Goldwasser, and it belonged to Barry's grandfather, a Polish Jew who emigrated to the U.S. in 1852. "Big Mike" first ran a saloon and general store in Sonora, Calif., eventually moved on to the Arizona Territory, where he peddled supplies to mining camps and took his chances in the wild country. He managed to survive—though an Indian once put a rifle ball through his hat—to establish a thriving retail clothing business.

One of Mike's sons, Morris, was something of a political figure back in those days. He was the Senator's uncle, and one of Barry's earliest political influences. Morris was a devotee of Thomas Jefferson, helped establish the Territory's Democratic Party, served for 26 years as mayor of Prescott and was vice president of the 1910 constitutional convention that steered Arizona into the Union.