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Subject: "A billion here, a billion there..."
From: Rohit Khare <khare@alumni.caltech.edu>
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Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 19:05:50 -0700
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> Bottom line: the late Senate Minority Leader certainly would have
> endorsed the meaning behind the phrase, but it is questionable that he
> ever coined it.
An interesting link courtesy of the Harrow Report: there's no written
evidence so far that Senator Everett Dirksen is the source of the
infamous quote attributed to him. It's kind of astounding that there is
enough general social consensus (25% of all queries makes it a *very*
FAQ) and "eyewitness" reporting without a single written source. What
the essay below doesn't seem to answer, though, is what the earliest
attributed quote in print by any other writer is. I'd naturally be much
more skeptical if the "quote" emerged after his death... RK
===============================================================
http://www.dirksencenter.org/featuresBillionHere.htm
"A billion here, a billion there . . ."
Did Dirksen ever say, " A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon
you're talking real money"? (or anything very close to that?)
Perhaps not. Based on an exhaustive search of the paper and audio
records of The Dirksen Congressional Center, staffers there have found
no evidence that Dirksen ever uttered the phrase popularly attributed to
him.
Archivists undertook the search after studying research statistics
showing that more than 25 percent of inquiries have to do with the quote
or its variations.
Here is what they examined: all of the existing audio tapes of the famed
"Ev and Charlie" and "Ev and Jerry" shows, all newspapers clippings in
the Dirksen Papers, about 12,500 pages of Dirksen's own speech notes,
transcripts of his speeches and media appearances, transcripts of
Republican leadership press conferences, and Dirksen's statements on the
Senate floor as documented in the Congressional Record.
Although Dirksen rarely prepared the text of a speech, preferring to
rely on notes, he did employ brief phrases to remind him of a particular
turn of phrase. For example, in referring to the public debt or
excessive government spending, Dirksen would jot the word "pothole" to
remind him to tell the following story, on this occasion in reference to
the debt ceiling:
"As I think of this bill, and the fact that the more progress we make
the deeper we go into the hole, I am reminded of a group of men who were
working on a street. They had dug quite a number of holes. When they got
through, they failed to puddle or tamp the earth when it was returned to
the hole, and they had a nice little mound, which was quite a traffic
hazard.
"Not knowing what to do with it, they sat down on the curb and had a
conference. After a while, one of the fellows snapped his fingers and
said, I have it. I know how we will get rid of that overriding earth
and remove the hazard. We will just dig the hole deeper.'"
[Congressional Record, June 16, 1965, p. 13884].
On the same occasion, Dirksen relied on yet another "spending" story,
one he labeled "cat in the well":
"One time in the House of Representatives [a colleague] told me a story
about a proposition that a teacher put to a boy. He said, Johnny, a cat
fell in a well 100 feet deep. Suppose that cat climbed up 1 foot and
then fell back 2 feet. How long would it take the cat to get out of the
well?'
"Johnny worked assiduously with his slate and slate pencil for quite a
while, and then when the teacher came down and said, How are you
getting along?' Johnny said, Teacher, if you give me another slate and
a couple of slate pencils, I am pretty sure that in the next 30 minutes
I can land that cat in hell.'
"If some people get any cheer our of a $328 billion debt ceiling, I do
not find much to cheer about concerning it." [Congressional Record, June
16, 1965, p. 13884].
But there are no such reminders for the "A billion here, a billion
there . . . " tag line as there surely should have been given Dirksen's
note-making tendencies. He spoke often and passionately about the debt
ceiling, federal spending, and the growth of government. Yet there is no
authoritative reference to the "billion" phrase.
The chief evidence in support of Dirksen making the statement comes from
people who claim to have heard him. The Library of Congress, for
example, cites someone's personal observation on the campaign trail as
evidence. The Dirksen Center has received calls from people who heard
Dirksen say those words, some even providing the date of the event. But
cross-checking that information with the records has, so far, turned up
nothing in the way of confirmation.
The closest documented statement came at a joint Senate-House Republican
leadership press conference on March 8, 1962, when Dirksen said, "The
favorite sum of money is $1 billion a billion a year for a fatter
federal payroll, a billion here, a billion there." [EMD Papers,
Republican Congressional Leadership File, f. 25] But the "and pretty
soon you're talking real money" is missing.
In another close call, the New York Times, January 23, 1961, quoted
Dirksen: "Look at education two-and-one-half billion a billion for
this, a billion for that, a billion for something else. Three to five
billion for public works. You haven't got any budget balance left.
You'll be deeply in the red." [Cited in Byron Hulsey's "Everett Dirksen
and the Modern Presidents," Ph.D. dissertation (May 1998, University of
Texas, p. 226]
Of course, the Dirksen Papers do not document completely the late
Senator's comments. For example, The Center that bears his name does not
have his testimony before committees. Their collection of Congressional
Records ends in 1965, omitting the last four years of Dirksen's life and
career he might have employed the phrase only late, although witnesses
claim he said it throughout his career. Dirksen's campaign speeches
tended not to produce transcripts, only sketchy notes or abbreviated
newspaper accounts. Dirksen also held center stage before the video age,
meaning that many remarks, particularly those in campaigns, escaped
capture.
Bottom line: the late Senate Minority Leader certainly would have
endorsed the meaning behind the phrase, but it is questionable that he
ever coined it.
---
My permanent email address is khare@alumni.caltech.edu