Graham Reflection

I read a piece entitled, Washington Portraits, by Agnes Ernst Meyer, whom happens to be Graham’s mother. Meyer, who wrote this piece in her diary, describes her encounters with Supreme Court Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, and Benjamin Cardozo. At first I thought I was just going to write about each Justice’s life and their impact on Washington; yet something else struck me in the piece, disappointment. Graham mentions that when her mother first arrived that Washington was full of great men, like Holmes, Brandeis, and Cardozo. Meyer’s Washington seemed quite different from the Washington I was living in. After reading the article I tried to list great men in Washington today that the public could agree on were great and how Graham defined them as “could command attention, get things done, and have exceptional personalities.” I had time doing so. After reading this piece, I yearned to live in Meyer’s exceptional Washington. I was disappointed that I am living in Washington when civil servants are perceived to be out of touch, incompetent, and unexceptional because of political polarization. In the difficult times we live in now, we need great men to lead no matter what the political affiliation. I hope when I look back many years from now, I can say that I lived in Washington when exceptional men did lead and as a result the country rebounded from these difficult times.