It's nice to see that J.D. Williams is still as feisty as ever and is doing what J.D. Williams does best - sticking up for the little guy and taking on the establishment.
Seeing Williams' name in print (he's suing the Salt Lake County Commission for refusing to let citizens vote on a new form of county government this fall) reminded me of a humorous incident involving Williams that I wrote about many years ago.Williams was a liberal political science professor at the University of Utah and director of the Hinck-ley Institute of Politics. He had invited arch-conservative Mac Haddow, a fast-talking Republican state legislator, to speak before a group of students.
One of the images of Utah politics that will always linger is the irrepressible Williams standing nose-to-nose and belly-to-belly with the immovable Haddow, arguing about the name of Williams' political party.
That would be the Democratic Party, and Haddow had just called it the "Democrat Party." Just a matter of two little letters being dropped of the end of Democratic, but enough for Williams to interrupt Haddow and for the two of them to get into a shouting match, much to the delight of the students.
Williams told Haddow those last two letters are necessary and important. Haddow said all good Republicans call it the "Democrat Party," and he would continue doing so. Williams warned that if Republicans persisted in their perfidy, he would begin dropping the first two letters of their party and it would come out the "Publican Party."
In his active days in Utah politics, Williams won a few battles and lost a lot. This seems to be one he lost. To this day, in many speeches I've heard (and maybe even a few I've written), Republican leaders continue their deliberate desecration of the English language by dropping the ic from the end of Democratic.
I've never heard the Re dropped from Republican Party.
But, truth be known, Williams is absolutely right. The Republicans say it wrong. Check any dictionary and it's the Democratic Party, not the Democrat Party. "It goes back to Joseph McCarthy," Williams said back then, never one to miss an opportunity to invoke someone villainous. "McCarthy was the first one I heard saying that word incorrectly, in a pejorative fashion. It just drives me up a wall."
Republicans have always loved, of course, to drive Williams up a wall. But he doesn't deserve it on this issue. For the record, Republican is both a noun and an adjective, according to my dictionary. Thus, one can say, "I'm a Republican and I belong to the Republican Party."
But Democrat is only a noun and can't be used as an adjective. Democratic is the proper form of the word as an adjective. Thus, one must say, "I'm a Democrat and I belong to the Democratic Party."
When this little debate occurred back in the mid-1980s, Dave Hansen was executive director of the Republican Party. I asked him why the Republicans were using poor grammar and if they would stop using the name incorrectly. He responded, "Aw, come on. It's the Democrat Party. That's what it is. It's the democratic institution that we live under, but it's not the Democratic Party, it's the Democrat Party.
"They don't call themselves Democratics," Hansen continued. "They call themselves Democrats."
Then Hansen confided that he once gave a speech to a group of Republicans and defined what the two party labels mean according to their Latin roots. "Democrat comes from `demo' and `cratus.' `Demo' means `devil' and `cratus' means `empty boxes.' So, in effect, they are the party of empty-headed devils who live in boxes."
With the people of ancient Latium and Rome turning over in their graves, Hansen continued: "Republican comes from `repu' and `publican.' `Publican' means `speaker.' `Repu' means good reputation. So Republicans are, in effect, speakers of good words."
The audience liked the speech, he said.
If Republicans continue in their perverse ways, slaughtering both the King's English and the sacred Latin, dire measures are called for.
Like calling, as Williams suggested, their party the Publican Party. Publican meaning, as the Bible tells us, a tax collector. The party of tax collectors. Better not tell Newt Gingrich.
Or, maybe better, publican's more modern British usage refers to saloon-keepers. The party of saloon keepers. That oughta go over big in Utah.