Leach: ‘Civility crisis'

A Republican congressman shouts “you lie” during a presidential speech.

A Democratic congressman accuses the GOP of wanting sick Americans to “die quickly.”

James Leach, the newly installed chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, has had enough.

During a speech to the National Humanities Conference in Omaha on Friday, Leach said America was suffering a “civility crisis.” Consequently, he plans to spend the next year and a half visiting all 50 states as part of a “civility tour.”

“The old saying, ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me' is simply not true,” Leach said. “When it comes to public policy, words do matter.”

Leach, appointed to his post by President Barack Obama in August, was in Omaha this week to deliver his first national speech.

More than 300 artists, educators and administrators had traveled to Omaha from all 50 states to attend the conference, which began Wednesday and runs through Sunday. That's more than attended last year's conference in Washington, D.C., said Jane Hood, executive director of the Nebraska Humanities Conference.

“All the participants I've talked to have been incredibly impressed with Omaha,” Hood said. “It's a testament to how much the city's cultural scene has grown.”

Participants toured Omaha's many cultural sites, including the Holland Performing Arts Center, Film Streams, Loves Jazz & Arts Center, Joslyn Art Museum, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts and Durham Museum.

Leach's speech was the conference's most anticipated event. Yet it contained few surprises for people familiar with the new chairman and his views.

During his 15 terms as a Republican congressman from Iowa, Leach, 67, was never comfortable with partisan confrontation.

He singled out two recent incidents as disturbing trends in the nation's public policy dialogue — Rep. Joe Wilson, a Republican from South Carolina, shouting “you lie” during the president's health care speech to a joint session of Congress in September; and Rep. Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida, saying on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives that the GOP health-care plan was for sick Americans to “die quickly.”

“It shows a lack of respect,” Leach said.

The current partisan rancor also shows a decided lack of appreciation for history, a favorite subject of both Leach and the NEH.

Some participants in last summer's health care town meetings talked of “secession,” and used words like “fascist” to describe their opponents.

“We fought a Civil War that cost 600,000 lives over the issue of secession, and fought a world war to defeat fascism,” Leach said. “History teaches us that those issues are settled.”

Leach also cited history in his call for increased financial support for the NEH.

He noted that during the country's darkest strategic hour during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln invested in education, signing the land-grant colleges act.

And during the nation's darkest economic crisis of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt spent money on the arts and humanities through various public works projects.

“That was all an investment in democracy,” Leach said.

The NEH's current budget, appropriated by Congress, is $155 million, up from $110 million a decade ago. Still, Leach noted that when adjusted for inflation, NEH funding is down a third from 1979.

Leach would like to see more support for the humanities to promote, among other things, more study of comparative religions, cultures and histories.

“We live in perilous times,” Leach said. “But nothing can be more costly than shortchanging the humanities.”

Contact the writer:

444-1076, john.pitcher@owh.com