Review: "The Principled Politician: The Ralph Carr Story"

“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have. I must stand by anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he does wrong.”

– Abraham Lincoln

In “The Principled Politician: The Ralph Carr Story,” author Adam Schrager has found just the right brush with which to paint the Colorado legend: a country lawyer thrust into governance, all too ready to do what he believed right rather than politically expedient.

Carr made his living early in life in newspapering and law, most notably as a lawyer in Antonito and a U.S. district attorney before the Republican powers-that-be saw his electoral potential and drafted him in the 1938 race for governor.

Widowed and charged with caring for his then-teenage children, Carr reluctantly carried the GOP mantle, vowing to bring financial restraint and smart spending to a state woefully in the red.

As Schrager points out, Carr attained great popularity beyond Colorado’s borders for his fiscal savvy and ability to salvage a bureaucratic nightmare; so much so, there was serious talk of Carr lending his clout as a candidate for vice president during Wendell Willkie’s failed bid to unseat Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Carr stayed home to handle the business of Colorado, and little could he know how much his leadership would be needed.

With the new decade came the attack on American forces at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese navy, and with that came a wave of fear and outrage throughout the country surrounding those of Japanese, Italian and German descent.

When others sought to expel or imprison Japanese-American citizens, Carr would not bend in insisting they be treated as any American should be according to our Constitution.

When the vast majority of Coloradans angrily decried measures to allow internment camps and relocation efforts in their state – not for moral objection, but out of racial hatred – Carr held to his conviction that his state would do what was asked of it in wartime, no matter how unpopular the move was.

It’s an amazing story usually reserved for the realm of fiction, such as the advocacy of Atticus Finch in “To Kill A Mockingbird.” Schrager does a supreme job at presenting a rich historical narrative for much of this incredible story.

If there is any knock against “The Principled Politician,” it is not knowing where to draw the line in presenting the wealth of sources speaking to the anti-Japanese sentiment that existed.

In Schrager’s defense, it is hard for some of today’s readers to comprehend the post-Pearl Harbor anger that existed in America without a solid knowledge of World War II. But his superb narrative is somewhat bogged down by example after example of the prevailing racial climate of the time.

Overall, the author has certainly done his homework and presented this history in a timely and accessible way without veering far into the greater story of World War II or the Japanese-American internment.

This is the Ralph Carr story, and Schrager’s “Principled Politician” serves as one of the finer histories about Colorado seen in some time.