E WAS A ONE-MAN 24-hour news channel because he was an expert on everything. Indeed, Finley Peter Dunne's ``Mr. Dooley'' was an expert on experts. His long-suffering customer, Mr. Hennessey, observed at the fictional bar on Archer Avenue in Chicago that although childless, Dooley knew a lot about raising children. ``I do,'' said Mr. Dooley. ``Not bein' an author, I'm a gr-reat critic.''
Dunne wrote in Irish dialect, the safest, most printable form of satire 100 years ago. Mr. Dooley would have had ripe comments about today's ``December Surprise.''
On vote-counting, Mr. Dooley admonished:
``Thrust ivirybody, but cut th' ca-ards.''
He also had his suspicions:
``I wisht I was a German and believed in machinery.''
``A vote on th' tallysheet is worth two in the box.''
``I care not who makes th' laws iv a nation if I can get out an injunction.''
Of partisan clamor, Mr. Dooley observed:
``A fanatic is a man that does what he thinks the Lord would do if he knew the facts of the case.''
About earnest claims from candidates that they care not for themselves but only for the Constitution and democracy, Mr. Dooley said to his customer:
``Among men, Hinnissy, wet eye manes dhry heart.''
Mr. Dooley would warn George W. Bush about the vote-swiping legacy of ``Rutherfraud'' B. Hayes. He would salute Al Gore for honoring the 1988 campaign of his foe's father by issuing his Monday night statement in a flag factory. He might have described the Daschle-Gephardt Florida drop-by as two reluctant dragons struggling against the Dooley axiom that ``The Democratic Party ain't on speakin' terms with itself.''
Nor did he spare the GOP and the compassionate conservatism of Theodore Roosevelt's era: ``The Raypublican party broke ye, but now that ye're down we'll not turn a cold shoulder to ye. Come in and we'll keep ye - broke.''
The busloads of legal scholars assuring audiences that the federal courts would avoid any election lawsuit would have amused Mr. Dooley. He might express sympathy for the work involved in 24-hour punditry. Just think, Hennessy, a stopped clock can be right twice a day, but cable television has no margin for error, just error.
Lawsuits were Mr. Dooley's corned beef and cabbage.
When the Supreme Court took up the Insular Cases of 1901, the country was more divided than it is today. Anti-imperialists who opposed war with Spain insisted that new American possessions be granted full civil rights. The issue of whether the Constitution should follow the flag to Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippines took decades to decide.
The Supreme Court is seldom in a hurry, as Mr. Dooley noted, whimsically comparing it to the Auditorium Building, Louis Sullivan's massive and majestic structure, which has adorned Chicago's Michigan Avenue since 1889:
``They'se wan thing about the Supreme Coort, if ye lave annything to thim,ye lave it to thim. Ye don't get a check that entitles ye to call f'r it in an hour. The Supreme Coort iv th' United States ain't in anny hurry about catchin' th' mails. It don't have to make th' las' car. I'd back th' Aujitoroom again it anny day f'r a foot race. If ye're lookin' f'r a game iv quick decisions an' base hits, ye've got to hire another empire. It niver gives a decision till th' crowd has dispersed an' the players have packed their bats in th' bags an' started f'r home.''
The court fudged its way through incorporated and unincorporated territories in 1901, leading to one of Mr. Dooley's great prophecies.
``Some say it laves th' flag up in th' air and some say that's where it laves th' Constitution. Annyhow, something's in th' air. But there's one thing I'm sure about.''
``What's that,'' asked Mr. Hennessy.
``That is,'' said Mr. Dooley, ``no matter whether th' Constitution follows th' flag or not, th' Supreme Coort follows th' iliction returns.''
Martin F. Nolan's column appears regularly in the Globe.
