Birch Bayh: Making a Difference By Robert Blaemire

Abstract

With Birch Bayh: Making a Difference, Robert Blaemire has written an essential work that contributes to the history of Indiana. Certainly, the book is unabashed hero-worship, but that cannot detract from Birch Bayh’s remarkable life and his building of one of the most distinguished records of service in the U.S. Senate, a legacy that deserves not only to be remembered but celebrated. Bayh authored two successfully adopted Constitutional amendments and had numerous other legislative achievements for which he deserves credit as one of the greatest legislators of the twentieth century. This book would be worth the read if only to pay tribute to such a record, but Blaemire also treats the reader to an insider’s gallop through one of the most tumultuous and contested periods in American history: the 1960s and 1970s, which included urban riots, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and Watergate. And yet, rather than perpetual crises, the key subtheme running through Blaemire’s tale is that, even with all the problems in the United States, the federal government still seemed to work. Bipartisan action usually prevailed to address issues (unlike today), and Bayh became a giant of the Senate, often leading such bipartisan efforts.