Free Report of the County Chairman by James A. Michener Page A

Johnny Welsh, who sat like a gray eagle surveying everything with cold caution.
    I said, “Johnny, if Senator Kennedy wins the nomination I want to work for his election.”
    Welsh said, “I thought you were a Republican.”
    I said, “For many years I was registered that way.”
    Welsh said, “What’s a Republican doing working for Kennedy? You’re not a Catholic.”
    I said, “I think the country needs him.”
    Welsh said, “Well, if anything turns up later on, I’ll let you know.”
    I said, “All right.”
    Welsh said, “By the way, did you mean that if Kennedy is not nominated you don’t want to help?”
    I said, “Kennedy or Johnson, either one.”
    Welsh said, “Well, who do you think it’s going to be?”
    I said, “Maybe Johnson and Kennedy, in that order.”
    Welsh said, “That would be a good ticket, but I hope it’s the other way around.”
    I said, “So do I.”
    I did not hear from my old friend for many weeks, and I suspected that as a professional he did not entirely relish the participation of an amateur in an important election, but his tardiness in responding gave me an opportunity to study my county better, and all that I saw I loved.
    Bucks was one of William Penn’s original counties rimming the environs of Philadelphia, and throughout Pennsylvania’s history there had always been antagonism between the crowded city and the lush, spacious counties of Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware and Chester. From time to time the central city voted Democratic, but the suburban counties could be depended upon to turn in large Republican majorities. In my youth, in central Bucks County, I grew up without knowing any Democrats. My mother thought there might be some on the edge of town, but she preferred not to speak of them. When I brought my wife home from Chicago, she met my aunts, who had occasion to observe, “We have really never known any Democrats,” and when my wife volunteered, “Well, you know one now,” there was a painful silence.
    As a boy I used to sneak into sex trials that took place in the old courthouse just across the street from our school, for one of the major advantages of living in Doylestown was that it was the county seat with a courthouse where lurid trials were always available. Most exciting of all were the murder cases, and rather early in the game I noticed that one of the real tests of wit between contending lawyers came when our local district attorney tried by one subtle means or another to inform the jury that both the accused murderer and his lawyer were not from clean, God-fearing Bucks County but from corrupt, Devil-worshippingPhiladelphia, and from the struggle which the defending lawyers put up trying to prevent this knowledge from becoming public, I could only guess that they acknowledged how prejudicial the comparison was. Well, sooner or later the truth leaked out, and there were very few Philadelphia murderers who got off free in our county.

    BUCKS COUNTY,
showing the communities mentioned in the report
    Bucks County is a rather large county about forty-three miles long by seventeen wide, lying roughly north and south and extending from the edge of Philadelphia at the south to the large industrial city of Easton at the north. Since it lies wholly along the right bank of the Delaware, it commands the loveliest stretches of that river’s valley, and all of us who grew up in Bucks County have always felt that the Delaware was our special river, for not only does it run along our eastern boundary, but when it has finished its north-south run, it turns abruptly westward to form our southern boundary, too, as if it were determined to tuck us comfortably into place.
    This valley is a land of extraordinary beauty. Maple trees and oaks combine with evergreens to lend the forests real majesty. A hundred little streams wind through the meadows, and for a hundred thousand years it has been a resting place for birds in their hurried pursuit of the seasons. In the old