Long Beach City Manager Edwin Eaton waxes lyrical at times, and slipped a little Walt Whitman into his budget message to the City Council this year.
The entire second page was taken up with the Whitman quote:
“Where thrift is in its place,
and prudence is in its place,
...there a great city stands."
However, Long Beach resident Sarah Nicholas took to the podium at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting and read what was in the ellipsis, which Eaton omitted.
As read by Nicholas — and meant by Whitman — the passage from Leaves of Grass was in praise of the human spirit and human dignity, not city managers or bookkeepers. Click below.
Bill Murphy
“Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place;
Where the men and women think lightly of the laws;
Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases;
Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of elected persons;
Where fierce men and women pour forth, as the sea to the whistle of death pours its sweeping and unript waves;
Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside authority;
Where the citizen is always the head and ideal—and President, Mayor, Governor, and what not, are agents for pay;
Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on themselves;
Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs;
Where speculations on the Soul are encouraged;
Where women walk in public processions in the streets, the same as the men,
Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the men;
Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands;
Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands;
Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands;
Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,
There the great city stands."