Al and Politics!

I think that if Al could have lived his life over again he might have chosen the movies or politics as a career. He told me many times about the invitations he received to go to Hollywood to become an actor, as well as the many people who urged him to go into politics. Al said he decided against the movies because he had fallen in love with Roie. And he wasn't cut out for politics, he told me, because he wouldn't be able to tell the truth. He said he learned this while serving as an advisor to then Governor John Chafee. Whenever Al would offer his advice about what Governor Chafee's position should be on a given topic, the other members of the campaign would tell him, "You can't say that, you have to say what the people want to hear."

With John Chaffee, in 1964 while working on his Travel Lab Tour Business, Chaffee would soon move from being Rhode Island Governor to being one of America's best independent and moderate Senators.


Despite this view of politics and politicians, Al was very interested in the process and always remained engaged in some manner, be it as a campaign donnor or by encouraging others to get involved. I remember once meeting US Representative Claudine Schneider while working as a volunteer at a call center for her campaign for the Senate. To my surprise when she asked my name she asked if I was related to Al Allen of Barrington. When I told her he was my grandfather, she exclaimed, "Oh, I love Mr. Allen!"

Al's interest in politics started young. He wrote to his grandchildren about how he first became interested after the death of President Harding:

"It was the summer of 1922. Mother took my sister Erma and I to visit Aunt Lucille in California. President Harding had just died of complications from pneumonia after an Alaskan hunting trip. A cross country funeral train would leave San Francisco in three days. Mother needed to be there.

"The only transportation to the six a.m. departure was Aunt Lucille’s heavy new Studebaker, and this was long before the days of power steering. Aunt Lucille had no desire to wake so early in the morning to watch a funeral train. She was even less thrilled about the idea of her sister driving her brand new automobile. After an afternoon of bickering, Aunt Lucille agreed she would let Mother take the car if Mother could prove she could handle the heavy Studebaker. Mother drove around the block, turned into the driveway and made it-just barely.

"Early the next day, Mother, Erma and I were off to see the President’s funeral train begin its slow journey. It was pitch black when we left San Mateo for the railway station. I was six years old, standing on a long, wooden platform in the pre-dawn, pacific cold. Finally, incandescent lights pierced the darkness in the thick, rolling fog. The engine’s search light pierced through the mist.

"The huge steam locomotive, draped in American flags, slowly emerged from the fog. The deep rhythmic sound of the boilers played an eerie dirge for our country’s twentieth president who was beginning his final ride home.

"It was important for Mother to witness President Harding’s departure. Mother loved history and she loved politics. She had never even finished eighth grade, choosing instead to help her mother care for the younger children, but she had a keen, analytical mind and was a voracious reader I’ve always said that she was as knowledgeable about United States history as any professor I ever had; if not more. And she was instinctively drawn to politics. Mother was very active in local government in our home state of Ohio, working on suffrage and helping to elect the nation’s first woman federal judge. The pull of politics, for Mother, was inevitable, for she also felt a strong sense of duty and was the epitome of good citizenship."

In later years Al urged his grandchildren to become involved in politics in order to improve the country and the world we lived. He said, "Mother taught me early and she taught me well. You do not take a back seat when it comes to your country’s future... Join any of the major parties- Democratic, Republican, Ralph Nadir, Libertarian and others. Work at it. You will find you are needed and it will be surprisingly easy for you to make a difference... If you do not get involved, I do not think you have the right to complain, because you are the government."

Here's Al with first President George Bush, "the good one," in 1990. I think he got this picture thanks to donations to his campaign??