Introduction -- Part 1 War: -- Like a river of steel it flowed, gray and ghostlike / Richard Harding Davis -- Chauffeurs of Madrid / Ernest Hemingway -- Peace-and the crisis begins / Dorothy Thompson -- Jock Evans was on duty that night / Robert J Casey -- Pearl Harbor / Eleanor Roosevelt -- God-damned infantry -- Death of Captain Waskow -- D-day: a pure miracle / Ernie Pyle -- Dispatches from the end of the war / Orson Welles -- There are no young guys here / Pete Hamill -- To root against your country / Art Hoppe -- Obituary for South Vietnam / Peter R Kann -- Hallelujah / William F Buckley Jr -- Word of the year: freedom / William Safire -- Death takes hold among the living / Pete Hamill -- We'll go forward from this moment / Leonard Pitts Jr -- Boots on the ground, hearts on their sleeves / David Brooks -- Village waiting for rape and murder / Nicholas D Kristof -- Farewell to Geronimo / Thomas L Friedman -- Part 2: Politics: -- What's the matter with Kansas? / William Allen White -- Good luck to the anti-Bolshevists / Theodore Roosevelt -- Gamalielese -- Scopes monkey trail / H L Mencken -- There is a ship / Heywood Broun -- Mad-hatter loyalty purge / Joseph and Stewart Alsop -- Welch defends one friend and finds he's made many / Mary McGrory -- Ninth life / Murray Kempton -- Day of endless fitness / Mary McGrory -- Touring Dixie with LBJ / James Reston -- Decisive political center / James Reston -- Are you against the handicapped? / William F Buckley Jr -- Nixon's resignation / Charles McDowell -- Being spied on had benefits of sorts / Jack Anderson -- Reagan shot: end of an era? / David S Broder -- Slats mistakes GOP for GOD / Mike Royko -- Sound of a lapdog / George F Will -- Supreme Court buzzword guide / Michael Kinsley -- When Clinton talks, people listen-and vice versa / Molly Ivins -- No guardrails / Daniel Henninger -- Pulp nonfiction / Maureen Dowd -- Eastern middle school / Thomas L Friedman -- In defense of the F-word / Charles Krauthammer -- Palin problem / Kathleen Parker -- Morning in America / Eugene Robinson -- National greatness agenda / David Brooks -- Part 3: Sports: -- Casey at the bat / Ernest Lawrence Thayer -- Four horsemen / Grantland Rice -- Louis knocks out Schmeling / Bob Considine -- Seabiscuit: the gamest thoroughbred / Grantland Rice -- Iron horse breaks / Shirley Povich -- Graziano-Zale fight / Jimmy Cannon -- Death of a racehorse / W C Heinz -- Miracle of Coogan's Bluff / Red Smith -- Fisk's home run in 12th beats Reds / Peter Gammons -- Reggie Jackson's three homers / Red Smith -- Muhammad Ali / Jack Newfield -- Slugger, right from the first tee / Jim Murray -- Webber College: best team you never saw / Mitch Albom -- Why is baseball so much better than football? / Thomas Boswell -- Who has won and who has lost? / Bob Greene -- For timeless player, it was time / Thomas Boswell -- Her blue heaven / Bill Plaschke --
Part 4: Humor: -- Danger of lying in bed / Mark Twain -- First entries in the Devil's Dictionary / Ambrose Bierce -- Reform administration / Finley Peter Dunne -- Congress is funniest when it's serious / Will Rogers -- Tips on horses / Ring Lardner -- Apology / Westbrook Pegler -- Death pays a social call / Damon Runyon -- Vertical Negro plan / Harry Golden -- Political poll in 1776 / Art Buchwald -- Nixon goes to the mountain / Art Buchwald -- How to cure a hangover / Mike Royko -- Francs and beans / Russell Baker -- How to argue effectively / Dave Barry -- Spring before swine / Russell Baker -- How to keep the IRS from finding out you're lying / Dave Barry -- Pithy into the wind / Dave Barry -- Hellfire club / Hunter S Thompson -- You're never too young to aim high / Carl Hiaasen -- I ate breakfast and lived / Lewis Grizzard -- Pardon my French / Tony Kornheiser -- Why not the worst? / Gene Weingarten -- Part 5: Crime: -- Chicago gang war / Ernest Hemingway -- Murder in the worst degree / Damon Runyon -- Waiting for Lepke / Walter Winchell -- Marvin the torch / Jimmy Breslin -- Breslin to point 44 killer: give up now! / Jimmy Breslin -- Head in a box / Pete Dexter -- Woman burned while police had their Danish / Murray Kempton -- Etiquette at a crime scene / Carl Hiaasen -- Lucy's blue light / Steve Lopez -- Steak tips to die for -- New land, sad story / Mike Barnicle -- Bullet's impact / Mitch Albom -- Part 6: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties: -- Destiny of colored Americans / Fredrick Douglass -- To an anxious friend / William Allen White -- Fine lesson for the whole nation / Heywood Broun -- Rebellion in Connecticut / Dorothy Thompson -- There ought to be a law / Langston Hughes -- Free speech is worth the risk / I F Stone -- Wrong man / Murray Kempton -- Faubus and Little Rock: scars are for the young / Max Lerner -- He went all the way / Murray Kempton -- Flower for the graves / Eugene Patterson -- Marching to Montgomery / Jack Newfield -- Are the rioters racists? / William F Buckley Jr -- Power of one / Anna Quindlen -- Out of the closet and open to legal attack / Pete Dexter -- Strangling the NAACP / Carl T Rowan -- Coming out against cultural pollution / Stanley Crouch -- Living proof of immigration's marvelousness / Cynthia Tucker -- Path beyond grievance / William Raspberry -- Part 7: Local Voices: -- She bids farewell to New York / Margaret Fuller -- History of our late war / Fanny Fern -- Postscripts / O Henry -- Don Quixote and his last windmill / Ben Hecht -- About New York / Meyer Berger -- Ah, San Francisco / Herb Caen -- Picasso and the cultural rebirth of Chicago / Mike Royko -- Not-so-classic Christmas story about a not-so-silent day in Pershing Square / Jack Smith -- Lubbock: her teeth are stained, but her heart is pure / Molly Ivins -- True confessions / Steve Lopez -- Moneylender Jasper Speciale last of a different breed / John L Smith -- Sprig of verbena and the gifts of a great teacher / Kathleen Parker -- Part 8: Hard Times: -- Death of Frankie Jerome / Westbrook Pegler -- Migration workers take lots of abuse / Woody Guthrie -- To first and last things / Walter Lippmann -- Death in emergency room one -- It's an honor / Jimmy Breslin -- Two minutes to midnight: the very last hurrah / Pete Hamill -- On losing a friend / John Leonard -- If you're expecting one-liners / Jim Murray -- Are you John Lennon? / Jimmy Breslin -- Short story about the Vietnam War Memorial / Molly Ivins -- Fool's errand / Bob Herbert -- His delicious, mansard-roofed world / Peggy Noonan -- Open letter to America / Chris Rose --
Mary White / William Allen White
American Mussolini / Westbrook Pegler
Amelia Earhart / Walter Lippmann
FDR: a great man passes by / Damon Runyon
Babe Ruth: game called / Grantland Rice
Ernest Hemingway I knew / Jimmy Cannon
There was only one Casey / Wells Twombly
Daley embodied Chicago / Mike Royko
John Wayne's True Grit / Mike Royko
She said goodby with charm / Jimmy Breslin
King of cool / Michael Kelly
Reagan: an optimist's legacy / George F Will
Mother's love, clarified / George F Will
Part 10: Pursuit Of Happiness:
Advice from Poor Richard's Almanack / Benjamin Franklin
Yes, Virginia-there is a Santa Claus / Francis Pharcellus Church
It's what the home folks think of you that really counts / Will Rogers
Magnificent mammon / Damon Runyon
Myriad-minded us / Westbrook Pegler
Even to Judas / Heywood Broun
When God created mothers / Erma Bombeck
Memories of leaner times fed by image of hungry bum / Pete Dexter
Days of gilded rigatoni / Anna Quindlen
Jon Will's aptitudes / George F Will
Advice, like youth, probably wasted on the young / Mary Schmich
Halloween of my dreams / Marjorie Williams
Man of the streets, in three suites / Steve Lopez
45 life lessons-and five to grow on / Regina Brett
To old times / Peggy Noonan
