Mister Rogers Goes to Washington

Why he’s here

I have the pictures of several people on the wall of my office — people I admire and want to model my life after. One of those pictures is of Mister Rogers. Actually, it’s a picture of him laughing together with the Dalai Lama. What a wonderful meeting that must have been.

Mister Rogers spent his life living in a deep and simple way. He wanted to make the world a safer and more loving place for children, and he created that safe and loving place for them on his show. He told us that each of us is special just for being ourselves, and that we each deserve love and respect — and he showed us that each of us makes a very real difference in the world by using our talents in service to others.

It’s not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourish our souls. It’s the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the bedrock of our very being is good stuff.

Background

In 1969, six minutes of quiet conviction saved public television. Washington was weighing a proposal to cut the twenty million dollars pledged to the brand-new Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the hearings fell to Senator John Pastore of Rhode Island — a famously brisk, no-nonsense chairman who had never seen Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

Fred Rogers, then two years into his program, set aside his prepared statement and simply talked. He described what his Neighborhood tries to give children: an expression of care for each child as they are, and the trust that feelings are mentionable and manageable. He talked about the difference between a cartoon slugfest and two people working out their anger with words, and — from memory — walked the chairman through a song he wrote about what a child can do with the mad that they feel.

You can watch Pastore soften in real time. By the end, the gruff chairman who had opened the session ready to cut told him:

I think it’s wonderful. Looks like you just earned the twenty million dollars.

The funding survived, and the moment became one of the most beloved pieces of testimony ever given before Congress — a masterclass in changing a mind without raising your voice.

Go to the source

Watch the full testimony →
All six minutes, exactly as the subcommittee saw it

Read The World According to Mister Rogers →
A little book of his wisdom — also at your local library

Watch Won’t You Be My Neighbor? →
The 2018 documentary — the testimony is one of its best scenes

More on Fred in Inspirations →
Why his picture hangs on my office wall