You'd think that David I. Walsh might be the most celebrated graduate of Holy Cross College. He was governor of Massachusetts and the United States Senator who oversaw the build up of the two ocean United States Navy prior to and during World War II. Walsh's Navy was America's shield against fascism in the Pacific and Europe's lifeline to liberty in the Atlantic. Walsh vocally supported the appointment of his friend Louis Brandeis to the United States Supreme Court, denounced The Birth of A Nation in no uncertain terms when it was shown in Boston, and demanded that the Democratic Party explicitly renounce the KKK in its 1924 platform. So where's Walsh at Holy Cross today. Nowhere to be found. The Navy ROTC unit, which was Walsh's gift to the college, celebrates Father Joseph O'Callahan, the Jesuit chaplain who won the Medal of Honor for heroism during the Battle of Okinawa. Perhaps Walsh is on the backburner because he wasn't enthusiastic about US involvement in WWII before Pearl Harbor, but in that regard at least he was consistent in opposing imperialism and foreign wars thoughout his life. In another time he might have been a Berrigan. I think the real reason Holy Cross keeps Walsh in the closet is the 1942 scandal manufactured when the New York Post accused Walsh of being taken in by German spies and of being a homosexual. The spying charge didn't stick, but Walsh was forever tarred.
My wonderful schoolmates, and I mean that sincerely, weren't perfect. Though I never heard an unkind word about the blacks at Holy Cross, perverts were a different story. Questioning someone's sexuality or calling them a queer might have been considered rude, but it wasn't taboo. Is the "new and improved" Holy Cross far enough beyond that now to acknowledge Walsh.
