A Child's Tragedy, A Parent's Character
By Steven J. Milloy
CNS Commentary
28 February, 2000

One can scarcely imagine a worse event - the death or severe injury of your child.

For a parent, the grief may be compounded by the guilt associated with partial or even imagined responsibility for the harm occurring. How one deals with the challenge of guilt-on-grief provides unique insight into one's character. Consider the cases of Al Gore, Robert Sanders, and John and Reve Walsh.

Environmental Activism Sparked by Tragedy
On April 3, 1989, then-Sen. Albert Gore, Jr. and his son, Albert Gore III, were leaving the Baltimore Orioles opening day baseball game when, according to news reports, Albert III "let go of his father's hand" and darted into the street near Memorial Stadium. Albert III was hit by a car and injured severely with broken bones, ruptured spleen, bruised lung and concussion.

The driver of the car, Jasper McWilliams reportedly was not speeding and the police did not charge him at that time.

The accident was understandably distressing to Gore, but his behavior in its aftermath was curious. In his son's hospital room, the elder Gore began writing his well-known book and environmental call-to-arms "Earth in the Balance."

Gore wrote, "For me something changed in a fundamental way. I don't think my son's brush with death was solely responsible, although that was the catalyst. But I had also just lost a presidential campaign; moreover, I had just turned 40 years old. I was, in a sense, vulnerable to the change that sought me out in the middle of my life and gave me a new sense of urgency about those things I value the most."

Albert III's accident spurred Gore's now famous activism on the "rapidly deteriorating global environment," a battle which Gore wrote includes "completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a 25-year period" and "embarking on an all-out effort to use every policy and program, every law and institution, every treaty and alliance, every tactic and strategy, every plan and course of action -- to use, in short, every means to halt the destruction of the environment and to preserve and nurture our ecological system."

The fact that a car accident precipitated a call to eliminate the internal combustion engine is bizarre enough, but it's not the end of the unusual events following the accident.

A week after the accident, blame for the accident somehow got displaced. McWilliams was suddenly charged with speeding and failing to exercise proper precaution upon seeing a child in the road.

He was tried in Baltimore District Court in July 1989. McWilliams was acquitted of all charges, leaving Gore, as the parent holding his child's hand while crossing the road, with responsibility for the accident.

But why did Gore, a powerful Democrat, allow Baltimore City, a Democratic stronghold, to prosecute McWilliams at all?

Tragedy for Profit?
On October 15, 1995, Robert Sanders was driving with his three children in Baltimore City. His two sons were in the back of his 1995 Dodge Caravan. Alison, his 7-year-old daughter, was in the front seat. According to police reports, she was not wearing her shoulder safety belt.

Traveling southbound on Charles Street, Sanders failed to stop for a red light and broadsided a car going eastbound through a green light on the intersecting street. On impact, the passenger side air bag inflated, gravely injuring Alison who was pronounced dead at the hospital.

The police reported no fault on the part of the driver of the second vehicle. Sanders told the police, "It's my fault. God gave me that little girl to take care of and I ran the red light... I am guilty."

But that's not where Sanders ultimately placed responsibility. Sanders, a lawyer, is now suing automaker DaimlerChrysler for designing an allegedly faulty airbag.

He also started the group Parents for Safer Airbags and obtained funding for it from the New York State Trial Lawyers Association. He now participates in other airbag cases against automobile manufacturers; cases where the lawyers' payout can reach up to 40 percent of the recovery.

No doubt the air bag controversy is complex, the merits of which are not relevant here. But one thing is clear. The accident and the death of Alison are admittedly the responsibility of Sanders, regardless of his wanting to blame DaimlerChrysler and boost his legal career.

Using Tragedy to Help Others
In July 1981, 6-year-old Adam Walsh went to look at toys in a Sears department store while his mother shopped for lamps in another section of the store in Hollywood, Florida. He was not seen alive again.

Within three weeks, Adam's parents, John and Reve Walsh, called for a national computer system to aid in the search for missing children. A reward fund of more than $120,000 that was started to help locate their 6-year-old son was donated to a groups involved in finding missing youngsters.

The family also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Sears. They claimed an untrained security guard's action contributed to Adam's abduction because he had chased away Adam and other children after an argument broke out near some video games.

Sears argued that Adam's abduction was caused by the "negligence of the mother." John and Reve Walsh later dropped their lawsuit with the promise of no further legal action.

When the lawsuit was dropped, John Walsh announced "I have to work for effective social change and keep making people aware," of tragedies like his and how to prevent them. To his credit, he has effectively created social change and awareness without threatening the liberty and property of others.

Though he is perhaps best known for hosting the Fox program "America's Most Wanted," Walsh's efforts led to the establishment of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a non-profit organization that to date has worked on 66,350 cases of missing children. The center has helped in the recovery of 47,284 children.

Insights to Character
In the end, John and Reve Walsh decided not to blame others for their tragic circumstances or place fresh burdens on society. Instead they took action that has helped others with a life-and-death matter; the disappearance of their children.

By contrast, innocent parties were blamed in the cases of Gore and Sanders. In Gore's case, he actually allowed an innocent man to be criminally prosecuted. Worse yet, Gore and Sanders exploited their tragedy to boost their public images and careers, and shape controversial public policy debates, despite the irrelevance to those debates of their personal experiences.

Gore and Sanders both failed to safeguard their children. They should not be judged too harshly as such momentary lapses can happen to anyone. But they should be judged harshly for displacing blame and exploiting personal tragedies.

When possible, we should work to make the best of personal tragedy. What that "best" is may provide unique insight into our characters.

Steven Milloy is a lawyer, biostatistician, publisher of Junkscience.com and adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.