THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 15, 1996 TAG: 9607130009
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A7 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: OPINION
SOURCE: George Hebert
LENGTH: 51 lines
In a collection of historical documents and oddments, my eye fell the other day on an item dealing with real ``pork barrels'' - a reminder that a pithy phrase in America's modern political language has its roots in reality.
What we mean nowadays when we talk about ``pork barrels'' and ``pork'' are globs of government money that sometimes seem up for grabs - by whichever lawmaker can grab most swiftly and cleverly. And most unashamedly in certain situations.
The porcine allusion is most often used in reference to federal projects and especially to those designed more for local economic impact than the national good.
Sly oinks are heard all over the place when some member of Congress works a deal or otherwise secures a hefty wedge of the Treasury pie for the people back home, even when the deed is pictured as simple good service to those people.
The successful (and re-electable) pork-barreler, as they say, brings home the bacon.
Even my unabridged dictionary focuses exclusively on the derogatory slang meaning, describing pork-barrel contents as ``government appropriations for political patronage, as for local improvements to please legislators' constituents.''
But all this, all the raillery and ethical debate, have used as a metaphor something that was quite unimaginative and practical to start with - real wooden containers for packing and transporting real hog meat. We can assume that such concentrations of rich eatables made them natural synomyms, as time went on, for something politically desirable.
Oddly enough, even in their original everyday victualing role, those original barrels, too, raised concern over exploitive practices.
This was abundantly plain in that reprint of an early law I found recently in the North Carolina Historical and Genealogical Register of 1903.
This particular legislative act began by citing abuses ``Committed by ye Small Pork Barrells.'' The law went on to lay down some rules about pork-barrel construction and ordered strict fines for makers who didn't comply. The payments were to be divided between the informer who reported the infraction and the parish where the offense occurred.
The key section of the enactment was the command as to the size of the barrel or cask.
It was to hold no less than 29 gallons.
Of course, the fight then was against too-small pork barrels.
In legislative halls today, this isn't the problem. MEMO: Mr. Hebert, a former editor, lives in Norfolk. by CNB