Democratic Oak Tree

A collection of political essays and correspondence by the writer Jonathan Bayliss (1926-2009) addressing crucial questions in American politics, including: why political parties matter, why citizens should register and vote as Democrats, what the Republican Party really wants, and what Democrats stand for (in a nutshell).

His answers are simple and vitally important.

Bayliss shares political hopes and deep disappointments, from the devastating defeat of Adlai Stevenson in the Presidential election of 1952 to the Democratic Primary contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2008. He offers advice to his favorite candidates, continually promotes their strengths, and defends them publicly when they lose elections.

Bayliss's lifetime spanned momentous world events. Growing up in poverty during the Great Depression, he spent many evenings listening on the radio to FDR's fireside chats. He served in the Navy toward the end of World War II and lived to see Barack Obama in the White House.

Jonathan Bayliss (1926-2009), novelist and playwright, grew up in poverty during the Great Depression in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Vermont. He began college at Harvard but left after his freshman year to enlist in the Navy during World War II. After the war he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley.

Bayliss's novels Prologos, Gloucesterbook, Gloucestertide, and Gloucestermas make up his fiction tetralogy Gloucesterman. His two plays, The Tower of Gilgamesh and The Acts of Gilgamesh,form part of the novels.

Bayliss earned his livelihood in positions involved with sales analysis, accounting controls, and management, beginning in 1950 at a Berkeley bookstore. In the 1960s, as controller at Gorton's of Gloucester, the frozen-fish processor, he was a pioneer in the development of integrated business systems using an early IBM mainframe computer. Later he worked for the City of Gloucester, Massachusetts, as an aide to the mayor and as city treasurer. Bayliss was putting the finishing touches on his final novel when he died in Gloucester in 2009 at the age of 82.