Mr. Rogers (addressing Senator John Pastore in a 1969 US Senate hearing re funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, telling him the words to one of his songs from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood as a sample of responsible programming for children): This has to do with that good feeling of control, which I feel that children need to know is there.

What do you do with the mad that you feel
When you feel so mad you could bite
When the whole wide world seems oh so wrong
and nothing you do seems very right?

What do you do? Do you punch a bag?
Do you pound some clay or some dough?
Do you round up friends for a game of tag
Or see how fast you go?

It’s great to be able to stop
When you plan the thing that’s wrong
And be able to do something else instead
And think this song.

I can stop when I want to
Can stop when I wish
Can stop stop stop, anytime!
And what a good feeling to feel like this
And know that the feeling is really mine.
Know that there’s something deep inside
That helps us become what we can
For a girl can be someday a lady
And a boy can be someday a man.

In 6 minutes, Rogers convinced the Senator to sway his way to support the $20 million grant proposed by former president Lyndon B. Johnson for public broadcasting (as opposed to supporting the $10 million cut President Nixon wanted in order to fund the Vietnam War), and it spoke to me on perhaps the same personal level that the Senator felt that day. See the short clip of that convincing here.