#effectively killing the whig party

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"A DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE FROM GUARDS,” Daily British Whig (Kingston, Ont.). March 12, 1912. Page 1   & 3. ---- Made by Four Prisoners Enroute to Kingston. ---- VIOLENT TRAIN SCENE --- DEPUTY WARDEN O'LEARY WAS QUITE ROUGHLY USED. ---- The Desperadoes Beat Their Guards, and Would Have Escaped Only for Timely Aid From Three Toronto Police Constables. ---- Four ol the most desperate convicts that have ever been bunched together in Canada were brought to the provincial penitentiary at two o’clock, Tuesday afternoon from Stoney Mountain penitentiary in Manitoba, in charge of Deputy Warden O’Leary, of this city. On the way down, when the G.T.R. fast train was just moving out from the Union station, Toronto, they made an attempt to escape, and almost succeeded.

The Toronto despatch that follows makes it appear that the struggle was perhaps greater than it really was, as Warden O'Leary, when he arrived here, dit not show any sign of having been at all worsted. 

A despatch from Toronto says : 

Four desperate prisoners on the way from Stoney Mountain Penitentiary, Manitoba, to Portsmouth penitentiary, beat up their three guards, and but for a small miscalculation of time, and the timely interference of the local police, would probably have killed Deputy Warden O'Leary, and his assisting guards, and escaped from the eastern flyer as it left the Union station, here, this morning. They were heavily manacled and shackled together, and to prevent accidents, they were held in the Toronto police cells over night, accompanied to the train this morning by two detectives and a constable of the local force, in addition to their three guards. 

The three local men got the party into the smoking room of the car and got off. Just as the train pulled out of the station, the three desperadoes commenced to beat their guards with their iron shackles. They were big, powerful fellows and soon knocked Deputy Warden O'Leary and his two assistants out. There were only a few passengers in the car. and they gave a screaming alarm in time for the three Toronto police to swing on to the Iast step of the car. They rushed forward and found the three guards helpless on the floor, with the prisoners beating them insensible. 

One of them called, "Cigarette Brown." was partly out of his shackles and assisting his fellows to get out of their. With llittle ceremony, Constable Hunt and Detectives Miller and Suriell, local men, jumped on the three desperate men and in short time had them under control. O’Leary and his two assistants, one of them a Manitoba man, were badly exhausted in the struggle and suffering severely from loss of blood. The Toronto police remained on the train till Kingston was reached. Once freed from their shackles it would have been an easy matter for the prisoners to get their weapons and control the train. 

Worst of Desperadoes Winnipeg, Man., March 12. - The four men who tried to escape at Toronto were Frank Kelly, one of the worst desperadoes in America, who shot and dangerously wounded Constable Traynor and shot at Constable Brown; Harry Jones, Kellys pal. condemned with him for robbing houses in Kimwood suburb. They are known in Iowa as the Meculm brothers, who escaped from penitentiary at Amosloose, Iowa after shooting down a guard, last June, and came to Winnipeg. In jail here they terrorized the institution, broke up everything in their cells and one day so terrified the guard that they nearly escaped. No disciplining method in Stony Mountain penitentiary had any effect on them. They swore and cursed the guards, culling them filthy names whenever they appeared near their cells. They always had a supply of tobacco from some mysterious source. The object in taking them to Kingston penitentiary is to have them in a safer institution, and away from their friends, who are always on the look-out to rescue them. Both these young desperadoes, who are under twenty-five, state that no prison will hold them long. They are to serve twelve years. 

Arthur Brown is the third man. He is the man who kidnapped Mira Gladys Price, the young school teacher, of Hinch. Ont., near Snow Flake, Man., last September. Brown was given eight years. 

The fourth convict is Bonner, clever young Englishman, serving eight years for horse thieving, He has escaped three times from jail, and, with the others, was sent down for safe keeping to Kingston. 

Arrival at Kingston. Deputy Warden O’Leary arrived at the outer station at 1.40 o’clock, Tuesday,  afternoon, with the four desperate prisoners, and half an hour later they were safely headed at the big big penitentiary in Portsmouth. 

Word of the coming of the prisoners spread rapidly, and quite a large crowd had gathered at the outer station to see them. The deputy had two constables with him, in addition to a guard from the penitentiary, who went out to meet them and to to give assistance.

Every evidence has been given to hour that the men were desperate, and the officials did not care to take any chances with them.

Deputy Warden O’Leary stated that they were the worse lot of prisoners he had ever had to deal with during his long experience. 

Brown, one of the prisoner, had had a great deal to do in causing the disturbance, and was suffering from severe wounds on his head, as the result of coming in contact with the deputy warden’s baton. Blood was flowing from his head, and he had his head covered over with a piece of canvas. 

The penitentiary authorities had a van in waiting, at the outer station, and immediately upon the arrival of the men; they were walked over to the van and taken to the big prison. 

The several men presented a novel sight, attired in their prison garb, with the number on the back of their coats, which could easily be distinguished. Each pair were shackled and handcuffed, and it required some time for them to get off the train. Brown seemed to be in great pain, as the result of the beating he received over the head.

The other prisoners, however, appeared to be in fairly good spirits, and smiled as a couple of reporters endeavored to get their names from one of the men who had them in charge. 

The van with the convicts created a good deal of interest, on it way in Montreal street. The party drove over Princess street, and as quite a number were on the street at the time, the van was the centre of of all eyes. After reaching Princess street, the van took to the side streets, so as to keep in the background, as much as possible, and in short order the desperadoes were soon registered behind the big stone walls, which have taken care of so many men, dangerous to be at large. 

Hiram Keitch, formerly of Tamworth, now of Stoney Mountain, came down with the deputy warden, on his trip, and assisted in looking after the prisoners. The  deputy was also accompanied by Guard Cayghey. 

The prisoners will be placed in the incorrigible ward, and taught that they cannot do any "monkey work" in the Portsmouth penitentiary, which has the name of being the most strictly discipline in Canada. The desperadoes will find that they have a hard proposition to deal with the Deputy Warden O’Leary, who will see that they receive all that is coming to then. They will have to stand trial at the next court of general session for attempting to escape.

#kingston ontario #kingston penitentiary #attempted escape #union station #prison guards #winnipeg #stoney mountain gang #toronto #desperate convicts #deputy warden #prisoner transfer #prisoner transport #desperados #arthur bonner #frank jones #h. kelly #george brown #crime and punishment in canada #history of crime and punishment in canada #train journey

[rigmarolling]

Five Things Abe Lincoln Did That Prove He Was A BAMF

I love Lincoln. You probably know this if you’ve listened to me talk for more than two seconds. I have a literal entire bookshelf filled with Lincoln stuff. I teared up in Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln at Disneyland. I cried so hard when I watched Lincoln (2012), that I almost started dry-heaving. I was Lincoln (sort of) for Halloween.

Is it a problem? No. It isn’t a problem, Mom. Because Lincoln was a 100% USDA-certified badass.

Don’t believe me? Here are ten things Abe did to prove he was absolutely a BAMF.

1. That time he jumped out a window to prevent a vote.

In 1840, the Illinois legislature was voting on whether or not to fund the state bank. Lincoln was a member of the Whig party, which did not require members to wear wigs, contrary to what the name suggests, but which did support saving the state bank. The opposing party, the Democrats (different political beliefs from modern-day democrats, do NOT come at me, Reddit dudebros) wanted to shut the State bank down.

It all came down to a vote...and it looked like the anti-state bank democrats were going to win. Abraham Lincoln, then a 31-year-old legislator who looked like the pioneer version of a Tim Burton character, was getting nervous. 

Above: Jack Skellington, 1840.

“Shit,” he thought, probably, “We Whigs are screwed if we lose this vote. And we don’t even get to wear wigs.”

The bank-hating democrats scheduled a vote to adjourn the session, which would effectively be the nail in the state bank’s coffin. Abe was panicking. He was the de facto leader of the Whigs; he had to do something. 

“Prove your mettle, boy,” he probably thought to himself in a folksy, backwoods kinda way. “Show ‘em you ain’t gonna give up.”

So Abe did what any self-respecting legislator would do when stuck between a rock and a hard place:

He jumped out the window of the legislature to stop the vote.

To be fair, Lincoln wasn’t the only one to opt for a morning act of defenestration: a bunch of the other Whigs joined in, too. The rationale was, essentially, this:

Which is peak Internet comedy, but unfortunately, it was 1840 and the Internet didn’t exist yet, so nobody appreciated the gesture and the democrats eventually wound up closing the bank, anyway. 

But at least Abe showed the entire state that he appreciated Looney Tunes-esque escape tactics.

2. That time he roasted a guy during a debate with good-old self-deprecating humor.

You ever rely on self-deprecating humor to beat people to the “yes, I KNOW I am offensive” punch?

So did our 16th president, Abraham Nicole Lincoln.

(Not his real middle name.)

When Lincoln was campaigning, his biggest rival was Stephen Douglas, the Democratic contender who was nicknamed “the little giant” because he was short but a heavy hitter in politics, and also because he looks like the kind of guy that just wouldn’t shut up at parties:

Above: “Actually, I’m not racist, BUT--”

In 1858, Lincoln and Douglas held a series of seven famous political debates called, brilliantly, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, coming to you LIVE at Rockefeller Center, with performances by the Rockettes, Anna and Elsa on Ice, AND with special guest, Seal!

These debates were THE go-to political show of the season. If you were super into who would be elected to the Illinois Senate in the mid-19th century, then holy shit, you have got to watch these two men go at each other, man, it’s like watching a tree and an angry little dog slap each other across the stage.

During the debates, Lincoln quickly became famous for his one-liners, and also because no one had ever seen a talking tree in a suit before.

In one of the debates, Douglas accused Lincoln of being two-faced. Without missing a beat, Lincoln, who had been mocked his entire life for his ungainly, scarecrow-like appearance in the same way that I just mocked him a few sentences ago, whoops...

ANYWAY.

Lincoln turned to Douglas and went, “Honestly, if I were two-faced, would I be showing you this one?” 

And then the audience did this:

And then Lincoln was like:

Check. Mate. 

3. That time he was so strong and such a good wrestler that nobody messed with him.

When I say “wrestler,” what do you think of?

Is it this?

Maybe this?

What about this?

Huh? What’s that you say? “What the hell is...is that Lincoln? What...what the hell is Lincoln doing in a list of wrestlers?

“Um,” I answer, “Being a wrestler.”

Because Abraham Lincoln, 6′ 4″ and all of 150-something pounds, was, in fact, an incredibly talented wrestler.

So talented, in fact, that when it came to wrestling matches, he went undefeated for most of his life.

See, Lincoln grew up in the middle of butt crack-nowhere, out in the sticks of the American frontier. Ain’t no room for sissies out on the frontier. This here’s hard-scrabble country, see, rough-livin’; you gotta spit to live; you gotta live to spit; Neosporin? I think you mean weak-ass bitch cream.

So how did rootin’ tootin’ frontier folk blow off steam? Well, when they weren’t dying of dysentery or tuberculosis or minor infections that could today be cured by steady application of Neosporin, they were wrasslin’. And when it came to the act of picking someone up and throwing them back down, nobody wrestled like 21-year-old Abraham Justine Lincoln.

(Not his real middle name.)

One look at the guy and people were like, “The hell? What’s this ancient Egyptian mummy doing in the ring?”

But the second he got going, everyone shut up. Because this guy was nuts. He was a berserker. He could defeat a guy three times his size in seconds. He could bench the Rock, probably, and not even break a sweat.

He was the nicest guy in town. But nobody--and I mean nobody--messed with Abraham Ashley Lincoln.

(Not his real middle name).

One time, Jack Armstrong, the local heavyweight champion who was the Big Bad in town and undefeated in the wrestling and “I’m a giant asshole who smashes my way through problems” arena, challenged Lincoln to a match. 

“Uh oh,” everyone in the little town of New Salem, Illinois thought, “That’s it for ol’ Twig Legs Abe. He might be good, but there’s no way he can defeat Jack Armstrong. Nice knowing you, kid; it’s a shame, because you might have made a solid president.”

But Lincoln, who knew no fear and ate chains forged in the heart of a dwarven cavern for breakfast, was like, “Bring it on, bitch.”

Above: Playin’ with the boys.

Jack and Abe started sparring and Jack threw insult after insult Abe’s way. I don’t know exactly what Jack said, but it was probably the 19th century equivalent of, “You may have 2,300 Facebook friends but nobody cares about the pictures of your homemade Shake ‘N Bake chicken that you post, eggwad.”

Abe didn’t relent. 

See, he was getting angry.

Really angry.

So angry, in fact, that in one fell swoop, he suddenly slammed big Jack Armstrong to the ground so hard that Armstrong passed out, cold.

Abe had won. Everyone stared at the panting, growling, 6′4″ pine tree man in reverent awe. 

A fun epilogue to this story: after Jack Armstrong recovered from getting his ass handed to him by a guy who looked like an extra in a movie about the Amish, he and Abe remained steadfast buddies for the rest of their lives. 

Jack just never ever insulted Abraham Jessica Lincoln again.

(Not his real middle name.)

4. The (many) times he went off into long, rambling stories during Cabinet meetings to illustrate a point.

You know how grandma and grandpa sometimes go off on tangents and you’re like, “okay, okay, get to the point.”

But grandma and grandpa don’t even respond and just keep talking about that one time in 1953 that Anne-Marie told George that no, she hadn’t gone to the corner store, why do you keep asking, George? And then I said to George, I said, George, you need to listen to Anne-Marie because she knows that the corner store is the only one in town that sells fresh-laid eggs and Butterick circle skirt patterns, but did he listen? Did he listen to me? No, he didn’t, so I went to---

You get it.

So did every single member of Lincoln’s cabinet. Because Lincoln was a consummate storyteller, for better or for worse. 

(Sometimes for worse, depending on who you asked.)

Above: “One time, at band camp...”

Lincoln would interrupt important meetings about, you know, saving the Union and the soul of the country itself with anecdotes that started something like this:

Lincoln: You know, Sec. Stanton, that reminds me of a fur-trapper I knew back in Illinois--

Stanton: Great, except, Mr. President, everyone is dying--

Lincoln: Now this here fur trapper was the best fur trapper in the entire state. Not the entire country, mind you, on account of we didn’t really have a way of measuring fur-trapping skills nationwide--

Stanton: *neck turning purple* Mr. President--

Lincoln:--but definitely the best fur trapper in Illinois. Now one day, this fur trapper set out to do what he did best: shoot some raccoons, or maybe a bear, or a wolf if he was lucky, or a deer, or some moose, or a beaver, or a mongoose, or maybe a possum--

Stanton: OH MY GOD--

Lincoln:--or a cat, if times were desperate, but not a dog, never a dog, because this here fur trapper loved dogs; had six of ‘em himself, all hound dogs, loyal to a fault, see, because this here fur trapper--

Stanton: JUST STOP--

Lincoln: --this here fur trapper could be short-sighted. See, he set his sights one day on shooting the biggest bear in the mountains--and this bear, why, this here bear was a Goliath of a bear, the biggest bear anyone ever did see, the biggest bear in the state; not the biggest bear in the country, mind you, on account of we didn’t have a way of comparing bear sizes nationwide, but--

You get the gist.

Above: “So I’m sitting there, barbecue sauce on my tiddies--”

Eventually, Lincoln would get to the point of his story; in this example, for...um, example...maybe the moral was, “Don’t get so focused on one goal (shooting that big bear) that you loose sight of other objectives in the war (getting rid of the wolf pack killing all the sheep or whatever).”

I would like to explain to you why telling long, rambling grandpa stories was such a power move:

Abe Lincoln was the president. 

So his whole Cabinet had to listen.

And Abe Lincoln knew it.

They had to listen to this backwoods guy go on and on about how that one time the local long boatsman fell into the river actually serves as a metaphor for Gen. McClellan’s inability to take control of the troops; or how the rabid raccoon that lived in the local blacksmith’s shop can serve as a metaphor for acting too hastily when trying to take down the South. 

Or, like, whatever.

Above: “All here in favor of me performing the entirety of Les Mis starring me as everyone, raise your hands.”

Apparently, Lincoln was also the kind of storyteller who, if there was a funny punchline at the end, took forever to get to the punch line because he’d start laughing hysterically at his own joke, and while many people thought it was incredibly endearing, others were like, “Boy, I wonder what it would be like if I dumped this entire fucking bottle of ink over the president’s head to get him to shut the fuck up.”

Spoiler alert: Lincoln did not, in fact, shut the fuck up. He was determined to teach folks a lesson through the the power of storytelling and also to help break the tension of a legitimately horrible war with the power of laughter.

Monopolizing the conversation to prove a point with anecdotes about frontier living that no one can escape?

Power. Move.

5. Those times he let his kids run amok in the White House and thought it was hilarious.

Lincoln had a four kids, all boys, who moved into the White House after he was elected president.

And these boys were little terrors.

To be fair, a vast majority of boys are terrors. Kids are terrors. They are small harbingers of chaos and discord with little regard for their fellow humans, which means they fit right in in the White House EYYYY POLITICAL COMMENTARY.

But Lincoln’s kids, apparently, were especially out of control.

Above: “Alright, enough pussy-footin’ around, Pops, fork over the dough and no one gets a kick in the nuts.”

Lincoln adored his boys, partly because he was a good dad and partly because he’d already had one child die tragically, so understandably, he was like, “Life is short and antibiotics haven’t been invented yet so we’re all going to die from getting paper cuts, probably; I’m just gonna let my boys do whatever the hell they want.”

And he kind of...did.

Willie and Tad Lincoln, his two youngest, brought tons of pets into the White House. Dogs, cats, birds...when people objected, Lincoln just sort of shrugged. He, too, was a huge animal lover and didn’t really care if ponies were clomping around the Oval Office. “My White House, my rules, my indoor ponies.”

The two Lincoln boys would dress up in military uniforms and have fake military drills and stage fake (LOUD) battles all over the White House, including when Dad was in a Cabinet meeting.

What did Dad do, you ask?

Laugh his head off.

While his kids would burst into Cabinet meetings, crawl under the table and kick important Senators’ legs and feet, generally causing a grade-A ruckus, Abe would try and fail to stifle his laughter.

Which, you know. Objectively isn’t the best parenting, but for Pete’s sake, they were at war, can’t they have a little fun? Jesus, lighten up, folks, they’re kids.

The Lincoln boys particularly irritated Sec. of War Edwin Stanton, but to be fair, almost everything irritated Sec. of War Edwin Stanton.

Above: “I have never had fun once, ever, in my life.”

Once again, Lincoln’s rationale was, “Life is fragile, one of my children already died, the country is at war, and kids make me laugh, so if they want to punch Sec. Stanton in the balls under the table, who am I to stop them?”

Also, Lincoln was the president, so nobody thought it was appropriate to go, “Um, hey? Mr.--Mr. President? Maybe you could tell your sons to, you know...not crawl under the table and interrupt, um...important...war strategy meetings?”

ALSO, Lincoln once wrestled a man twice his size to the ground without batting an eyelash, so you go tell him to make his kids behave. I dare you.

#abraham lincoln #listory #american history #us history #u.s. history

[ruminativerabbi]

Looking Forward/Looking Back

And so a new era begins in our nation! Will the Biden years, whether four or eight of them, lead to healing in a nation so riven that many of the chasms that divide us—some racial, others political, still others ethnic or economic—feel truly unbridgeable? Will they feature an end to the COVID-era that has so radically altered the way we live and do business in our land? Will they bring a rededication to the kind of environmentally sound public policy that could possibly head off the crises that will otherwise visit the planet with increasingly frequency and ferocity if we choose to put blinders on and then recklessly to barrel ahead into uncharted waters without any clear sense of how to address even the issues that threaten us the least overtly, let alone those that are the most prominent? Will the recent hopeful developments in the Middle East serve as the prelude to the kind of complex reconfiguration that will, at long last, make Israel into a nation tied at least as profoundly to neighbors and local friends as to distant allies in North America and, when the wind blows in the right direction, Europe? (And will such a rebalancing of alliances lead finally to a just resolution of the Palestinians’ plight in a way that both serves their own best interests and Israel’s?) All of these questions are in the air as we pass from the Trump era to the Biden years, definitely from the past to the future and ideally from a period characterized by unprecedented (that word again!) incivility and fractiousness to one more reminiscent of the nation in which people my age and older remember growing up.

To none of the above questions do I have a clear answer to offer. But I do feel hopeful—and that hope is born not merely of wishful thinking (or not solely of it), but also of a sense that we have come to a point in our nation’s history at which the task of re-dedicating ourselves to the bedrock notions that underlay the founding of the American republic in the eighteenth century is crucial. But no less crucial is ridding ourselves of some of the fantasies we have been taught since childhood to accept as basic American truths.

There are lots to choose from, but today I would like to write about one of my favorite American fantasies, the one according to which Americans have always treated dissent graciously, enjoying national debate without acrimony and finding in principled dialogue the most basic of American paths forward. According to that fantasy, Congress exists basically to house friendly co-workers whose disagreements can and do yield the kind of dignified compromise that in turn serves as a path forward that all their constituents can gratefully travel into a bipartisan future built on our collective will to live in peace and learn from each other. Hah!

We have had in our past instances of violent altercation, including some in the very halls of Congress that were besieged by insurrectionists on January 6. Forgetting them won’t necessarily condemn us to reliving them. But keeping them in mind will surely help us find the resolve to avoid them. As we enter the Biden years, we need to look with clear eyes on that part of our history and, instead of ignoring it, allow it to guide us forward into a different kind of future.

First up, I think, would have to be the 1838 murder of Congressman Jonathan Cilley (D-Maine) by Congressman William Graves (Whig-Kentucky). This one did not take place in the Capitol, although that’s where the party got started. The backstory is so petty as almost to be silly, yet a man died because of that pettiness. Cilley said something on the floor of the House that irritated a prominent Whig journalist, who responded by asking Graves to hand deliver a note demanding an apology. Cilley declined, to which principled decision Graves responded by challenging Cilley to a duel, which then actually took place on February 24, 1838 in nearby Maryland. Neither was apparently much of a marksman. Both men shot twice and missed. But then Congressman Graves aimed more carefully and shot and killed Congressman Cilley.

To their credit, Congress responded by passing anti-dueling legislation. But that only kept our elected representatives from murdering each other, not from behaving violently. For example, when Representative Preston Brooks (D-South Carolina) wanted to express his disapproval of the abolitionist stance of Senator Charles Sumner (R-Massachusetts), he brought a walking cane with him into the Capitol on May 22, 1856, and beat Sumner almost to death. The account of the beating on the website of the United States Senate reads as follows: “Moving quickly, Brooks slammed his metal-topped cane onto the unsuspecting Sumner's head. As Brooks struck again and again, Sumner rose and lurched blindly about the chamber, futilely attempting to protect himself. After a very long minute, it ended. Bleeding profusely, Sumner was carried away.  Brooks walked calmly out of the chamber without being detained by the stunned onlookers.” The rest of the story is also instructive: Congress voted to censure Congressman Brooks, whereupon the latter resigned and was almost immediately re-elected to the House by his constituents in South Carolina. He died soon after that (and at age 37), but his place in history was secured! Sumner himself survived and spent another eighteen years in the Senate.

I’d like to suggest that all my readers who felt totally shocked by the events of January 6 to read The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War  by Joanne B. Freeman, a professor of history at Yale University, that was published in 2018 by Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux. I read the book when it came out and thought then (and still do think) that it should be required reading for all who imagine that, as I keep hearing, the use of violence and, even more so, the threat of violence “just isn’t us.” It’s us, all right. And Freeman’s book proves it a dozen different ways. As readers of my letters know, I read a lot of American history. But I can hardly recall reading a book that so thoroughly changed the way I thought of our government and its history.

And then there was the brawl in the House in 1858 that broke out when Laurence M. Keitt (D-South Carolina) attempted to strangle Galusha Grow (R-Pennsylvania) in the wake the latter speaking disparagingly about of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford to the effect that Black people were by virtue of their race excluded from American citizenship regardless of whether they were enslaved or free. The House was, to say the least, riven when Keitt went for Grow’s throat. And what happened next, Freeman writes, “was a free-for-all right in the open space in front of the Speaker’s platform featuring roughly thirty, sweaty, disheveled, mostly middle-aged congressman in a no-holds-barred brawl, North against South.” Keitt, who threw the first punch, was already known as a violent man: it was he, in fact, who took out his gun and threatened to kill any member of Congress who was part of the effort to save Charles Sumner’s life in the attack on him by Preston Brooks mentioned above.

These are the thoughts I have in my heart as the nation enters the Biden years. We have a history of violence, incivility, and public rage. What happened on January 6 was, yes, an aberration in that no one supports—or, at least, supports openly—the use of violence to make a point in the Congress. But that was not something new and shocking as much as it was a return to an earlier stage of our nation’s history, a kind of regression to the days in which violence was the language of discourse, an age in which it was possible for one member of the House openly to attempt to strangle another and then to suffer no real consequences at all. And just to wrap up the story, Representative Keitt later joined the Confederate Army and was killed on June 1, 1864 at the Battle of Cold Harbor near Mechanicsville, Virginia.

That we can renounce violence, embrace civility, listen to opposing viewpoints carefully and thoughtfully, debate with courage and respect for others’ opinions, and behave like grown-ups even when we are unlikely to have our way in some matter of public policy—I know in my heart that we can do that. Last week, I wrote about three different instances of armed insurrection against the federal government. This week, I’ve written about the use of threats of violence, and violence itself, at the highest level of government. I could go on to note that, of our first forty-five American presidents, there have been either successful or unsuccessful assassination attempts against a full twenty of them…and that that list includes every president of my own lifetime except for Dwight Eisenhower. We cannot renounce our American propensity to settle things with our fists by making believe that violence is not part of our culture. Just the opposite is true: it was part of our past and it certainly part of our present. Whether it will be part of our future—that is the question on the table. The insurrectionists who entered the Capitol on January 6 were convinced they were acting in accordance with American tradition. There’s something to that argument too…and that is why it is so crucial now that we all join together to renounce that part of our past and then to move ahead into a future characterized by mutual respect, respectful debate, and a deep sense of national unity born of pride in the best parts of our past, confidence in the present, and hope in the future.

[drakus79]

We’ve reached the climax

I know it’s been a long time since I updated. I don’t update often and sometimes forget I have this blog, but I had to follow up on my earlier Fourth Turning predictions.  I believe we are now, thanks to COVID-19 and our reaction to it, in the climax of the Fourth Turning (4T).  Please read up on Strauss and Howe Generational Theory if you haven’t heard of it before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory

Trump is, whether you like it or not, the Gray (orange) Champion of this cycle. His approval keeps going up despite this crisis and it doesn’t seem likely that he will lose to Biden in the next election. But that could change, especially considering the long term economic effects of this crisis. Biden’s choice of VP is very important as whoever he picks is likely going to be the real president if Biden does manage to win. I'm guessing he's going to pick Kamala Harris, but I could be wrong. It's interesting to note that a presidential nominee has never died before the election, but that actually may happen this time considering the ages of the candidates and COVID19. And even if Biden does manage to survive to the election, he's already in his late 70s so he may not last two terms.

But it's interesting to note how unimportant these politics seem at this time. Issues that were huge only a month ago (impeachment, FISA abuses, even climate change) just seem trivial by comparison. This pandemic is a real crisis unlike anything we've been through. You would have to go all the way back to WWII to find a crisis that required such a level of sacrifice by the whole population and put us against so common an enemy. That being said, the hardships they went through is nowhere's near the same as what we're going through. Our lives have become undeniably a lot easier since then. But because we've become so accustomed to an easy life, even a mild crisis, like this, seems difficult. So compared to what we've become accustomed to, this is our version of the WWII climax of the last 4T.

And like the great depression and WWII changed the world permanently, so will this crisis. The last 4T saw the permanent addition of social safety nets, ie Social Security, unemployment insurance and Medicare. As a result of this pandemic, we will very likely see additional permanent changes to healthcare and the introduction of something like a Universal Basic Income (UBI) due to the massive damage this crisis has done to an economy that was booming just a month ago. Even Republicans are supporting UBI now, and it may replace Social Security and unemployment insurance entirely. And I don't see us putting the UBI genie back in the bottle once this crisis ends either. Politicians that run on a platform to end UBI will very quickly lose support. UBI will become the new "third rail" in politics like Social Security has been for so long.

But UBI, by itself, will not be sustainable. For those of you who are familiar with my posts, you'll know that I was always in favor of UBI, but preferred the Gary Johnson model over the Andrew Yang model. The Gary Johnson "Fairtax" model involved switching away from a federal income tax system to a consumption tax system, and using a percentage of the consumption tax to fund a monthly UBI prebate or "tax refund". The reason being that if UBI was funded by income tax, the incentive to work will collapse. If the checks were big enough, most people would prefer to collect free government money rather than work, and there wouldn't be enough income tax revenue to fund UBI. Plus the resentment between the workers funding UBI, and the non-workers collecting UBI will become unsustainable after a point. At least, if it were funded by a consumption tax, everyone would be paying into it, not just the people with jobs. Gary Johnson's UBI model could stand the test of time. Andrew Yang’s could not. So it's likely that we will see something like the Fairtax being instituted to keep UBI sustainable.

As more and more schools and companies adopt a work from home model, I have a feeling this is another genie that we will not be able to put back in the bottle. Work from home will become the norm, except for jobs that can't physically support a remote work option. School will also adopt more of a remote desktop model, and I see homeschooling becoming way more prevalent after this.

Looking at the big picture, I see this crisis as the death knell for globalization. The trend towards globalization had already been losing ground with Brexit and Trump's election, but this just killed it. Borders are more secure than ever, and although it will ease up a bit, I don't see the "open borders" argument regaining ground any time soon. Yet, despite how socially isolated we've become, we're becoming more connected than ever online. But I see us ultimately becoming more domestically focused. Economically we're already seeing a major push to rely less on other countries (especially China) for manufactured goods. There’s already been a movement away from over-centralized economies and this trend is likely to continue as we'd want to be more prepared for another crisis like this. It's interesting to note that WWII ultimately resulted in increasing globalization. This crisis is resulting in the opposite.

So let’s re-examine Strauss and Howe Generational Theory and see how things line up.  S&H Theory is generally based on US history, but can be applied to other countries as well if you adjust the dates and major events.  Keep in mind I don’t view S&H Theory as a science.  It’s really just a framing device.  It’s an interesting way to organize history.  It is highly subjective (and that’s what makes it so much fun to study).

Strauss and Howe identify four turnings in each Generational Cycle:

The First Turning is a high or recovery. (Spring). ie Reconstruction (1865-1886).

The Second Turning is an awakening. (Summer). ie The Gilded Age (1886-1908).

The Third Turning is an unraveling (Autumn). ie WWI and The Roaring Twenties (1908-1929).

The Fourth Turning is a Crisis (Winter). ie The Great Depression and WWII (1929-1945).

Strauss and Howe broke the Fourth Turning up into four phases: 1. Catalyst - Event that sparks the crisis. (ie Stock Market Crash of 1929) 2. Regeneracy - Call to Action and unity in response to the crisis. (FDR's New Deal in the mid 1930s) 3. Climax - Darkest point of the crisis. (Attack on Pearl Harbor 1941) 4. Resolution - Winners and losers are decided, and new institutions rise as the country is put on a new trajectory. But every solution creates a new problem, and the next cycle is all about addressing that new problem. I generally agree with the dates and analysis Strauss and Howe gave for the above Great Power Cycle (1865-1945), however, I disagree with the way they divided up the Civil War Cycle, and I’ve discussed that at length in an earlier post, but here’s a summary: First Turning - 1789-1807 - The Constitution is ratified and the states come to a compromise on how to deal with slavery. George Washington becomes the first President. A new country is established and party lines are drawn between John Adams' more classically conservative "Federalist Party" and Thomas Jefferson's more classically liberal "Democratic-Republican Party".  The US gains the midwestern territories and the issue of slavery in these new territories reopens the divide between the pro-slave and anti-slave states. Second Turning - 1807-1828 - The Atlantic Slave Trade is banned and slavery ends in the North. The War of 1812 results in the collapse of the Federalist Party and the "Era of Good Feelings" begins. Only one party, Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party, is dominant for the rest of the turning. The expanding cotton industry makes the southern states a lot more reliant on slavery. Third Turning - 1828-1848 - The Election of Andrew Jackson ends the "Era of Good Feelings". The Democratic-Republican Party splits into a more populist left wing Democrat Party and the more classically conservative Whig Party. The Democratic Party dominates this turning and slavery becomes more entrenched in the Southern States.  The abolitionist “Free Soil Party” splits away from the Democratic Party. Manifest Destiny, The Gold Rush and westward expansion results in The Mexican War and Sectionalism. And I would break up the Fourth Turning into these phases: 1. Catalyst - 1848. The Mexican War ends and the issue over whether new territories should be free states or slave states becomes an even more controversial and divisive issue than before when the midwestern territories were gained. 2. Regeneracy - 1850. The Compromise of 1850 at first unites the country, but ultimately results in more division. The Whig Party splits in 1852 over disagreements with The Compromise.  The pro-compromise faction joins the Democratic Party or joins up with third party coalitions.  The Whigs that were against the Compromise and were more fervently anti-slavery forms a coalition with the Free Soil Party.  The Republican Party is born. The country is divided between southern pro-slave, and northern anti-slave lines even more than before. 3. Climax - 1860. Lincoln is elected and the Confederacy breaks away, resulting in the Civil War. 4. Resolution - 1865. The North wins the Civil War, Lincoln is assassinated and Reconstruction begins in the next 1st Turning.

But most of you are probably more interested in my thoughts on this current “Cold War Cycle” (1945-Present).  Well, I agree with the first half of Strauss and Howe’s analysis.  But would make some changes to the second half:

First Turning - 1945 - the USA and USSR emerge from WWII as the two dominant world powers.  The Cold War begins. The Korean War breaks out and ends in an armistice. Keynesian Neoliberalism replaces Classical Liberalism and Progressivism in the Democratic Party. The UN, NATO and the IMF world bank is established as the world becomes more globally centralized. The Civil Rights Acts of the 50s and early 60s to end Jim Crowe and Segregation are put into effect and the Federal Government gains more power over the states.

Second Turning - 1964 - JFK is assassinated and the Cold War heats up with the Vietnam War.  The peace movements quickly make the war unpopular.  Neoconservatism (a more conservative, supply side flavor of Neoliberalism) begins to emerge and dominate in the Republican Party. The gold standard is officially abandoned and the classically liberal Libertarian Party forms to challenge the more dominant and interventionist Neoliberalism of both parties. Nixon resigns in shame as a result of Watergate. Rapid stagflation ensues and the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976 is the last time The Democrats are able to win the southern states. A poor economy, his pessimistic malaise speech and mishandling of the Iran situation results in his loss to Reagan in 1980.

Third Turning - 1980 - Strauss and Howe start this turning with Reagan’s optimistic “Morning in America” campaign in 1984 that resulted in his sweeping electoral victory. But I chose to move it back earlier to 1980 when he won his first term, since that’s when things really started to change. The economy soared for most of the 80s and 90s and the USSR collapsed in 1989. The other major communist power, China, adopted a more free market friendly economy, but never completely abandoned communism and totalitarianism. The Culture War heated up as the more traditional values of the right clashed with the more progressive values of the left. Universities, schools and the press became more left leaning. Immigration and Globalism increased as America became more reliant on other countries (especially China) for manufacturing.

Fourth Turning - 2001 - Neil Howe believes the current 4T started with the 2008 Financial Crisis, and I used to agree with him.  But as time has passed it seems clear to me that it started on September 11th 2001.  Here are the phases of this current Fourth Turning:

1. Catalyst - 2001 - The terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001 shocked the world and showed us that, just because the we “won” the cold war, we weren’t yet at peace.

2. Regeneracy - 2001 - The regeneracy for this catalyst was immediate as volunteers rushed in to save lives. Despite the growing culture war, the country came together with a new sense of patriotism. But over time, the unity collapsed as the war on Terror spread to Iraq and the Patriot Act was passed.  Anti-war leftists and libertarians turned against the hyper-interventionist surveillance state.  Events like Katrina in 2005, the financial meltdown of 2008, The Great Recession, And reactionary movements like The Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter,  Gamergate and the Alt Right only served to further divide the country and exacerbated the crisis as the culture war raged worse than ever before. Mass Shootings became a regular occurrence as hatred levels rose, and the resulting gun debates only worsened the divide. Like it did during the Civil War 4T, the regeneracy failed. We hated each other more than ever. And it looked like the 2016 election was going to lead to another Civil War. The establishment and pro-war Neo-liberal and Neo-conservative factions of both parties became increasingly discredited in favor of an anti-war populism on both the left and right.  Brexit and Trump’s election saw a rejection of globalism and a desire to secure borders and bring manufacturing back home. The economy made a massive recovery after 2016 and was booming during the first few years of Trump’s presidency. But Trump was a divisive figure who was hated by the Democrats and he was impeached in late 2019.

3. Climax - 2019 - The first case of COVID-19 was discovered in Wuhan China in late November 2019.  The disease spread rapidly and resulted in thousands of deaths.  In the US, the politicians and press were distracted by the impeachment trial and were late to react.  China was unable to contain the disease and it spread all over the world.  By March 2020 governments all over the world mandated self quarantine, business lockdowns and social distancing.  The economy, which was booming only a month earlier, collapsed and drastic measures were needed to be taken to save people from falling into poverty while still protecting the public from infection. Congress is now attempting to come to an agreement on a massive and unprecedented two trillion dollar stimulus bill, funded primarily by the Fed’s magic creation of money.  But unlike the quantitative easing of the past, this time the money’s not just going to banks and major corporations, it’s going to businesses big and small and even individuals.  The increased demand that will result from so much money injected to the economy combined with a shortage of supplies will very likely result in rising prices like we’ve never seen before.  There will be attempts to price fix but as more and more businesses shut down the resulting shortages will force the government to allow price gouging. The stagflation will likely be worse than it was in the 70s and could lead to a monetary crisis. We may be heading into the worst worldwide depression we’ve ever seen.  To top it off, many countries are succumbing to the temptation of full on totalitarianism to manage this crisis. A world war is looking increasingly inevitable.  But hey, let’s try to stay optimistic and hopeful.

[progressiveparty]

The Democratic Office Boy Machine

A new Progressive party that can command decency on the part of their candidates will be coming, whether it is going to be a revamped Democratic party or something else remains to be seen. Of course the DNC will do it again. The fact that anyone considers that they will play fair is hopelessly out of touch with their history. They will try to thwart the will of their voters through continued reliance on second vote superdelegates and the use of slanted support that will be extended to corporate-friendly candidates. They did it the last time around, and less known…they did it back in 1944 (more about this later). The only way this will stop is through a fear of becoming completely irrelevant and going the way of the Whigs. A new Progressive party that can command decency on the part of their candidates will be coming, whether it is going to be a revamped Democratic party or something else remains to be seen. My guess is the Democrats will try to steal the primary again for their corporate candidate who will lose, and the DNC will become bankrupt (fiscally after the moral) and a new party will have to rise. If the fascism continues on the right from a blown opportunity by the Democrats, these predictions become more weighted with terrifying possibilities. A new Progressive party that can command decency on the part of their candidates will be coming, whether it is going to be a revamped Democratic party or something else remains to be seen. Henry Wallace (no relation that I know of) was a bit of an anomaly. He was a left- leaning Iowa boy who hated imperialism. He absolutely loathed the British Empire and its abuses. He was able to understand the needs of and advance the rights of workers. He even went against the United Fruit mode of intervention in Latin America and was able to find common ground with the people there, all without the use of right-wing juntas. This may be a bit of a simplification, but overall, Henry Wallace was a friend to the working men and women across the globe. He served as FDR’s vice president until a fateful convention in 1944. He had the backing of the voters—they appreciated that he had done more in that vice president’s office than others before him and they felt he had a kinship with them—that he would work in their favor. He was not popular with Southern conservative politicians or the corporate factions and they wanted nothing of him and his common man appeal. FDR made overtures and indicated that he was still behind Wallace being his vice president. Eleanor was a staunch supporter as well…but whether FDR was simply too ill by that time to exert his will or just plain feckless regarding Wallace, the Pendergast political machine of out Kansas City was able to insert their “office boy” as the vice president.

Henry Wallace Truman was a haberdasher from Kansas City (failed haberdasher, actually) and he came across the corrupt Pendergast group through that connection. Suits for brutes, I guess. Truman was encouraged to go into politics by the Pendergast political influencers and that he did, owing his start to this machine. It sounds like Truman struggled with the alliance having physical symptoms of stress from a bit of cognitive dissonance, but he never did anything that truly rocked their boat or made him a less of a favored candidate in their eyes. Truman was a natural to be handed the vice president slot in 1944 as he looked to be the office boy of choice for the disparate factions that were not representing the progressive appeal of voters. These things have consequences. We are now in an “anything but Trump” era. Older Democrats would probably vote for an Amazon delivery drone if it had the mark of the DNC on it in the general election because it feels right to vote against the melon-hued Mussolini. Trump is, of course, that calamitous of a human, but this “lesser evil” thing ends up with an effect. We need to not get to that point where your choice is not simply death by a malignant cancer like Trump versus a slow descent through dysentery, offered up by a centrist Democrat. But back to Wallace. By August of 1945, it was clear that Japan had lost the war. The common refrain is that atomic bombs were dropped on two civilian cities because the US “was going to have to send our boys to invade”. But is this true? A land that had already lost needed to be invaded and/or nuclear bombed right away? What happened to a little patience and isolation? Internal Japanese factions would get sick of the isolation and most likely force a surrender, wanting to join the world again. They weren’t a threat to the US by that time. But even discussing this around the “greatest generation” members is dangerous. I know by experience. I had a friend in high school who wrote an opinion paper stating the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes. My parents didn’t even want her to come over to visit after they heard that! Strong feelings aside, there is even stronger indication that the real purpose of dropping the bombs was to scare Uncle Joe Stalin shitless with the death that could be meted out by the US. What would have been the harm to wait a bit for a full surrender? At least try for that? America solves everything with violence, or in this case violent science. The choice is framed as this: atomic bombs or every young man in America will be killed by Japanese grannies on their shore with weapons. This jingoistic framing should be a red flag to anyone that the truth is probably going to be a bit more nuanced.  Illogical horror descriptions that are built to scare should be analyzed for veracity. (Babies being thrown out of incubators etc.). Not that the world doesn’t have ample evil for certain, but don’t get played is what I’m saying. They are masters at this and always have been. Manufactured consent and all. Another consideration: anyone who can think of the atomic bombing in sterile ways should be forced to read the accounts from survivors. But ”they” attacked Pearl Harbor…I didn’t sodomize anyone at Abu Ghraib, but that line of thought brings you to retribution in ways you might not want to consider when you begin to view all civilians as being directly responsible for the actions of their “leaders” or their military. This is why old school anarchy considerations feel like common sense truth to me. How can you be responsible for what a psychopathic “leader” did? I wasn’t asked for my feedback. Not to mention a war that was for all purposes over—well, that’s the time these bombs were dropped! My circuitous thought is this: Truman was the office boy to do it. If Wallace had been vice president, then he would have been our subsequent president when FDR died.  I don’t know what the end result would have been, but I have a hunch he wouldn’t have dropped bombs to scare someone. Patience and good judgment might have ruled the day. So the results would have been very different for the citizens of the US, multiple Japanese civilians, as well as perhaps not staining the US as the only nation to own that quote : “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds” as  Oppenheimer famously repeated from the Bhagavad Gita . You can’t see yourself as the paragon of goodness when you knee-jerk use nuclear fission to solve your problems. So we are pretty far down the destroyer of worlds path. Regime change are US. A drastic realignment is necessary. Characters like Biden and Cop Harris won’t cut it, and those types are the DNC’s favored candidates. When Warren becomes favored, you know her sell-out with the Sith lords is complete. These things sound like petty squabbles over a group of similars until you think about Strummer’s pregnant mention of an unwritten future. What consequences will come from the continued use of corporate office boys/girls for the job? Can we write a future that is better, that is decent? There are a lot of individuals like me who find Bernie Sanders to be a compromise, not far enough to the left. But even his middle-of-the-road-in-Europe notions scare the crap out of the machinery. I was furious last time that he didn’t simply run as a third-party candidate. We won’t survive much more of this nonsense. The threats of being a spoiler…well I say spoil it all. It’s rancid. That milk you put back in the fridge that smells isn’t going to rehabilitate itself. Trump won anyway–even with Bernie hitting the road for Clinton last time. And don’t get me started about her. Are they even trying to win? She was needlessly caustic, much like Biden. He has a huge problem with younger voters, so he goes on the road and when he is asked about environmental concerns by a young voter, he says “Look at my record, CHILD!” to an adult woman! Is he even trying at all? Is he just campaigning so he can smell new shampoos around the country? I don’t have high hopes that Bernie will fight back this time when they screw him over again. I hope I’m wrong or at least I hope his campaign leaves the threat of it there to create a known moral hazard for the DNC if this is the path they take. The younger voters are showing that they are basically a bit more decent than the “pragmatic” Boomers and X’ers. There is evidence that they have…empathy. I am so relieved by this and feel this is an indication that a progressive party can win because they have some massive numbers they could draw from. And there are X’ers like me as well as Boomers who aren’t totally evil. We kind of want the world to survive.  We will be there for this change. The tepid centrist Democrats will not help with this imperative. Considering all this though, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to believe that to many corporate/centrist Dems, a loss to Trump is preferable to ceding to the progressive arm of the party. This is a moment like the situation with Wallace in 1944. If the party can’t get rid of things like superdelegates (the Republicans have even done that!) and they continue to use media connections to ignore the true state of support that candidates have (oh, oh, the excitement for Biden is palpable per CNN)…well, the party will vanish and sadly our descent into Republican-style fascism will probably accelerate without a needed safety valve. A true change in the Democratic party would be required, a change to reflect the views of all the adults out there who came of age after things quit being better than their parents had it. A tree does get stronger in the wind (if it survives) and perhaps things were just too easy to breed strength for some of those with comfortable health care and a guaranteed retirement. It will take some strength of character for those older Americans to care about those coming after them and call for change accordingly even if they personally feel they are safe. But ultimately their support will not be required, time will march forward with or without them.  The decent thing to do is be part of the change. The younger generations are especially suffering at the hands of unfettered capitalism. Our globe is even suffering. The middling better than Trump Obama types will not cut it. They will simply slow the descent and make it more comfortable for the well-heeled older centrists on the way down. They might be less overtly embarrassing than Trump, but that’s not enough, My elderly malignant narcissist mother who endorses aggressive nudity is less embarrassing than Trump. That’s a low bar. What we have now, well–this is not just, and this is not good. To only care about your 401 K but not care about someone else’s DKA is a sign of being a shitty person (explainer: DKA is Diabetic Ketoacidosis. It’s what you get when you can’t afford your fucking insulin and it is killing young Type 1 diabetics as we speak). But Sanders can’t just bow down to Biden or Warren if that is who the machinery wants for the office position when the time comes. A new party and movement needs to be built at that moment with no hesitation because you can’t fight fascism and climate destruction with polite adherence to rules set up to keep you down. This Piece Originally Appeared in LA Progressive Read the full article

#anythingbutTrump #corrupt #Democrats #DNC #HenryWallace

[locktwist2-blog]

April 4, 1841: William Henry Harrison became first President to die in office

William Henry Harrison died on April 4, 1841, 31 days after his inauguration as president of the United States.

Perhaps during the cold and rainy inauguration in which Harrison delivered the longest speech in inauguration history, perhaps from a well-wisher, Harrison caught a cold. The cold developed into pneumonia. Perhaps the pneumonia killed him.

Or, perhaps he caught typhoid fever from the notoriously bad water at the White House in 1841. Modern historians and medical specialists suspect Harrison had some form of typhoid, and not pneumonia from a cold. It’s likely his physicians at the time did everything just wrong to treat typhoid, much as George Washington’s physicians probably killed him 42 years earlier.

Caption from Smithsonian: William Henry Harrison / Albert Gallatin Hoit / Oil on canvas, 1840 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Any way it went down, Vice President John Tyler succeeded to fill 47 months of Harrison’s 48-month term.

Harrison, a Whig, was the first president to die in office. His vice president, John Tyler, was a converted Democrat who quickly abandoned the Whig platform as president.

Harrison won fame pushing Indians off of lands coveted by white settlers in the Northwest Territories. Harrison defeated Tecumseh’s Shawnee tribe (without Tecumseh) at the Battle of Tippecanoe, then beat Tecumseh in a battle with the English in which Tecumseh died, in the War of 1812.

Schoolchildren of my era learned Harrison’s election slogan: “Tippecanoe, and Tyler, too!” Schoolchildren should learn that slogan today, too, as a touchstone to 19th century history and presidential politics. Some say it was the first slogan used by a candidate for president. See Mo Rocca’s piece for CBS Sunday Morning.

On Harrison’s death, Tyler found himself in uncharted territories. While the Constitution and the title suggested a vice president would fill in for a president when the president was absent, the Constitution did not explicitly say the vice president would succeed to the presidency if the president should die. There was some controversy at the time, about whether Tyler should act as caretaker until a new, special election was called.

Tyler took the oath of office as president, effectively putting the controversy to bed. No one sued to stop him. Tyler established the precedent of peaceful and quick transition of power to the vice president, upon the death of a president

Congress voted Harrison’s widow a one-time payment of $25,000, since he had died nearly penniless. This may be the first example of a president or his survivors getting a payment from the government after leaving office. It’s a precedent Congress didn’t quite follow through on, and presidents left office without pensions for many more years, a story told with pain about the later years and death of President U. S. Grant.

In the annals of brief presidencies, there is likely to be none shorter than Harrison’s for a long time. As you toast him today, you can honestly say he did not overstay his White House tenure. Others could have learned from his example.

No president had died in office before; all the pomp and ceremony for a president’s funeral had to be invented when William Henry Harrison died, just 31 days into his administration. Proper music included a funeral dirge composed by Henry Dielman, cover shown here from the collection of the White House Historical Association.

More:

Rembrandt Peale portrait, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

So Who’s President When Tippecanoe Kicks the Bucket? (laurenlinwood.wordpress.com)

Happy Presidents’ Day (business-opportunities.biz)

Pick the most underrated and overrated presidents! (washingtonpost.com)

Tecumseh and the rise and fall of the Pan-Indian movement (examiner.com)

Today in History, April 4th (hankeringforhistory.com)

Berkeley Plantation (virginiaplantation.wordpress.com)

Harrison was one of four Whig Party presidents.  Amazingly, high school kids today don’t know what the Whig Party stood for.  Of course, neither does anyone else remember it, save for three or four trivia-whiz political science professors.  Actually, only two Whigs were ever elected, William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor.  Both died in office; the other two Whigs who became president were their vice presidents, John Tyler succeeding Harrison, and Millard Fillmore succeeding Taylor.  Four Whigs held the presidency for a total of eight years.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 4th, 2019 at 1:53 am and is filed under Campaigns, History, Presidents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: https://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2019/04/04/april-4-1841-william-henry-harrison-became-first-president-to-die-in-office/

[tridentine2013]

The History of the Conservative Party; and why you aren't really a Tory.

The Conservative party is arguably the oldest political party in the world. Way back in 1678, 'Tory' supporters of James Stuart, Duke of York were against his exclusion from the order of succession to the British throne on the basis that he was a Roman Catholic. The Tories opposed such exclusion, which was supported by the 'Whigs'. Throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, the 'Tories', (who in the 19th century became known as the 'Conservative Party',)  represented one side of divide within the ruling 'establishment', the other side being the Whigs. Initially divided along sectarian lines, these two parties constituted a parliament which for hundreds of years represented the interests of a de facto 'ruling elite', made up exclusively of very wealthy landowners, who had over centuries  been 'granted' land, great wealth and privilege by the crown. Their priority was their own continued wealth and power. The overwhelming majority of the British population during this period had no right to vote in parliamentary elections, and no effective representation. The first and second reform acts (1832 and 1867) each brought in a degree of social change, but this was limited, and largely based on the minimum possible concession to avoid Britain 'going the way of the French', who had earlier rejected the dominion of Kings and aristocracy, who were executed in a bloody revolution which brought about the first French Republic, and subsequently the French Empire, under Napoleon I.

Both Tories (Conservatives) and Whigs (Liberals) thoroughly rejected the idea that anyone but the ruling elite should have a voice in parliament, but recognised the danger which mass movements posed, of catalysing revolutionary change. In 1817, in St Peter's Field, Manchester, an initially peaceful mass protest, calling for parliamentary representation, was cavalry charged by order of the local authorities. Men, women and one child were killed, either by sabre or by being trampled to death under the horses. Many hundreds were injured. This became known as the 'Peterloo Massacre'. The ruling Tory Party sent official congratulatory letters to the local officials for their handling of the protest. Subsequently, gatherings of more than 50 people for the purposes of public political meetings were criminalised, and newspapers were taxed out of the reach of the working population.

Throughout the Industrial Revolution, the gross exploitation of workers by industrialists, without the constraints of protective legislation, commonly led to the death or disability of workers in large numbers. The Conservatives and the Whigs, taking a very familiar position, refused to effectively legislate to protect workers' rights for decades ... throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, concerned only with the interests of landowners and industrialists.

The Chartists, almost two decades after Peterloo, formed to demand a vote for all working men over the age of 21, secret ballots, and the removal of the landowning qualification for MPs as well as payment for MPs, which was intended to enable working people to participate. Other demands of the People's Charter included annual elections, and equal constituencies. The political establishment   were having none of this, and by the mid 1840's, under successive Tory and Whig governments, many Chartists had been imprisoned or transported. However slowly but surely, pressure from the working and middle class led to a pragmatic expansion of the franchise, always only barely sufficient to quell mass revolt, but enough to gradually change the face of British politics. It was a change which created a number of problems for the elite interests, still represented by the Conservatives and the Whigs. It became necessary to at least pay lip service to the interests of the working and middle classes, and under Disraeli, the notion of 'one nation conservatism' was born. It was a paternalistic pragmatic response to the expanding franchise. Workers were appeased with legislation for factory and health acts premised on the idea that the needs of the many could be met by the benevolence and altruism of the wealthy and privileged, whilst they in fact simultaneously prioritised the interests of power and social position. This manifested in policies which gave a little, but were in modern corporate speak, cost v benefit analysed … basically if industrial deaths were too expensive to prevent, they would likely continue. As one of countless examples, white phosphorous, used for matches, was much cheaper than red phosphorus, but also much less safe. Consequently, the cost saving saw generations of working class women and girls in the East End of London suffer horrific health problems.

The idea of the 'natural authority' of the powerful, (power which itself in most cases was hereditary, not meritocratic) and their primacy with regard to decisions to balance profit against social responsibility, was the stock in trade of the Conservatives throughout the latter part of the 19th century. The need to protect the interests of workers was seen by most of the elite as a 'necessary evil', with concessions usually made only to the extent required to maintain order in society. By the late 19th century in was very clear that the only political organisation which would truly champion the interests of working people would be an outgrowth of the trades unions, into which many workers in various occupations had organised themselves. (On several occasions trades unions were outlawed, and membership criminalised, however by the late 19th century they were legal)

The Labour Representation Committee was formed in 1900, to put forward as prospective MPs, representatives who promised to work in parliament for the rights and interests of workers. It was not until the early 20th century that ordinary citizens, those who in any form needed to work to live, were fully represented in Parliament, and even then it was some years before a full Labour government came to power. The most significant period under Labour, was of course the post war government under Clement Atlee, an administration which produced the NHS, and most of the foundations of the welfare state we have today.

During the 20th century the Conservative Party presented themselves as authoritative, experienced and a party of 'natural leaders', who due to their history and experience were safer hands to run the many branches of state.  But it was not until the election of Margaret Thatcher as leader that the Conservative Party, who came to power in 1979, made serious claims to be a party who's aspirations and objectives could truly also embrace those of working men and women. The dream which Thatcher, and neo-liberalism in general sought to sell, was a meritocratic, inclusive society of home owners and shareholders, in their own modest way acquiring capital not only from their labour, but also from interest on shareholdings, (mostly in newly privatised businesses which had until that time been in collective (state) ownership). Many middle age Britons still subscribe to the view that they are now 'middle class', having elevated their social position as property owners, courtesy of Thatcher and the Right to Buy' Act. However this was in many respects a ruse, cost shifting property maintenance to the now mortgaged purchaser, and providing an asset against which further borrowing (debt) was secured. Some years later many found themselves in negative equity and unable to pay mortgage interest which peaked at almost 14% in 1982, and was still over 9% in 1988. Nor did successive governments use the income raised from council house sales to build new social housing. The Conservative Party continued after Thatcher, with a Thatcherite 'business as usual period under John Major.  (During which the claim of Conservative primacy in matters of fiscal policy was severely tested. In 1992 Major presided over ‘Black Wednesday’, and the UK’s ignominious ejection from the Exchange Rate Mechanism.) 

Subsequently, in  1997, Tony Blair 'stole the Conservatives' clothes'. The Tories did not regain power until 2010. However since 1979 the prevailing ideology of unfettered 'laissez-faire capitalism, and the idea of 'trickle down economics' has been pursued by the Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown Governments, as well as the Conservative led coalition of 2010, the Cameron Government of 2015, and into the current administration. The 'same 'trickle down theory' which has led to 85 people owning as much wealth as the poorest 3.5bn people on the planet. It can be demonstrated that this economic theory is flawed to the point of being groundless. It does not lead to economic growth, wage growth, income growth, or to job creation. But what it does do is provide huge wealth for a shrinkingly small elite. That elite, rich beyond the dreams of avarice, have acquired control of every lever to manipulate states; that elite controls almost all of the media in the major developed economies, utility corporations, the arms industry … the entire 'military industrial complex.. For all practical purposes, that same elite controls the Conservative Party. 

The Labour Party, branded 'New Labour' under Blair, operated in the thrall of the same interests. Since 2010, the austerity agenda pursued by the Conservative or Conservative led governments has served to illustrate that the Tory ideology which so repressed living standards and social mobility for hundreds of years is alive and well. The reversion to type is obvious and stark. The same Tory Party which fought tooth and nail against extending the franchise on consecutive occasions, and under who's administrations troops and cavalry have been deployed on the streets of the UK, is alive and well under a paper thin veneer of social concern. The Tories used military and tanks in Wales, Liverpool, and Glasgow against strikers or protestors. The Police were used as a paramilitary force against striking miners, not least at Orgreave. On each occasion, the use of force has been the extent to which Conservative governments have been prepared to suppress the demands of working people. Many of these events are almost lost to history, airbrushed out by establishment revisionists.

What has happened in recent times is the opening up of a fault line in the power holding superstructure. 'The Establishment' in the UK has a fatal flaw. That flaw, is that the entire edifice is not, as conspiracy theorists would have us believe, a nefarious fine tuned, elaborate, integrated architecture. It is actually largely reliant on a convoluted mosaic of elements with no individual overall management or managers. It simply relies on many disparate component parts tending to naturally harmonise and integrate through a common cause and common interests.

The fault line arose from a simple error of judgement. Ed Miliband (a claimed ‘leftie’ with barely more genuine left wing ideas than Blair himself, had intended to significantly weaken the power of trade unions, with sweeping reforms to Labour's internal voting system. It involved requiring union members to individually 'opt in' to Labour Party membership, as a disrupter to the union block vote. It also allowed for a 'supporter' membership, open to anyone, at just £3. No-one at the time imagined that it would bring about the circumstances in which anyone from the left of a party which was still mired in 'Blairite' 'New Labour' centre right praxis, could become the Labour Party leader. But then Jeremy Corbyn happened. The existential risk which anyone with a socialist agenda posed to the controlling elites was so glaringly obvious, that long before Corbyn was elected, the tsunami of slurs, smears and misrepresentations overwhelmed the objectivity of much of the population. A relentless barrage of anti-Corbyn rhetoric did much to form the majority view of Corbyn. Criticism repeated so often, by all media, at every opportunity, as to be believed by many purely on the basis of endless repetition. The Tories led the barrage, aided and abetted by the so called Labour 'moderates', and every other party and authority which feared a Labour Party truly committed to fairness and social justice. 

The abundance of anti-Corbyn rhetoric was undirected, unleashed in a scattergun approach, since it was impossible to particularly target Corbyn's potential constituency. In some respects directing criticism, whether justified or not, into the consciousness of the body politic achieved a short term advantage, but in no way sufficient to disrupt the election of Corbyn as Labour leader. It should not be forgotten that the unintended consequence of a socialist Labour Party leader arose with not only the approbation and dissent of the man on the Clapham omnibus, by the means under discussion, but also the active disruption and interference with process of much of the Labour Party in parliament, as well as the general secretary and much of the party heirarchy. This happened for one simple reason. Corbyn's core message had not been heard for more than a generation, and was inspirational.

Every time you hear about the impracticality or dangers of current Labour Party policy, it will originate from a source fearful that their interests and influence may be compromised. But it is an argument which is losing traction. It is true that there is a huge swathe of the population of the UK, particularly amongst the now middle aged, being somewhat comfortable, perhaps particularly by comparison with their own parents or roots, which still clings to the notion that they are middle class, and as such natural Conservative voters. Managers, small business owners, white collar workers, who fundamentally misunderstand both the Tory Party and their own best interests. The Labour Party is not 'the party of the feckless, the lazy and the unemployed' it is not even in any limited sense, the party of the working class. It is, and is especially under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, a socialist party. It aspires to a more equal distribution of wealth, and as evidenced by the recent party manifesto, to do this without the smallest disadvantage to 95% of the population. The problem with such a suggestion is the vast middle and moderately high income earners who believe that they would be personally disadvantaged by a Labour government. This is to misunderstand the gargantuan step change in the assets of 95% of the population compared with the top 5%, the even greater disparity between the top 5% and the top 1%, and the gigantic, almost inconceivable disparity between the top 1% and the top 0.1%. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the top 5% own 40% of the disposable wealth in the UK. The top 1% own 24% of disposable wealth. The top 0.1% earn an average of £1m annual income, and the top 3000 taxpayers pay more tax than the bottom 9 million ... (more than 35% of all income tax payers in the UK), whilst the wealth gap continues to grow. The Tory claims about cutting tax for the very highest earners to incentivise their further economic activity, seem somewhat hollow given these circumstances. Tax increases which had no more effect than maintaining, not growing the wealth gap would be socially beneficial, and in real terms, victimless. Labour is about making people more equally rich, not more equally poor.

We do not have to look far for examples of the type of economy which Labour proposes; contrary to the hyperbolic scaremongering which is a natural manifestation of the fear of various vested interests, many western economies function broadly in the way which Labour proposes for the UK. Denmark, Finland, Canada, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, New Zealand all subscribe to some, even many of the democratic socialist principles advocated by the Labour Party in the UK. Canada, Finland, Norway and Ireland are in the top ten countries to live in the world, as determined by the UN. Others, including Belgium, France and Germany have successful and popular state ownership of utilities, often through state run businesses which also have major investments in foreign countries. Many of the countries listed above have excellent welfare provision alongside an affluent and contented middle class, and nothing which is current Labour Party policy would be controversial in many already successful economies.

Returning to the Conservative Party, it is today, and has always been serving the interest of an already hugely wealthy elite. It's reinvention, first under Disraeli and again under Thatcher, was necessary to retain power. Policy needed to maintain a degree of credibility for the premise that the interests of the many, and particularly the middle classes were of genuine concern, have of necessity been implemented, but only ever with the greatest of care to protect, at the same time, the 1%, and most importantly, the 0.1%. If you are reading this, it is almost inconceivable that you are anything but one of the 99%. When Jeremy Corbyn speaks of 'the many', he is speaking of you and I. Consider this. Consider the possibility that 99%, or even 95% of the population, including yourself, would be advantaged by a democratic socialist model, as successfully implemented in many Nordic states. Now if you do not have enough personal assets and resources to test the hypothesis for fear that it might fail, then you are without doubt a member of the social group which Labour seeks to advantage with it's policies. If you do have the resources to comfortably undertake such an experiment, then you have little to lose. To deny millions of hard working people the hope that a fairer, more equal society is possible, is frankly crass, selfish, and worthy only of the Harmsworth’s, Desmond's, Barclay's, and Murdoch's of this world. I will end with a challenge. If you remain convinced that you are a Tory; by all means, read and digest the pro Tory, or anti Labour, or anti Corbyn news or opinion pieces. You are free of course also to agree with them. Just check, as an academic exercise, who actually owns the organisation which originated the article.

[benrleeusa]

[Jeff Rosen] What Would William Howard Taft Do About Syria and Mexico?

President Trump this morning tweeted that Russia should "Get ready" to shoot down American missiles fired at Syria "because they will be coming, nice and new and 'smart'!" And in response to his request, the Republican governors of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico have sent 1,600 National Guard members to the Mexican border, to combat what Trump has called a "crisis of our southern border."

Does the President have the constitutional authority to send troops over the Mexican border without Congressional approval? Trump's most constitutionally minded predecessor, William Howard Taft, believed he did not. In Taft's time, as in ours, some Republicans were demanding that the president provoke a military confront with Mexico over border security. In March 1911, Taft sent 20,000 American troops up to the Mexican border, to protect American citizens and capital in Mexico in the face of up uprising against the Mexican president, Porfirio Diaz. (Taft, like Trump, did not consult his cabinet.)

But although President Diaz expected an invasion, Taft carefully instructed his commanders not to cross the Mexican border, believing that the President lacked the constitutional authority to declare war without Congressional approval. In the end, Congress refused to authorize an invasion and Taft kept the troops waiting at the border as a deterrent, resisting populist cries for war.

In acting with constitutional restraint at the Mexican border, Taft was putting the national interest above his partisan interests. When he read that four Americans had been killed in Mexico, his wife asked if there would be war. Taft replied, "I only know that I am going to do everything in my power to prevent one. Already there is a movement in the Grand Old Party" -- he intoned the words sarcastically -- "to utilize this trouble for party ends.... I am afraid I am a constant disappointment to my party. The fact of the matter is, the longer I am President the less of a party man I seem to become.... [I]t seems to me to be impossible to be a strict party man and serve the whole country impartially."

Taft's legalistic precision at the border evoked our greatest constitutionally minded president, Abraham Lincoln. In 1846, President James K. Polk sent troops to the Mexican border, in response to what he claimed was a Mexican invasion. Lincoln -- elected later year as a young Whig Congressman -- would introduce his famous "spot resolutions," demanding that Polk identify the precise spot where blood had been shed, to establish it was on U.S. soil. (This earned him the nickname "Spotty Lincoln.")

Taft and Lincoln, in other words, insisted that the president has no power to send American troops across the Mexican border without Congressional approval. What about a strike on Syria? President Trump, like President Obama, has insisted on his power to launch unilateral strikes in the war against terror. The constitutional arguments for and against these assertions of presidential unilateralism are well debated on these We the People podcasts hosted by the National Constitution Center, including John Yoo v. Ilya Somin on Obama and Deborah Perlstein v. Sai Prakash on Trump.

But William Howard Taft's position was clear. "It seems my duty as Commander in Chief to place troops in sufficient number where, if Congress shall direct that they enter Mexico to save American lives and property, an effective movement may be promptly made," he declared in an address to Congress in March, 1911. But Taft emphasized that he would never authorize unilateral military action. "The assumption by the press that I contemplate intervention on Mexican soil to protect American lives or property is of course gratuitous, because I seriously doubt whether I have such authority under any circumstances, and if I had I would not exercise it without express congressional approval."

[debra2007-blog]

Ulysses S. Grant

February 22, 2017 Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was the 18th President of the United States (1869–77).

Previously, as Commanding General of the United States Army (1864–69), Grant had worked closely with President Abraham Lincoln to lead the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy, in the American Civil War. As president, Grant implemented Congressional Reconstruction, often at odds with Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson. Twice elected president, Grant led the Republicans in their effort to remove the vestiges of Confederate nationalism and slavery, protect African-American citizenship, and supported industrial growth during the Gilded Age.

Grant graduated in 1843 from the United States Military Academy at West Point, then served in the Mexican–American War and initially retired in 1854. He struggled financially in civilian life. When the Civil War began in 1861, he rejoined the U.S. Army. In 1862, Grant took control of Kentucky and most of Tennessee, and led Union forces to victory in the Battle of Shiloh, earning a reputation as an aggressive commander. He incorporated displaced African American slaves into the Union war effort. In July 1863, after a series of coordinated battles, Grant defeated Confederate armies and seized Vicksburg, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River and dividing the Confederacy in two. After his victories in the Chattanooga Campaign, Lincoln promoted him to lieutenant-general and Commanding General of the United States Army in March 1864. Grant confronted Robert E. Lee in a series of bloody battles, trapping Lee's army in their defense of Richmond. Grant coordinated a series of devastating campaigns in other theaters, as well. In April 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, effectively ending the war.

Historians have hailed Grant's military genius, and his strategies are featured in military history textbooks, but a minority contend that he won by brute force rather than superior strategy.

After the Civil War, Grant led the army's supervision of Reconstruction in the former Confederate states. Elected president in 1868 and reelected in 1872, he stabilized the nation during the turbulent Reconstruction period, prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan, and enforced civil rights and voting rights laws using the army and the Department of Justice. He used the army to build the Republican Party in the South, based on black voters, Northern newcomers ("carpetbaggers"), and native Southern white supporters ("scalawags"). After the disenfranchisement of some former Confederates, Republicans gained majorities, and African Americans were elected to Congress and high state offices.

In his second term, the Republican coalitions in the South splintered and were defeated one by one as redeemers (conservative whites) regained control using coercion and violence. In May 1875, Grant authorized his Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow to shut down and prosecute the corrupt nationwide Whiskey Ring. Grant's Indian peace policy initially reduced frontier violence but is best known for the Great Sioux War of 1876, wherein George Custer and his regiment were killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Grant responded to charges of corruption in executive offices more than any other 19th Century president. He appointed the first Civil Service Commission and signed legislation ending the corrupt moiety system.

In foreign policy, Grant sought to increase American trade and influence, while remaining at peace with the world. His administration successfully resolved the Alabama claims by the Treaty of Washington with Great Britain, ending wartime tensions. Grant avoided war with Spain over the Virginius Affair, but Congress rejected his attempted annexation of the Dominican Republic. Grant's administration implemented a gold standard and sought to strengthen the dollar. Corruption charges escalated during his second term, while his response to the Panic of 1873 proved ineffective nationally in halting the five-year industrial depression that produced high unemployment, low prices, low profits, and bankruptcies. Grant left office in 1877 and embarked on a two-year world tour which helped to establish the United States' presence abroad and captured the nation's attention.

In 1880, Grant was unsuccessful in obtaining a Republican presidential nomination for a third term. Facing severe investment reversals and dying of throat cancer, he completed his memoirs, which proved to be a major literary work and financial success. His death in 1885 prompted an outpouring in support of national unity. Historical assessment of Grant's legacy has varied considerably over the years. Early historical evaluations were negative about Grant's presidency, often focusing on the corruption charges against his associates. This trend began to change in the later 20th century. Scholars in general rank his presidency below the average, but modern research, in part focusing on civil rights, evaluates his administration more positively.

Early life and education Further information: Early life and career of Ulysses S. Grant White clapboard house and outbuildings behind a white fence Grant's birthplace in Point Pleasant, Ohio Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, on April 27, 1822, to Jesse Root Grant, a tanner, and Hannah Grant (née Simpson). His ancestors Matthew and Priscilla Grant arrived aboard the Mary and John at Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. Grant's great-grandfather fought in the French and Indian War, and his grandfather Noah served in the American Revolution at Bunker Hill. Afterward, Noah settled in Pennsylvania and married Rachel Kelley, the daughter of an Irish pioneer. Their son Jesse was a Whig Party supporter with abolitionist sentiments.

In 1823, the family moved to the village of Georgetown in Brown County, Ohio, where five more siblings were born: Simpson, Clara, Orvil, Jennie, and Mary. At the age of five, young Grant began his formal education, starting at a subscription school and later was enrolled in two private schools. In the winter of 1836–1837, Grant was a student at Maysville Seminary, and in the autumn of 1838 he attended John Rankin's academy. Disliking the tannery, he chose to work on his father's farm. Unlike his siblings, Grant was not forced to attend church by his Methodist parents; for the rest of his life, he prayed privately and never officially joined any denomination. Grant inherited some of Hannah's Methodist piety and quiet nature. Observers, however, including his own son, thought he was an agnostic.

In his youth, Grant developed an unusual ability to work with and control horses. As a general, he rode the strongest and most challenging horse available, and was sometimes injured in riding.

Memoirs, pension, and death Grant sitting in a porch chair wrapped in blankets Grant working on his memoirs in June 1885, less than a month before his death Drawing of steam engine and train approaching station with an honor guard at attention Grant's funeral train at West Point To restore his family's income and reputation, Grant wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine at $500 each. The articles were well received by critics, and the editor, Robert Underwood Johnson, suggested that Grant write a book of memoirs, as Sherman and others had done. Grant's articles would serve as the basis for several chapters.

"In the summer of 1884, Grant complained of a soreness in his throat but put off seeing a doctor until late October when he learned it was throat cancer, possibly caused by his frequent cigar smoking. Grant chose not to reveal the seriousness of his condition to his wife, who soon found out from Grant's doctor at her insistence. Before being diagnosed, Grant was invited to a Methodist service for Civil War veterans in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, on August 4, 1884, receiving a standing ovation from more than ten thousand veterans and others; it would be his last public appearance. In March of the following year, the New York Times finally announced that Grant was dying of cancer and a nationwide public concern for the former president began. Knowing of Grant's financial difficulties, Congress restored him to the rank of General of the Army with full retirement pay. Grant's assumption of the Presidency in 1869 had required that he resign his military commission and forfeit his pension.

Despite his debilitating illness, Grant worked diligently on his memoirs at his home in New York City, and then from a cottage on the slopes of Mount McGregor, finishing only days before he died. Grant asked his former staff officer, Adam Badeau, to help edit his work. Grant's son Fred assisted with references and proofreading. Century magazine offered Grant a book contract with a 10 percent royalty, but Grant accepted a better offer from his friend, Mark Twain, who proposed a 75 percent royalty. His memoirs end with the Civil War.

The book, Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, was a critical and commercial success. In the end, Julia Grant received about $450,000 in royalties. The memoir has been highly regarded by the public, military historians, and literary critics. Grant portrayed himself in the persona of the honorable Western hero, whose strength lies in his honesty and straightforwardness. He candidly depicted his battles against both the Confederates and internal army foes. Twain called the Memoirs a "literary masterpiece." Given over a century of favorable literary analysis, reviewer Mark Perry states that the Memoirs are "the most significant work" of American non-fiction. Grant's successful autobiography pioneered a method for ex-presidents and veterans to earn money.

After a year-long struggle with the cancer, surrounded by his family, Grant died at 8 o'clock in the morning in the Mount McGregor cottage on July 23, 1885, at the age of 63. Sheridan, then Commanding General of the Army, ordered a day-long tribute to Grant on all military posts, and President Grover Cleveland ordered a thirty-day nationwide period of mourning. After private services, the honor guard placed Grant's body on a special funeral train, which traveled to West Point and New York City. A quarter of a million people viewed it in the two days before the funeral. Tens of thousands of men, many of them veterans from the Grand Army of the Republic marched with Grant's casket drawn by two dozen horses to Riverside Park in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City. His pallbearers included Union generals Sherman and Sheridan, Confederate generals Simon Bolivar Buckner and Joseph E. Johnston, Admiral David Dixon Porter, and Senator John A. Logan, the head of the GAR. Following the casket in the seven-mile-long procession were President Cleveland, the two living former presidents Hayes and Arthur, all of the President's Cabinet, as well as the justices of the Supreme Court.

Grant's body was laid to rest in Riverside Park, first in a temporary tomb, and then—twelve years later, on April 17, 1897—in the General Grant National Memorial, also known as "Grant's Tomb", the largest mausoleum in North America. Attendance at the New York funeral topped 1.5 million. Ceremonies were held in other major cities around the country, while Grant was eulogized in the press and likened to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Have a blessed day and weekend. May Yeshua the Messiah bless you, Love, Debbie

[vagabondretired]

Happy 244th birthday to "#9" William Henry "Tippecanoe" Harrison. During his nearly two-hour inaugural address (sans overcoat), he pledged not to run for a second term and, in one of the fastest fulfillments of a campaign promise ever, caught pneumonia and died 32 days later, but not before being plied with enough ipecac, opium, castor oil, calomel, camphor and brandy to kill a small army. But he did have a lasting effect on our electoral process. From Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents by Cormac O'Brien: If Harrison was no dream candidate, his campaign for president was one of the most important in American history. Before 1840, active campaigning for office was considered about as crass as writing a blurb for your own book. Candidates were supposed to maintain an air of ambivalence while others did their stumping for them. Harrison changed all that by personally jumping into the fray with earnest, smiling enthusiasm, and his Whig party cohorts turned the campaign into a circus. They dismissed opponent Martin Van Buren as a snob and a dandy, claiming their boy Harrison was the real man of the people. There were parties, bands, garish banners. It worked. The Whigs only fielded two winning candidates (Zachary Taylor was the other), and neither could finish their first term without a visit from the grim reaper. But, hey---great parties!

[tridentine2013]

Winning the hearts and minds of the Twopenny Tories ...

If any statement ever made by Sun Tzu could be said to contain the essence of his philosophy of battle, it is this; “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

It is all too easy to stereotype the working class/lower middle class rump on whom the modern Conservative Party rely. As a group they appear persuaded that not only (conveniently) their own best interests, but also broader societal advancement, is best served by the modern Conservative Party. They perceive an authority in matters of the management of state and in fiscal competence, and display a deference to class and privilege, as if such advantages naturally imbued those so endowed with an unquestionable superiority. These are ideas which, whilst in no way borne out be historical facts, are none the less stubbornly embedded in the psyche of the Tory supporting 'middle and lower orders'.

Two centuries ago, it was exclusively the landed and titled few who dominated the politics of the day. Whether they were Whigs or Tories, it mattered little; they exercised a social hegemony which appeared impervious. The ruling elite was a simple matter of fact. Working people did not have a vote, and any attempt to create mass movements for social change was met with savage opposition. Jeremy Corbyn is known to often quote the last verse of Shelley's 'Masque of Anarchy', which was written in response to the 'Peterloo Massacre', when protestors in Manchester, seeking parliamentary representation,  were cavalry charged,  killing or injuring hundreds of men, women and children. At the time, working people had for over 450 years been statutorily denied representation, collective bargaining, or union membership by the 'Ordinance of Labourers', enacted in the mid 14th century. Trade Unions themselves were only decriminalised in 1867. The Second Reform Act, and the right to legally become a member of a trade union, led directly to the necessary idea of 'One Nation Conservatism'.

From Disraeli on, Tory administrations were bound to at least pretend that they were prepared to serve the interests of those to whom the franchise had been extended. It is a matter of historical fact that only such social groups as could influence parliamentary outcomes interested the thoughts of the now 'Conservative Party'.  If workers deaths were too expensive to prevent, they would likely continue. As one of countless examples, white phosphorous, used for matches, was much cheaper than red phosphorus, but also much less safe. Consequently, the cost saving saw generations of working class women and girls in the East End of London suffer horrific health problems. The Bryant and May match factory workers who became of the 'Union of Women Matchworkers', thirty years before the Suffragettes, were fundamentally significant in the early development of both trades unions, and the Labour movement as a whole.

Women only became truly relevant to the Conservative Party once the Suffragettes finally achieved their aims. So around 100 years ago, after many centuries of struggle, and the sacrifices of both life and liberty, most men, and women over 30, finally had an effective voice in their own circumstances and futures. Yet at this seminal moment in British social history, also arose the hivemind of the 'Twopenny Tories'. Working people, men and women, persuaded that it was the natural order for 'the state' (which for hundreds of years had been Tories (Conservatives) or Whigs (Liberals), to govern, were if not suspicious of the motives of the Labour Party, at least unconvinced of their abilities, absent any track record. They felt that the 'aspirational' rhetoric of the Conservative Party best suited their personal desire to stop being poor, and start being rich, blind to, or regardless of, the degree to which the deck was stacked against them. Several generations on now, and particularly amongst the lower middle classes, there is a belief that there is a historical vindication; that indeed the Tories create more employment, more wealth, and are more competent in government. These claims are of course endlessly repeated by Conservative politicians, usually without challenge. Which sadly tends to reinforce the belief that they are incontestable fact.

So we arrive today, at a situation where perhaps 1% of the electorate represent the interests of those who for many hundreds of years dominated the politics of the UK, but a far larger cohort believe that the Labour movement is one of the politics of envy, and which seeks, through the demon 'socialism', to see that indolence is rewarded, and that we are all equally poor.  It is these Twopenny Tories who are the enemies of socialism today. The 1% traditionally relied on power and inherited position, and are not sufficiently numerous to retain power in our modern democracy, except by the consent of a supportive, if misinformed rump.

The real challenge for socialists is to at every opportunity dispel the myths which inform the decision to lend support to an elite which they (Twopenny Tories) genuinely believe seek to perpetuate a 'trickle down' system that benefits them to a greater degree than would a Labour Government. They will cite the extent to which their personal circumstances are so much better than those into which they were born, believing this to be a direct result of the various periods of Tory Government in their lifetimes. Quite whether they would have achieved their own ambitions without the many key social advancements under Labour Governments; The NHS, The networks established by nationalised transport infrastructures, the many broad improvements to working conditions and rights negotiated by once strong unions, sick pay, maternity pay, working hours, training, equality acts, health and safety, social housing and many other factors were not Tory initiatives. But there is an even greater misunderstanding when we analyse specifically the relative wealth of the lower middle classes and for example large business owners. In 1918 the richest 1% in the UK received over 20% of all UK generated wealth. The period from the end of the first world war through to 1979 saw this figure fall to around 6%. Just 6%, not 20%, or 1/5th of created wealth, was accumulated by the top 1%. This was a period of growing strength in both trade unions and the wider labour movement. (The influence of the Labour Party on the figures, even when in opposition during this time, should not be underestimated.)

The great catastrophe of the 20th century however, was the government lead by Margaret Thatcher. The much lauded first female Prime Minister presided over an administration which demonised and all but destroyed Trade Union power, Privatised many state industries, and sold off (without replacing) social housing stock. These policies reinforced the mistaken belief that the Conservative Party best catalysed the aspirations of the middle earners, many of whom by the 1980s were happily ensconced in 'their own homes'. But for considerably more than 95% of the UK population, from the 1980s onwards, even in a period of relative affluence (which in large part was fuelled by lending secured against the new assets of ex council house occupants, now ‘homeowners’) things reversed trajectory. Now once again the top 1% appropriate around 20% of all earned wealth, average real wages in 2017 are lower than they were in 2000, and for the foreseeable future, Conservative policies offer nothing to suggest a general above inflation wages trend. But we still have the persistent idea that such a situation is a necessary outcome of the required and delivered, Conservative 'fiscal responsibility'; and a consequence of the dire situation inherited in 2010. The extent to which the so called 'Labour' governments of Blair and Brown were responsible for the state of the UK economy in 2010 is in itself overstated. In fact what is often overlooked is the real progress made in 2009/2010 towards producing a trajectory of growing the economy out of recession, quickly replaced by Tory austerity, which led to a double dip recession in all but technical definition.

The Conservatives tend not to seek to offer any evidence for their claims of fiscal acumen. It is usually presented as a truism, and sadly, usually left unchallenged. Tory Governments borrow more than Labour administrations, and have done so at a rate of 15-20% more over the last 70 years. Labour Governments pay down more debt than Conservative Governments, and have done so consistently over the last 70 years. There are many measures by which Labour Governments outperform the Conservatives, both in broad and specific areas. Labour averagely increase defence budgets, Tories averagely reduce them. It is generally accepted however that Labour are more supportive of the NHS, but even this fact is usually broached as some kind of inefficient profligacy. I cannot of course expect the preceding assertions to simply pass without supporting evidence, so please feel free to analyse, even deconstruct the data from the following sources;

http://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/taq30tk04ljnvpyfos059pp0w7gnpe

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/14/labour-have-borrowed-less-and-repaid-more-than-the-conservatives-since-1979/

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/13/the-conservatives-have-been-the-biggest-borrowers-over-the-last-70-years/

So it is possible to confirm that indeed the Twopenny Tories are misguided. And it would be easy to simply bathe in the self indulgent 'warm waters' of a superior knowledge and understanding of our political economy. But this achieves little or nothing. The real challenge is to earn their vote. It takes two 'new voters', or previous 'non voters', to achieve the same result as converting a single Tory voter to the Labour cause. The only way that Labour will achieve this objective to a meaningful extent, will be to enthuse these inadvertent and unwitting facilitators of Tory dispensed misery and social breakdown, that the Labour Party is their natural ally, not simply the champion of the oppressed, or feckless, or disabled. The relatively affluent but more statistically 'average earning' Tory voter must believe that the Labour  Party stands for their aspirations, as well as a more general equality. The next manifesto needs all the positive and well received content of the last, but in addition, policies and objectives which speak to the needs and desires of the Twopenny Tories. The reversal of the Tory acceleration to the pension age changes would be a useful starting point. The re-emphasis that Labour taxation plans protect the current contribution of all but 95% of the population is also desirable and necessary. These and other initiatives will greatly help the cause. But returning to Sun Tzu, perhaps the more 'moderate' wing of the party could have a real role to play … many of the target Tory voters were persuaded by Blair and Brown. We need real dialogue between the various factions of our 'broad church', focussed not on in fighting, but on winning the next election, whenever it comes. There are sections of the electorate which are better understood by the Yvette Cooper's, the Chuka Amunna's, the Hilary Benn's and the Stephen Kinnock’s of the Labour Party. The Labour Party in opposition should not be a party riven with disharmony, deselection and division. If it can achieve this one thing, unity, it can at last be a truly transformative force.