Down the rabbit hole with grandma's Bible

I wanted to check a different translation today for the sermon, so I tried to find my old KJV from 1946, which I received for Christmas that year as a first grader in Forreston, IL. Instead, I pulled out my grandmother's Bible, dated 1901, which was the year of her marriage. Big mistake to read the preface on how this Bible came to be (too long to explain but there was definitely a big battle between the British committee and the American committee in 1885). Then I opened it to the passage I was looking for in John and found a 4-leaf clover pressed at the beginning of the New Testament (another preface with additional information I stopped to read), a purple ribbon to mark the place (which practically crumbled when I tried to straighten it. Then I found an old newspaper clipping from 1934, probably the Gospel Messenger of the Church of the Brethren (I only know this because one of my articles published when I was working was about my grandparents' library and all the journals/magazines they had, and I learned how to read the clues.)

The clipping was a poem "Teach me to live" which begins "Teach me to live! 'tis easier far to die--/Gently and silently to pass away--" and ends with "Teach me to live, and find my life in Thee/ Looking from earth and earthly things away:" On the verso in perfect alignment was the death notices from November 1932 to January 1934 of Brethren probably sent by their home church, and a list of offerings from North Dakota (there may have been all states, but that's what fit on the clipping).

There was no author for the poem, so I went to the internet, and found it, in several versions, often used with funeral notices. I found one reference from 1865, but it still didn't give the author, although I stopped to read the article (a Bible study). Then I found a sad story about a young Jamaican man who died in 1916, with separate notices by both his wife and his parents. The wife continued to post this memorial poem for another 10 years after his death. The editor, who was apparently researching the archives, speculated that the wife and the parents didn't get along and so published separate notices and thank yous to friends of the family and deceased.

I checked "Find a Grave" for a few of the names on the list, but even those names I found which matched the state, didn't have the right year. Oh, and the Jamaican newspaper had a Facebook page, and I noticed FB reminded me it is my niece Jenny's birthday, so I had to look through her page.

This is why it takes so long to do a short Bible study about Nicodemus.

Would a united Christian church bring us out of this mess?

It’s been suggested before. I don’t see for this time in history.

I was reading Erling Olsen’s meditation on Psalm 124 this morning which begins, “If it had not been the LORD who was on our side . . .” Olsen had a Sunday afternoon radio broadcast in the mid-1930s on the Psalms, which was so popular it was later published and has been through many printings. In 1937 he wrote:

“The entire world is now being swamped by a tidal wave of materialism and the hearts of many are filled with apprehension concerning the future.  The whole earth appears to be in a state of turmoil as some of the nations of the earth seem bent on war, while the unrest in other nations resembles a war scare.  It seems as if all the world is seated upon a keg of dynamite, with everybody playing around the keg with a lighted torch.”

He moves from the Depression era and war threats coming from Europe in 1937  back to ancient Israel and when it did not through its own power make it to the promised land, and that’s what Psalm 124 celebrates.

Than back to 1937.  It seemed, he said, that we had turned the corner, that we were on the road to prosperity (that wasn’t the case—the economy was heading for a recession with the Depression), but he lamented that men hadn’t ceased to be materialists and doubted they had learned any lessons.  One prominent Christian, very wealthy (he didn’t give his name) suggested that only a “united Christian world could stem the rising tide of materialism, of selfishness, of broken traditions and crumbling moral standards and point the way out.”  He lamented the failure of the church visible, with its sects, still clinging to its denominationalism “in a drifting, disillusioned, discouraged world which sees in the church confusion rather than hope.”

That certainly describes the church today, so I’m thinking the proposal of that rich and influential Christian didn’t work. Olsen goes on to say, . .

“I wholeheartedly endorse the comments which that gentleman made and I agree with him that the world is on the brink of disaster as its very foundations are being shaken.  I agree with him that the only thing for the church today is to bear a united testimony, so that she may be a bulwark against the raging storm.  But let me be clear.  There can be no united Christian church except it be founded on a solid rock.. . . I am wholeheartedly for Christian unity if that unity is based on the deity of Christ, on the impregnable rock of Holy Write, on the cardinal truth of the Christian faith revealed at the cross of Jesus Christ which towers ‘o’er the wrecks of time.’ I am for unity of the Christian church in bearing an effectual testimony to a world of moral failure when it invites the individual members of society to come to the ‘fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins,’ . . . What power the Christian church would have in this world if it would give faithful testimony concerning these verities of our faith.”

The church is no more united now than 80+ years ago. And during our present national and world crisis, it seems to have closed its doors and settled for the title, “non-essential.” Although individual congregations went to court to keep their doors open, most just quietly folded and turned to their technology staff, if they had one. A few used their parking lots and speaker systems.  Various religious voices brightly proclaim the church is moving into the community via technology like Zoom, Facebook, Tik Tok and on-line services, but I hardly think that replaces the hundreds of ministries that have closed which evangelize, feed, clothe, build, educate and visit the millions who need the church.

Olsen suggested that in the 1930s the failure of the church was the responsibility of those that have not been faithful to the Gospel of Christ, who have undermined faith in the scriptures and stripped Jesus of his Glory bringing him down to a life devoted to a principle.  That Jesus can transform lives and is not a mere social message is a message lost in today’s (1937) world, he said. That might be part of it, but I know some Bible-believing, gospel preaching churches that were just too comfortable and lukewarm to Stand up for Jesus. They looked to the government, to science, to social media and the confusing advice of the experts to see them through.   Prayer, worship, fasting, service—well, they can wait on a vaccine, or a new president, or a less virulent mutation while we hunker down in our homes.

Psalm 107—message for today from 1936

Yesterday morning the Psalm selection in Magnificat was Psalm 107—titled, "A Psalm with a message for America Today." Erling C. Olsen is so good at going back in history and explaining what was going on in Israel when the psalm was written, what its significance is for the life of Jesus, and then our lives. Except. He was speaking/writing in 1936. That was the Great Depression. The book is based on his radio broadcasts. He comments about the warnings God had given Israel--the people would taste the goodness of God, they would back slide, he would warn them, they would get in great trouble, then cry out and God would save them. He was merciful. Then it would start all over.

By 1936, when he gave this broadcast about Psalm 107 the U.S. had been in depression for 7 years, and in 1934 and 1935 there were serious droughts (the people on the east coast barely noticed because is was happening in the wheat belt and plains). The Americans blamed everybody and everything for our circumstances, he said, except our own sins. The government had ordered the farmers to plow under their fields and slay their livestock. Olsen said he didn't wish to get political but from the president on down, these were godless, wicked doings.**

"Just as God will turn a fruitful land into barrenness because of the wickedness of the people that dwell therein, so upon their repentance He will turn the wilderness into a standing water, and the dry ground into water springs so that the people may sow the fields, and plant vineyards, which may yield fruits of increase. . . . That kind of blessing only comes when a nation bows itself before God and repents of its wickedness. Would to God Americans would do that!"

Maybe he's waiting for the churches to open.

**Note: Olsen is referring to the Agriculture Adjustment Act of 1933 (sort of like "Cash for Clunkers" under Obama) when the elitists in government decided prices were too low and the production too high, so herds were slaughtered, and food destroyed, even though people were starving. The farmers had to cooperate or they would get no aid from the government. Is this ridiculous plan beginning to sound like 2020?

What is storytelling?

Lately I’ve been hearing/reading the expression “telling the story” or “story telling to fight injustice,” “the narrative,” . . . as in  “young people can bring about social justice by simply telling the stories of who they are and what they have experienced.”  https://pj.news.chass.ncsu.edu/2016/06/06/making-change-by-changing-the-story/

Really?  That’s all it takes? When I watched Christiane Amanpour interview the British woman last night, the Brit used the expression about “telling our story” several times.  I have no idea what that means other than entertainment value like the “moth porch stories” we’ve begun at Lakeside, or listening to learn more about family.

“The goal [of a non-profit for young people] is to creating programming that allows for young people to tell the story of “what it is to grow up economically poor, Black and brown in this country, to be educated in poor schools, to be in communities that are inundated with drugs and violence, but to overcome that.” That ability to take back the narrative of who they are develops a strong sense of empowerment within young people that allows them to “form a moral and ethical code – who they are as young people – helps them become leaders and social change makers” in a cycle that continues to fight poverty decade after decade. These youth then end up seeking out roles in their communities and abroad, continuing the narrative that young people can bring about social justice by simply telling the stories of who they are and what they have experienced."

Twenty five years ago I had prepared a family story and cook book for a Corbett reunion, and was chatting with my Aunt Lois who died two weeks ago at 92.  Different members had brought along old photographs to share, and there was one of her in the late 1930s, heighth of the Great Depression. She looked fabulous.   I made a comment about the family being poor, and she laughed (she had the greatest laugh in the whole family) and said—“We had no idea we were poor.  In the Depression everyone was poor.”

So I’m wondering how encouraging children to look at their homes, schools and neighborhoods as being victims of a cruel society helps them achieve, get good jobs, find the right life partner, and raise a family.

Eight little Indians series by Platt and Munk

Generally, I would never deface a book, but I have 8 of the American Indian books by Platt and Munk published in the 1930s. I loved them as a child (also published in one volume) and purchased them as used books about 20 years ago. I'd like to mat and frame them--just a touch of rubber cement on mat board to hold them in place. They are not rare or valuable. Beautiful illustrations by Roger Vernam. 

 

I think for the most part they are very authentic and wouldn't cause hysteria in today's PC atmosphere. Vernam was a wonderful illustrator. He was the subject of my blog 10 years ago. http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2007/05/roger-vernam-illustrator-some-of-my.html

 

Each book is 12 pages,  both color and b & w, ends with a poem on back.

 

A perfect cycling lecture—Sir Martin Gilbert on Churchill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hArErdaiOW0

I consider him the best writer of the 20th century.  One volume of his history of the 20th century is on my bedside table—still unread.

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/01/gilberts-history-of-twentieth-century-v.html

This speech was given in 2001.   Sir Martin Gilbert died February 3 at age 79.

Happy Days are Here Again

Ronald Clark, a blogger and retired systems engineer for the Navy from Indianapolis, Indiana writes:

Back when the depression was going and America was suffering badly, Franklin D. Roosevelt mounted a Presidential campaign that featured the song, "Happy Days Are Here Again" with vague promises of a transformation of America into a place where the Government would take care of the people. He was elected with "Happy Days Are Here Again" ringing in everyone's hearts and ears. This was the start of real socialism in America and if you are so inclined to research the era, you will discover everything that FDR did during his years as President, made the depression and suffering much worse. The depression was a once-in-a lifetime opportunity (never let a crisis go to waste) to gain power for the Federal Government to implement policy that would never be accepted during normal times. His nanny Government also was responsible for extending the depression in America while the rest of the world recovered quite rapidly.

In other words, it was WWII that ended the American depression, not the entitlement, utopian policies of FDR. There is even strong evidence that FDR made decisions that forced the US into war in order to recover from the depression with his socialism policies firmly in place.

I know, not pretty, but mostly true.

The "Happy Days Are Here Again" theme during the FDR era is the same utopian Flim Flam that people ate up then and is the same as is the "Hope and Change" utopian nonsense that gullible people are gobbling up today and believe the Government can create jobs and take care of them. The point being, that the same disastrous results are occurring as in FDR's day and one must wonder if all of these unnecessary wars nowadays are an attempt to recover as FDR used WWII to recover. (Sorry, the wars nowadays are not big enough to effect the desired change.)

There really is no free lunch, someone must pay and we are now paying with our treasure, freedoms and jobs.

Happy Days

Original recording used in the 1930 MGM film Chasing Rainbows and recorded by Leo Reisman with vocals by Lou Levin.

Is Obama campaigning Like It's 1936?

Yes, and like FDR, he'll drag this out to achieve his political ends--more government in our lives.

FDR needed more revenue to support his big-government schemes. More importantly, he needed a villain to explain why, given the passage of his New Deal legislation, government spending and regulations, the economy was still struggling.

So he proposed raising taxes on the rich, which he dubbed a “Wealth Tax.” As he explained to Congress in June 1935, “Our revenue laws have operated in many ways to the unfair advantage of the few, and they have done little to prevent the unjust concentration of wealth and economic power. … Social unrest and a deepening sense of unfairness are dangers to our national life which we must minimize by rigorous methods.” President Obama couldn’t have said it better himself.

Obama: Campaigning Like It's 1936 - Forbes

More unintended consequences caused by Congress

Last night's Glenn Beck program was a rerun of some features he's done on American history and the treatment of minorities and aliens, primarily by Democrats. Woodrow Wilson and the reinstatement of segregation in government employment and the military, aka, Jim Crow; Andrew Jackson and the forceable relocation of American Indians; FDR and the internment of Japanese, German and Italian Americans in camps.

And I just came across a little known problem dealing with minorities and Democrats during the FDR years that I'd never heard of: The Tydings–McDuffie Act of 1934, named for two Democrats in Congress, Maryland Senator Millard E. Tydings and Alabama Representative John McDuffie. It provided for the drafting and guidelines of a Constitution for a 10-year "transitional period" which became the government of the Commonwealth of the Philippines before the granting of Philippine independence, during which the US would maintain military forces in the Philippines.

Furthermore, during this period the American President was granted the power to call into military service all military forces of the Philippine government. The act permitted the maintenance of US naval bases, within this region, for two years after independence.

The act reclassified all Filipinos that were living in the United States as aliens for the purposes of immigration to America. Filipinos were no longer allowed to work legally in the US, and a quota of 50 immigrants per year was established."

Sounds to me like the Filipinos lost much more than they gained on this one, particularly if they were already living and working in the U.S. or the Territory of Hawaii, and needed to send money home to their families.

FDR abolished benefits for American veterans as an economy measure

Maybe that's why all those WWI veterans' photos and stories in Life and Look are so awful! Go to a library and see for yourself! Look what FDR did to the veterans--those guys who survived the enormous battles in France that took thousands of lives, who survived gassing and the flu pandemic. And it could happen again if you give a President too many powers like FDR had during the Depression to "restore" the economy.

Veterans Administration Created

President Hoover, in his 1929 State of the Union message, proposed consolidating agencies administering veterans benefits. The following year Congress created the Veterans Administration by uniting three bureaus - the previously independent Veterans' Bureau, the Bureau of Pensions and the National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. President Hoover signed the executive order establishing the VA on July 21, 1930. Hines, who had served since 1923 as director of the Veterans' Bureau, was named the first administrator of the agency.

The new agency was responsible for medical services for war veterans; disability compensation and allowances for World War I veterans; life insurance; bonus certificates; retirement payments for emergency officers; Army and Navy pensions; and retirement payments for civilian employees. During the next decade, from 1931 to 1941, VA hospitals would increase from 64 to 91, and the number of beds would rise from 33,669 to 61,849.

In March 1933, President Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the "Economy Act." A response to the Great Depression, the measure included a repeal of all previous laws granting benefits for veterans of the Spanish-American War and all subsequent conflicts and periods of peacetime service.

It also gave the President authority to issue new veterans benefits. Roosevelt then promulgated regulations that radically reduced veterans benefits. When the President's authority to establish benefits by executive order expired in 1935, Congress reenacted most of the laws that had been in effect earlier."

You can read about this at the History of the VA.

Another fragile group FDR's new tax programs (tripled during the Depression) nearly destroyed was African Americans--one of his "new deals" threw half a million blacks out of work by raising wages above market levels and allowing union goons to organize by going after employees and employers alike with violence. Has a familiar ring, doesn't it?

History repeats itself

A cartoon from the 1930s (I haven't vetted it, so if it's as phony as an ACORN registration gig, it's still true) seen at The Lonely Conserative The artist in the foreground writes "Spend spend spend, under the guise of recovery. Blame the capitalists." Stalin lurks in the background. There's even some pinkos from Harvard and Columbia enjoying the ride. Yes, change a few names and it is deja vu all over again. FDR managed to extend the Depression about a decade after Hoover's failed policies.

Good politics is bad history and bad economics

It's a toss up. The demeaning and foot shuffling dance of the United States abroad by Biden-Obama, or Obama's negative rhetoric at home to completely gut the spirit of the American people. What is he up to? Certainly there's no hope, no change in the constant barrage of negativism we've heard since November 4. He gets his stimulus package through duplicity and lies, and before it even gets to his desk tells us it won't work and there will be more! I don't know if a positive attitude helps cancer patients, but if I had stage one cancer, I certainly wouldn't be encouraged by being knocked to the floor with the stats and treatment regimen for stage four.

[Obama’s] fearmongering may be good politics, but it is bad history and bad economics. It is bad history because our current economic woes don't come close to those of the 1930s. At worst, a comparison to the 1981-82 recession might be appropriate. Consider the job losses that Mr. Obama always cites. In the last year, the U.S. economy shed 3.4 million jobs. That's a grim statistic for sure, but represents just 2.2% of the labor force. From November 1981 to October 1982, 2.4 million jobs were lost -- fewer in number than today, but the labor force was smaller. So 1981-82 job losses totaled 2.2% of the labor force, the same as now.

Job losses in the Great Depression were of an entirely different magnitude. In 1930, the economy shed 4.8% of the labor force. In 1931, 6.5%. And then in 1932, another 7.1%. Jobs were being lost at double or triple the rate of 2008-09 or 1981-82. Obama's Rhetoric Is the Real 'Catastrophe'

FDR's failures will be Obama's

During high school and college courses of American History that I took (I had enough for a minor in college), President Hoover was villified, Roosevelt diefied. Sort of like Bush-Obama. It's still that way in most sources. But no sensible person can look at 1932-1942 and not see that Roosevelt totally failed with his New Deal! He taxed everything that moved, particularly poor people who were taxed for the smallest pleasures like chewing gum and movie tickets. The rich did fine. Each time the stock market would start to recover or the unemployment rate would go down, he'd throw another chunk of the alphabet (AAA, NIRA, TVA, WPA, NRA) on the fire, and whoosh, he'd put out the flame of progress.

Hoover was only in office a few months when the stock market collapsed--he had no role in that at all. Unemployment was 4% in August 1929, and the crash was in October. (Somebody tell Joe Biden.) Hoover tried a little and he tried a lot. He tried free markets, tax cuts, and tax increases. He tried bailing out banks and insurance companies. Has a familiar ring?

Some of it looks just like entry level "New Deal" to me. So if it didn't work, let's try more, and that's what FDR did, and did, and did some more. We'll never know what might have happened if Hoover and Roosevelt had done nothing. Unemployment peaked in 1933, well after FDR's 100 days. Well, if you won't blame FDR for that, then don't blame Hoover for the crash. But it never got out of double digits the whole decade, and was back up around 20% in 1938. If we hadn't gone into WWII when all the men went off to war and unemployment dropped below 3% because no one was left in town but my grandfather and my great-grandfather to run things, we'd probably still be doing the New Deal. In many ways, we never quit. And each time we get a Democrat in office it's like the ghost of FDR and he tries it all over again, whether or not we have a recession or stagflation or a tech boom.

Don't trot out the WPA and wave that at me. My home town has a nice little WPA mural in the post office. We had a sweet little state park down the road where they planted trees. It's still used today--we have our class reunions there. Bright eyed, idealistic college kids can write papers about the WPA's contribution, but what the town really had were several small companies that employed people--a printing plant, a publishing company and a fulfillment agency. That's what fed people and built homes--not the government paying people an allowance to paint, write, sing, dance or build cabins in parks or roads. For the 3 million or so who were in WPA I'm sure it was a nice chance to get away from home and earn some self respect, but most people had jobs or were working the family farm, or taking in laundry or boarders, or selling garden produce.

FDR was a brilliant politician, but none of his programs turned the economy around in the Depression. It was stop-gap government sop and Obama will take us in the same direction. Thomas Sowell says

Barack Obama's "change" is a recycling of the kinds of policies and rhetoric of the New Deal that prolonged the Great Depression of the 1930s far beyond the duration of any depression before or since.

These are the same kinds of liberal policies that led to double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates and rising unemployment during the Carter administration. These are "back to the future" changes to economic disasters that need repeating.

Make no mistake, the political rhetoric of FDR was great. For those who admire political rhetoric, as so many of Barack Obama's supporters seem to, FDR was tops. For those who go by actual results, FDR's track record was abysmal.
Thomas Sowell

Channeling FDR

The U.S. could have been out of the Great Depression by 1933, saving our parents and grandparents much grief. When you look at our recovery compared to Canada’s or some of the European nations, you see how FDR’s diddling and fiddling, setting up an alphabet soup of agencies to bring business under the heavy hand of the federal government, practically destroyed the country. The war didn't save us economically--we were pulling out of the FDR quagmire by 1941--but it took his eye off the ball, and he had to put his energies elsewhere. The rhetoric I hear today from Hillabama sounds like they’ve been channeling his speeches and ideas from the 1930s.

“Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945, removed from the presidency an enormously shrewd and resourceful leader who had for the past decade expressed a hostility bordering on hatred for investors as a class. Many business people, among others, had feared that FDR harbored dictatorial ambition; some believed that he ultimately did exercise arbitrary power in some if not all areas—for instance, his unconstitutional “destroyer deal” of 1940 in which, without congressional approval, he gave away fifty warships of the U.S. Navy to a foreign power. His demise must have enhanced the confidence many investors felt in the future security of their remaining private property rights.”

"Regime uncertainty: Why the Great Depression lasted so long and why prosperity resumed after the War,” by Robert Higgs, Independent Review, vol. 1, no. 4, Spring 1997, pp. 561-590. Here.

Obama

Monday Memories

Have I ever told you why my mother was a Democrat (according to my father)?

My parents were married over 65 years. My mother died in 2000 and my father in 2002. When cleaning out Dad's desk, I found a small notebook which he used to jot down phone calls, addresses, appointments and lists (he had worked in sales into his 80s). Leafing through it, I found a "memory" written on the date of their 66th wedding anniversary, 7 months after Mother's death. So I brought it home, and came across it while cleaning my desk last week. I hardly ever had letters from Dad, so I enjoy looking at his handwriting.

He wrote about how they had met the summer after high school and he changed schools to attend Mt. Morris College so they dated during the academic year 1930-31; how he had returned in the fall of 1931, but she had gone to work as a domestic for a Jewish family in Chicago (it was the Depression and she had no money to continue, but he had a football scholarship). He wrote, "I had to stay with dad and mother during the summer of 1932, but in the fall I got a job at Kable News Co. I remember getting her (my mother) a job as a housekeeper for one of the execs, which later turned into a job also at Kable News. It had to be during the winter because Roosevelt had been elected Pres. and one of his edicts got her a raise from $8.00 weekly to $10.00. Thus, she remained a Democrat the rest of her life."

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