About Springfield, Ohio and a popular hymn

Complaints by the locals about imported migrant labor is not new to the U.S. Native born Californians were very hostile to the dust bowl agricultural workers (remember the Joads in Grapes of Wrath book?). In those days, and even when my family lived in Alameda in 1944, they were called Oakies and Arkies, pejorative terms then. Even my mom who was from Illinois didn't like them as she tried to stretch Dad's military pay while they bought what they wanted with government vouchers (or so she thought). In 1942, the Farm Security Administration (part of FDR's "New Deal") operated ninety-five camps with housing for seventy-five thousand people in California. The Library of Congress has an archive of photographs and books about those years and one photographer claimed in 1940 that the FSA camp at Visalia, CA had miserable weather and the local residents were grifters and corrupted. "I like it the least of the western states. My impression is that everything is commercialized, the police & city officials are corrupt grafters, there is little of that gracious western hospitality & most of the people are of that reactionary, super-patriotic, fascist-minded type. Practically every newspaper features a daily red-baiting article with 2 inch headlines that condemn [Democratic] Gov. [Culbert L.] Olson, the NLRB [National Labor Relations Board], or Pres. Roosevelt."

Sounds like a true 2024 Democrat journalist, doesn't he? California and Minnesota even then had very active Socialist and Communist parties.

I know little about California's history or migrant labor. It's just one of those serendipitous things you find in the amazing LC collection while researching a hymn, and find it had been recorded in a migrant labor camp in Visalia in 1940, "Just a closer walk with thee." No one knows who wrote it, but it was the most popular and most recorded hymn of the 20th century.

https://genius.com/Patsy-cline-just-a-closer-walk-with-thee-lyrics  Patsy Cline

https://www.loc.gov/item/toddbib000132/  Library of Congress FSA recording

https://www.hymnologyarchive.com/just-a-closer-walk-with-thee    Details of publishing history

The One percenters--an internet meme sent by a friend

Some of you are younger and not in the 1% age group. I decided to send it as a history lesson of what life was like then.

Yes, I am one of the One Percenters and thank God every day that I do remember all of this - the Good and Not So Good. Let us continue to Stay Safe-Healthy-Strong to enjoy each day.

One percenters . . .The 1% Age Group.

This special group was born between 1930 and 1946 = 16 years. In 2021, the age range is between 75 and 91.

Are you, or do you know, someone "still around?"

Interesting Facts For You . . .

You are the smallest group of children born since the early 1900’s.

You are the last generation, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war which rattled the structure of our daily lives for years.

You are the last to remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves.

You saved tin foil and poured fried meat fat into tin cans.

You saw cars up on blocks because tires weren't available.

You can remember milk being delivered to your house early in the morning and placed in the "milk box" on the porch.

You are the last to see the gold stars in the front windows of grieving neighbors whose sons died in the War.

You saw the 'boys' home from the war, build their little houses.

You are the last generation who spent childhood without television; instead, you “imagined” what you heard on the radio.

With no TV until the 1950's, you spent your childhood "playing outside." There was no Little League.

There was no city playground for kids.

The lack of television in your early years meant that you had little real understanding of what the world was like.

On Saturday mornings and afternoons, the movies gave you newsreels sandwiched in between westerns and cartoons.

Telephones were one to a house, often shared (party lines), and hung on the wall in the kitchen (no cares about privacy).

Computers were called calculators; they were hand cranked.

Typewriters were driven by pounding fingers, throwing the carriage and changing the ribbon.

'INTERNET' and 'GOOGLE' were words which did not exist.

Newspapers and magazines were written for adults and the news was broadcast on your radio in the evening.

The Government gave returning Veterans the means to get an education and spurred colleges to grow.

Loans fanned a housing boom.

Pent up demand, coupled with new installment payment plans opened many factories for work.

New highways would bring jobs and mobility.

The Veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics.

The radio network expanded from 3 stations to thousands.

Your parents were suddenly free from the confines of the depression and the war, and they threw themselves into exploring opportunities they had never imagined.

You weren't neglected, but you weren't today's all-consuming family focus.

They were glad you played by yourselves until the streetlights came on.

They were busy discovering the postwar world.

You entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where you were welcomed, enjoyed yourselves and felt secure in your future although the depression poverty was deeply remembered.

Polio was still a crippler.

You came of age in the 50's and 60's.

You are the last generation to experience an interlude when there were no threats to our homeland.

The second world war was over, and the cold war, terrorism, global warming, and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life with unease.

Only our generation can remember both a time of great war, and a time when our world was secure and full of bright promise and plenty.

You grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better.

You are "The Last Ones."

More than 99 % of you are either retired or deceased, and you feel privileged to have "lived in the best of times!"

Amen! It’s great being part of the 1% Special Group! And I'll drink to that . . . yes it was good times . . .

HT to Jan Fritz, member of my church

Morning devotions, Psalm 107

 When my devotions include a Psalm, I frequently turn to "Meditations in the book of Psalms," by Erling C. Olsen (1939). It was compiled from his weekly radio addresses which had a huge audience, and 107 was broadcast during 1936, the depths of the Great Depression.  That's what I enjoy about his thoughtful analysis--he is using writings 2500 years old with appropriate comments, then applying personal spiritual meaning good for any era, but often comments on the news of the day he was living. His comments about the political and economic situation of 1936 sounds as fresh as last night's news.

"We here in the east, and along the Atlantic seaboard, have no idea of the devastation that has been raging in the wheat belt, except from newspaper accounts and a few pictures that have found their way into the press.  I do not wish to appear as a calamity howler, for I know only too well that God is good and His mercy endureth forever [Ps. 107:1], and that He waits patiently for men to repent before He expresses Himself in judgment.  However, I must confess that I would not be surprised if God withholds His blessing from the earth in order to bring us back to an acknowledgment of His goodness and mercy.  When I think of the wickedness of men in high places, I say WICKEDNESS, in what has been called the "philosophy of scarcity,"** when by government edict men have plowed under their fields of cotton and wheat and other foodstuffs, and men have literally slain livestock, it is not surprising that God withholds His refreshing rains.  I do not desire to be intruding a politically partisan comment here; I am not interested in politics from that viewpoint and I do not believe it is the business of a preacher to meddle in politics; but I cannot avoid speaking the evident truth that this nation, from its President down, cannot smile away the responsibility of such godless, wicked doings."  He goes on to call for repentance as a nation and beg God to restore the land.

My mind slipped off the page to our own sick, godless administration--demanding lockdowns and mandates that send grocery store clerks, waitresses, nurses and truck drivers to work while millionaires and politicians frolick and party unmasked, that calls tattoo parlors and bars essential, but closes churches, that demands more and more of what isn't working now for political gain, not health of the nation. I closed the volume; Biden could be the feckless FDR who in the drought of 1934-1936 ordered farmers to destroy their crops and kill their livestock.

** It would be difficult to find a fair and unbiased history of that era--FDR is still considered the savior by the Democrats who led us out of the Depression and a devil many by Republicans who launched government programs that have enslaved millions and never ended after the crisis was over.  But in a philosophy of scarcity one sees the pie as fixed and others must give up some of their share.  This is the opposite of expanding wealth so everyone benefits.  It's now probably called redistribution, reparations, sharing the wealth, or even the Green New Steal (my term).

Psalm 15, reflections from 1938 and 2021

This morning in my Magnificat (journal) reading for November 4, Psalm 15 was suggested. When I read it,  immediately my thoughts turned to the recent election and all politicians and candidates, issues and levies from city council to governor all over the nation. To me it said our leaders need to honor God in order to be successful.  So I turned to my favorite source on the Psalms, "Meditations in the Book of Psalms" by Erling C. Olsen which is based on his Sunday radio broadcasts during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Much to my surprise, I see I wasn't the only one who thought of politicians with this Psalm--so did President Franklin D. Roosevelt who was elected to 4 terms during the Depression and WWII. At the time of this telling, FDR was not yet a war time president, but a president who had been unable to keep his promise to get the country out of the Depression, in fact, his policies had deepened it as the federal government grabbed more and more power. In 1937 there had been another depression inside the Great Depression.

Olsen tells the following story: On the 5th anniversary of FDR's inauguration [1938] at a special church service at which this Psalm was read. . .it is reported that he suggested that this 15th Psalm of David was an appropriate lead for any story [reporters].  "The next morning the New York Herald Tribune obliged the President by printing the Psalm upon its front page.  This caused some controversy in the press (just like today) and Dorothy Thompson (very popular and influential columnist married to Sinclair Lewis) declared that it is extremely dangerous to quote the Bible in support of one's prejudices because the other side can always find just as appropriate a quotation. She even went so far, and correctly so, as to suggest that the devil can also quote Scripture.  Olsen goes on to say that it is unfortunate that the Bible is used this way (I don't think he was a fan of Roosevelt, nor am I) and that the Bible was never intended to be handled in a partisan way and can only be used by a spiritual man as he is guided by the Spirit of God.  Perhaps it was Roosevelt's speech that day in a church using scripture that Olsen disapproved of, but when I read it this morning, I immediately thought of November 2 and the election.

Psalm 15

1O Lord, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill?

2Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right, and speak the truth from their heart;

3who do not slander with their tongue, and do no evil to their friends, nor take up a reproach against their neighbors;

4in whose eyes the wicked are despised, but who honor those who fear the Lord; who stand by their oath even to their hurt;

5who do not lend money at interest, and do not take a bribe against the innocent.

 Those who do these things shall never be moved.

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?

Share the wealth, musings and opinions

As Biden puts together his "redistribution" team of former Obama and Clinton failures, I was reading today the wisdom of a man who was writing during the Great Depression, Erling C. Olsen. He was not a political commentator, or pastor, just a layman who had a radio show about the Psalms which was later reissued as a book that went through a number of editions. His message on Psalm 62 included these remarks about pastors and politicians who were trying to make sense of those trying times (during which my parents went to college, got married, had 4 children and bought a home):

"Just now it seems to be a pastime of some to heap all manner of invectives upon those who are of high degree or great position. One voice cries out ". . . Salvation can only be had in the sharing of wealth." Another insists that it is not a matter of sharing wealth, but of sharing income. Still another, a clergyman, used to shout, "In silver lies our redemption." The fact of the matter is that salvation is in none of these, neither the salvation of the individual, nor of society. While we may see some distinction in men, and assume that by the simple process of equalizing wealth we can bring man into a paradise; in God's sight sin is the cause of inequalities. So long as sin reigns, just so long will these situations exist. It is sheer nonsense to talk about sharing wealth WITH THE SHARING IN THE HAND OF A POLITICIAN. It is the same as expecting a Millennium without the Messiah. Sin will reign, until our Lord Jesus Christ Himself rules over this world as King of kings, and Lord of lords.." (Meditations in the Book of Psalms, p. 468, 1952 edition)

BLM believes private property, the family and religion must be destroyed

Divini Redemptoris , On Atheistic Communism

Pope Pius XI – 1937 https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius11/p11divin.htm

The Catholic Church has recognized the danger of Communism for over a century and three quarters.  It was speaking out about the atheistic concepts in 1845.  These paragraphs are from a 1937 encyclical—before I was born, and perfectly outlines the methods and goals and beliefs of Black Lives Matter, BLM—the messianic fervor, the ideals of “justice, equality and fraternity” (inclusion, equity and diversity), the deception, the violent hate and destruction and the eradication of private property. You don't need to reinvent an argument against the destruction of the family and private property--it's been done for you.

The Pope in this encyclical, 20 years after the Bolshevik Revolution, mentions the “world wide economic crisis” and of course, then it was a world depression, now a world pandemic. But Communists take advantage of our pain and real problems to achieve their goals. The whole racism, reparations, police chants are just a means to an end. Destruction of our society. There is no intention by BLM to return to an orderly society with injustices solved.

8. The Communism of today [1937], more emphatically than similar movements in the past, conceals in itself a false messianic idea. A pseudo-ideal of justice, of equality and fraternity in labor impregnates all its doctrine and activity with a deceptive mysticism, which communicates a zealous and contagious enthusiasm to the multitudes entrapped by delusive promises. This is especially true in an age like ours, when unusual misery has resulted from the unequal distribution of the goods of this world. This pseudo-ideal is even boastfully advanced as if it were responsible for a certain economic progress. As a matter of fact, when such progress is at all real, its true causes are quite different, as for instance the intensification of industrialism in countries which were formerly almost without it, the exploitation of immense natural resources, and the use of the most brutal methods to insure the achievement of gigantic projects with a minimum of expense.

9. The doctrine of modern Communism, which is often concealed under the most seductive trappings, is in substance based on the principles of dialectical and historical materialism previously advocated by Marx, of which the theoricians of bolshevism claim to possess the only genuine interpretation. According to this doctrine there is in the world only one reality, matter, the blind forces of which evolve into plant, animal and man. Even human society is nothing but a phenomenon and form of matter, evolving in the same way. By a law of inexorable necessity and through a perpetual conflict of forces, matter moves towards the final synthesis of a classless society. In such a doctrine, as is evident, there is no room for the idea of God; there is no difference between matter and spirit, between soul and body; there is neither survival of the soul after death nor any hope in a future life. Insisting on the dialectical aspect of their materialism, the Communists claim that the conflict which carries the world towards its final synthesis can be accelerated by man. Hence they endeavor to sharpen the antagonisms which arise between the various classes of society. Thus the class struggle with its consequent violent hate and destruction takes on the aspects of a crusade for the progress of humanity. On the other hand, all other forces whatever, as long as they resist such systematic violence, must be annihilated as hostile to the human race.

10. Communism, moreover, strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity, and removes all the moral restraints that check the eruptions of blind impulse. There is no recognition of any right of the individual in his relations to the collectivity; no natural right is accorded to human personality, which is a mere cog-wheel in the Communist system. In man’s relations with other individuals, besides, Communists hold the principle of absolute equality, rejecting all hierarchy and divinely-constituted authority, including the authority of parents. What men call authority and subordination is derived from the community as its first and only font. Nor is the individual granted any property rights over material goods or the means of production, for inasmuch as these are the source of further wealth, their possession would give one man power over another. Precisely on this score, all forms of private property must be eradicated, for they are at the origin of all economic enslavement .

You can thank Pelosi for soup lines if it comes to that

Democrats want Americans in soup lines again, or jumping out of windows, just like the 1930s, when they were in control. Other countries pulled out of the Depression, but under FDR, we were stuck with the promises of more government programs until WWII came along and created a labor shortage. Now we have massive infusions from our taxes returning to "save" us, and Democrats don't want to give them up. Stay home; don't work; we'll take care of you. Attend a mindfulness Covid19 class or a concert at the Kennedy Center--whee--it's all to help with the pandemic.

Pelosi goes on TV and claims she supports the paycheck plan for workers, but she's lying. She's sitting on billions of loan money for the little guy while she flashes her $25,000 frig in front of her adoring fans. Ice Cream Nancy is killing the small businesses in your town and neighborhood--It's the Democrat Way.

Pelosi supports your business not expanding; she will stop you from keeping your employees, even churches' food pantries and non-profits; she supports ending your brother's business before it gets off the drawing board and makes a business plan. Eventually she can stop the supply lines to the grocery stores by destroying the small businesses that do that, and you won't just be missing toilet paper.

How minimum wage hurts the poor

"San Francisco’s ever-rising minimum wage—set to hit $15 next year—has restaurant owners asking for the check. At Least 60 Bay Area Restaurants Have Closed Since September . . . If there’s a silver lining to San Francisco’s culinary struggles, it’s that other cities, even ones run by Democrats, are realizing the arguments for a $15 minimum wage don’t match reality. In March, Baltimore’s mayor, Catherine Pugh, vetoed a measure that would have raised the local mandate to $15 by 2022. “I want people to earn better wages,” she told this newspaper. “But I also want my city to survive.” (Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2017)

The minimum wage went into federal law during the Great Depression to keep black workers from under cutting whites by offering their labor at a lower price. It immedicately created more unemployment. Still works. Raising minimum continues to keep minorities and youth and mentally challenged from getting into the competition for jobs. Unions love it.

Were our parents sour after the Depression and WWII?

"As Mr. Obama leaves office, the national mood is more sour than at anytime since the 1960s. The polls say some two-thirds of the voters think the country is on the “wrong track,” and a majority say they expect their children to do less well financially than they did. This reflects the historically slow economic recovery and incomes that have only recently begun to return to where they were when the recession ended."  Wall Street Journal

This quote from today's paper gave me pause.  I thought about my parents and their generation.  I wouldn't say they were happy go lucky, but they weren't sour on their future or their children's.  President Roosevelt had extended the Great Depression probably 5 years more than necessary than if he'd just settled in and done nothing.  The war was devastating with my father, his brothers, and cousins all serving and my mother's brother being killed in China. But of all the emotions that come to mind, "sour" isn't one of them. Obama's personal numbers still seem high, but everything he's pushed on us from Obamacare to ISIS to bathrooms has left people more dispirited and distrustful of government.

War memorial in Forreston, IL, pointing to Dad's name, 2007.

Biden confused about FDR—especially his accomplishments

Yes, Joe Biden really said this in Sept. 2008 while campaigning, but the worst error is thinking FDR did anything about the Great Depression, which he extended into the 1940s.

Free to Choose

I'm reading Milton Friedman's "Free to choose, a personal statement."  It was published in 1980, but reads like today's paper.  I'm in chapter 3, about the Depression, and the origin and problems of the federal reserve system.

"In the realm of ideas, the depression persuaded the public that capitalism was an unstable system destined to suffer ever more serious crises.  The public was converted to views that had already gained increasing acceptance among the intellectuals; government had to play a more active role; it had to intervene to offset the instability generated by unregulated private enterprise; it had to serve as a balance wheel to promote stability and assure security." And that rapid growth and power extended to Friedman’s day (1980) and ours in 2013. And it extended the Great Depression for a decade because the government had failed in its assigned responsibility in the Constitution--section 8, article 1. The Great Depression was not a failure of private enterprise he says, but of government. Unfortunately, both Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt tried to solve it with more of what brought it about, just as Bush and Obama did in 2008-2009. FDR's New Deal was Obama's Hope and Change.

Remembering Mollie Orshansky

Who invented the government's definition of poverty? Mollie Orshansky. She liked to say she was very poor, however, she managed to get a college degree in 1935 and landed a nice government job, something neither of my parents, who were about her age, were able to do during the Great Depression (extended to “great” by FDR, when the rest of the world just had a plain old depression).

Because of her research and government service, poverty will never go away, it will just get redefined with an ever rising threshold.  In fact, under Obama a higher percentage are poor than in 1965 when the War on Poverty began. If you have an ounce of common sense you know that's a lie because we have 126 federal programs that transfer money from the middle class to the bottom classes.

Here’s a bibliography of her work. http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v68n3/v68n3p79_bib.html

The 1942 Stuart Chase playbook for a strong, centralized government

Stuart Chase worked for President Roosevelt. According to Wikipedia, Chase, born in 1888, was an American economist and engineer trained at MIT. His writings covered topics as diverse as general semantics and physical economy. Chase's thought was shaped by Henry George, Thorstein Veblen and Fabian socialism.  In 1942 he wrote a little book called "The Road we are Traveling."  He summarized the causes and outcomes of WWI and the Great Depression.  He wanted a new system of government that was socialism, but not called that (we were at war with 2 socialist countries), and which wasn’t capitalism because he believed that created the Depression.  So he named it System X.  If you look through the list (download from internet), you see we have it.

1. Strong, centralized government.
2. Powerful Executive at the expense of Congress and the Judicial.
3. Government controlled banking, credit and securities exchange.
4. Government control over employment.
5. Unemployment insurance, old age pensions.
6. Universal medical care, food and housing programs.
7. Access to unlimited government borrowing.
8. A government managed monetary system.
9. Government control over all foreign trade.
10. Government control over natural energy sources, transportation and agricultural production.
11. Government regulation of labor.
12. Youth camps devoted to health discipline, community service and ideological teaching consistent with those of the authorities.
13. Heavy progressive taxation and hidden taxes on nations wealth.

page 95

                        

The Secret Gift by Ted Gup

Book club today--I have a fresh cold, so I will pass and NOT pass it on.  Our March selection is a very interesting and heart warming story that takes place for the most part in Canton, Ohio. The secret gift, by Ted Gup. His grandfather, Sam Stone, had secretly given $5 to needy families in 1933, and Gup follows up on the outcome, plus the dark secrets of his grandfather's past.

I was left with the question of why does Gup know so little about how FDR's programs (aka New Deal), intended to help, extended the Depression for over 10 years. Also, I wondered as I read the inspiring stories of struggle and accomplishment, whether our country today that already has about 50% of the population receiving some sort of government benefit (some of it we paid up front like Social Security and Medicare), could ever rebound or even know how, from such a disaster.  Gup is a college professor, and in that environment where over 98% vote "progressive" or Democrat or liberal, there is little room for peeking under the covers of the accepted wisdom that FDR was a great guy and helped the country recover.

BO and FDR, two peas in a porridge

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) compared Obama favorably to Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) after the SOTU speech last night. She might want to reconsider. To get elected, FDR promised he would be a fiscal conservative in 1932 after the liberal Hoover set the stage for really big government intervention in the economy after the crash of 1929 creating many new programs.  But FDR made things worse and kept the country mired in a Great Depression that lasted over 10 years. Our grandparents kept reelecting him—just like today’s know nothings reelected Obama last November despite his failures to turn the economy around.

Eleanor, his wife, was actually unhappy when things started to turn around during WWII because all the men and many of the women were employed in the war effort. (Even her most love-struck biographers acknowledge this.)  She wasn't done planning every detail of citizens' lives yet.  And like Obama, FDR hurt the little guy first with new excise taxes on everything from gum to movie tickets.  In 2009, Obama raised cigarette taxes, even though it was long ago proven that the poor do not respond to punishments in order to improve their health, and in 2013, he’s raising gasoline taxes 18%, which won’t stop the rich from taking trips, but will certainly hurt the middle class and low income driving to work.

How the New Deal hurt millions of poor people

Do Presidents not learn from history?

Actually, President Obama has learned the lessons from the 1930s Great Depression well.  The Great Depression was extended by FDR who raised taxes each time there appeared to be a fragile recovery.  FDR also campaigned against the high government spending of Hoover (like Obama and Bush), and to this day Hoover is blamed.

By the spring of 1937, production, profits, and wages had regained their 1929 levels. Unemployment remained high, but it was slightly lower than the 25% rate seen in 1933. The American economy took a sharp downturn in mid-1937, lasting for 13 months through most of 1938. Industrial production declined almost 30 percent and production of durable goods fell even faster. Unemployment jumped from 14.3% in 1937 to 19.0% in 1938.

The top tax rate in 1938 was 78% and on capital gains it was 30%. They were 24% and 12.5% in 1929.  Who knows how quickly the country could have recovered if Hoover and FDR had none thrown the federal government into the mix?   Even some of the programs put in place by FDR were declared illegal or ran out, but he launched a “progressive” socialist plan that we have to this day.

http://top-federal-tax-rates.findthedata.org/

Obama and FDR

           

We scratch our heads that people still support Obama despite his failures in the domestic economy and the foreign scene, particularly the Middle East where he’s interfered in civil wars and lost more American soldier in 3 years than Bush did in 8 . Yet, Americans kept reelecting FDR during the Great Depression (including my sainted mother), and unemployment was as high as 25% and in 1942 he imprisoned or put in camps almost a million Americans of Italian, German and Japanese ethnicity. There's just no accounting for political blinders.

FDR particularly hurt blacks and poor with minimum wage legislation which is always a job killer at the bottom ranks; lots of minor taxes that hurt the poor the most—like movies and candy; also wouldn't support anti-lynching legislation, snubbed Jesse Owens and Joe Lewis, allowed unions to keep out blacks; manipulated public works programs for votes. But . . .to this day he is revered by blacks and minorities. It seems people found him charming and believed his lies. Sound familiar?

Bush-Obama, Hoover-FDR

President Clinton likes to bask in the glory of the brisk economy of his years (like he did in the convention), when with a Republican Congress government spending was cut more than any other president's term in modern history.  There was a slight recession at the end of his term and beginning of Bush’s but not many remember since it was 9/11 that really sent the economy spinning.  In the final 2 years of Bush's term he was weakened by a Democratic Congress and tried bailouts and redistribution to turn around the economy (it's odd that Obama bad-mouths him so since he loves that too, but FDR did the same to Hoover). Hoover didn't cause the Great Depression--the Fed did that by inflating the value of money--and it isn't even part of the government. To goose the economy in 1932 Hoover not only increased government spending, but increased taxes by raising the marginal tax rate from 24% to 63%, and then FDR took it to 79% and then 83%, extending the Great Depression by many years. Bush and Obama had plenty of history to go on for their failed policies since 2007-2009 wasn’t our first rodeo, but they blew it.

I could give you pages, if not books, of citations, but you wouldn’t read them, so here are just two cites.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303753904577450910257188398.html

http://www.mtpioneer.com/March-deal-Hoover.html