Pamphlet from 1916

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.

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.

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.

Internments and relocations of Americans and aliens during WWII

The round up was ordered by President Roosevelt within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor. . .

During World War II when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, more than 158,000 U.S. residents were either relocated and/or interned under restrictive governmental actions, and another 836,000 individuals had their freedom restricted by the government. About 130,000 were Japanese aliens and Japanese Americans living on the west coast who were put in internment camps, of which about 58% were citizens. Other Japanese ancestry citizens who lived away from the coast and not near military bases were not disturbed.

Less well known is the fact that German and Italian aliens living in the U.S. were arrested by the FBI and interned in 55 camps created just for Europeans, as well as many German-Americans and Italian-Americans. 236,000 Americans of German ancestry and 600,000 Americans of Italian ancestry were subject to restrictions.

This M.S. thesis by Larry DeWitt says 31,275 Europeans were arrested, and 25,655 were sent to the camps. Some were put on parole, or released. Also arrested were foreign merchant seamen and other non-Americans unfortunate enough to be in the U.S. at the time.

Larry DeWitt's Master's Thesis: The U.S. Social Security Board and its Program of Assistance and Services to Enemy Aliens and Others During the Relocations and Internments of World War II- Chapter 1 (I removed the hot link to this document because it had been hacked for a not very pleasant web sit.)

Too much too soon and too little too late

That's FDR in the 1930s. He extended the Great Depression through government interference and an alphabet of failed public works programs and allowed millions in Europe to die in Hitler's aggression, not getting into the war in Europe until two years--TWO YEARS PLUS--after Hitler invaded Poland. And my goodness, how long had Japan been terrorizing China--certainly years before they bombed Pearl.

The other day I was at the temporary location of the OSU Libraries off Ackerman Road and pulled the September 1939 Life magazine off the shelf, schlepped to a table (they are huge), and sat down to browse. It's really fascinating to see what we the people (I was not yet born, but you know what I mean) knew when and how the U.S. government in our name did nothing. Who knows if it was the will of the people--the polls of the time, mixed in with ads for corsets and clunky shoes, said supplying (either England and/or Germany) arms was OK, but go ahead and you guys have a world war without us. The writers even called it a world war--and we weren't in it. I looked through several issues. Despite Bush's failures on the financial front in 2008, I was again so glad that he pursued the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq and has kept his word for all these years. He acted with virtually total support of both parties, and one by one they fell away, abandoning principals and allies.

Really folks, the USA's record for the 20th century is pretty crummy. Yes, you can talk about the "greatest generation"--they did respond after millions had already died in Europe and China. But we dawdled around in WWI, jumping in at the last moment/months of the war. We abandoned millions of our east European allies to the Soviets in 1945. We negotiated Korea and 55 years later we're still messing with north Korea. Then we ran out on the Vietnamese thanks to our home-grown spoiled boomers like Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn and Jane Fonda.

God bless George W. Bush and we'll let history decide if we had any Presidents in the last 100 years who had all the body parts those guys are reputed to possess, spine, balls, and guts.



Life Magazine September 18, 1939 : Cover - Britain goes to war, gunner loading anti-aircraft shells. Germans beat British - French in first week of propaganda. German tanks push Poles 150 miles in seven days. French vs. the Westwall. Sinking of the "Athenia" - British ocean liner, two page art by Seielstad. American neutrality - Legion commander says stay out of war. Photo essay - Submarines, R14, James Hicks. The week the war began - a retrospective. Beltsville, Maryland research center helps farmers grow more - color feature. Postilion hat. Girls legs on campus go Scottish. Sidney Waugh designs America's first modern glass. Ted Allen wins horseshoe meet. Girls shoot in National target matches. Air-Raid shelters. London moves art treasures to safety. Full page Elgin watch ad with Robert Edison Fulton, Jr., explorer, mountain climber. Full page red movie poster ad for "Dust be my destiny" with John Garfield and Priscilla Lane. Full page Vanta ad, garments for infants and children. Modern American glass. Eleven-year-old soprano Gloria Jean. Life calls on Winston churchill. Photo of Barber Clay Cope shaving Pete Hilton.

The Hoover-Roosevelt Redux

As I watch George Bush swing helplessly in the wind, abandoned by both his party and common sense, unable to control a Democratic congress and see Barack Obama and the Clinton Team already over the starting line, not even waiting for the bell, I am so reminded of the Great Depression, and the myths I was taught in school. But here's the truth:

"Hoover and Roosevelt administrations -- in disregarding market signals at every turn -- were jointly responsible for turning a panic into the worst depression of modern times. As late as 1938, after almost a decade of governmental "pump priming," almost one out of five workers remained unemployed. What the government gave with one hand, through increased spending, it took away with the other, through increased taxation. But that was not an even trade-off. As the root cause of a great deal of mismanagement and inefficiency, government was responsible for a lost decade of economic growth."

Roosevelt gave us 8 more years of bad economic policies, some of which we still live with; let's hope Obama doesn't go the same destructive route.

Pray for another Carter

I noticed this at a comment at another blog--no identification, so I can attribute: "As for right now, Republicans should pray Obama is a new Carter. If he is the next FDR, prepare for forty years in the desert."

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

The economy is fine, really

says Brian Wesbury in today's WSJ. I went back and checked his other articles during various gloom and doom (usually media driven) periods in the last seven years. He's always been right--let's hope he is this time.

There's a lot of squabbling about the stimulus package, and I really doubt we can or should spend ourselves out of this problem. Each party wants to look like a savior and is afraid to look like the bad guy. The Democrats aren't the liberals they say they are (if they really cared about the weakest and smallest they'd be pro-life) and the Republicans aren't the conservatives they claim to be during election years. If they were, they wouldn't always be looking to the government to be the sugar daddy of big business, farmers and the military.

So why not take a look at what an economist says? He says the $100 billion loss on subprime loans represents 0.1% of the $100 trillion in combined assets of all U.S. households and U.S. non-farm non-financial corporations. Feel better? Exports on the other hand are 12% and growing at a 13.6% rate.

He says that the Great Depression deepened when Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt tried to fix the economy. President Hoover's tax hikes in 1932, and FDRs anti-capitalist government activity (remember all the alphabet soup of government programs you had to learn in American history class?) killed the American economy and drove unemployment to 20%. We know the Democrats plan to raise taxes--the worst thing they could do; then they'll add all sorts of new programs and regulations. This is not the way to go.

Read the article. You'll sleep better tonight--unless you plan to vote Democratic.