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

Trump, Haitians and Springfield, Ohio

Why do the Democrats create rumors and lies about Haitians? Try this story from Newsweek and Tampa Free Press.

"In 2020, the last full year of the Trump administration,1,207 Haitians were apprehended at the U.S. southern border. Contrast that to the first eight months of 2021 under the Biden administration, when 47,255 Haitians were apprehended. These numbers are staggering and they're getting worse.

Presently, more than 211,000 Haitians have been approved for the Biden administration's Process for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans parole program (CHNV) and have been granted work permits. And under certain legal statuses, the CHNV program allows an immigrant who is already in the U.S. to potentially sponsor another immigrant." (Newsweek, Sept 13, 2024)

According to the Tampa Free Press the DHS is flying them to 50 airports so they are spread over every state. DHS documents say, "All individuals paroled into the United States are, by definition, inadmissible, including those paroled under the CHNV Processes." Florida, Texas, and Georgia are the top spots--Harris needs to turn them blue to create a one-party system so she can destroy the Constitution.

 
Yours is now a border town. Yours is now a sanctuary city. Your schools and hospitals need ESL teachers, translators and service providers who can speak French, Creole and Spanish. White men need not apply. Open your wallets America, Harris wants your money, your vote and your guns.

Thank you, President Trump, for calling attention to this travesty and taking abuse for the Biden/Harris administration's mishandling and their mistreatment of foreign-born labor trafficking and sex trafficking.

Summing up the recent news

I've been absent from the news for a few days and then there's the Hezbollah terrorism, so my questions may be a little dated.

 First, the governor of NC. Someone who must have the worst job in the world had to dig through 10 years of a porn site, and found something suspicious about him, and now the donkey campaign wants to pin that tale to President Trump who endorsed him. Odd association since Democrat sex obsessed sleuths didn't know about it, how would Trump? I suppose it keeps the Dem celebs under wrap who knew about Diddy, Jeffry Epstein and Harvey Weinstein, all Democrats. But that's not my point. Is looking at porn on the internet or even attending a Diddy Freak Off a more serious crime than castrating boys and mastectomies of healthy breasts for girls? Seems there are some ghouls in the medical and education professions that are doing a lot more than looking at a computer screen. And the ENTIRE Democrat party loves having fully intact adult males inside the women's locker rooms and prisons. This is certainly a very odd and dangerous hypocrisy. Name it and claim it, Democrats. It's in your mission statement and in Harris' speeches the one primary she was in 5 years ago.

Second, the Springfield dog and cat stories are being inflated by Democrats in hopes of discrediting Trump/Vance. Instead of asking why did Harris, the border czar, oversee 20-30,000 immigrants being resettled in a town of 58,000 in rural Ohio overrunning all housing, health and education services, they go for what would be horrifying for all the cat ladies. No compassion for the townspeople or the immigrants. Vance says he received calls from his constituents 2 years ago and npr says he didn't--so who is more reliable? When have the Democrats ever told the truth or the media done an investigation by sending someone in the field?

Third, Jerome Powell Federal Reserve Chairman announced a 50 basis point (50 BP) cut in the federal funds rate on Sept 18. I thought we were told by Biden/Harris campaign that everything in the economy was just wonderful and Americans had never had it so good? Sounds like buying votes to me.

 
Fourth, Iranian hackers sent Trump campaign information to the Harris campaign. That whizzed past us faster than the latest assassination attempt that has the fingerprints of the Katzenjammer Kids all over it.

 
Fifth, I was in the hospital with a brain bleed over the week-end and recovery includes reducing stress. I wish the Democrats would cooperate. FaceBook shadow bans me a lot, so you probably won't see this.

Routh and the Haitians and the Media

The Haitians in Springfield, which the Left media want to make the story of the century, and the would be assassin, Ryan Routh, which is the real story they want to ignore, gets stranger and stranger. The assassin seems to have been traveling all over the world, although on paper he's a pauper, meeting with nefarious characters making deals for which he had no authority (or did he?). He was recruiting for Ukraine, while being on Homeland Security's radar since June 2023 as scary and looney tunes. But they didn't investigate! Then we find out yesterday the so-called bomb threats to stir up hatred for Trump and Vance in Springfield, Ohio (spread worldwide by our loyal, fearless American patsies in the press) were phoned in from a foreign country. Go figure. It's almost like a plan.

Suspected Trump assassin flagged by U.S. during return from Ukraine, but Homeland refused probe | Just The News

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine says Springfield bomb threats are 'hoaxes' coming from 'overseas': 'One particular country' (nypost.com)

Rep. Eli Crane says Secret Service seems to provide security only based on titles, not threats | Just The News

Springfield, Ohio and adjusting to a population increase

One thing most of the nation found out that they didn't know Tuesday night (debate) is that Biden/Harris has imported 20-30,000 Haitian immigrants to Springfield, OH, a town of under 58,000. I looked back a bit to flesh that out, and the city fathers and the community welcomed this several years ago because they needed some growth and more workers. But that's a lot of non-English speaking people, especially during a lockdown, to resettle, house, feed, an acculturate. It was a big blow to the tax base, although the churches and non-profits initially received government grants. Some homes were sold at really great prices and turned into sort of group homes or dorms. But that depressed the values of other homes in the area, and the neighborhoods splintered. OK. It still looks like (if you can trust the mayor and npr's reporting) they were coping nicely.

Let's take race and immigration status out of the mix. We have home grown Americans and Canadians who also expand in groups. Anabaptists--or more familiarly, The Amish. The Hutterites. The Mennonites. What if real estate scouts from 2 northern Indiana Amish counties decided to purchase land in central Ohio because their tradition of dividing property among their large families had become too difficult and they needed to spread out. How does an influx of maybe 15 Amish families with 6-10 children who own thousands of acres in a school district or taxing district and who have a different set of values about education or health, or technology impact a near-by small town of 5-10,000 Lutherans, Baptists and Catholics? Small Ohio cities are dealing with something like this when the government and its allies in the non-profit world move in and revise all the unspoken traditions of the community.

2701 FLW Tour: When you visit Springfield, Ohio

Be sure to ask for Kevin for your historical walking tour of High Street. The Springfield Preservation Alliance sponsors walking tours of neighborhoods filled with the wealth of 19th century Ohioans who built large homes along High Street, designed in Neoclassical Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, and Richardsonian Romanesque style. Our Frank Lloyd Wright touring group, on its 16th or 17th summer tour (depends on whom you ask), walked past these lovely homes in various states of repair and renovation to get to the Wescott House. Our tour guide, Kevin Rose, of the Turner Foundation, was outstanding. A booming voice to fight with the traffic, a love of Springfield, and a farm background, makes him ideal for this job of shepherding an architectural tour, or any tour.

The above house is actually not Henry Hobson Richardson designed, but was completed by the same builders who often did his designs. It is on the National Register of Historic Places being completed in 1888 as the personal home for American industrialist and two-term Ohio Governor Asa S. Bushnell. The mansion was designed by architect R. H. Robertson. It is now the Richards, Raff & Dunbar Memorial Home. The staff invited us in, and it is unbelievable inside. Might be worth being buried out of Springfield!


Springfield was a very wealthy town in those heady days, with many farm implement manufacturers located there. In the 20th century it was the home of several automobile factories, including the Wescott, and the Crowell-Collier publishing empire.
The Wescott House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright is, of course, well worth the trip, but don't miss the rest of Springfield! Make a day of it.

Westcott House
Frank Lloyd Wright
Springfield, Ohio
historic preservation