Newt Gingrich’s Real Change 6

In Newt Gingrich’s Real Change, I read “Chapter Twelve: Real Change for Social Security” (which Newt wrote with Peter Ferrara of the Institute for Policy Innovation); “Chapter Thirteen: American History Requires Real Change in the Judiciary”; and “Appendix 4: D-Day Radio Prayer of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, June 6, 1944″.

1.  In Chapter 12, Newt defends allowing people to invest part of their Social Security payroll tax in stocks and bonds that would be approved by the U.S. Treasury Department.  Employers would contribute to this account as well, and, if the return falls short of what the government promises people in terms of Social Security, then the government would pay them the difference.  According to Newt, this would take care of the coming insolvency of the Social Security system, as well as the problem of the government raiding the Social Security trust fund to spend money on other projects—-for a good percentage of that money under the system that Newt supports would be in the hands of the people, not the government.

But there is a problem that people have identified in this sort of proposal.  People’s payroll taxes are going to the current recipients of Social Security.  If people are allowed to invest part of their payroll tax rather than contributing it to the Social Security trust fund, then there will be a shortage in the trust fund, and the government will have to find the money to pay current recipients of Social Security at the present level.

Newt actually addresses this problem.  First, he says that the amount that we allow people to invest should start at a manageable level and then go up.  That means that we should not start out allowing people to invest a significantly large chunk of their payroll tax, but we should start out at a more manageable rate.  Second, Newt states that the economy will grow as people invest part of their payroll tax into the stock market, and that will increase revenue and make up for the lost money in the Social Security trust fund.  Third, Newt says that the government should cut spending in other areas so there will be money for the Social Security trust fund.

Some people think that the current Social Security system is in danger of becoming insolvent, and that the trend of each Social Security benefactor being supported by fewer and fewer taxpayers will result in dramatically higher payroll taxes.  Others don’t think that the situation is that bad.  As I read Newt, I can see how one could have a dismal view of the future of Social Security, since payroll taxes have gone up over the years.  

Is Newt’s solution the way to go, however?  I fear that people could lose their money through bad investments or the stock market crashing, and stock market crashes do occur, as we saw in 2008.  The government would then have to step in and pay people the guaranteed amount of Social Security, with a possibly depleted Social Security trust fund.

2.  Newt’s chapter on the judiciary was basically about how courts are attacking religion in the public square.  But there were some interesting things in this chapter.  For one, Newt talks about how the Federalists in America’s early days supported a strong judiciary, whereas the Democratic-Republicans feared judicial tyranny.  Second, Newt discusses how the current system actually encourages people to sue public schools and the public square to remove religious items from their midst.  Essentially, the rule is that the defendant has to pay the legal fees of the plaintiff, if the plaintiff wins (even partially). 

Newt acknowledges that this sort of rule is appropriate for civil rights cases, especially when there are people who cannot afford to launch civil rights lawsuits when they are the victims of discrimination.  But Newt does not deem it appropriate for Establishment Clause cases.  Newt supports the Public Expression of Religion Act (which I do not think passed), which does not require defendants to pay the legal fees of plaintiffs in Establishment Clause lawsuits.  The court would still be able to order the removal of religious items from the public square, but the defendant would no longer have to pay the legal fees of the plaintiff.

Is this a reasonable policy?  It could discourage people from initiating Establishment Clause lawsuits, and Newt may actually like that, since he says on page 172 that people in a democracy may have to live with things that they don’t like (presumably religion in the public square).  On the other hand, I have a hard time imagining the ACLU giving up just because the defendants would not pay the plaintiff’s legal fees.

Newt Gingrich’s Real Change 3

I read three chapters in Newt Gingrich’s Real Change: “Chapter Six: Replacing the Old Order: America Has Done It Before and We Can Do It Again”; “Chapter Seven: Becoming a Citizen Leader”; and “Chapter Eight: Replacing the Old Order: Lessons from Britain and France”.

1.  What stood out to me in my reading of Chapter 6 was Newt’s references to the Declaration of Independence.  The Declaration states: “whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends [of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its power in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.”  Newt then spends this chapter discussing systemic transformations throughout American history: the American Revolution, the replacement of the Articles of Confederation with a strong central government, Jeffersonianism, Jacksonianism, Lincoln Republicanism, the progressive movement, the New Deal, and Reaganism.  Regarding Lincoln Republicanism, Newt says on page 71 that it “shifted the focus of American political philosophy from the Constitution back to the Declaration of Independence”.  He probably means that Lincoln Republicanism did so by highlighting the Declaration’s principle that all men are created equal, in its opposition to slavery.  The Constitution, however, did not treat slaves as full human beings, as well as mandated that runaway slaves be returned to their masters.

Newt is probably a strict constructionist, one who wants for judges to be faithful to the text and original intent of the Constitution, and so I’ll be taking the thoughts in the above paragraph in a direction that Newt most likely did not intend, and probably would find abhorrent.

During the health care debate, conservatives were telling me that the federal government has no authority to do anything about health care, for the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that the federal government can only do what the Constitution explicitly states, while all other powers are reserved to the states and the people.  I found such reasoning to be troubling.  There were people in the United States who were suffering and dying at the hands of America’s health care system, and my conservative friends were appealing to some archaic notion of federalism to argue that the federal government should do absolutely nothing about that problem!  That made me think: the government is meant to serve us and to promote the general welfare.  If it is set-up in such a way that it is doing the opposite or hindering this, then there is a problem.  I think of government the same way that Jesus in Mark 2:27 thought about the Sabbath: The government was made for humanity, not humanity for the government.  In my opinion, if the Constitution is designed to prevent the government from helping people, then there is a problem with the Constitution.  I’m NOT calling for the overthrow of the U.S. Government, mind you, but I’m just saying that I’m wary of conservatives who put an archaic notion of federalism above the lives and well-being of American citizens.

2.  I enjoyed some of the advice and the stories in Chapter 7.  Newt talked about a 174-page book that he has read and reread since 1969, Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive.  Newt states that, according to this book, being an effective leader is not a matter of “intelligence or looks or charisma”.  Rather, it’s a matter of sharing your vision with others, and of listening to what they have to say with openness.

Newt also talked about Albert Einstein, who had a hard time getting an academic job and had to be a clerk in order to support himself.  But that ended up being a good thing, for Einstein was not held-back by the group-think that pervades academia, and he could approach issues in fresh ways. 

In a sense, what Newt says about Drucker and what he says about Einstein are contradictory: we should be a team-player working with others, and yet we should strike out on our own and see problems in fresh ways that the herd’s radar does not pick up.  Perhaps there’s a place for both.  After all, Einstein’s work had to interact with other scientists at some point, otherwise it would not have been accepted and put to use.

3.  Chapter 8 essentially lauds Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain and Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who took steps to liberate their respective countries’ economies from things that were holding those economies back (i.e., statism).  Newt talks about France and how its workers have had a short work week along with considerable vacation times, and he doubts that they’ll be as productive as countries where people work long hours (i.e., China and India).  The result, according to Newt, could be a decline in revenue in France, which is so necessary to pay for the French social programs.  But Newt states that Sarkozy has sought to encourage work.  For instance, Sarkozy proposed that overtime pay be tax-free.

I’m all for people working.  At the same time, it would be nice if they had time to spend with their families.  I know a lady who moved to Italy from the United States, and she says that she likes Italy because at least she can have lunch with her family.  In the U.S., she was always on the go, and so she couldn’t do that.  I hope that Europe’s way of doing things is not as perilous as Newt says.  But I’m far from being an expert on this topic.

“Ideological Voters Are Easy to Manipulate”

The Atlantic had an interesting article recently entitled Ideological Voters Are Easy to Manipulate.  Its argument is that ideologues can be manipulated to passionately support a candidate—-even one for whom they have misgivings—-through rhetoric or controversies.  For example, many conservatives have been tepid about Mitt Romney, but now there’s a good chance that they will rally behind him due to that lady on CNN saying that Ann Romney has never held a real job, which many have construed as an attack on stay-at-home mothers.

I have to confess that this was true of me back when I was a right-winger.  For example, in 1992, I had misgivings about George H.W. Bush because he raised taxes, talked about a new world order, appointed a pro-choicer to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, and had a head of the National Endowment for the Arts who tolerated funding smut with our tax dollars.

But did it take a great deal of effort to win me over to George H.W. Bush in the 1992 election?  No.  Bush and Quayle tossed out some Republican red meat blasting Bill Clinton as a tax-and-spend liberal.  Pat Buchanan at the 1992 convention gave me some more red meat by blasting Hillary and Al Gore.  Dan Quayle stood up for family values and attacked Hollywood and Murphy Brown.  Was there substance to any of this?  Well, I suppose that it was legitimate for Dan Quayle to raise the issue of single parenting and whether that was best for children (and I will not comment on whether he was right or wrong in his assessment).  But, seriously, was Bush planning to do something about single parenting were he to be re-elected as President?  The Republicans were simply tossing out the usual rhetoric that the right-wing base loves.  And controversies encouraged the right-wing base to increase its opposition to those it considered to be elites (i.e., Hollywood, the media, Democratic politicians, etc.), while standing with someone professing to be its guy, even if he wasn’t fully.

Am I the same way now that I’m more on the Left?  Not as much, I don’t think.  I’m at the point where I’m not overly interested in what a politician says.  I’m interested in what a politician does.  And, in my opinion, Barack Obama has shown his commitment to health care reform and to student loan reform through his deeds.  Is he perfect in the area of taking action rather than just talking?  No.  But politics is a matter of selecting among the choices that are presented to us.

10 Significant Mike Wallace Moments

Mike Wallace has passed on.  In this post, I’ll list what I consider to be ten significant Mike Wallace moments.

1. 60 Minutes would be on in my household every Sunday night.  And Mike Wallace would be the first anchor to introduce himself in the lineup.  He’d say “I’m Mike Wallace” as his head went up and down.  My Dad once said that he saw 60 Minutes preach the Gospel more than the self-appointed Armstrongite preachers who thought that they had a divine mandate.  What my Dad meant by that was that 60 Minutes did us a service by exposing corruption.

2.  As someone with an Armstongite background, I absolutely have to mention Mike Wallace taking down Stanley Rader, who was a key figure in Herbert Armstrong’s movement.  See here and here for information on that.  Not only did I watch the 60 Minutes story, but I also listened via cassette to Wallace’s unedited interview of Rader.  (A relative of mine somehow had a copy of that.)  Rader was a sharp lawyer and accountant who gave Wallace some good back-and-forth, but, ultimately, the interview made neither Rader nor the Worldwide Church of God look that good.

3.  My Grandma told me that she once saw Mike Wallace at the airport.

4.  In his book Born Again, Charles Colson talked about Mike Wallace’s interview of him during the Nixon years.  Colson said that Mike Wallace was quite affable, but then the interview started and it was like “ding, ding, ding”, as Mike jumped on Colson and reminded him of the bad things Colson did or was accused of doing.

5.  At the Hebrew Union College library, I looked at a book that Mike Wallace wrote about his interviews.  Wallace talked about his interview with Ronald Reagan in 1980.  Wallace asked Reagan tough questions, such as how many African-Americans Reagan appointed as Governor, as well as confronted Reagan with an extreme statement that Reagan made about the Vietnam War (I think it was Reagan’s statement that “we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas”).  Wallace acknowledged in retrospect that he was a little unfair to do that, since a lot of people made dumb remarks during the Vietnam War!  When Wallace took a break from the interview, Nancy asked him why he was being so tough on Ronnie when she thought he was their friend, and Ronald Reagan stood near her looking disapprovingly at Mike.  Mike told them that he was just doing his job, and that he wasn’t trying to be mean!

6.  In a Mike Wallace book that I was looking through, Wallace said that he knew he had someone on the ropes when the interviewee kept saying Mike’s name.  “Mike.”  “Mike.”

7.  Mike Wallace in 1979 was interviewing the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, which probably took a lot of courage, considering how intimidating the Ayatollah looked.  Wallace challenged Khomeini with a statement by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, whom Wallace called a devout Muslim.  Essentially, Sadat said that the Ayatollah Khomeini was a lunatic.  A few years later, Sadat was assassinated.

8. I remember Wallace interviewing an author who was claiming that Abraham Lincoln was gay.  I recall Mike having an odd expression on his face when the author was saying that, as if Wallace were skeptical.  But maybe I was reading too much into Wallace’s facial expression!  (This article goes into Mike Wallace’s views on homosexuality.  If you read it, be sure to read the whole thing.)

9.  I recall seeing Mike Wallace in the 1957 movie, A Face in the Crowd, in which Andy Griffith plays a power-hungry guy who gets a TV show and works with the right-wing.

10.  I’d like to watch sometime Mike Wallace’s 1959 interview with Ayn Rand (see here).  Both were tough cookies!

R.I.P. Mike Wallace.

Herodotus and Esther

Looney has a good post today on Herodotus and Esther.

There are many biblical scholars who have argued that Esther is not historically accurate because it contradicts Herodotus on certain issues.  For example, in Herodotus, we read that Persian queens could only be chosen from seven royal families.  Because Esther was not from one of those families, the argument runs, the Book of Esther is inaccurate to say that the Persian king chose her to be his queen.

When I wrote about this in my post here, Looney astutely responded:

“Herodotus lived a very long way from the Persian Empire and had no direct inside knowledge. For example, there is no mention of Persepolis in his writings or any other Greek writings until Alexander the Great, yet this was the main Persian capital.  The claim that ‘Persian queens had to come from one of the seven noble Persian families’ is a story in Herodotus involving seven conspirators who decide to kill the impostor king. The footnote preceding this section by Rawlinson notes that this really looks like a Greek interpolation. In fact, Darius marries Atossa who isn’t a daughter of one of the seven noble Persian families (i.e. the seven conspirators). Thus, Herodotus isn’t even internally consistent on this matter.”

In his post this morning, Looney looks at a story in Herodotus’ work that appears to have some of the same themes as the Book of Esther: an exchange of messages, and a woman doing her duty even though it may cost her life.  Looney is not suggesting that Herodotus is talking about Esther in his story, for the topic of Herodotus’ story is quite different.  But it’s interesting to see some of the overlapping themes between Herodotus’ story and the Book of Esther.  I can envision more liberal biblical scholars saying that there were stock themes in certain stories back then, and the Book of Esther was drawing from those themes.

Franklin Pierce

Three years ago, on President’s Day, I randomly selected a President, read the wikipedia article about him, and wrote a blog post commenting on what I read.  That President was Chester A. Arthur, and you can read my blog post here.

For this year’s President’s Day, I will do the same thing for another President who is not overly well-known: Franklin Pierce.

Where was Franklin Pierce’s Presidency in history?  Pierce was President from 1853-1857.  Go two Presidents back from Abraham Lincoln, and you arrive at Franklin Pierce.  The issues of Pierce’s day were American expansionism and slavery, and the guy who would become President of the Confederacy years later, Jefferson Davis, was Pierce’s Secretary of War.

Here are four things that stood out to me in the wikipedia article on Pierce:

1.  Pierce was good friends with author Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, and First Lady Barbara Pierce Bush is a distant cousin of Franklin Pierce.

2.  Pierce served in the Mexican-American war over who would have Texas.  His leg was wounded when he fell from a horse, and during a battle the pain was so intense that people carried him off of the field, which later political opponents cited as an example of cowardice on his part.  But Pierce returned to battle and led his brigade to capture Mexico City.

3.  Pierce experienced a lot of tragedy in his life.  He lost his three children before he officially served as President.  He saw one of his kids become decapitated in a train accident.  This event put Pierce’s wife into a state of severe depression, and she thought that God was punishing her family for her husband’s political aspirations.

4.  Pierce was a Northerner in that he had strong roots in New Hampshire and served and represented that state politically.  But he was considered to be a “doughface”, a Northerner who sympathized with the South.  Like the term RINO (Republican in Name Only) today, “doughface” was a pejorative term in those days.  Abraham Lincoln accused his political opponent, Stephen Douglas, for instance, of being a doughface.  Doughfaces tended to alienate the South on some issues, too, for they were usually supporters of popular sovereignty, the notion that white males in states should vote on whether or not their states would be slave or free.  When the anti-slavery movement grew, popular sovereignty looked less attractive to white Southerners, who feared that the free states would outnumber the slave states, which could give free states more representation and thereby threaten the institution of slavery.

In the 1852 general election, Pierce ran against Whig candidate Winfield Scott, who was Pierce’s superior officer in the Mexican-American war.  Both were war heroes, and so being a war hero did not help either candidate.  But Scott was anti-slavery, which alienated Southern voters.  Pierce, by contrast, was not anti-slavery.

As President, Pierce supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which stipulated popular sovereignty for Kansas and Nebraska.  That proved to be disastrous because it elevated tensions over slavery, and Pierce was not renominated by the Democratic Party for a second term.  Historians Philip B. Kunhardt and Peter W. Kunhardt state that Pierce “has been criticized as timid and unable to cope with a changing America.”  At the same time, people still held out hope for a political comeback on the part of Franklin Pierce.  Because he was a Northerner with Southern sympathies, some thought that he would be a good Democratic candidate in 1860, one who could unite the Northern and the Southern factions of the Democratic Party.  But Pierce chose not to run.

What interested me most was Pierce’s post-Presidential life.  Pierce continued to live in New Hampshire, which is in the North.  But Pierce was critical of President Abraham Lincoln for suspending Habeas Corpus, for Pierce did not believe that civil liberties should go out the door during wartime.  Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward, accused Pierce of belonging to a pro-Southern group known as the Knights of the Golden Circle.  Pierce responded and wanted Seward to include Pierce’s response in the State Department’s official files, but that did not happen, and so a supporter of Pierce in the U.S. Senate read the correspondence between Seward and Pierce.  The wikipedia article states (whether accurately or inaccurately, I do not know) that “Nearly every Seward biographer has since considered the Pierce-Seward exchange as a blot on the Secretary’s otherwise notable career.”

When Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ plantation was captured by Union soldiers, it was learned from Davis’ papers that Pierce was a friend of Davis and was critical of Northern abolitionism and the Civil War, whose purpose Pierce said was to “to wipe out the states and destroy property” (Pierce’s words).  Abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe had long disliked Pierce, and she now referred to him as an “archtraitor”.

When Lincoln was assassinated, an angry mob gathered outside of Pierce’s home, demanding to know why his house was not decked with black and with American flags in mourning of President Lincoln’s death.  Pierce responded that he, too, was saddened by Lincoln’s death, and that he (Pierce) was a loyal American who fought for his country.  He also appealed to the service of his father, who fought in the Revolutionary War.  The mob quieted down and some even cheered Pierce as he went back into his house.

When Pierce died, President Ulysses S. Grant (who, as many of you know, was a general in the Union Army) declared a day of national mourning.  Grant also defended against detractors Pierce’s record of service in the Mexican-American War (perhaps because political opponents called Pierce a coward for having to leave battle due to his hurt leg).

Pierce is considered to be a talented politician but an inept President.  It was especially interesting to me to learn how he, as a Northerner, received criticism for his anti-Lincoln views and his Southern sympathies, especially during and after the Civil War.  I cannot condone his views on slavery, but I can somewhat understand his opposition to the Civil War and his concern about civil liberties.  The Civil War may have been a good cause on the part of the North, but so many lives were lost.  That’s not to say that I’m against the Civil War, but rather that I understand why there were people who wanted to prevent it.

John Dickinson; Tim Tebow and John 3:16

I have a couple of items for today:

1.  I was watching the John Adams miniseries last night with my Mom and her husband.  John Dickinson (played by Zeljko Ivanek, whom I know from Heroes) was a member of the Continental Congress who was opposed to the American colonies going to war against Great Britain, for, while he acknowledged that Great Britain was infringing on the colonists’ rights, he wanted to find a peaceful resolution.  A lot of times, when he spoke, he was heckled by his opponents, and John Adams engaged him in debate and even called him an imbecile.  When Dickinson spoke soon before the Continental Congress voted on independence, however, the whole room was quiet.  Everyone—-even his opponents—–let him have his say.  Why?  One reason may be that, by that point, the colonies’ resolution to become independent from Great Britain was largely a given, so why not let Dickinson give his final warning, before they declared their independence?  Another reason is that Dickinson’s speech is good for the movie, in that it demonstrates the risk that the American colonies were taking when they declared their independence and set themselves on the path to becoming a new nation.  You can see Dickinson’s speech here.

2.  I’d like to comment on Tim Tebow and John 3:16.  The speech community in which I largely run—-the one that is cynical about religion—-has criticized quarterback Tim Tebow.  They say that he’s parading his religion, when Jesus told his disciples to pray in secret and not in public.  They say that the numbers 3-1-6 in Tebow’s plays do not demonstrate that God is affirming Tim Tebow—-for, while Tebow threw a ball for 316 yards, we don’t have the number 316 when those yards are converted to meters, plus why should we assume that 3-1-6 is about John 3:16 , when there are other Scriptures that have 3-1-6?  They challenge the notion that God takes sides in football games, when there are so many problems in the world.

But maybe God is affirming Tim Tebow.  That does not mean that God is a Broncos fan (even though my late uncle might disagree with me on that!).  I don’t think that God cares about who wins football games.  But Tim Tebow is acknowledging his dependence on God.  He is allowing his faith to inspire him, and to enable him to be an inspiration to others.  Perhaps God is honoring that.  And, in the process, that encourages us to turn to God—-not so much to win football games—-but to receive strength and to be a means for good in the world.

“The Reconstruction Period”

In Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery, I read Chapter 5, “The Reconstruction Period.” In this chapter, Washington presents his views on suffrage and education.

On suffrage during Reconstruction, Washington states the following:

“Still, as I look back now over the entire period of our freedom, I cannot help feeling that it would have been wiser if some plan could have been put in operation which would have made the possession of a certain amount of education or property, or both, a test for the exercise of the franchise, and a way provided by which this test should be made to apply honestly and squarely to both the white and black races.”

Washington is not the only person to feel this way, for W.E.B. Du Bois also said that he can understand African-Americans being refused the right to vote if they are ignorant, but that’s why he believes in education.  (This is in The Souls of Black Folk, in the essay “Of Booker T. Washington and Others.”)  Both Washington and Du Bois are not so much against literacy tests, but they are critical of how white society applied them in an unfair manner.

Both Washington and Du Bois discuss the ill effects of Reconstruction.  Washington says that African-American voters under Reconstruction were manipulated to put corrupt whites into office, and that there were African-Americans who were elected who were far from qualified.  Du Bois states that several African-Americans in his day were apathetic towards voting, on account of the political corruption that existed in the time of Reconstruction.

But both Washington and Du Bois also believe in the importance of suffrage.  Washington affirms that African-Americans of his day are stronger and wiser than during the time of Reconstruction, and so they will not attempt to alienate white Southerners, who should trust African-Americans with a political voice, without fearing a repeat of the Reconstruction days.  The seriousness with which Washington takes this issue is evident in the following quote:

“More and more I am convinced that the final solution of the political end of our race problem will be for each state that finds it necessary to change the law bearing upon the franchise to make the law apply with absolute honesty, and without opportunity for double dealing or evasion, to both races alike. Any other course my daily observation in the South convinces me, will be unjust to the Negro, unjust to the white man, and unfair to the rest of the states in the Union, and will be, like slavery, a sin that at some time we shall have to pay for.”

Du Bois encourages African-Americans to value the right to vote, notwithstanding its misuse in the past, for they have to live under the laws and policies of elected officials, and so it is only proper that they have a say in who those officials are.

But part of the division between Washington and Du Bois was that Du Bois felt that Washington abandoned the fight for suffrage, focusing instead on the industrial advancement of African-Americans.  Washington may have openly supported African-American suffrage in Up from Slavery before he made that sort of move.  Perhaps at some point, he preferred to focus on battles that he thought he could win, or he felt that alienating white society would be counter-productive.  And yet, Washington secretly promoted African-American suffrage.

On the issue of education, Du Bois accused Washington of not supporting higher education, and of focusing instead on training African-Americans for industry.  In the chapter of Washington’s book that I read today, however, Washington expressed support for the liberal arts, but he also voiced his disappointment that African-Americans weren’t learning skills for manual labor.  As he noted, a person can learn Greek and Latin, but that’s not all he should know!  Did this sort of attitude eventually lead Washington to favor African-Americans learning industrial skills instead of the liberal arts, since industrial skills put food on the table?  Or did he think that the skills to put food on the table were the priority, whereas liberal arts could come later?

Another thing to note: Washington does not appear to be against the government helping people, but he does express some disappointment that African-Americans under Reconstruction depended on the federal government, and that they looked for the government to create positions for them rather than creating those positions themselves.  I think this sort of view explains why many African-American conservatives admire and draw from the ideas of Booker T. Washington.

“Helping Others”

In Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery, I read Chapter 4, “Helping Others.”

In this chapter, Booker T. Washington extols the values of hard work and of self-reliance. And yet, although he indeed did work hard to help pay his way through school, he did receive help from other people. He admires the generosity of the Northerners who set up the school that he attended. His brother worked in the coal mines to support his family, including Booker. And Booker was not “every man for himself” in his mindset, for he felt a calling to help African-Americans to advance in life.

That was the gist of this chapter. It also talked about the death of Booker’s mother, which was hard on Booker and the rest of the family. Booker hoped to make his mother comfortable in her later years, and for her to see her children educated. But this didn’t happen, at least not in this life, for Booker looks back at this time as his years of struggle. In the four chapters that I have read so far, Booker contrasts where he is now with where he was then. Now, he can afford to buy his hats; as a child, he wore a hat that his mom made him. Now, he has passed a lot of tests; then, he had to clean a place in order to get admission to a school. Now, he speaks at a location as a guest to honor; years before, he slept outdoors near that very location. Now, he is a guest at a hotel many times; years before, he was a waiter at that hotel.

I’m not sure why Booker makes this point on a continual basis—if it’s to encourage other African-Americans that they too can advance, or so he can count his blessings as he reflects on how far he has come. It’s interesting how, as he looks back, he notices a higher level of satisfaction in his humbler days. He says that he’s bought many hats, but he never valued those as much as the one his mom made him when he was a boy. He says that he’s passed many tests, but he didn’t have the sense of pride in his accomplishment as when he cleaned up a place and was admitted into a school on account of his doing a good job.  A lot of this has to do with the fresh and exciting nature of initial accomplishment, which is why there are millionaires who frame the first dollar that they made.

There were other items of interest in this chapter. Booker bashes “professional labour agitators” at coal mines because strikes meant that there were times in which workers were not getting paid, and so their accounts were depleted. But Booker also notes that the workers went back to work after the strikes and received the same wages, so was his problem unions in general, or ineffective unions?

Booker also discusses the Ku Klux Klan, and he says that it is practically non-existent and forgotten in the South, except for a few areas. I think I did read that somewhere: that the Klan disappeared for a time, until it made its reappearance in the 1920′s. But there may be more to the story.

“Of the Dawn of Freedom”

In W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk, I read the essay, “Of the Dawn of Freedom.”  In it, Dr. Du Bois discusses the history of race relations in the United States from the beginning of the Civil War to the end of Reconstruction.  On page 17, he states that “however much they who marched North and South in 1861 may have fixed on the technical points of union and local autonomy as a shibboleth, all nevertheless knew, as we knew, that the question of Negro slavery was the real cause of the conflict.”  That reminded me of an article by James Louwen that I read a while back, “Five Myths about Why the South Seceded.” Louwen tries to debunk the neo-Confederate argument that the South seceded because of high tariffs, as well as neo-Confederate attempts to minimize the importance of slavery in the South’s decision to secede.  But the part of the article that intrigued me most was when Louwen argued that Southern slaveholders were not even big on states’ rights, for they opposed the right of Northern states to bar Southerners from bringing their slaves with them when they traveled there.  Southern slaveholders supported states’ rights for themselves, but not always when it came to Northern states.

Dr. Du Bois’ discussion of Reconstruction was balanced.  He said that the Freedman’s Bureau was good in that it helped freed slaves to receive an education.  But he also acknowledged the corruption that was rampant in Reconstruction, and he stated that it focused a lot on punishing white Southerners, which bred more resentment.  Du Bois was still upset at certain developments that took place around the time that Reconstruction ended, for the land and the wealth that African-Americans got after the war was taken away.  The land was returned to its previous white owners, and corruption in the banks resulted in the disappearance of the money that freed slaves’ had saved.  Du Bois states on page 31 that this “was a loss that a Nation which to-day sneers at Negro shiftlessness has never yet made good.”

For Dr. Du Bois’ essay, click here.