Warren G. Harding: Notorious Womanizer Nominated by Republicans in 1920

 

Warren G. Harding was one of the most unlikely candidates for the United States presidency. A humble but mediocre man, Harding engaged in two notorious extra-marital affairs that lasted several years, and appointed friends to high level government positions that would lead to notorious scandals. Harding died in office after only three years in the White House, yet even his death points to mystery.

 

Harding as Editor and Politician

 

Born November 2, 1865, Warren Harding received his education in a one-room schoolhouse. As a young student, he enjoyed reading and making speeches. He graduated from Ohio Central College in 1882 where he delivered the commencement address.

 

Biographers note that Harding was always insecure and sickly, suffering from indigestion. At age 24, he suffered a breakdown and checked himself into the Battle Creek sanitarium. In future years, he would spend time in this sanitarium four more times, a fact he withheld from the Republican leadership that pushed his nomination for the presidency in 1920.

 

He purchased the bankrupt newspaper Marion Star and transformed the journal into a successful state-wide publication in Ohio. Even as president, Harding looked back at his years with the Star with intense pride. Traveling the state, Harding became involved in Ohio politics.

 

Harding served the people of Ohio as a State Senator, Lt. Governor, and a one-term United States Senator. It was only in early 1920 that Harding seriously considered the prospect of running for the presidency.

 

Harding’s Extra-Marital Affairs

 

Warren Harding’s marriage to “Flossie” Kling was an unhappy affair. Mrs. Harding was the driving force behind the Marion Star and in later years became devoted to astrology. Their poor marriage relationship led to Harding’s affairs with other women, two of which lasted several years.

 

Nan Britton was thirty years younger than Harding when their affair began. Their illegitimate daughter was conceived in Harding’s Senate office. The affair continued after Harding won the presidency with the president and Britton engaging in sexual relations near his White House office. Harding paid her generous child support which ended after he died in 1923. Unable to extract money from his estate, she published The President’s Daughter in 1927.

 

Carrie Phillips was the wife of one of Harding’s close friends. Their affair lasted 15 years. During the 1920 presidential campaign, the Republican Party sent Phillips and her husband on a trip to Japan with $20,000 in order to keep them from the press (her husband, by this time, knew of the affair).

 

For all his charm and genuine compassion for people, Harding’s weaknesses were glaring. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, who was herself involved in a long affair with Idaho Senator William Borah, once said, “Harding was not a bad man. He was just a slob.”

 

Harding the President

 

The Republican Party leadership in 1920 was unified by four elements:

 

A pathological hatred of Woodrow Wilson

Acute isolationism

Ending Progressivism

Paranoia of Russia and the Communist threat

 

With the recent death of Teddy Roosevelt, no potential candidates fit the mold to champion the fight against the League of Nations and return the United States to the “good old days.” Warren Harding was selected in the proverbial “smoke filled room” as a dark horse compromise. He won the election with a huge plurality.

 

Throughout his brief presidency Harding questioned his fitness as Chief Executive. His own friends betrayed him with scandal. Out of this would come the infamous Teapot Dome scandal involving an oil-leasing scheme.

 

Harding died in San Francisco after a trip to Alaska. Although no autopsy was performed, historians vary as to the cause of death. Some refer to ptomaine poisoning while others cite a stroke. Harding had heart problems for years. The more conspiratorial minded even suggest that his wife poisoned him. Harding was followed by Calvin Coolidge, as mediocre as the 29^th President had been.

 

Sources:

 

Paul F. Boller, Jr., Presidential Campaigns From George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford University Press, 2004)

William A. DeGregorio, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (Gramercy Books, 2001)

Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., and others, The American President (Riverhead Books, Penguin-Putnam Inc., 1999)

Page Smith, America Enters the World: A People’s History of the Progressive Era and World War I, Vol. 7 (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985)

 In Honor of One of Peter O'Toole's Best Films: Leadership Flaws in General Tanz in the Night of the Generals 

The Night of the Generals (1967) is as much a study of psychological impairments as it is Hollywood entertainment. A murder mystery focused on Nazi Germany during World War II, the film highlights the actions of Lt. General Tanz, a serial killer with an extreme narcissistic complex. Tanz, played by Peter O’Toole, is a fictional character who cannot function as commander of the Niebelungen Division without having brutally killed a prostitute. But Tanz is not the only character with psychological problems; the film explores the weaknesses of other characters. In the end, Tanz, asked by a young corporal “why,” stares into space and mutters, “it was the war…”

 

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

 

Narcissistic personality disorder, “involves arrogant behavior, a lack of empathy for other people, and a need for admiration…” (Psychology Today)

The definition includes “Machiavellianism” and “obsessive self-interest.” According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the disorder is complicated by alcoholism. This conforms to behaviors exhibited by Tanz in the film.

 

In The Night of the Generals, Tanz is one of three suspects in a murder mystery that began in Warsaw, Poland during the German occupation. Omar Sharif plays the role of Major Grau, an intelligence office with an “over-zealous nature” and a keen sense of justice. “If it is a German general…we shall have to hang him,” he tells a Polish police inspector.

 

Tanz, despite his bazaar habits, appears to be the least likely suspect. A “pet of Hitler,” Tanz destroys cities as easily as eating his breakfast. He demands “absolute cleanliness” and berates orderlies for dirty fingernails. When not on duty, however, he smokes constantly and consumes vast amounts of brandy. The best view of his unbalanced mind takes place in a Paris art museum, sealed and guarded by the German military. His reaction to “Vincent in Flames,” van Gogh’s self-portrait, demonstrates the extent of his mental break.

 

Narcissism includes a “desire for admiration” and “functions as a means to demonstrate superiority to others,” according to various definitions including that found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Contemporary studies on over-achieving college students that cheat, for example, link such behaviors to narcissism (Chronicle of Higher Education, December 6, 2010). In General Tanz, these attributes are subtle but evident. Tanz’s body language exudes superiority, even in the company of his commanding officer, General von Seidlitz-Gabler.

 

The Other Suspects

 

General Gabler, married to a domineering, self-centered and ambitious woman, pursues his own romantic adventures. He is “something of a sexual athlete,” according to French Inspector Morand. His assistant, General Klaus Kalenberge, is involved in the plot to kill Hitler – Operation Valkyrie. Gabler’s daughter Ulrike falls in love with a corporal who confesses early on in the film that he has a “horror of death.” In this he parallels Tanz. Ordered by Kalenberge to drive Tanz while in Paris, Corporal Hartmann is advised to avoid all cemeteries and any mention of death.

 

All of the supporting characters exhibit their own psychological problems and in almost every case their weaknesses are tied to the war. Perhaps the writer intended to extend the madness of Hitler and the insanity that encapsulated Nazi Germany to the protagonists, men and women caught in a moment of history designed to bring out the best and the worst of human behaviors.

 

The Marks of the Serial Killer

 

Tanz targets prostitutes, young and vulnerable women whose offers of sex offend his sensibilities. He kills them brutally, inflicting dozens of knife wounds that demonstrate his exaggerated sense of power and retribution. At the same time, Tanz is purging his own being, a personal confession of sorts sealed by innocent blood. Killing the prostitutes is different than the massacre of thousands of innocent civilians.

 

Despite his great weaknesses, Tanz has moments of compassion, throwing his lunch to hungry Polish children, for example. When Gabler suggests arresting Major Grau for the impertinence of questioning the generals at a party he crashed, Tanz comes to the major’s defense: “he was only doing his duty.” Tanz is precise and utterly meticulous in everything he does. The audience gets the impression, however, that he wants to be caught, but this would end the ability to rejuvenate his being.

 

In the end, it is his pattern that leads authorities in Hamburg to confront him. Additionally, Tanz’s mistake was in letting an eye-witness live – the young corporal who Tanz manipulated into blame for the Paris murder. But it was July 20, 1944 and Paris was in the midst of chaos. Tanz’s triumph is shooting Grau is eclipsed by that chaos, allowing Hartmann to escape and disappear.

 

Although narcissism is the primary characteristic of Tanz, other behaviors in the film lead the viewer to a host of psychological problems. Tanz is unable to engage in serious, intimate personal relationships. He is a typical “loner” who uses women to inflict pain and death in order to establish a missing sense of self-esteem. General Tanz characterizes the serial killer profile in a film the can easily be used in Psychology classes and studies involving personality disorders.

 

References:

 

Tom Bartlett, “Are Narcissistic Students More Likely to Cheat?” The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 6, 2010.

Lindsay Lyon, “7 Myths About Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disoder,” US News and World Report, April 21, 2009.

Joshua D. Miller and others, “Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the DSM-V,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology, November 2010, Vol. 119, Issue 4.

“Narcissistic Personality Disorder,” Psychology Today, Diagnostic Dictionary.

“Narcissistic Personality Disorder,” U.S. National Library of Medicine, November 14, 2010.

The Night of the Generals. 1967. Dir. Anatole Litvak  Perf. Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif, Tom Courtney. Columbia Pictures. Running Time: 146 minutes.

american slavery in 1860: what the census reveals

On the Eve of the US Civil War, the 1860 national census revealed the prevalence of slavery in the South and helped answer future questions as to why thousands of non-slave holding whites, mostly yeomen farmers, enlisted in the “Cause.” Additional research highlights the treatment of free blacks in the South and the incidents of blacks owning slaves themselves.

 

United States Slavery and the 1860 Census

 

Of the 27 million whites counted in the 1860 census, 8 million lived in the slave owning states of the South. Of these, 385,000 owned slaves. Statistically, 4.8% of all Southern whites owned slaves. When factored by the entire population, 1.4% of all United States whites were slave owners. The Gone With the Wind notion that most Southerners owned large numbers of slaves and lived in huge plantations is a myth.

 

Deep South states held the most slaves and this is where most of the larger plantations existed. Mississippi’s slave population stood at 55% out of a total population of 791,305. South Carolina’s slave population represented 57% of the total population. These percentages decrease with upper South states like Virginia (31%), Tennessee (25%), and Kentucky 20%). Border States like Maryland accounted for the lowest numbers (13%).

 

In 1860, there were 4.5 million blacks in the United States, 4 million living in the South. Of those, 261,988 were free blacks living in the South, usually in urban centers like New Orleans that accounted for 10,689 free blacks. Restrictions on free blacks were severe, however. They could not move from one state to another and in 1859 the Arkansas legislature passed a law ordering sheriffs to force freedmen out of the state. The Arkansas slave population was at 26%.

 

Free Blacks That Owned Slaves

 

According to Duke University’s Emeritus Professor, John Hope Franklin, in New Orleans over 3000 free blacks owned slaves themselves (or 28% of the black population). In Louisiana, 6 blacks owned 65 or more slaves while in Charleston, SC, 125 blacks owned slaves, 6 owning ten or more. In North Carolina there were 69 black slave owners.

 

Statistically, this represents a fraction of all slave holders and many theories can be ventured to explain the phenomenon. In some cases, free blacks with financial means used the system to buy the freedom of family and friends, perhaps through the slave system, thus adding to statistical data that usually paints a sterile picture and leaves interpretations to the historian. It would be grossly negligent to use such statistics to justify slavery by intimating that free blacks supported the evil institution.

 

Why Did Non-Slave Owning Whites Support the System?

 

Slavery was enshrined in the Constitution of the Confederate States of America. Most of the political and military leaders of the Rebel States, as Lincoln called them, owned slaves. As recent historians like James McPherson of Princeton have demonstrated, non-slave owning white enlisted to fight for an ideal of freedom (generally, freedom from “Northern tyranny”). But this also entailed the full acceptance of the peculiar institution that drove the Southern economy.

 

It wasn’t about slavery per se but more about a lifestyle and culture that existed, at its core, because of slavery. Slavery dominated every aspect of Southern existence, regardless of how many people actually owned slaves. That the South saw itself as a confederation of sovereign state entities able to leave the federal union was based on John C. Calhoun’s notion that the South could not safely remain in the Union if the North challenged slavery.

 

Sources & Further Reading:

 

Alfred H. Kelly and Winfred A. Harbison, The American Constitution: Its Origins & Development (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1976)

Frederick Merk, History of the Westward Movement (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978)

Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (available on-line)

 The Purpose of Social Security and the Historical Context

Formally known as the Wagner-Lewis-Doughton social security bill, the Social Security Act was passed by Congress June 19, 1935 and signed into law as immediate legislation by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Old age benefits were discussed by Roosevelt and key supporters who would hold positions in his administration before his 1933 inauguration. His Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, writes that Roosevelt, “…always regarded the Social Security Act as the cornerstone of his administration…” Not all Americans supported the measure, referring to the act as “socialism.” It is still considered controversial and falls under Congressional scrutiny whenever Republicans make significant gains in Congressional representation, as happened most recently in the 2010 midterm elections.

 

The Social Security Act Begins as an Unemployment Insurance Measure

 

During the heady days of FDR’s first Hundred Days, New York Senator Robert Wagner and Rep. David J. Lewis of Maryland approached Roosevelt with a rudimentary bill to provide unemployment insurance. Roosevelt, however, wanted to include social security. Concerns over benefits for America’s seniors arose out of the popularity of the Townsend Movement. This movement proposed generous old age pensions at federal expense.

 

The 1935 bill was the product of many lengthy committee hearings, unending hours of research, and continual brainstorming by FDR’s brain-trust. The initial measure included a health care plan, but this part of the bill was dropped as Roosevelt knew the medical establishment would oppose it, and the rest of the bill was not to be opened to the danger of failure.

 

Passing Social Security and Unemployment Insurance

 

Combining Social Security and unemployment benefits was the recommendation of Harry Hopkins, one of FDR’s key advisers. Unlike other New Deal programs, it was to be a permanent program and not deficit funded. Roosevelt stated, “We can’t sell the United States short in 1980 any more than in 1935.”

 

Roosevelt might have been astounded that in 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected President, beginning the tide of conservative ascendancy in the Congress. By 1985, into his second term, the Senate Budget Committee, led by New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici, recommended a one-year freeze on Social Security benefits.

 

As passed in 1935, Social Security was limited. During Committee hearings, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau opposed a universal system, suggesting that rural farm workers be exempted as well as small businesses that employed less than ten people. Frances Perkins recounts in her memoirs, none of the provisions would completely solve the nation’s poverty, but it was the first step in solving future depression-condition problems.

 

Opposition to Social Security during the New Deal and Beyond

 

No emergency legislation will make an immediate difference without the necessary funding. Before Congress adjourned in the summer of 1935, Louisiana Senator Huey Long, one of Roosevelt’s most ardent critics, mounted a filibuster to stop any funding legislation. His filibuster lasted until adjournment and Roosevelt was forced to creatively look for temporary workers to help set up the newly independent agency.

 

Others, like Oklahoma Senator Thomas Gore, asked Secretary Perkins during a hearing “isn’t this like socialism?” The entire notion of “cradle to grave” federal entitlement reeked of socialism for stalwart GOP lawmakers. These views were vocally resurrected every time Congress expanded Social Security.

 

In 2010 and again in 2011, Social Security recipients received no cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) yet their Medicare contribution costs rose. In the 2010 midterm election, most seniors voted Republican.

 

Senator-elect Rand Paul of Kentucky campaigned on the promise that he opposes “any cuts in benefits for seniors” and “raising the Social Security retirement age…” Days after the election, however, he said “everything is on the table” to balance the budget. (ABC News, November 3, 2010)

 

National Health Care Tied to the Social Security Bill

 

Although Roosevelt cut health care from the 1935 bill, when Congress revisited Social Security in 1939 Senator Wagner attempted to add amendments, including a disability benefit. Congress voted down these expansions.

 

Wagner’s 1939 Health Bill was designed to expand unemployment benefits and Social Security. This was not a universal, federally mandated health plan such as found in other nations. Opting into the plan was not mandatory nor did his bill include forcing Americans to purchase health insurance.

 

Nevertheless, it was severely attacked, most notably by the American Medical Association and the pharmaceutical industry. Universal health care had been attempted since 1915 and was deemed a progressive measure. Not until March 2009 would Congress enact a health care bill that provided affordable coverage for all Americans.

 

The Role of Government during Periods of Economic Hard Times

 

Conservative Republicans led by President Herbert Hoover in the early years of the Great Depression abhorred federal intervention that amounted to any hint of welfare. Even Franklin Roosevelt rejected the government “dole.” But Roosevelt and the liberal Democrats believed that the role of the federal government was to stimulate the economy by putting people to work and providing safety mechanisms like unemployment insurance.

 

Advisers like Frances Perkins made the argument that even a minimal unemployment payout in the first weeks of unemployment would stop evictions and enable breadwinners to provide for their families.

 

Senator Wagner stated that, “Industry can not run with the mechanical perfection of a gyroscope and out of simple caution we must continue to devise methods of dealing with those who may be severed from their normal work despite our best efforts.”

 

Social Security provided one concrete method for ensuring the survival of American retirees. It continues to do so today. For most, the monthly payout represents a fixed income that covers the bare necessities. Any tampering with those benefits would be criminal to the millions who paid into the system all of their lives.

 

Sources:

 

Lewis L. Gould, The Most Exclusive Club (Basic Books, 2005)

J. Joseph Huthmacher, Senator Robert F. Wagner and the Rise of Urban Liberalism (Atheneum, 1968)

Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew (Viking Press, 1946 First Edition)

(This article was written for Suite101 8 years ago by Michael Streich)

 It is interesting to look back at the 1860 Election and compare the divisive mood of the nation to what is becoming more prevalent today. Here is another former Suite101 article by M. Streich.

ELECTION OF 1860

The dawning of 1860, an important presidential election year, found the nation in a mood of uncertain anxiety. Vivid memories of the John Brown raid at Harper’s Ferry a year earlier reminded everyone of a decade of growing separation that began with the raucous Senate debates on Henry Clay’s so-called “Compromise of 1850.” The newly consolidated Republican Party was keeping “Bleeding Kansas” – the fruits of Stephen Douglas’ Kansas-Nebraska Act, before the people. The Panic of 1857 and the tariff of that same year lowering certain schedules still angered many northerners, especially in Pennsylvania. And 1860 was the year South Carolina Senator James Hammond declared, “You dare not make war on cotton…cotton is king!”

 

The Republican Party in 1860

 

Although the new party had fielded John C. Fremont, the western adventurer tied to the Bear Flag Republic, in 1856, the Democrats managed to put James Buchanan of Pennsylvania in the White House. During the Buchanan years, however, the Republican Party reached out to disparate northern groups, from Germans opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act to Know-Nothings and conservative New Englanders. By 1860 they were ready to capitalize on the one issue that bound together the coalition of ideologies: opposition to the extension of slavery into the territories acquired through the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.

 

When the Republicans meet in 1860, several prominent men vied for the nomination. A logical choice was New York Senator William Henry Seward, who represented the liberal wing of the party. His 1858 “irrepressible conflict” speech predicted that the nation would never be half free and half slave. Yet Abraham Lincoln, a contender, had made similar remarks with his analogy of a “house divided.”

 

Simeon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Edward Bates of Missouri, and Salmon Chase of Ohio were also prominent party leaders who would ultimately become part of Lincoln’s “team of rivals,” popularized by Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book. Abraham Lincoln secured the nomination, not having served in the National Legislature since the start of the Mexican War, and then only for one term.

 

The Divided Democrats in 1860

 

The selection of Charleston, SC as the Democratic National Convention did not bode well for party unity. South Carolina had always been the clarion call of secession since the Tariff of Abominations in 1828. Jefferson Davis, refusing any compromise language to the party platform, led the Southern core determined to see slavery expand and federally protected, against Stephen Douglas of Illinois who still held to his view of “popular sovereignty.”

 

The convention dissolved and the Democrats split into three factions. John C. Breckinridge led the secessionist Southerners; Stephen Douglas represented the Northern Democrats; John Bell of Tennessee, a former Southern Whig with pro-union sentiments, headed the newly formed Constitutional Unionist Party.

 

Results of the Election of 1860

 

Although Abraham Lincoln won the election with 180 electoral votes, it is worth noting that Douglas’ 12 electoral votes and Bell’s 39 represented pro-union votes. According to Page Smith, in Alabama – a deep South state with a large slave population, Breckinridge received 48,831 votes but the combined total for Bell and Douglas was 41,526. In Virginia, pro-union votes were 16,000 above Breckinridge’s and in Kentucky the figure was 40,000 more. Even though Lincoln’s name did not appear on Southern ballots, pro-union sentiment appeared to be strong.

 

Pennsylvania’s electoral votes went to Lincoln, a direct result of the 1857 tariff and a snub at the sitting president who came from the Keystone state. New Jersey’s electoral votes were split between Douglas and Lincoln, attributed to the state legislature’s desire to preserve the Union, a fact that emerged after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

 

But the South did leave the Union, beginning with South Carolina in December. Lincoln’s victory, according to Southern editorials, would devalue slaves and result in the “underground Railroad becoming the over-ground Railroad.” 1860 began with a feeling of dread; it ended with a feeling of short-lived elation. The nation was separated, but the ensuing war would fill the nation’s graveyards.

 

Sources:

 

Paul F. Boller, Jr. Presidential Campaigns From George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford University Press, 2004) see chapter 19.

Stephen B. Oates, The Approaching Fury Voices of the Storm, 1820-1861 (Harper-Collins, 1997)

Frederick Merk, History of the Westward Movement (Alfred A. Knopf, 1978) see chapters 41-43.

Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years Vol. 4 (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981) see chapter 63.

Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (on-line).

 Are You a Yellow Dog Democrat? The term was likely originated in the presidential election of 1928.

RELIGION, POLITICS, AND SOUTHERN YELLOW DOGS

When religion became an issue in the 1928 presidential election, Alfred Smith, the Democratic candidate and a Catholic, felt compelled to answer spurious charges that his faith would dictate political decisions. Answering his critics, Smith wrote, “I recognize no power in the institutions of my Church to interfere with the operations of the Constitution of the United States or the enforcement of the law of the land.” A four-term governor of New York, nothing in Smith’s political record could contradict his statement. Yet many Americans rejected Smith’s disclaimer and, as historian Henry F. Pringle states, “The ideal Democratic nominee would be a Protestant…”

 

Religion as a Force in the American Political System

 

The election of John F. Kennedy to the presidency in 1960 was hailed as a great step in religious toleration and Americans’ ability to set aside a legacy of bigotry over Catholic candidates. With the Senate ratification of Elena Kagan to the United States Supreme Court in the summer of 2010, no Protestants remain on the high court and Catholic justices comprise the majority. Yet religion is still a factor in American politics.

 

During the 2008 presidential primary season, Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, questioned aspects of Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith. (Reuters, December 12, 2007) More recently, twenty percent of Americans believed that President Barack Obama was a Muslim, questioning his Christian credentials.

 

In 1928, Catholicism was viewed with suspicion. Many believed a Smith presidency would be tied to Vatican policies and papal directives. Pringle quotes Methodist Bishop Adna Wright Leonard warning that, “No Governor who kisses the Papal ring can come within gunshot of the White House.” Historian Paul Boller observes that, “Smith was convinced that religion had done him in.”

 

Alfred Smith a Victim of Voter Close-Mindedness

 

Smith carried six states in the 1928 election, all of them in the Deep South. This alone was remarkable since anti-Catholicism was rampant in the South. But Southerners were also staunchly Democratic. It was during this election that the term “Yellow Dog Democrat” was popularized, signifying that a Democrat would vote for a yellow dog if he carried the party’s label and endorsement.

 

Even New York, Smith’s home state and strongly Catholic, went for his opponent, Herbert Hoover, a Protestant Quaker. It should be noted that the other important issue involved Prohibition: Smith was a “wet” who opposed the 18^th Amendment while Hoover declared Prohibition to be a great “noble experiment.”

 

Anti-Catholicism, however, had a deeply rooted history. Boller writes that old Know-Nothing literature from the 1850s was reintroduced in 1928. This mid-19^th Century nativist third party preyed upon the fears that the expanding Catholic presence in America due to immigration was dangerous to the Republic as they attempted to keep Catholics from holding political offices.

 

New Religious Issues in the Evangelical Republican Right Wing

 

Catholicism is no longer a voter issue in the 21^st Century, but religious angst in politics is being replaced with other considerations, equally as old as the fear of Catholicism in American history. Creationism versus evolution is reviving the old arguments sensationalized by the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” trial.

 

During the 2010 midterm election, for example, Christine O’Donnell, the unsuccessful GOP Senate candidate in Delaware, astounded even members of her own church (she is a Catholic) by advocating creationism.

 

Some religious issues involve social considerations like homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Internationally, evangelical Christian politicians, like Senator James Inhofe, support the state of Israel on Old Testament grounds.

 

Unsuccessful Tea Party candidates like Sharron Angle of Nevada stated that “separation of church and state” was not constitutional. If Mitt Romney attempts to secure the 2012 GOP nomination, there will be renewed questions about Mormon beliefs.

 

The Long Term Lessons of Al Smith’s Defeat in 1928

 

FDR’s “Happy Warrior” Alfred Smith underestimated the emotional response of American voters to his Catholicism. Writing in 1927, Pringle stated that Smith “must know that his religion may, in the end, cause his dream of the presidency to remain that and nothing more.” Inevitably, votes based on religion fed on erroneous conclusions, rumors, and pure fabrications.

 

As the nation became more pluralistic in the end of the 20^th Century, religion as a factor seemed to wane. But the recent phenomenon of Islamophobia and the evangelical right’s expanded involvement in politics continues to mesh politics with religion. Like Al Smith’s experience in 1928, when religion based on false and emotional conclusions dominate campaigns, the real issues are forgotten.

 

Sources:

 

Paul F. Boller, Jr., Presidential Campaigns From George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford University Press, 2004)

Albert Fried, FDR And His Enemies (St. Martins Griffin, 1999)

Henry F. Pringle, Alfred E. Smith: A Critical Study (AMS Press, Inc., Reprinted 1970 from the 1927 edition)

 What better October topic than a brief look at witches!

Witches have always been associated with evil. In the Old Testament, Exodus 22.18 admonishes, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” although the term “sorceress” is often used instead of witch. Witches had magical powers that could be used for malevolent purposes. According to historian Jeffrey B. Russell, in the Middle Ages, “Heretics, Jews, and witches are among the most prominent of Satan’s human helpers.” Psychology professor Sheldon Cashdan, exploring the impact of fairy tales, writes that, “…the witch lives not only in the pages of a fairy tale but in the deepest reaches of our minds.” No wonder witches figure so prominently in Halloween revelries.

 

The Medieval Witch as a Negative Character

 

Act I, Scene I of William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth begins with three witches. It is fitting that the witches are accompanied by thunder and lightening. When not in gloomy, dark castles like Dorothy’s Witch of the West, they are frequently depicted around a cauldron, predicting death and calamity. “Hover through the fog and filthy air,” Shakespeare’s witches exclaim. The bard knew something of witches; the year the play was written was 1606 and in England the devil was very real theologically as were his helpers.

 

In the early 1600’s, Europe’s witch hunts were still active and both Catholics and Protestants pursued the accused women relentlessly. In his Table Talk the Reformer Martin Luther relates the story of a witch who, at the urging of the devil, caused a loving husband to murder his wife. “You are worse than I am,” the devil remarked. Luther was a product of the Late Middle Ages, equating the activities of witches with the devil, using the analogy of idolatry and Canaanite religious practices in the Old Testament.

 

Catholics also had firm beliefs governing witches and their nefarious ways.  The 1486 Malleus Maleficarum was meticulous in detailing witchcraft and how to deal with witches; it helped to define popular notions of witchcraft well into the next centuries.

 

The Halloween Cat and Historical Witchcraft

 

Witches mimicked Church feast days with unholy celebrations, consorting with Lucifer and flying through the skies. Historian Robert Darnton writes that, “Witches transformed themselves into cats in order to cast spells on their victims.” His study of French social and cultural history demonstrates that cats were always associated with witches and with evil, hence their  prominent role in Halloween celebrations. According to Darnton, “Cats possessed occult power independently of their association with witchcraft and deviltry.”

 

Cats were also associated with sexuality, mating with the devil in wild orgies. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, written long after the Puritans hung their own witches in 1692, Goodman Brown sees his wife “Faith,” presumably about to be initiated into a coven of witches, many of whom were known to Brown. Frantically he yells to her to look to heaven. He finds himself back in the village.

 

Was it a dream? The implications of sexuality were clear and the marriage was never the same. Witches destroy trust and the most sacred bonds between two people in love, much like the witch in the Luther story above. No wonder the Witches’ Sabbath was a mockery of Christian liturgy: the devil is always the Anti-Christ, the evil facing the good in the cosmological equilibrium of spiritual demeanor.

 

Fairy Tale Witches Across the Cultures

 

Both Darnton and Cashdan place importance on the role of a witch in fairy tales. Whether a hag or an ogress, the witch was determined to destroy youth and innocence. In a traditional Russian fairy tale, the witch – Baba Yaga, is dreadful, with “steel teeth.” But she is defeated by the innocent ingenuity of a child. The same could be said of the Hansel and Gretel story, although the French version of the tale features an ogre. Very often witches were evil stepmothers.

 

The Chronicles of Narnia, written by C.S. Lewis in the mid-20^th Century, feature the “White Witch,” a clever but evil woman who placed Narnia in a type of frozen state but is ultimately killed by Aslan. The fantasy tales have Christian connotations including resurrection and the triumph over evil. Another modern witch is the Wicked Witch of the West, conceived by Frank Baum but popularized in American culture by Margaret Hamilton who played the witch in the MGM classic The Wizard of Oz (1939).

 

Surrender Dorothy!

 

The Wizard of Oz features several witches. The Witch of the East is killed with the arrival of Dorothy; Glenda is the “Good witch of the North.” In the movie, Dorothy is startled, telling Glenda that she thought witches were old and ugly. This is the common, popular view of witches and why witch costumes appear on Halloween. Nobody wants to be a “good witch” like Glenda on Halloween.  

 

Additionally, most witches are female, a conclusion taken from the European witch craze but one with roots in antiquity. Glenda corrects Dorothy and then brings up the issue of broomstick travel. Witches fly through the air. Dorothy, however, must follow the “yellow brick road,” ever cautious of the remaining evil witch who has a travel advantage. Anthropologist Anthony Aveni argues that “…the witches’ broomstick is a negative spin on the maypole…” associated with May Day celebrations, “…the reciprocal in time of Halloween…”

 

Witches in Ancient and Modern Times

 

Tracing the origin of witches at Halloween, Aveni refers to a Babylonian cuneiform text that linked the arrival of “evil ghosts and witches” at certain times of celebration, generally associated with agricultural events like the harvest. Witches, according to the ancient text, use their powers to communicate with the dead. Interestingly, the Old Testament Witch of Endor (I Samuel 28.3-25) was also thought to be able to commune with the dead.

 

The American Halloween witch probably has roots in colonial witchcraft beliefs. When Halloween was eventually transformed into one of the nation’s most colorful and popular holidays, the witch became a staple. In the Disney film Hocus Pocus (1993) Max Dennison (Omri Katz) tells his classmates that “everybody knows” Halloween was “invented by the candy companies.” This, of course, elicits vocal opposition: no interloper from California is allowed to debunk the Halloween magic of Salem, Massachusetts, especially concerning witches.

 

The history of witches is long and colorful. At times tens of thousands lost their lives during witch hunts. Witches are entwined with deeply rooted superstitions and the ability to practice magic. These characteristics probably developed when perceptions of religion and God first impacted mankind, long before the birth of civilization.

 

References:

 

Aveni, Anthony. The Book Of The Year: A Brief History of Our Seasonal Holidays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003

Cashdan, Sheldon. The Witch Must Die: How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives. New York: Basic Books, 1999

Darnton, Robert. The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History. London: Allen Lane, 1984

Rogers, Nicholas. Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002

Russell, Jeffrey Burton. Lucifer: The Devil In The Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984

The Snow Queen And Other Tales. New York: Golden Press, 1961

Streich, Michael. Martin Luther and the Devil’s Domain: Witchcraft and Magic in the Popular Culture. University of North Carolina at Greensboro, unpublished thesis, 1990

 election of 1876: You Think 2020 is Full of Corruption? Look Back at 1876, the So-Called Stolen Election. Our History is Full of Dangerous events and happenings. Read the following by Mike Streich, a good friend and historian whose career ended way to soon.

Mike Streich <mstreich53@gmail.com>	Sun, Aug 2, 8:48 PM
to me

 

 

 

On the night of the national election in 1876, returns seemed to indicate a victory for the Democrat, New York Governor Samuel Tilden. However, by the next morning Republican newspapers, led by the New York Times, were casting doubt on Tilden’s apparent victory. At the center of the controversy were the electoral votes in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. If all three states were awarded to the Republican, Rutherford B. Hayes, he would become the next President. Significantly, Tilden needed only one state to win.

 

Bribery and Intimidation in the Election of 1876

 

High ranking leaders in the Republican Party swiftly raced to the South, armed with suitcases of money. Tilden heard of these efforts and was himself told by his own election team that fifty-thousand dollars would secure the South Carolina electoral votes. Tilden, however, refused, putting his trust in the American people and the Constitution.

 

In the disputed states, Republican counters discarded enough “suspicious” ballots to ensure a Hayes majority. But because these states had rival governments, one set up under Congressional Radical Reconstruction and the other under Abraham Lincoln’s original Reconstruction plans, each state submitted two sets of electoral votes to Washington.

 

Conflict in the Congress

 

As the votes were opened and counted in early 1877, the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives but the Republicans controlled the Senate. As the votes from the disputed states were submitted, each was formally challenged, forcing the two houses to meet separately in their respective chambers and vote on a resolution. Given the voting rules and the fact that each party controlled one part of the Congress, the lawmakers were at an impasse.

 

Both Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden finally agreed to the creation of a special electoral commission made up of fifteen members that would evaluate and decide each set of disputed electoral votes. After agreeing, however, the fifteenth member of the commission, an independent whose neutrality had been widely regarded, resigned in order to take the Illinois Senate seat. He was replaced by a Republican.

 

As the commission stripped Tilden of the votes, beginning with Florida, which was considered his best opportunity, it became apparent that the Democrats would be robbed of victory. Democratic House leaders threatened to filibuster until the end of the short term, taking the nation to inauguration day without a new president.

 

Back Room Deals Put Hayes in the White House

 

Republican Congressional leaders met with Southern Democrats and brokered a “compromise” to ensure their acquiescence. The new Republican president would withdraw the last remaining Union troops from the South, providing for “home rule;” one Cabinet position would go to a Southerner; and the Congress would vote funds to help rebuild Southern infrastructure.

 

How much Hayes actually knew about the events beginning with the day after the 1876 election is debated by scholars. His presidency, however, was a lonely path because he was in everyone’s political pocket. Called “old 8 to 7” behind his back, as a reference to the special commission, and “his fraudulency” by others, Hayes had little popular support or sympathy.

 

The Election Ends Reconstruction in the South

 

As the last federal troops were withdrawn, all of the states in the South were “redeemed.” This also meant that African Americans lost all political and social rights enjoyed during the early years of Reconstruction. Writing in the early 20th century, W.E.B. Du Bois remarked that, “the slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.”

 

Sources

 

Eric Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction (Harper & Row, 1990)

Eric Foner, Reconstruction America’s Unfinished Revolution: 1863-1877 (HarperCollins Publishers, 1988)

Roy Morris Jr, Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election (Simon & Schuster, 2003)

Lloyd Robinson, The Stolen Election (Forge Books, 2001)

 

 

 

The American Civil War probably started April 23, 1860 in Charleston, South Carolina when the Democratic Party’s National Convention failed to nominate a candidate. Southern “fire-eaters” like William Lowndes Yancey of Alabama came to Charleston with the intent of secession, according to some historians. But there were other participants equally guilty of driving the nation beyond repair. This included the sitting president James Buchanan, whose personal hatred of Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois played a major role in the breakup of the convention. As historian Damon Wells argues, “America stood in urgent need of a workable compromise and a new infusion of the spirit of political moderation.”

 

Standing on Principle Destroyed any Hope for Compromise

 

Charleston was a poor choice for a national convention in 1860. According to historian Page Smith, it was selected by the Democrats before Stephen Douglas devised his Freeport Doctrine, the “Little Giant’s” answer to the emasculation of popular or squatter sovereignty by the Supreme Court in Dred Scott v Sandford (1857). Meeting in Institute Hall on April 23, 1860, convention delegates included men of great passion. Wells refers to the “American gift for compromise” as having been subverted by “intransigence.”

 

Douglas, who firmly believed he would be nominated, wrote on June 20, 1860 that, “…each appeals to the passion and prejudices of his own section against the peace of the whole country…” At issue was the convention majority report that included planks to the party platform advocating a slave-code plank. Several Southern delegates even called for a return of the African slave trade and the acquisition of Cuba.

 

Southerners, however, firmly repudiated Douglas’ popular sovereignty notions, eliciting the Illinois Senator’s angry response that he would not accept any “concession of one iota of principle.” This then was the impasse that caused Southern delegates to bolt the convention after the delegates voted to accept the minority report rather than the politically charged majority report. Douglas was viewed by some Southerners as “the most dangerous man in America.” (New York Times, January 2, 1860)

 

Both reports were reported out of the platform committee. The majority report reflected the extremist views of “Ultra” Southern delegates that were vehemently opposed to Douglas’ popular sovereignty and believed that his Freeport Doctrine was a betrayal. The majority report demanded congressional protection of slavery not only where it already existed, but in the western territories.

 

The Role of James Buchanan at the Democratic Party Convention in 1860

 

Buchanan instructed his cronies attending the convention to do whatever it took to deny the nomination to Stephen Douglas. Damon Wells, in his extensive study of Douglas’ final years, writes that, “Buchanan…broke the Democratic Party at Charleston and did more than anyone else to cause the election of Lincoln.”

 

After Southern delegates bolted, Buchanan’s men engineered a change in convention rules. Douglas would need a two-thirds majority to win the nomination, but of the remaining delegates after the bolt. Douglas came close, but was thwarted by border state delegates following the direction of the Buchananites. On April 30, 1860, the New York Times began its coverage of the convention, stating, “The darker the day, the darker the deed…Prayer has been dispensed with, though the same cannot be said of imprecation.”

 

Motivation of the Fire-Eaters at the 1860 Party Convention

 

Some historians believe that secession was the intention all along and that Douglas merely walked into a trap. If so, the hapless Buchanan would have been a pawn designed to neutralize Douglas and enflame the Deep South. Forrest McDonald notes that, “The purpose [Yancey’s slavery plank] was to split the party, thus ensuring a Republican victory and making it possible to enflame feelings to such an extent that secession could be brought about.”

 

One criticism of this view, however, is that the Republicans did not meet until after the debacle in Charleston and Lincoln’s eventual nomination was not a serious consideration in Charleston. The Republican “front-runner” was William Henry Seward of New York. Lincoln was himself a “dark horse,” a compromise candidate.

 

Impact on the Nation of the Failure to Compromise

 

The failure to compromise split the Democratic Party and ultimately enabled Abraham Lincoln to win the Election of 1860. The party divided into three factions, representing the moderate Unionists (many of them former Whigs), Northern Democrats that supported Douglas, and the extremist wing of the party willing to cross the abyss of secession and war in the name of principle.

 

Compromise kept the tenuous peace between the North and South ever since the debates over Missouri statehood in 1820. Henry Clay’s compromise of 1850, reviled by men like Jefferson Davis, postponed for a decade the outbreak of war. But in April 1860 Southerners recalled only too vividly John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859.

 

At a time compromise could have bought time for a lasting solution that did not involve bloodshed, the Democrats failed, allowing party extremists to dictate the course of events. Writing on June 22, 1860, Stephen Douglas penned that, “The Unity of the Party and the maintenance of its principles inviolate are more important than the elevation or defeat of any individual.” But his new-found conclusions were too late; the party was split and the fire-eaters in the South were calling for dissolution.

 

Sources:

 

“Charleston Convention,” New York Times, April 30, 1860

Stephen A. Douglas, Letter to William A. Richardson June 20, 1860; Letter to Dean Richmond June 22, 1820, The Letters of Stephen A. Douglas, Edited by Robert W. Johannsen (University of Illinois Press, 1961)

Forrest McDonald, States’ Rights And The Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776-1876 (University Press of Kansas, 2000)

Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years, Volume Four (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)

Eric H. Walther, The Fire-Eaters (Louisiana State University Press, 1992)

Damon Wells, Stephen Douglas: The Last Years, 1857-1861 (University of Texas Press, 1971)