German Americans

German Immigration Began in American Colonial Times

Fall is the season of German-American identity. It begins in September when New York area Germans march down 5^th Avenue in the annual Steuben Day parade, continues into October with October Fest, and culminates at Christmas with the many practices and images brought over from the old country such as decorated trees and Santa Claus. Over 33 million Americans can claim some German ancestry through the various phases of immigration that began in the Colonial period. It’s hard not to find tangible evidence of German influence in American history, from the Brooklyn Bridge to the first NASA rockets. German contributions have helped further the cause of American freedom and well-being for over three hundred years.

 

Germans in the Colonial Period

 

In 1683 thirteen Pietist families settled near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in a community that came to be known as Germanton. Some historians refer to this as the first wave of German immigration, although individual Germans were already living in various colonies, including Jamestown. In future years, however, so many Germans flocked to Pennsylvania that to this day the Amish are referred to as Pennsylvania Dutch – a misnomer. The originally used term was Deutsch, the German term of self-identification, but it rapidly devolved into the anglicized “Dutch.”

 

Pennsylvania was also the site of Valley Forge where the Continental Army wintered in 1778. It was here that a Prussian officer from Germany was asked by General Washington to bring order to his troops. Baron von Steuben drilled the troops and later wrote an army training manual that was used into the next century. Following the American victory at Yorktown, the Prussian king, Frederick the Great, concluded one of the first agreements with the new nation: the Treaty of Amity and Commerce. Perhaps the king was aware that thousands of German mercenary soldiers had chosen to remain in America rather than return home.

 

It is also noteworthy that the Zenger libel case in 1733 radically altered existing interpretations of English law in a first, crucial step toward freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

 

Post Colonial German Contributions

 

Most general American History texts never mention the visit by Alexander von Humboldt, the German naturalist, to President Thomas Jefferson in 1804. Von Humboldt had been invited by Jefferson to travel from Philadelphia to the new capital on the Potomac River in order to discuss the pending Louisiana Purchase. Von Humboldt’s input helped convince Jefferson to buy the vast area of land from the French.

 

The American Westward Movement was fueled by the second wave of German immigration after 1830, many of them traveling in Conestoga wagons, another German invention. Cities in the Ohio River valley like Cincinnati flourished, harboring distinct German influences. St. Louis grew as a German community; the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is still headquartered here. Milwaukee became identified with German breweries while Chicago saw a tremendous population boost after the European Revolutions of 1848. To this day the German influence in Chicago is strong, including restaurants, delis, and a German pharmacy.

 

Important Germans in Post Civil War America

 

The most influential German in the second part of the 19^th Century was Carl Schurz, a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln. Schurz had fled Germany as a student during the 1848 revolutions, risking his life to save his imprisoned university professor. A founder of the Republican Party, Schurz became a Civil War general, US Senator, and Cabinet Secretary. He never forgot the ideals that made America great. In the 1890s, he helped direct the Anti-Imperialist League.

 

Other history-changing German Americans included Albert Einstein, Werner von Brown, and Chester Nimitz, whose grandfather emigrated from Germany to Texas where he opened and operated the Nimitz Hotel. Although German Americans suffered periods of mistrust, such as in the late 19^th-century labor movements deemed socialist, and during World War I, overall, Germans strove to become good and loyal citizens by becoming part of everyday life in America.

 

Sources:

 

German Information Service, German Embassy, NY

Don H. Tolzmann, The German-American Experience (Humanity Books, 2000)

Diane Yancey, Immigrants in America – the German Americans (Lucent Books, 2005)

[Copyright of this article is owned by Michael Streich; reprints of any kind must get written permission from the author or his estate] 

Article first published January 2010 in Suite101

 

 Coup to Overthrow Democracy in America: a 1964 Movie Pointing to the Future?

Article first published October 2010 in Suite101 by M.Streich

Hyper-Patriotism has always been a threat to American freedoms and to democracy. Nativist political parties like the Know-Nothings of the mid-19^th Century attempted to define patriotism and the definition of what it meant to be an American. In the 1950s, the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Affairs and the efforts of Senator Joseph McCarthy sought to characterize a pure America devoid of diversity in belief. The 1964 Hollywood film classic Seven Days in May, released during a time of Cold War uncertainty and debate over U.S. involvement in Vietnam, follows a military plot to overthrow the U.S. government by a popular Air Force general.

 

The Universal and Timeless Warning of John Frankenheimer’s Seven Days in May

 

Presidential unpopularity is often prompted by executive decisions that flaunt the ideological beliefs of the opposition party. In Seven Days in May, fictional president Jordan Lyman (Frederic March) is opposed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General James Mattoon Scott (Burt Lancaster) over the White House decision to go forward with a recently ratified treaty with the Soviet Union to dismantle nuclear arsenals.

 

The film, previewed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 at the White House, focuses on the so-called “Roman doctrine.” Is the American nation better off employing a strong defense, or should Americans trust hostile nations to honor treaties of disarmament?

 

As General Scott stated before a Senate committee hearing, “We’ve stayed alive because we’ve built up an arsenal, and we’ve kept the peace because we’ve dealt with an enemy who knew we would use that arsenal.” Even the “informer,” Colonel “Jiggs” Casey, agrees with this assessment. But Jiggs also believes in the Constitution.

 

The President Responds to Allegations of a Military Take-Over of the U.S. Government

 

Colonel Casey, General Scott’s aide, is sufficiently alarmed by the circumstantial evidence to meet with the President. Jiggs has been cut out of the loop, “for some security reason.” All indications in the film point to his liberal leanings. But President Lyman’s key advisors are not sold on the notion of a plot.

 

Nonetheless, after sifting through spurious evidence, the President outlines his course of action. His Chief of Staff Paul Girard (Martin Balsam) will fly to the Mediterranean to question Vice-Admiral Barnswell (John Houseman) who has been implicated in the plot. Senator Ray Clark of Georgia, Lyman’s closest friend, will fly to El Paso, Texas to locate General Scott’s secret base – “ECOMCON, Site Y.”

 

The Plot Thickens in Seven Days in May

 

The “last resort” ammunition against General Scott are a packet of love letters written to Eleanor Holbrook (Ava Gardner) with whom he had had an affair – letters that were “very revealing of the general’s extra curricular love life,” according to Cabinet Secretary Chris Todd (George Macready). Jiggs retrieves the letters after pretending to fall for the vulnerable and alcoholic Holbrook.

 

Aboard a carrier in the Mediterranean, Paul Girard elicits a written confession from the hapless admiral. In Texas, Senator Clark, with the assistance of Colonel “Mutt” Henderson, a personal friend of Jiggs, escapes from the secret base he stumbled upon, and returns to Washington with Henderson.

 

But Girard’s plane is sabotaged and crashes into the Spanish hills. Henderson is arrested by the army in Washington and held incommunicado. Admiral Barnswell, in a telephone conversation with the president, denies having signed any papers (Girard had called the president to inform him of Barnswell’s confession in writing).

 

The Enemy Is a Nuclear Age

 

Only the letters retrieved by Casey remain, but the president is reluctant to use them against Scott. In one of the most pivotal scenes, President Lyman tells Todd and Senator Clark that the enemy isn’t Scott but a nuclear age. People look for transitory heroes like Scott to guide them through the fear and uncertainty.

 

The president meets with General Scott in the Oval Office, the “show down” designed to produce the resignation of Scott and the other complicit officers in the Joint Chiefs. The scheduled alert for the following day is called off – the alert that would have resulted in Scott’s taking over the government. But Scott is defiant. As he leaves the Oval Office, the president says, “I’m going to fight you…”

 

President Lyman’s Press Conference Averts a Military Take-Over

 

Although his press conference has begun, the president is called outside by Todd and Clark. His Chief of Staff had folded Admiral Barnswell’s written confession into a cigarette case which was found by an American embassy official in Madrid at the crash site of Paul Girard’s plane. The entire plot was revealed.

 

Copies are made and forwarded to all of the implicated officers. Excepting Scott, they immediately send the president their resignations. These are announced during the resumption of the press conference, the president commenting at length about the American system, the Constitution, and the democratic way.

 

The Message of Seven Days in May

 

Politics and Civics instructors still use Seven Days in May to generate class discussion. Can such a thing happen in America? Is the American Constitution strong enough to withstand the rise of demagogues that threaten civil liberties and differences of opinion? In this regard, the film is timeless.

 

History, even contemporary history, is full of examples of democratic governments elected by the people being overthrown by strong military personalities. This has happened in large, progressive nations like Turkey and small, island paradises like Fiji. But can it happen in America?  Seven Days in May suggests that it can happen in America, given the right circumstances.

 

Sources:

 

Warner Bros. Classics, VHS 1997

Internet Movie Data Base

[Copyright of this article owned by Michael Streich. Reprints of any kind must have prior written permission]

 

 The Longest War was Vietnam

 Vietnam was the First of the so-called "Longest Wars"

The Vietnam War was the first modern American conflict that seriously divided the United States. Expansion of the war coincided with significant social challenges related to the conformist 1950s and early 1960s as well as the constant reminders of Cold War fears. These challenges included various movements, formed to address social inequality and the lack of universal justice. Vietnam veterans returning home found no parades welcoming them back to the United States. Rather, they witnessed a disturbed and highly polarized society.

 

United States Involvement in Southeast Asia

 

The so-called “twenty-five year war” began after World War II ended. French attempts to maintain her pre-war colonial possessions depended upon American support. After Vietnam was divided during the Eisenhower administration, the United States spent $1 billion up to 1960 in propping up the unpopular South Vietnamese government.

 

During the brief Kennedy administration, the United States was drawn further into the quagmire that would eventually see half a million Americans fighting to stop Communism. Vietnam was viewed as the first important test of the Domino Theory. Additionally, both major political parties wanted to be seen as strong in confronting Communism.

 

John F. Kennedy’s administration began with the Bay of Pigs debacle. He could only watch as Nikita Khrushchev ordered the construction of the Berlin Wall. The Cuban Missile Crisis represented the ultimate example of brinkmanship while alienating key European allies like France. Confronting Communism became the paramount foreign policy issue.

 

Lyndon B. Johnson Increased American Military Action in Vietnam

 

The escalation of war following the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident necessitated the drafting of tens of thousands. Until the lottery system was instituted under President Nixon, the men shipped to Vietnam reflected high numbers of minorities and high-school drop outs. According to historians William Wheeler and Susan Becker, “only 12 percent of the college graduates between 1964 and 1973 served in Vietnam.”

 

It was not uncommon, for example, to have the local “beat cop” in many cities referring names of delinquent teens to draft boards. Some men enlisted, seeing the military as a viable option when a college education was not possible. This was especially true for minorities and poor Americans. Privileged Americans who did poorly in college joined state National Guard units to avoid service. Some “draft dodgers” fled to Canada.

 

The Draft System and Anti-War Youth Protest

 

The draft system prior to the lottery deferred college students. As changes were made, students were required to maintain good grades or risk losing their deferred status. Graduate students attending medical schools and seminaries were also exempt until the completion of their academic programs.

 

Universities were already centers of student discontent and in the late 1960s there was a cause for everyone. The Civil Rights movement led to President Johnson’s focus on key legislation like the 1964 Civil Rights Act. A growing women’s movement, headed by feminists like Betty Friedan, challenged the 1950s domestic role of American women.

 

Dissatisfaction with conformity and what American youth viewed as shallow materialism was expressed in popular music and would later coalesce into anti-war rock music. Woodstock, in August 1969, represented the epitome of youth frustration. Woodstock was both a celebration of life as perceived by youth as well as a protest against the status quo.

 

The step from social protest to anti-war protest was very small. Messages like “give peace a chance” or rallies where students burned draft cards and U.S. flags attested to the strong desire for real social change. To this day, John Lennon’s “Imagine” is sung every New Year’s Eve in Times Square, New York in the minutes before the New Year begins.

 

Conservative Americans Class with Anti-War Americans

 

An oral history by a young protestor, who later worked with returning Vietnam veterans, talks about a math teacher in her high school who disappeared from the rural Wisconsin community. The teacher had obtained a conscientious objector draft status and, according to the speaker, “In my town, that wasn’t much different from being a Communist.”

 

Some Americans believed that protests were being secretly assisted by Communist agents. George Tieland and his wife Annie had been active members in the American Communist Party in the 1950s, displaying a portrait of Josef Stalin in their Queens, New York soda shop.

 

Tieland, referring to anti-war activities, claimed that the KGB had trained key students as well as their own agents to ferment anti-war protests on college campuses. He claimed to have knowledge of this from contacts he still maintained with old party colleagues. Tieland had trained in a Communist academy near Moscow after World War I, before coming to America and was the brother of Albert Walter, a leading German Communist before Hitler took power.

 

Conservative Americans used such stories as well as the more violent protests to legitimize their own views that Communism was already at the American doorstep. Colleges were viewed as liberal institutions, staffed by Communist sympathizing professors. The phrase, “America: love it or leave it” became increasingly popular.

 

Vietnam Divides American Society

 

Returning war veterans were caught between angry protests and a war-weary society that justified the war but wanted it to end. Richard Nixon’s resignation in light of the Watergate scandal increased national apathy. Vietnam demonstrated that Communism would not be defeated by bombs, Agent Orange, napalm, or the threat of nuclear warfare. It also left a society that doubted the efficacy of its institutions.

 

Sources:

 

Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (Penguin Books, 1997)

George C. Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam 1950-1975 (Alfred A. Knopf, 1986)

Senator Eugene McCarthy, The Limits of Power: America’s Role in the World (Dell, 1968)

General Bruce Palmer, Jr., The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam (University Press of Kentucky, 1984)

 Copyright of this article is owned by Michael Streich; reprints of any kind require written permission.

 

 Worst President? Historians continue to Debate in 2021 After Trump Presidency Ended.

First published in September 2010 in Suite101. Since then America has seen two presidents, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. After Trump's defeat in 2020, historians have revised their differing lists, including Trump at the bottom end of the rankings.

 In his book, The Unexpected President: The Life And Times of Chester A. Arthur, Scott S. Greenberger states, "Arthur became president 136 years ago, but the era Mark Twain dubbed the "Gilded Age" doesn't feel distant at a time when political corruption, economic inequality, and corporate malfeasance are once again shaking people's faith in the American experiment." (Del Capo Press, 2017) Historian Page Smith referred to Arthur as a "reformed crook" while Thomas Wolfe called Arthur one of the "Four Lost Men."

M.Streich, author of this article

On August 11, 2010 the Huffington Post included an item on Ben Quayle, an Arizona Republican campaigning for Congress, in which the former Vice President’s son said that “Barack Obama is the worst president in history.” On July 1, 2010, the Guardian reported on academic polls that concluded George W. Bush was “the worst president ever.” But what constitutes being the worst or even being on a list of worst U.S. presidents? Is it too early to pass judgment on Bush or Obama – who has only been in office for 19 months?

 

Top Ten Lists Change as Political and Social Imperatives Change

 

Due to the scandalous nature of Ulysses Grant’s two terms following the American Civil War, scholars have always included the man on the “worst” list, even though he was probably considered the penultimate war hero and general of the 19^th Century. By the time Grant moved into the White House, Congress, led by fiery and egocentric men like Ben Wade and Thaddeus Stevens, had fully taken control of Reconstruction policies. If Grant was a bad president, it was because he was a puppet of the real powers affecting national policies.

 

The same can be said of Herbert Hoover, forever tarnished as the man who opened the door to the Great Depression by his failure to aggressively pursue federal action. By today’s standards, however, Republicans angry with government spending, bail-outs, and stimulus funds would find in Hoover a kindred spirit. Hoover’s view of the federal government is much like the contemporary Tea Party agenda.

 

Perennial Worst List Favorite Sons

 

James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson top the list of all-time worst presidents, and with good reason. One served before Lincoln – usually considered the greatest president, the other served after Lincoln. Buchanan watched the Civil War break out and did nothing to stop it. Some have compared him to Nero, fiddling while Rome was burning.

 

Andrew Johnson threw away a golden opportunity to build upon Lincoln’s Reconstruction policies, setting himself apart from Congress and vetoing legislation designed to alleviate problems in the post-war South. Like Franklin Pearce and Grant, Johnson was a drinker.

 

Late 19^th Century Presidents Make the Worst List

 

Presidents Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur often fill the worst list. Cleveland, according to historian Page Smith, was “a cut above.” It should be remembered, however, that these men entered the White House at a time Congress was very powerful, especially the Senate. Having controlled Grant, Republican stalwarts manipulated the 1876 election in favor of Hayes, who was forever beholden to them.

 

The proverbial die was cast as Congress, notably powerful Republicans tied to Gilded Age business lobbies preserved their power at the expense of the executive branch. Not until the second term of the Teddy Roosevelt presidency was this power broken, only because “TR” had an iron personality and a will to effect important changes.

 

Worst Presidents Judged by Decisions Affecting the Future

 

Lyndon B. Johnson is considered a successful and perhaps great president because of his social programs like Medicare and Affirmative Action. Others, however, vilify him for his social policies and accuse him of escalating the Vietnam War. His initiatives are seen as “New Deal Phase Two” by fiscal conservatives fearful of creeping socialism.

 

Even in the 21^st Century, there are aging “Nixon haters” who equate him with obstruction of justice, covering up Watergate, and secretly extending the Vietnam War into Cambodia and Laos. But Nixon defenders point to his China policy, certainly a long-term effect on U.S. commercial interests and the American ability to purchase cheap goods at “box” stores like Wal-Mart.   

 

Most every president has positive and negative achievements. Eisenhower has practically no record of domestic legislation excepting the interstate highways measure. John F. Kennedy escalated the arms race and did little to further Civil Rights. The fact is that “Great” and “Worst” are subjective terms, each conforming to political agendas set by those making the selections.

 

Assessing Contemporary Presidents

 

In the case of contemporary presidents, the judgment of history may be many generations in the future. In 1836, Andrew Jackson may have been considered the worst president since the birth of the Republic by his detractors, yet history today deems him to be great; Jacksonian democracy represents a phrase alluding to greater political participation in America. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. compared him to Franklin Roosevelt in his biography of Jackson.

 

Ben Quayle may be in a rocking chair on his Arizona front porch before historians fully assess the impact of the Obama presidency, even though 21^st Century technology, notably the internet, is making information more available. And that includes Ben’s father, who as Vice President under George H.W. Bush, was a master at gaffes.

 

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

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

Page Smith, The Rise of Industrial America: A People’s History of the Post-Reconstruction Era, Volume Six (Penguin Books, 1984)

[Copyright of this article is owned by Michael Streich. Reprints of any kind and in any format require written permission and attribution]