By Edwin Cooney
I know this is hard to believe, but I swear it’s true!
During the American Revolution there really and truly existed a good Tory who rose above both politics and loyalty to his own King, George III to contribute, however unwittingly, to our liberty and our sovereignty.
He was Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Ferguson of the British army. Colonel Ferguson invented the first breech-loading rifle used by British forces in the American Revolution. It was deadly accurate at 250 yards.
On the morning of Thursday, September 11th (a familiar date, isn’t it!), 1777, Patrick Ferguson and the company of sharp shooters over which he had command were lying in the woods near Brandywine Creek in southeastern Pennsylvania. There was apparently a lull in the fighting at the time. Suddenly, two “rebel” riders who were quite alone came into the woods. One of them, according to a letter written by Colonel Ferguson (and now housed in an Edinburgh Scotland museum), was garbed in “French hussar” dress. The other, wearing blue and green dress, rode a large bay horse. Atop his head he wore a high cocked hat.
Since they were clearly “rebel” officers, Colonel Ferguson instructed the men on his right flank to prepare to fire. However, after watching the two men for a few moments and deciding that they couldn’t harm his troops, he withdrew the order to fire, but kept the two men in his sight. The French Hussar continued to ride on ahead of the horseman in the high cocked hat who suddenly paused and started back from whence he’d come. As he rode along, now within 150 yards and well within range, Colonel Ferguson called out to the “rebel officer” who thus paused and looked back at him. Colonel Ferguson was impressed with his poise on the horse and the coolness with which he conducted himself even under imminent fire. So, he let him alone and the “rebel” officer continued on his way.
The following day, fighting commenced and both sides resumed wounding, killing, and imprisoning one another. Eventually, Colonel Ferguson learned that the man on the bay horse wearing green and blue under the cocked hat was none other than George Washington. Now it should be said that Colonel Ferguson didn’t realize, at that instant, that he had the Commander-in-Chief of the “rebel” army within his sight. It is possible that he’d have made a different decision had he known who he was. However, two important factors clearly stand out in this setting: one is situational and the other is humane.
During the American Revolution, a number of officers were held by both sides and exchanged unharmed for various political and strategic advantages. Second, however, Colonel Ferguson’s decision not to fire upon the rebel officer wasn’t strategic—it was humane. For, as he wrote in this letter, the longer he watched the way this officer conducted himself, the thought of shooting him became “increasingly disgusting.” Even more incredible, Colonel Ferguson says in this historic letter that he isn’t in the least sorry that he refrained from shooting at George Washington.
There is a compelling irony to this story, however. Professor North Callahan points out in his 1972 book “George Washington: Soldier and Man” that three years later in the Battle of King’s Mountain, North Carolina, Lieutenant Colonel Ferguson would not be granted the same consideration by “rebel” forces. His body would be riddled with bullets as he rode among his troops.
As you can be sure, there are scholars who deny the authenticity of this story. They are understandably skeptical that Washington would go anywhere outside of his lines unarmed. However, as other scholars have discovered, some of the elements of the objections of these critics are unfounded. Hence, as time passes, Lieutenant Ferguson’s account gains rather than loses credibility.
The wonder in this story for me is the realization that, powerful and persistent as the forces of ignoble evil may be, there lingers in humanity even more powerful evidence of consideration and tolerance toward one another that President Abraham Lincoln labeled “…the better angels of our nature”.
Surely there were many occasions after that September 11th, 1777 which could have shortened George Washington’s life. We know from his own words that one of his greatest thrills was the sound of musket balls as they whistled by, or even through, his coat.
One thread that often runs through the great events of history is the existence of leaders around whom a generation of patriotic men and women unite for causes greater than their personal comfort. For all our sakes, that leader, from 1776 until his death in 1799, was George Washington. Around Washington, great men threw aside their own religious and political differences long enough to establish and unify America.
Thus it was that due to stellar personal qualities George Washington lived to be “Father of our Country.” However, if it were not for the character of that gentlemanly Scot, that “good Tory,” America might well have been born an orphan – or perhaps not born at all.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, March 29, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
IT’S ALL VERY PERSONAL
By Edwin Cooney
As the struggle for passage or defeat of President Obama’s healthcare proposal reaches its climax, Americans appear as jittery as a bowl of Jell-O atop a bucking bronco. President Obama at least twice has postponed a scheduled trip to Asia.
Some Americans, this observer hopes it is most of them, believe the president’s proposal ought to pass in order to provide protection for millions of Americans vulnerable to the increasingly outrageous costs of the present insurance-girded system. Others believe it ought to pass, but that it is not comprehensive enough to secure Americans their right to “…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Still others believe it ought to fail for that very reason. Many Americans, including but not solely the wealthy among us, believe it ought to fail because it is contrary to our political pedigree and will, even worse, bankrupt our future.
Additionally, there are numerous reasons why individuals favor or oppose the current healthcare proposal. Some oppose any government regulation of the “free market”—which this observer believes doesn’t even exist because, after all, the market isn’t and never has been free. It costs money not human energy or commitment or even sincere patriotism to play in it. After all, money is the coin of the realm, not human spirituality or morality.
Our current debate pummels us with other fears as well. Some Americans fear that their tax money will pay for abortions while still others resent the fact that their hard-earned tax money won’t pay for those same abortions.
Hence, once again in our history, we’re at a cross roads and we’re nervous. So the question is, should we be? Answer: we’re understandably nervous because, after all, this particular national debate is ultimately a personal one. Nervousness and uncertainty are one thing, panic is quite another matter.
Taking this argument a step further, it’s also natural for us to want to control our future as much as we can. Any one of us may, and probably will, recover from a costly illness before we close our eyes for the last time. It’s equally possible that America could suffer financial illness or even ruin by financing the people’s health. However, minus overwhelming evidence that the current system is as good as it can get in a truly free society, affordability of healthcare has to be a matter of national necessity.
It’s unlikely that our national fate hangs in the balance over the question of healthcare reform as it did during the US/Soviet Missile Crisis of October 1962. However, we’re all concerned for the wellbeing and fate of friends and neighbors, family members and fellow citizens. The presence of a single individual can make a huge difference in the direction of all our lives.
Therefore, the physical, financial, and, yes, the political status of some hang in the balance over the immediate outcome of healthcare reform legislation.
For some of us, the issue is America’s debt in the absence of cost containment. For others, it is fear of higher taxes. Still others worry about the value of their stocks. Some fear dominance by the president’s liberal or even “socialist” doctrine.
As I see it, except for the last point, the above are all legitimate concerns; however, they are concerns of a free and rich nation. Thus, it seems to me that this rich nation can afford to be genuinely concerned about situations such as the following:
• the fate of the struggling family whose bread winner has been stricken with cancer or heart disease and loses both his income and health benefits;
• The widowed mother whose education isn’t sufficient to employ her in a job that would provide healthcare benefits for her blind twin daughters;
And so on. It is possible to exhaust all of the remaining space in this short commentary outlining the tragic conditions of hardworking, patriotic, spiritually-worthy people who deserve our collective concern and care.
The point here is that this issue is not only more personal but, even more, it is more personally ongoing than even America’s last horrendous crisis of September 11th, 2001.
In the aftermath of 9/11, we had an antagonist that our leadership was anxious to be admired for conquering. Isn’t it ironic that the same political ideologues who were brave enough to go to war against Osama Bin Laden don’t appear to be brave enough to tackle America’s most enduring foe -- catastrophic disease?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
As the struggle for passage or defeat of President Obama’s healthcare proposal reaches its climax, Americans appear as jittery as a bowl of Jell-O atop a bucking bronco. President Obama at least twice has postponed a scheduled trip to Asia.
Some Americans, this observer hopes it is most of them, believe the president’s proposal ought to pass in order to provide protection for millions of Americans vulnerable to the increasingly outrageous costs of the present insurance-girded system. Others believe it ought to pass, but that it is not comprehensive enough to secure Americans their right to “…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Still others believe it ought to fail for that very reason. Many Americans, including but not solely the wealthy among us, believe it ought to fail because it is contrary to our political pedigree and will, even worse, bankrupt our future.
Additionally, there are numerous reasons why individuals favor or oppose the current healthcare proposal. Some oppose any government regulation of the “free market”—which this observer believes doesn’t even exist because, after all, the market isn’t and never has been free. It costs money not human energy or commitment or even sincere patriotism to play in it. After all, money is the coin of the realm, not human spirituality or morality.
Our current debate pummels us with other fears as well. Some Americans fear that their tax money will pay for abortions while still others resent the fact that their hard-earned tax money won’t pay for those same abortions.
Hence, once again in our history, we’re at a cross roads and we’re nervous. So the question is, should we be? Answer: we’re understandably nervous because, after all, this particular national debate is ultimately a personal one. Nervousness and uncertainty are one thing, panic is quite another matter.
Taking this argument a step further, it’s also natural for us to want to control our future as much as we can. Any one of us may, and probably will, recover from a costly illness before we close our eyes for the last time. It’s equally possible that America could suffer financial illness or even ruin by financing the people’s health. However, minus overwhelming evidence that the current system is as good as it can get in a truly free society, affordability of healthcare has to be a matter of national necessity.
It’s unlikely that our national fate hangs in the balance over the question of healthcare reform as it did during the US/Soviet Missile Crisis of October 1962. However, we’re all concerned for the wellbeing and fate of friends and neighbors, family members and fellow citizens. The presence of a single individual can make a huge difference in the direction of all our lives.
Therefore, the physical, financial, and, yes, the political status of some hang in the balance over the immediate outcome of healthcare reform legislation.
For some of us, the issue is America’s debt in the absence of cost containment. For others, it is fear of higher taxes. Still others worry about the value of their stocks. Some fear dominance by the president’s liberal or even “socialist” doctrine.
As I see it, except for the last point, the above are all legitimate concerns; however, they are concerns of a free and rich nation. Thus, it seems to me that this rich nation can afford to be genuinely concerned about situations such as the following:
• the fate of the struggling family whose bread winner has been stricken with cancer or heart disease and loses both his income and health benefits;
• The widowed mother whose education isn’t sufficient to employ her in a job that would provide healthcare benefits for her blind twin daughters;
And so on. It is possible to exhaust all of the remaining space in this short commentary outlining the tragic conditions of hardworking, patriotic, spiritually-worthy people who deserve our collective concern and care.
The point here is that this issue is not only more personal but, even more, it is more personally ongoing than even America’s last horrendous crisis of September 11th, 2001.
In the aftermath of 9/11, we had an antagonist that our leadership was anxious to be admired for conquering. Isn’t it ironic that the same political ideologues who were brave enough to go to war against Osama Bin Laden don’t appear to be brave enough to tackle America’s most enduring foe -- catastrophic disease?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, March 15, 2010
WOW! GET A LOAD OF THIS
By Edwin Cooney
One of the perks of writing a column is the good fortune of having readers who can occasionally boggle my mind.
A few days ago, one of you sent me the following observation by the late professor, novelist and philosopher David Foster Wallace. During a 2005 commencement address to the graduates of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, he asserted:
“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”
As one who struggles with what often seems to me to be the arrogance of religion (although I am a believer), I was amazed at Professor Wallace’s contention that nonbelievers also worship — so, I went to the dictionary for a definition of the word worship.
Worship, used as a noun, means “to offer reverence, honor and homage to be paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred.”
Next, I looked up the word sacred and, although sacredness is generally connected to religious worship, one definition was “a reverent dedication to a person, cause or practice”. Hence, worship is not invariably linked or necessarily relevant only to one’s religious faith.
David Foster Wallace goes on to say that worship of anything except a religion or principle will ultimately devour us. He asserts that if we worship money we’ll never have enough of it. If we worship our body, we’ll never be satisfied with it. Foster’s assertion that everyone, absolutely everyone, worships something is pretty compelling to this observer.
So, some of the questions for you and me are:
What do we worship and what does worshiping do for us? Is what we’re worshiping a positive force in our lives?
Even more intriguing to this observer is the question:
Might we not always realize what we worship or even when we’re worshiping? (I’m drawing a distinction here between worshiping and praying. Certainly, prayer is an act of worship.)
A few years ago, my very favorite pastor, the Reverend Mark Bollwinkel, agreed with me that I needed to decide if my fascination with American history, politics, and presidents was my personal substitute for religious worship. Was I worshiping political leaders? The thought made me uncomfortable then and still does.
Then there is the question of excessive nationalism or, if you prefer, patriotism. Is there not a distinction between loving one’s country and heaping excessive adoration or worship on it? If we view America as uncritically as we do God, is that not tantamount to national worship? Is national worship healthy? If you believe, as I do, that there is life after death, keep in mind that Heaven exists for people rather than nations. You may well discover your worst enemy dwelling within those “pearly gates,” but search as you may, you won’t come across “America the Beautiful” in “the great beyond.”
Finally, we often find ourselves granting to entertainers, especially singers, actors and sports heroes, a status pretty close to earthly deity. We even have a term for it: we call it hero worship. (I know there are some nasty A’s, Giants, or, even worse, Dodgers or Pirates fans out there who might suggest that I worship the New York Yankees, but that’s absurd, of course. Just because I…never mind!)
The most fascinating aspect of Professor Wallace’s observation is that atheists worship.
One of my smartest and closest friends, an agnostic, has insisted time and time again that since we can’t prove that God exists, God’s existence is unlikely. As he sees it, the worship of God is silly. Unless you can prove that something exists, it’s misleading and even unkind to insist that it does exist. As I see it, my friend is pretty close to being a disciple of science and logic. Is it possible that he “worships” science? He certainly has the same reverent regard for science as many of my other friends have for their religious faith.
If David Foster Wallace is right that all of us worship, he may well have put his finger on humanity’s salvation. Of course, if we worship in unhealthy anger, we are likely to destroy ourselves. However, I believe that most people all over the world worship in order to realize the benefits of the most powerful force on this earth. That force can be found in our schools, our games and entertainment, and, most definitely, in the wonders of science.
Get a load of worship’s most blessed gift -- the power of love.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
One of the perks of writing a column is the good fortune of having readers who can occasionally boggle my mind.
A few days ago, one of you sent me the following observation by the late professor, novelist and philosopher David Foster Wallace. During a 2005 commencement address to the graduates of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, he asserted:
“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”
As one who struggles with what often seems to me to be the arrogance of religion (although I am a believer), I was amazed at Professor Wallace’s contention that nonbelievers also worship — so, I went to the dictionary for a definition of the word worship.
Worship, used as a noun, means “to offer reverence, honor and homage to be paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred.”
Next, I looked up the word sacred and, although sacredness is generally connected to religious worship, one definition was “a reverent dedication to a person, cause or practice”. Hence, worship is not invariably linked or necessarily relevant only to one’s religious faith.
David Foster Wallace goes on to say that worship of anything except a religion or principle will ultimately devour us. He asserts that if we worship money we’ll never have enough of it. If we worship our body, we’ll never be satisfied with it. Foster’s assertion that everyone, absolutely everyone, worships something is pretty compelling to this observer.
So, some of the questions for you and me are:
What do we worship and what does worshiping do for us? Is what we’re worshiping a positive force in our lives?
Even more intriguing to this observer is the question:
Might we not always realize what we worship or even when we’re worshiping? (I’m drawing a distinction here between worshiping and praying. Certainly, prayer is an act of worship.)
A few years ago, my very favorite pastor, the Reverend Mark Bollwinkel, agreed with me that I needed to decide if my fascination with American history, politics, and presidents was my personal substitute for religious worship. Was I worshiping political leaders? The thought made me uncomfortable then and still does.
Then there is the question of excessive nationalism or, if you prefer, patriotism. Is there not a distinction between loving one’s country and heaping excessive adoration or worship on it? If we view America as uncritically as we do God, is that not tantamount to national worship? Is national worship healthy? If you believe, as I do, that there is life after death, keep in mind that Heaven exists for people rather than nations. You may well discover your worst enemy dwelling within those “pearly gates,” but search as you may, you won’t come across “America the Beautiful” in “the great beyond.”
Finally, we often find ourselves granting to entertainers, especially singers, actors and sports heroes, a status pretty close to earthly deity. We even have a term for it: we call it hero worship. (I know there are some nasty A’s, Giants, or, even worse, Dodgers or Pirates fans out there who might suggest that I worship the New York Yankees, but that’s absurd, of course. Just because I…never mind!)
The most fascinating aspect of Professor Wallace’s observation is that atheists worship.
One of my smartest and closest friends, an agnostic, has insisted time and time again that since we can’t prove that God exists, God’s existence is unlikely. As he sees it, the worship of God is silly. Unless you can prove that something exists, it’s misleading and even unkind to insist that it does exist. As I see it, my friend is pretty close to being a disciple of science and logic. Is it possible that he “worships” science? He certainly has the same reverent regard for science as many of my other friends have for their religious faith.
If David Foster Wallace is right that all of us worship, he may well have put his finger on humanity’s salvation. Of course, if we worship in unhealthy anger, we are likely to destroy ourselves. However, I believe that most people all over the world worship in order to realize the benefits of the most powerful force on this earth. That force can be found in our schools, our games and entertainment, and, most definitely, in the wonders of science.
Get a load of worship’s most blessed gift -- the power of love.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, March 8, 2010
AMERICA ON THE WAGON
By Edwin Cooney
As Americans awakened on Saturday, January 17th, 1920, many were, presumably, suffering through the last hangover they’d ever experience. The production, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors was now illegal as well as unconstitutional—and every red-blooded citizen knew that patriotic Americans upheld the Constitution of the United States!
Prohibition had been coming on with increasing intensity since the formation of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in 1873 and the founding of the Anti-Saloon League twenty years later. While the women of the WCTU took on numerous social reform battles, especially women’s suffrage, the Anti-Saloon League under the firm hand of Wayne Wheeler (“The Dry Boss”) of Oberlin, Ohio, fought in both major political parties solely for the abolition of intoxicating beer, wine and liquor. His tactics were what we today call “single issue pressure politics”.
There were two forces behind the WCTU and the ASL. The first was the moral persuasion of the rural Evangelical Protestant churches and the second was the ill-informed and unrepresentative political structure of the state legislatures and, ultimately, that of the national Congress.
Additionally, there was an overwhelming desire for social reform that was shared by farmers, urban labor and highly educated and motivated progressive “muckrakers.”
On successive days, December 17th and 18th, 1917, the House and Senate passed the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution outlawing the production, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors. By January 16th, 1919, the required three-fourths of the states had passed the amendment. (Only two defiant states, Connecticut and Rhode Island, rejected the amendment). Thus, the nation was ready to pass the Volstead Act (named after House Judiciary Committee Chairman Andrew Volstead, Republican of Minnesota, although many believed it was actually authored by ASL “Dry Boss” Wayne Wheeler.)
As for the enforcement of Prohibition, the devil was in the details. The task of enforcing Prohibition was given to the Bureau of Internal Revenue. (Note: When Calvin Coolidge appointed J. Edgar Hoover Director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1924 -- it didn’t become the FBI until 1935 -- Hoover resisted any responsibility for enforcing Prohibition.)
Warren Harding wasn’t as bad a president as he is usually depicted, but his handling of Prohibition was one of his “bads.” In May 1921, a cabinet member (probably Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon) along with two undersecretaries were assigned to study and administer Prohibition enforcement. The upshot was the creation of the Prohibition Unit and the assignment of a national enforcement agent who, in turn, assigned Prohibition Directors in each of the 48 states. However, poor salaries, poor personnel selection, and the lack of standards for evaluating job performance left room for organized crime to easily establish a system for bribing law enforcement officials to protect the speakeasy and even the moonshiner. That, along with late night White House liquor and poker parties, may well have weakened the Harding administration’s influence at enforcement.
Following the sudden and tragic death of President Harding on August 2, 1923 in San Francisco, the silent penurious Puritan New Englander Calvin Coolidge was responsible for enforcing Prohibition. Mr. Coolidge simply didn’t believe in big government, so he pretty much left Prohibition alone.
In 1925, Mr. Coolidge appointed retired Army General Lincoln C. Andrews as Assistant Treasury Secretary. Andrews sought to solidify the efforts of the Customs Department, the Coastguard and the Prohibition Unit to tackle the problem. The enforcement effort was seriously under funded. For example, the Customs Department employed only 170 agents to cover the Mexican and Canadian borders around the clock and around the year. The cost for administrating Prohibition rose from six million dollars in 1921 to thirty million by the late 1920s. By the early thirties, it was estimated that it would cost three-hundred million dollars. The 1927 Prohibition Act did streamline efficiency and strengthen both administrative and personnel practices, but it was too little, too late.
By then, stories of raids on speakeasies and the arrests of mayors, sheriffs and even members of Congress were all too common.
When Herbert Hoover became president, he finally began serious enforcement of Prohibition. Hoover directed Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon to attack Prohibition in two ways. The Treasury began investigating the tax returns of men such as Chicago’s Al Capone. The Treasury also began raiding speakeasies and the places where gangsters stashed their supply of booze. Perhaps Prohibition’s greatest heroes were agents such as “Izzy” and Moe from New York, Frank Hamer, and Cherokee Tom Threepersons from Texas and, most dramatically and successfully, Eliot Ness who personally raided Capone’s Chicago territory.
By 1932, the public realized that Prohibition was too expensive and too impractical for a nation starved for jobs and a government crying for tax revenue. In February 1933, a defeated progressive Republican Senator, John Blaine of Wisconsin, introduced the Twenty-first Amendment which repealed the Eighteenth while allowing the states that chose to be dry to remain so. It would be ratified on December 5th.
Meanwhile, in March 1933, the Cullen-Harrison Act legalized “3.2 beer” and wine and FDR signed the bill on March 23rd. It became effective on Saturday, April 8th. That day Anheuser-Busch sent a case of beer to the White House on a wagon hauled by six Clydesdale horses.
As FDR’s beer came off the wagon, America followed.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
As Americans awakened on Saturday, January 17th, 1920, many were, presumably, suffering through the last hangover they’d ever experience. The production, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors was now illegal as well as unconstitutional—and every red-blooded citizen knew that patriotic Americans upheld the Constitution of the United States!
Prohibition had been coming on with increasing intensity since the formation of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in 1873 and the founding of the Anti-Saloon League twenty years later. While the women of the WCTU took on numerous social reform battles, especially women’s suffrage, the Anti-Saloon League under the firm hand of Wayne Wheeler (“The Dry Boss”) of Oberlin, Ohio, fought in both major political parties solely for the abolition of intoxicating beer, wine and liquor. His tactics were what we today call “single issue pressure politics”.
There were two forces behind the WCTU and the ASL. The first was the moral persuasion of the rural Evangelical Protestant churches and the second was the ill-informed and unrepresentative political structure of the state legislatures and, ultimately, that of the national Congress.
Additionally, there was an overwhelming desire for social reform that was shared by farmers, urban labor and highly educated and motivated progressive “muckrakers.”
On successive days, December 17th and 18th, 1917, the House and Senate passed the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution outlawing the production, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors. By January 16th, 1919, the required three-fourths of the states had passed the amendment. (Only two defiant states, Connecticut and Rhode Island, rejected the amendment). Thus, the nation was ready to pass the Volstead Act (named after House Judiciary Committee Chairman Andrew Volstead, Republican of Minnesota, although many believed it was actually authored by ASL “Dry Boss” Wayne Wheeler.)
As for the enforcement of Prohibition, the devil was in the details. The task of enforcing Prohibition was given to the Bureau of Internal Revenue. (Note: When Calvin Coolidge appointed J. Edgar Hoover Director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1924 -- it didn’t become the FBI until 1935 -- Hoover resisted any responsibility for enforcing Prohibition.)
Warren Harding wasn’t as bad a president as he is usually depicted, but his handling of Prohibition was one of his “bads.” In May 1921, a cabinet member (probably Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon) along with two undersecretaries were assigned to study and administer Prohibition enforcement. The upshot was the creation of the Prohibition Unit and the assignment of a national enforcement agent who, in turn, assigned Prohibition Directors in each of the 48 states. However, poor salaries, poor personnel selection, and the lack of standards for evaluating job performance left room for organized crime to easily establish a system for bribing law enforcement officials to protect the speakeasy and even the moonshiner. That, along with late night White House liquor and poker parties, may well have weakened the Harding administration’s influence at enforcement.
Following the sudden and tragic death of President Harding on August 2, 1923 in San Francisco, the silent penurious Puritan New Englander Calvin Coolidge was responsible for enforcing Prohibition. Mr. Coolidge simply didn’t believe in big government, so he pretty much left Prohibition alone.
In 1925, Mr. Coolidge appointed retired Army General Lincoln C. Andrews as Assistant Treasury Secretary. Andrews sought to solidify the efforts of the Customs Department, the Coastguard and the Prohibition Unit to tackle the problem. The enforcement effort was seriously under funded. For example, the Customs Department employed only 170 agents to cover the Mexican and Canadian borders around the clock and around the year. The cost for administrating Prohibition rose from six million dollars in 1921 to thirty million by the late 1920s. By the early thirties, it was estimated that it would cost three-hundred million dollars. The 1927 Prohibition Act did streamline efficiency and strengthen both administrative and personnel practices, but it was too little, too late.
By then, stories of raids on speakeasies and the arrests of mayors, sheriffs and even members of Congress were all too common.
When Herbert Hoover became president, he finally began serious enforcement of Prohibition. Hoover directed Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon to attack Prohibition in two ways. The Treasury began investigating the tax returns of men such as Chicago’s Al Capone. The Treasury also began raiding speakeasies and the places where gangsters stashed their supply of booze. Perhaps Prohibition’s greatest heroes were agents such as “Izzy” and Moe from New York, Frank Hamer, and Cherokee Tom Threepersons from Texas and, most dramatically and successfully, Eliot Ness who personally raided Capone’s Chicago territory.
By 1932, the public realized that Prohibition was too expensive and too impractical for a nation starved for jobs and a government crying for tax revenue. In February 1933, a defeated progressive Republican Senator, John Blaine of Wisconsin, introduced the Twenty-first Amendment which repealed the Eighteenth while allowing the states that chose to be dry to remain so. It would be ratified on December 5th.
Meanwhile, in March 1933, the Cullen-Harrison Act legalized “3.2 beer” and wine and FDR signed the bill on March 23rd. It became effective on Saturday, April 8th. That day Anheuser-Busch sent a case of beer to the White House on a wagon hauled by six Clydesdale horses.
As FDR’s beer came off the wagon, America followed.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, March 1, 2010
WHO’S YOU, ME, US AND THEM GUYS?
By Edwin Cooney
A little less than a week ago, I was offered the opportunity to lecture on an event that happened ninety years ago. President Herbert Hoover called it “A Noble Experiment.” We know it as Prohibition.
As I see it, whether it was a success or a failure (and not even I would categorize it a success) is almost beside the point. The important lessons of any era or movement have to do with what we can and should learn about the conditions that existed which controlled the decision-making process of the time even more than the decisions themselves.
The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which made the manufacture, transportation or sale of intoxicating liquors unlawful, and the Volstead Act, which funded the enforcement of the new law, were made at a time when religious fundamentalism prevailed over science and dominated the American body politic. Nevertheless, the knee jerk tendency we moderns too often give in to, that of simple condemnation, is little more than arrogant self-aggrandizement.
The main flaw with Prohibition was that its determined leadership had little knowledge of the people it was expected to control. There were three forces behind Prohibition: the Evangelical Protestant church; the social reformers of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union; and the purely political pressure of the Anti-Saloon League. These three forces were fueled by the mores of rural America with its limited education and awareness as well as its subsequent ill-informed and unrepresentative political structure.
As asserted above, the lessons of Prohibition go beyond the pressure politics in both parties of the Anti-Saloon League, the prejudices of the Evangelical Protestant churches, and the increasing effectiveness of the Reform Movement. The real question (which was clearly ignored by proponents of Prohibition) was who were the American people?
Even more, proponents of Prohibition failed to anticipate the trouble they’d face and the amount of money they’d be compelled to spend enforcing the Volstead Act. Keep in mind that most Republicans and Democrats (Socialists and some Progressives being the exceptions) opposed big government. Yet, the lack of big government organization is one of the main reasons “The Noble Experiment” -- which lasted from Saturday, January 17th, 1920 until Tuesday, December 5th, 1933 -- had to be abandoned.
Today we are at a similar cross roads. For nearly a year we’ve argued the desirability of health care reform. Each angry exchange in the debate is led by people who insist that they understand “the real America.”
Some of us insist that the real America is made up of the legitimately angry taxpayer whose taxes -- which are already “criminally” too high -- will inevitably be raised to pay for an inefficient government bureaucracy. Others insist that the real America is primarily the consumer whose legitimate right to quality health care is cruelly hampered by rich, greedy insurance and pharmaceutical executives and stockholders.
Certainly both of these arguments have plenty of constituents. Who then should prevail? Should the majority or the educated, the conscientious or the enterprising win the national debate?
Back in the days when Wayne Wheeler of the Anti-Saloon League was marshaling his angry forces against “daemon rum,” there was no effective Anti-Prohibition organization with a sufficient advertising or political pressure arm to equal that of Wheeler’s Anti- Saloon League. Beer brewers and saloon owners were successfully linked to our German enemies of World War I. Beer was called “Kaiser Brew.” Saloon owners were “home wreckers.” In fact, most Americans spent their whole lives disconnected from the struggles of the increasing number of Catholic, Jewish, and liturgical Protestant immigrants filling our urban areas who would resist Prohibition. In 1920, white Anglo-Saxon America didn’t comprehend how much in common it would ultimately share with these new people whose sons and daughters would soon be their grandchildren’s teachers, policemen, firemen, and even their spouses. In short, America was hardly in touch with itself. Hence, its “Noble Experiment” was conducted with the wrong ingredients — and had to be abandoned.
Now it is sophisticated America’s turn to tackle its social and economic problems. What are they? Is health care the fundamental issue facing Americans today or is it merely symptomatic of who we are? Are we merely the victims of large and powerful warring factions or are we the compliant soldiers of these divisive factions? Do we prefer the comfort of opinion to the agony of disinterested but well-informed thought and examination? Or, do we too often give way to political bromides that reinforce our fears whether real or imagined?
Despite our current dilemmas, we Americans have much for which to be grateful. As I see it, one of the greatest gifts currently at our disposal is the man we elected President of the United States a little more than a year ago. As we express our frustrations, he listens. While we rail at one another, he ponders. As we fret about our future, he coolly takes stock of the resources at our command to master it.
Like you and me, Barack Obama is imperfect. Unlike many of us however, he’s keenly aware of the imperfections in his thoughts and conclusions and seeks the counsel of his fellow citizens.
Even better than many of us, President Barack Hussein Obama knows who he is.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
A little less than a week ago, I was offered the opportunity to lecture on an event that happened ninety years ago. President Herbert Hoover called it “A Noble Experiment.” We know it as Prohibition.
As I see it, whether it was a success or a failure (and not even I would categorize it a success) is almost beside the point. The important lessons of any era or movement have to do with what we can and should learn about the conditions that existed which controlled the decision-making process of the time even more than the decisions themselves.
The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which made the manufacture, transportation or sale of intoxicating liquors unlawful, and the Volstead Act, which funded the enforcement of the new law, were made at a time when religious fundamentalism prevailed over science and dominated the American body politic. Nevertheless, the knee jerk tendency we moderns too often give in to, that of simple condemnation, is little more than arrogant self-aggrandizement.
The main flaw with Prohibition was that its determined leadership had little knowledge of the people it was expected to control. There were three forces behind Prohibition: the Evangelical Protestant church; the social reformers of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union; and the purely political pressure of the Anti-Saloon League. These three forces were fueled by the mores of rural America with its limited education and awareness as well as its subsequent ill-informed and unrepresentative political structure.
As asserted above, the lessons of Prohibition go beyond the pressure politics in both parties of the Anti-Saloon League, the prejudices of the Evangelical Protestant churches, and the increasing effectiveness of the Reform Movement. The real question (which was clearly ignored by proponents of Prohibition) was who were the American people?
Even more, proponents of Prohibition failed to anticipate the trouble they’d face and the amount of money they’d be compelled to spend enforcing the Volstead Act. Keep in mind that most Republicans and Democrats (Socialists and some Progressives being the exceptions) opposed big government. Yet, the lack of big government organization is one of the main reasons “The Noble Experiment” -- which lasted from Saturday, January 17th, 1920 until Tuesday, December 5th, 1933 -- had to be abandoned.
Today we are at a similar cross roads. For nearly a year we’ve argued the desirability of health care reform. Each angry exchange in the debate is led by people who insist that they understand “the real America.”
Some of us insist that the real America is made up of the legitimately angry taxpayer whose taxes -- which are already “criminally” too high -- will inevitably be raised to pay for an inefficient government bureaucracy. Others insist that the real America is primarily the consumer whose legitimate right to quality health care is cruelly hampered by rich, greedy insurance and pharmaceutical executives and stockholders.
Certainly both of these arguments have plenty of constituents. Who then should prevail? Should the majority or the educated, the conscientious or the enterprising win the national debate?
Back in the days when Wayne Wheeler of the Anti-Saloon League was marshaling his angry forces against “daemon rum,” there was no effective Anti-Prohibition organization with a sufficient advertising or political pressure arm to equal that of Wheeler’s Anti- Saloon League. Beer brewers and saloon owners were successfully linked to our German enemies of World War I. Beer was called “Kaiser Brew.” Saloon owners were “home wreckers.” In fact, most Americans spent their whole lives disconnected from the struggles of the increasing number of Catholic, Jewish, and liturgical Protestant immigrants filling our urban areas who would resist Prohibition. In 1920, white Anglo-Saxon America didn’t comprehend how much in common it would ultimately share with these new people whose sons and daughters would soon be their grandchildren’s teachers, policemen, firemen, and even their spouses. In short, America was hardly in touch with itself. Hence, its “Noble Experiment” was conducted with the wrong ingredients — and had to be abandoned.
Now it is sophisticated America’s turn to tackle its social and economic problems. What are they? Is health care the fundamental issue facing Americans today or is it merely symptomatic of who we are? Are we merely the victims of large and powerful warring factions or are we the compliant soldiers of these divisive factions? Do we prefer the comfort of opinion to the agony of disinterested but well-informed thought and examination? Or, do we too often give way to political bromides that reinforce our fears whether real or imagined?
Despite our current dilemmas, we Americans have much for which to be grateful. As I see it, one of the greatest gifts currently at our disposal is the man we elected President of the United States a little more than a year ago. As we express our frustrations, he listens. While we rail at one another, he ponders. As we fret about our future, he coolly takes stock of the resources at our command to master it.
Like you and me, Barack Obama is imperfect. Unlike many of us however, he’s keenly aware of the imperfections in his thoughts and conclusions and seeks the counsel of his fellow citizens.
Even better than many of us, President Barack Hussein Obama knows who he is.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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