FIRST THERE WAS WASHINGTON'S WORLD!

By Edwin Cooney

The approximately 67 plus years that existed between 1732 and late in the year of 1799 that constituted the life of George Washington was a largely agrarian world. Men and women made their living from the soil. Very few were or even thought of being educated. The country was both conceived and established by the most able people of its time. These people came from the countryside and were born the sons and daughters of largely aristocratic English families.    

George's father Augustine (Gus to his friends) was both a planter and a businessman, the grandson of mid-level English aristocrats. He ran an iron foundry and spent much time away doing business in England. George knew little of his father who died in 1743 when George was 11 years old.

Physically, George Washington stood 6 feet 2 and was muscular from his shoulders through his ankles. He had blue-gray eyes, high cheekbones, heavy eyebrows and a determined chin.  He was dark-haired which he powdered and tied into a ponytail on formal occasions.

Personally, he was very serious. Life to Washington was about business. He had quiet strength. He spoke softly. He preferred to express himself in writing although he could be eloquent. He was a good listener. Washington had a high capacity to evaluate and utilize the talents of others.

Militarily, he knew when to challenge and when to retreat. General Washington forced the British army to chase his armies all over the North American continent taking advantage of Britain’s limited capacity once lured away from the coast. Once Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson maneuvered France into the war providing essential sea cover, the war was won as Lord Cornwallis was trapped at Yorktown on Friday, October 19th, 1781.

George Washington's skill riding a horse had a profound effect on men and women whose daily existence depended on their horsemanship.

Above all else, it was Washington’s character and the dependence of others on that character that made Washington "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen" as expressed by Richard Henry Lee at Washington's passing on Saturday, December 14th 1799.

There's an irony here. Throughout the revolution, a number of people  suggested that after the war Washington might become our first king. However, he made it clear in several letters that he would return home once the war was done. He did exactly that until called upon to chair the 1787 Constitutional Convention as a delegate whereupon the delegates unanimously asked Washington to serve as their chairman with full powers to set the rules of conduct.

George Washington would twice receive unanimous support in the electoral college. In 1792, he wanted to return to Mount Vernon but decided there was too much to accomplish economically, militarily and strategically. He simply couldn't leave things as they were.

As for Washington, the slave holder? It can't be denied as a sin of the times. However, it deserves some perspective. Neither you nor I choose the time in which we're born into. Our vices and our virtues encompass and rule us throughout our lives. If we're to grasp and thus understand our history (and not everyone chooses to do so), the first reality we must come to grips with is the realization that each generation lives in its own world. We're the victims of our contemporaries until such time as we try to master them and that can be dangerous! 

    

In closing, I invite you to participate in a minor mind game. Before you read the last part of what's here, ask yourself what was unique about General George Washington's leadership? What did General Washington insist upon that no other war-winning general ever did?

My friend whom I'll call “Portola Valley, California Steve” notes that George Washington who both won a war and helped establish a government was very reluctant to serve as head of that government. George Washington would not be King George. All George Washington wanted to do after the war was to return to Mount Vernon! (Ah! here’s still another irony: George Washington, through a paternal grandmother, Mildred Warner Washington, was a descendant of  King Edward III 1329-1377, one of England’s finest medieval kings.).  

Ultimately, he could not. Men who helped form this country, who also were men of ambition, named Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, John Adams, Henry Knox, Patrick Henry, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, Robert Livingston, and — I dare say — even Aaron Burr insisted on George Washington's service!

That service in Washington's world made our world possible!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

FEBRUARY: SHORT BUT MIGHTY

By Edwin Cooney

While every month can be decorated for its politically, socially, and historic progeny, February appears especially significant considering it never has 30 days within its domain.

First there's Punxsutawney Phil, everyone's favorite and only known groundhog or woodchuck. Then there's the birth of Henry Aaron which took place on February 5th, 1934 and Babe Ruth who was born on February 6th, 1895. Four presidents were born in February: Ronald Reagan on February 6th, 1911, William Henry Harrison on February 9th, 1773, Abraham Lincoln on February 12th, 1809, and, of course, George Washington on February 11th or 22nd, 1732 — take your pick.(George Washington was deprived of his 19th birthday, because by the time he reached his 19th birthday, February 1731 had become February 1732, moving from the last month of the Julian calendar to the second month of the new Gregorian calendar.)

All four February presidents left a significant mark on American history. Harrison did so by becoming the first president to die in office thereby allowing Vice President John Tyler to successfully declare himself president. President Washington, in addition to being our first president, personally established the Executive department of the new Federal Government with little or no direction from the Constitution.

President Lincoln saved the Union by never recognizing the legitimacy of the Confederacy, thereby making the Civil War a mere civil rebellion rather than a declared war.

President Reagan is regarded by many (although not by this author) to have won the Cold War by refusing to back down on Premier Gorbachev's insistence that the National Space Defense program, otherwise known as "Star Wars,” be rejected. Realizing they couldn't match American defense expenditures, the Russian government under Mikhail Gorbachev signed the INF Treaty in Washington, D.C. in December of 1987.

Three presidential elections were decided in February. George Washington was elected as our first president on February 4, 1789. Thomas Jefferson was elected president in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, February 17th, 1801. John Quincy Adams was elected president on Monday, February 9th, 1825.

February 3rd, 1870 marks the ratification of the 15th Amendment asserting that all citizens have the right to vote. That amendment was ignored by the Jim Crow South until passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. However, it is ironic that February 3rd 1913's ratification of the 16th Amendment empowering the Congress to "lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived” remains on the books when it is as unpopular as it surely is!

Thursday, February 14, 1929 saw the St. Valentine’s Day gang massacre in Chicago. On Wednesday, February 15th, 1933, a large Miami crowd witnessed  the near assassination of President Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt by Giuseppe Zangara. The shooting  resulted in the death of Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago on Monday, March 6th, two weeks and six painful days later. Zangara was executed for the shooting on March 20th, 1933.

Other February events include the February 22nd, 1932 birth of Edward M. Kennedy, the release by the Soviets of U-2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers on February 10th, 1962 and, most dramatically, the launching of John Glenn into orbit on Tuesday, February 20th, 1962. Also notable is the February 9th, 1964 appearance by the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. 

During the month of February, however, good things do come to an end as occurred on February 26th, 1935 when the New York Yankees traded Babe Ruth to the Boston Braves following 14 years of baseball glory. (Note: Babe Ruth would retire on June 2nd 1935 and his great Yankee teammate, Lou Gehrig, would die on June 2nd, 1941.)  

Following Mighty February, of course there comes Miraculous March! Perhaps I'll tell you about that sometime sooner or later!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

INDIFFERENCE: THAT'S THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL!

By Edwin Cooney

For as far back as I can remember, some have insisted that FDR's New Deal was the root of all American evil. However, since political outlook does not exist without cause, it seems to me that no idea or political stand can exist without cause and effect. Thus, in 2024, neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump lies at the center of our national sins.

This being the case, what “we the people” seek or are indifferent to reflects both our saintliness and sinfulness.

If we look to the past for affirmation of our greatness or strictly to the left for our salvation, we're seeking ideology rather than reason to guide our destiny. So, let's go to the absolute root of our dilemma.

Most people when asked what the opposite of "love" is will invariably respond "hatred." However, both love and hate have passion as the root of their existence.

Indifference has boredom, a lack of a sense of good or evil, self-centeredness and fear at its core.

Unity, prosperity and freedom have always been our national goal as stated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. However, despite these national goals, we have been too indifferent to the misfortunes of peoples whom we ought to have treated differently than we ultimately did.

When unity, freedom, and prosperity are absent from how we practice or what we do, we're inviting discord to be a part of our future. We need the inclusion of the creative and conscientious to energize us beyond our indifferences.

Of course, no one can be responsible for all of the legitimate causes that exist in 21st Century America. I once read an amusing article written by the late great Art Buchwald in which he tried to get his Aunt Goldie to stop worrying about everything in New York and to let Mayor John Lindsay worry about things over which Aunt Goldie had no control.

What enhances today's sense of indifference is the realization that neither the politicians nor the scientific and social scientists can reach a reliable response to either the nature or solutions of public causes.

Here are five problems and their root causes that aren't being addressed:

1) We won't get to the immigration solution until we realize that its existence arises from conditions in Central and South America. After all, people don't move without being frightened.

2) America’s quarrel with their LGBTQ neighbors may at least lessen considerably once “straights” understand that they are who they are for biological reasons rather than out of socio/religious defiance.          

3) Racial prejudice has been a part of our behavior going back to the labor challenges of seventeen century Virginia and we are guilty of it. We fear that one day soon, racial minorities may seek revenge on the once Anglo-Saxon white majority.That's why the old Southern Confederacy continuously seeks to minimize its guilt and maximize its patriotism since the Spanish-American War of the 1890s.

4) Rather than follow the dictates of our religious heritages, we've had a tendency to politically use and  promote them against causes and peoples we fear.

5) Our treatment of native citizens was as cruel as the Holocaust. Yet we hope and even expect Native Americans to forgive us because, after all, it was in the past!

Ultimately, we've been more wonderful than we've been inhumane! However, there are several conditions we remain indifferent to at our own peril. These include the national and worldwide environment and the danger of encouraging international conflict due to our own understandings and prejudices. We must promote inclusion rather than political and social indifference to others.

Yes, indeed, our indifferences are potentially far more destructive than even our prejudices. After all, our indifferences lie at the root of our prejudices!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY 

ARE OUR RELIGIOUS FAITHS ABOUT BEING RIGHT OR BEING REAL?

By Edwin Cooney

First a little orientation. As a Christian, I've believed in God all my life and I always expect to believe. I also believe that there's an afterlife in Heaven. However, I read an article in the New York Times which was sent to me by two helpful friends that was about Phillip Hancock, a death row inmate in Oklahoma, who sought and found a chaplain named Devin Moss to assist him into eternity.

What Hancock and Moss have in common is their atheism. For the last year of Hancock's existence, Devin Moss, a humanist chaplain, had been struggling with Hancock to ease the prisoner's way into eternity without God.

On the morning of November 30th, 2023, Moss stood by the gurney on which Hancock lay and read from a paper he had prepared which was designed to provide the dying prisoner with what was both true and real.

What was real was friendship and love. As Hancock faded away, Moss kept reminding Hancock that he wasn't alone and that he was loved.

As a Christian, it's my understanding that God, above everything else, is love. Accordingly, he or she who endorses or is encompassed by love recognizes God.

Lifelong anger, disappointment, and hatred are usually the causes of agnosticism or atheism! After all, it's only natural to anticipate and rationalize eternity! What we seek to understand and believe in is a gift to share with those we care about enough to befriend or love. What bothers me is our insistence on the rightness of our beliefs.

I have a friend who insists on asserting that God has never and will never exist. He says that in a playful way, as he seeks truth in all things. However, I sense in his good natured teasing, there’s an element of certainty that he’s right and we believers are wrong. For my part, I wish for him the peace and love I expect to receive in Heaven.

For me, my belief in Christianity is no longer, as it once was, about being right! As I see it, those who claim the right of temporal or political power in the name of their religious beliefs or membership are ultimately seeking economic authority or popularity. That is perhaps humankind's greatest sin.

According to the story in the Times, as Devin Moss saw Phillip Hancock slip into eternity, he found himself uttering a prayer. As he drove away from the prison with tears in his eyes, he prayed that Phillip Hancock was at that very moment, experiencing the foretaste of good fortune!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

WHEN NOW BECOMES THEN

By Edwin Cooney

As an admirer of Richard Milhous Nixon, I was excited and anticipatory as the 56-year-old Californian living then in New York City took the presidential oath of office while being sworn in by his former California governor and now retiring Chief Justice of the United States, Earl Warren. The fact of the matter was, as few Americans realized, neither Nixon nor Warren much liked or trusted each other — but duty was duty for both men. Back in 1952, most of the California delegates had planned to vote for their governor on the first ballot to preserve the delegation’s power during future ballots. To Earl Warren and his friends, Nixon had demonstrated his incapacity to keep his good political word.

However, on the way to the Chicago convention, Senator Nixon had broken with his fellow delegates to support General Dwight Eisenhower's candidacy. Hence, Richard Nixon left the 1952 Convention as the Vice Presidential candidate and Earl Warren left with a tentative promise of a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

As Nixon entered the presidency that Monday, both his personal and political reputations were in question. In 1946 when he ran for Congress, he sought to link his opponent, incumbent Jerry Voorhis, a New Deal Democrat, with Communist elements of the labor movement. Four years later, he sought to link Helen Gahagan Douglas, his opponent for election to the U.S. Senate, with Communism. Anti-Communism had been the ongoing theme of Nixon’s political career much to the chagrin of most Democrats and a few Republicans. As he sought the presidency in 1960, former Socialist candidate The Reverend  Norman Thomas acknowledged that Nixon was obviously an able man, but Thomas wondered out loud about Mr. Nixon's political motives.

Although he was moderately conservative that January Inauguration Day, there were elements of progressivism in Mr. Nixon's background. He had supported the Eisenhower Administration’s civil rights efforts in 1957 and in 1960 and was cordial with Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. He had opposed the censure of atomic scientist Dr. Robert Oppenheimer and was supported for public office by Jackie Robinson, the first Black player brought in to play in the major leagues.

Having served as Vice President for eight years, having debated Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow in July 1959, and having former Senator and U.N. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge as his running mate, Richard Nixon's foreign policy bona fides were pretty solid in 1960.

As for 1968, Nixon endorsed LBJ's war in Vietnam, asserting that LBJ's primary mistake was that he lacked a winning strategy. 

The year 1968 had been both dramatic and tragic:

First came the Tet Offensive on January 30th. Next came the re-evaluation of our military and diplomatic strategy, Then there was the Eugene McCarthy near victory over LBJ in New Hampshire. Then Robert Kennedy entered the race. After that, LBJ suddenly withdrew from the consideration for reelection on March 31st. Four days later came the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King followed two months later with the assassination of Robert Kennedy. That was followed by the chaotic Democratic convention and Mayor Richard Dailey's "police riot" against the demonstrators. In addition, there was the unknown factor of Governor George C. Wallace's presidential candidacy. By November, everyone was exhausted.

On November 5th, 1968, in an exceedingly close vote, Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey by 43.4 per cent to 42.7 per cent of the popular vote. Mr. Nixon got 301 electoral votes to Mr. Humphrey's 191.

Meanwhile, the nation was entranced by the flight of Apollo VIII and its Christmas Eve picture of the earth from the vantage point of the moon.

As Richard Nixon delivered his inaugural address, the world was waiting for whatever came next.

I assert that no man in the history of American politics had the chance to alter everything negative ever said, written or cartooned about him than Richard Milhous Nixon on that day 56 years ago.

What's even more interesting is that for the immediate future Richard Nixon was "The New Nixon" largely due to the force and eloquence of that inaugural address. Here are just a few examples of that eloquence:

"The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker. This honor now beckons America — the chance to help lead the world out of the valley of turmoil, and onto that high ground of peace that man has dreamed of since the dawn of civilization. If we succeed, generations to come will say of us now living, that we mastered our moment, that we helped make the world safe for mankind. This is our summons to greatness. I believe that the American people are ready to answer this call....When we listen to “the better angels of our nature,” we find that they celebrate the simple things, the basic things — such as goodness, decency, love, kindness. Greatness comes in simple trappings. The simple things are the ones most now needed today if we are to surmount what divides us and cement what unites us. To lower our voices would be a simple thing. In these difficult years America has suffered from a fever of words, from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver, from angry rhetoric which fans discontent into hatred, from bombastic rhetoric which postures instead of persuading. We can not learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another; until we speak quietly enough until our words can be heard as well as our voices…I have taken an oath today in the presence of God and my fellow countrymen to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. To that oath I now add this sacred commitment: I shall consecrate my office, my energies, and all the wisdom I can summon, to the cause of peace among the nations..."

Of course, President Nixon fell widely short of his promises and goals of his first inaugural. Had he not made the above pledges, it’s possible he would have been less successful than he ultimately was.

One year from today, which will mark the 56th anniversary of Richard Nixon's original inaugural, a likely re-elected president — hopefully — will strive to renew his reputation and the nation's subsequent expectations, thus ensuring our national well-being!

As for now, our national well-being appears to have been gobbled up by the age of the likely candidates, the self-absorption of the former president, and the conspiracy predictions and theories by the supporters of both candidates.

Tomorrow will house the "then" and it's the “then” that will write our national history! 

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY