AND THE WINNER WAS...

By Edwin Cooney

Last Friday night, history was made at Oxford, Mississippi when the Democratic and Republican nominees for the office of President of the United States of America met for the 24^th time to debate their individual perceptions of America’s past, present, and future.

On Monday night, September 26^th, 1960, John F. Kennedy, looking young and tanned following a Florida holiday, and Richard M. Nixon, looking thin and haggard following time in the hospital for a dangerously infected knee, met in a Chicago, Illinois television studio for the first televised presidential debate in American history.  All four of the 1960 debates would last an hour.  The third debate would find the two candidates in separate studios on opposite coasts, Kennedy in New York and Nixon in Los Angeles.  In 1960, the first debate would be regarded as the crucial one with the remaining three regarded as mere aftermaths.

Now, forty-eight September 26ths later, Democratic Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona were meeting in another historic spot for another historic debate.  The site was the University of Mississippi, the same place where, forty-six years earlier, President John F. Kennedy ordered the admission of Mr. James Meredith to the University of Mississippi (affectionately known as “Ole Miss”) to be backed up by federal troops.

Thus, Friday night, September 26^th was not only the forty-eighth anniversary of that first televised presidential debate, it was also just four days short of the forty-sixth anniversary of a black man’s violent admittance to “Ole Miss” on September 30^th, 1962.  Even more incredible, the black man most prominent this night wasn’t a minority candidate for admittance to a southern university in America, but a candidate for the highest office in the land: the office of President of the United States of America.

Presidential debates now last ninety minutes rather than sixty.  Winners and losers are often perceived rather than measured.  How well a candidate does often depends on whether the observer is listening or watching the debates.

Radio listeners to the historic first Kennedy-Nixon debate generally thought that Nixon was the winner. He had to defend the Eisenhower administration while at the same time suggesting that he could do considerably better.  However, television watchers clearly gave the advantage to the handsome and vigorous Jack Kennedy.  The question last Friday night was whether the seasoned McCain could effectively demonstrate that his experience in the area of national security issues is sufficiently superior to Senator Obama’s knowledge and dynamic intelligence.

I was convinced at the close of the debate that while Senator Obama had come across as both knowledgeable and capable in Senator McCain’s area of greater expertise, he seemed to have been forced by McCain to agree much of the time with his perceptions of foreign policy matters.  That, it seemed to me, had given McCain control of the debate and a narrow win.

There were, however, many perceptions other than mine.  This first debate on national security issues, which seemed to favor Senator McCain, turned out to encompass domestic issues as well.  Recent economic disasters on Wall Street were making a lot of Americans feel insecure indeed. These insecurities played very well into Senator Obama’s contention that people’s personal security depends on a lot more than their personal safety.  Whether Americans can continue to afford to own a home, feed their families, enjoy high quality health care and adequately educate their children are vital questions threatening our American way of life in 2008.

Additionally, Senator Obama came across as perceptive and likeable, whereas Senator McCain, who had already indicated that he had other more important things to do last Friday night than debating Senator Obama, appeared angry and condescending for much of the time.  It appears that Americans, especially independent voters, came away from last Friday night’s encounter believing that Barack Obama was more genuinely concerned for their welfare than John McCain.

As a partisan for Senator Obama, I feel precisely the same way.  It isn’t as though Senator McCain and his fellow Republicans are indifferent about the welfare of the American people. Rather it is because too often the Republicans’ insistence on private profits exceeds their sense of service to the public.

It appears that most of those who watched the debate at “Ole Miss” last Friday night, especially those crucial independent voters, saw two different phenomena.  Behind Senator McCain’s occasional anecdote there was anger.  Behind Senator Obama’s professorial manner there was warmth and commitment.

Thus with all due respect to those who genuinely prefer Senator McCain, I proclaim, as might the carnival barker:

“AND THE WINNER IS—SENATOR BARACK OBAMA OF ILLINOIS!” 

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

 

 

 

 

THE PRESIDENT WITH ANOTHER DREAM

By Edwin Cooney

Imagine it’s a balmy spring afternoon in April of 1925 or 1926 — because that’s about the time that this little incident took place. Washington, D.C. is filled with tourists. The cherry tree blossoms are in full bloom.

A large, distinguished-looking man with a handlebar mustache, perhaps carrying a hat in one hand, is descending the steps of the Capitol building where the U.S. Supreme Court was housed at the time. Suddenly, up rushes a little boy about ten or eleven years old. “Oh! I know who you are,” says the little fellow excitedly. “You used to be President Coolidge.”

Well, of course, William Howard Taft never was “President Calvin Coolidge,” but he had been a most unhappy President from 1909 to 1913. Now, in the final years of his life, he was occupying the office he’d wanted since he was a boy — Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Born the second son of Alphonso and Louisa Maria Torrey Taft on September 15th, 1857 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Taft was a good-natured lad. Due to his size, he was called “big lub” by his boyhood friends. To his family and closest friends he was known as Will. His father had been one of the founders of the Republican Party in Cincinnati, Ohio and had served as a Superior Court judge there from 1866 to 1872.

In 1876, President Grant appointed Alphonso Taft as Secretary of War from March to May and then as Attorney General for the remainder of his administration. President Chester A. Arthur appointed the senior Taft Minister to Austria-Hungary from 1882 to 1884 and Minister to Russia from 1884 to 1885. In 1885, illness forced Alfonso Taft to retire to San Diego, California where he died in 1891. His son Will was then Solicitor General of the United States.

A good student, Taft graduated second in his class from Cincinnati’s Woodward High with a 91.6 grade point average in 1874. At Yale University, he also graduated second in the Class of 1878. Returning to Cincinnati, where he attended law school, he was admitted to the Ohio Bar in May of 1880, just four days after his graduation.

As he began his career, one of Will Taft’s biggest assets in addition to brains and energy was his many political connections. Although intensely interested in politics, he realized at the outset of his career that he was more suited to the judiciary than to legislative or administrative office.

His most purely political activities during the 1880’s came in 1884 when he supported incumbent president Chester A. Arthur for re-election. However, young Taft campaigned for James G. Blaine of Maine, the eventual Republican presidential nominee. Between 1882 and 1890, he would be appointed Assistant Prosecutor of Hamilton County, Ohio (1881-1882), Collector of Internal Revenue for the First District of Ohio (1882-1883), Assistant Solicitor of Hamilton County, Ohio (1885-1887) and Judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati (1887-1890).

On June 19th, 1886, Will Taft married twenty-five-year-old Helen (Nellie) Herron, the daughter of Judge John W. and Harriet Collins Herron. John Herron had been a law partner of Rutherford B. Hayes, the man who was to become our nineteenth President on March 4th, 1877. Later that year, sixteen-year-old Nellie Herron attended the Hayes’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary celebration at the White House on December 30th, 1877, along with her parents.

Will Taft met Nellie Herron at a bobsled party in January 1880 and asked her out that February. However, they didn’t date regularly until 1882. He proposed to her in April of 1886 and she accepted that May. Obviously, the new Mrs. Taft’s connections along with his own helped to launch young Will Taft’s star high into the political firmament. So strong was their eventual political prestige in Ohio, that it would nearly carry their oldest son, Robert A. Taft, to the White House in 1953.

In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison appointed him Solicitor General of the United States. (Note: The Solicitor General works under the Attorney General and is the one who often represents the U.S. government in cases before the Supreme Court and other federal courts.)

From 1892 to 1900, he served as a judge of the U.S. Sixth District Court and ex officio as a member of the U.S. Sixth District Court of Appeals with jurisdiction over Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee. Simultaneously, between 1896 and 1900, he was a professor and dean of the University of Cincinnati law school.

It may have been about this time that a humorous little incident occurred. It was customary for small town railroad stationmasters to signal trains to stop in these little villages if a sufficiently “large party” of people were waiting to board. If not, the train would pass through without stopping.

One day, Taft was meeting his judicial responsibilities in one of these small towns. When he arrived at the railroad station, he was told that the train would only stop if a “large party” were waiting. Accordingly, the good-natured judge convinced the stationmaster to request the next train coming through to stop. When it did, Taft boarded the train. The conductor was surprised when only one person got on at such a small stop. “I’m the large party,” Will Taft reportedly explained around his infectious chuckle.

In March 1900, Taft found himself in the Philippines. He was serving as president of a commission established by President William McKinley to bring civilian government to that newly acquired territory. On July 4th, 1901, he became Governor General of those restless islands.

Governor Taft stayed in the Philippines until 1904 establishing civil government in the face of an ongoing anti-American insurrection. He improved roads, harbors, built schools, established a ruling document with civil liberties, and purchased land from the Catholic church which was subdivided and distributed to peasants who had never owned property of their own. So dedicated was Taft to his work that he turned down two offers by President Theodore Roosevelt, one in October 1902 and one in April 1903, to be appointed to Taft’s beloved U.S. Supreme Court.

As Secretary of War under President Theodore Roosevelt from 1904 until 1908, Taft was a busy man. He visited Japan in 1905 and, with the President’s approval, gave permission to the Japanese to administer Korea. This was provided Japan didn’t see such administration as a first step for conquering the Philippines. For a time in 1905, he served as both Secretary of War and State during the final illness of Secretary of State John Hay. In 1907, he was provisional Governor General of Cuba. He visited Panama to inspect construction of the Canal and visited the Philippines once again.

One of the great political legends is the one that describes President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House one night with Will and Nellie Taft. Pretending to be the “seventh son of a seventh daughter” and to have clairvoyant powers, he says he can see the future of a 330-pound man. He just can’t quite tell whether that man will be President or Chief Justice of the United States. Will is supposed to have cried out “Chief Justice,” while Nellie cried out “President of the United States.”

Having mastered the conduct of his office, TR sought to master the future of his party. Having declared that he would not be a candidate in 1908, TR let it be known that William Howard Taft, a man who had never been elected but always had been appointed to a public office, should stand for election to the ultimate office in the land. So it was.

As President, Will Taft conducted a moderately although not wholly conservative administration. He encouraged bankers and private investors to invest in companies in Central and South America. These investments, President Taft believed, strengthened the political structures of countries that might otherwise fall into the hands of dangerous dictators. It was called “dollar diplomacy”.

President Taft supported and signed the Mann-Elkins Act. It increased the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission to set shipment rates thereby depriving the railroads from setting unscrupulously high shipping rates for farmers and other small businessmen.

Then there was his vigorous antitrust policy. With President Taft’s full approval, Attorney General George Wickersham brought suit against dozens of big business combinations. The administration’s biggest victory came against the American Tobacco Company and the Rockefeller run Standard Oil Company.

The White House wasn’t kind to the Tafts. Three months after one of the most frigid Inauguration Days, Mrs. Taft suffered a stroke from which she never fully recovered. Additionally, there hung over Taft the personality of TR. Could Taft measure up to Teddy Roosevelt?

Within months of the new presidency, Gifford Pinchot, one of Secretary of the Interior Richard A. Ballinger’s underlings, charged the Secretary with conspiring with coal companies to sell off public lands for profit. Pinchot was a favorite of TR who was on safari in Africa at that time. Ballinger fired Pinchot for insubordination and President Taft stood behind his Secretary. Pinchot complained to TR and the split between Taft and TR began.

Teddy Roosevelt came home in June 1910 to much ceremony. While he initially deferred to President Taft, his own ambition propelled him onward toward the 1912 GOP nomination. When the fundamentally conservative GOP denied him the nomination, Teddy took a political walk and formed the Progressive Party which split the 1912 vote. Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic nominee, got some six million votes, Roosevelt got over four million and Will Taft, who never really wanted to be President in the first place, came in third with three million plus votes.

Will Taft found peace and some satisfaction as a Yale law professor from 1913 to 1921 where he lectured, wrote magazine articles, and did some public speaking around the country. Taft was one of the few Republicans who supported Wilson’s League of Nations in 1919 and 1920.

On Thursday, June 30th, 1921, President Warren G. Harding granted William Howard Taft his fondest dream when he appointed him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

His administration of the court was efficient but, according to most historians, not brilliant. His rulings for the majority generally favored the status quo when it came to social issues. When in the minority, Taft would occasionally scold the majority of the court for overreaching the court’s jurisdiction.

On Monday, February 3rd, 1930, an aging and dying William Howard Taft resigned as Chief Justice. Thirty-three days later in the late afternoon, he passed away in his sleep. It was Saturday, March 8th, 1930.

The former President and Chief Justice of the United States was buried the following Tuesday at Arlington National Cemetery. He was the first President to be buried in that hallowed ground.

Perhaps there is an irony here. March signals the first kiss of spring when the cherry blossoms bloom. The thousands of Japanese cherry trees planted by Mrs. Taft throughout the capital were a lasting legacy to the nation. They were a gift of the Japanese government to the Tafts in 1909. The planting was completed in March of 1912. They bloom every spring welcoming you and me to Washington and they remind us once again of the beauty of our American heritage.

Surely, they were one of the legacies that beckoned that little boy and his family to Washington, D.C. that spring afternoon long ago so that he might actually see and be greeted by one of the finest men of his time.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

McCAIN’S GOLDEN GAMBLE—HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE

By Edwin Cooney

Two and a half weeks have passed since Senator McCain introduced forty-four-year-old Alaska Governor Sarah Heath Palin as his vice presidential running mate. The beauty for Republicans is that since then, Mrs. Palin has become the major focus of the 2008 presidential campaign. Exactly how many Americans consider her the campaign’s most significant factor may well decide the 2008 presidential election.

It appears that nothing much matters now except how fairly the press treats Mrs. Palin: star of the woman’s high school basketball team in 1982, second runner-up in the 1984 Alaska Beauty Queen Pageant, Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska from1996 to 2002, and now the voter’s surprise choice as Governor of Alaska in 2006.

It’s amazing how Conservatives who, just three weeks ago, could barely fathom the idea of Senator John McCain becoming President, are now all excited about the prospect. The possibility that this unknown “hockey mom” -- or is it lipstick-decorated “Pit Bull Mom”? -- could become Vice President of the United States of America has made all the difference in the world.

Even if Republicans have never really been concerned about devaluation of the dollar, the reform of health care, the home mortgage crisis, seven percent unemployment, or the loss of American jobs to overseas American run corporations, it was not that long ago that sufficient experience in high public office was of vital concern to them. They were absolutely stunned to think that Democrats would hand their presidential nomination to a Senator with less than four full years of national experience.

Well, sorry, but those days are gone for the duration of the campaign—and many are wondering, “Why, how could this be?”

Keeping in mind that neither Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, or Liberals have a monopoly on wisdom, stupidity, vice, or virtue, a look back at recent political history might be illuminating.

In 1988, three term Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis faced two term Vice President George H. W. Bush in the presidential sweepstakes. Both men were well educated and had behind them differing but significant public service accomplishments. Vice President Bush had the enthusiastic support of Ronald Reagan, the exceedingly popular incumbent President. However, the economy had stumbled slightly in 1987 and thus there were a few economic and international uncertainties. These uncertainties were disquieting and therefore had to be buried as quickly as possible. Hence the major issues of the 1988 presidential campaign focused on Michael Dukakis’s polluted Boston harbor, Dukakis’s willingness to excuse Massachusetts school children from saluting the American flag, and whether or not Dukakis was responsible for the terror visited on a family by a black convicted murderer on furlough from a Massachusetts prison. None of these issues had anything to do with the crisis that President George Herbert Walker Bush or Michael Dukakis would have faced in the 1,361 day presidential term extending from January 20th, 1989 until January 20th, 1993. What they did do, however, was to make Michael Dukakis the issue rather than focusing on the plans, purpose or person of a potential President named either Dukakis or Bush.

In 2000, the question was whether Al Gore was a liar. Did he really invent the internet? Did he lie during the campaign about a fifteen-year-old Florida girl who, he said, was forced to stand in an overcrowded classroom due to the lack of available funding for education? Wasn’t he lying about global warming?

Then came 2004 and the question was whether or not CBS news anchor Dan Rather and the Democrats were guilty of forging documents purported to establish the reality of President Bush’s less than stellar military career. Additionally, the truth about John Kerry’s Vietnam War service was much more important than either the economy or Iraq—certainly, it was right up there with America’s national security and the fight against terrorism.

As Senator Barack Obama points out in his book “The Audacity of Hope,” morality and personal security have largely replaced the economic and social issues that once separated Democrats and Republicans. Thus, it seems to this observer that Senator McCain has to force the campaign to focus on the personal morality of the Conservative movement rather than on the highly questionable policies of the George W. Bush administration.

Senator McCain’s choice of Governor Palin to be the next Vice President of the United States of America appears to be the embodiment of that force. If guns, gays, God, and the empowered personal character of Sarah Palin can be sustained as the primary focus of the 2008 campaign, Republicans and their powerful sometime moral majority allies may well prevail.

National issues such as unemployment, health care, home mortgage foreclosures, and the future of “freedom of choice” are all issues planted and cultivated for the 2008 campaign in democratic fields.

The likelihood of victory, in sports and even in politics, is very often increased if the final contest can be played on a team’s home turf.

Thus we have the lipstick-toting-mama-pit-bull Sarah Palin as John McCain’s golden gamble for home field advantage.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

BEGINNINGS—OH, THOSE WONDERFUL BEGINNINGS!

By Edwin Cooney

I don’t know what gets you going, but I’m a real sucker for beginnings, as distinct from opportunities.

On the surface, a “beginning” as a concept appears shallow. The power of a beginning, however, is that it ultimately comes from within you and me. The popular observation that “tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life,” is a compelling or, as I prefer, an energizing observation that one may use for creating a beginning.

Most of us have things in our lives that we would like to change or accomplish. Inevitably, there are obstructions in the way of achieving those potential changes or accomplishments. Some of these obstructions to our ability to change things for the better can be personal, emotional, physical, economic, spiritual, or even a lack of energy. Other barriers to change are situational based on other people’s perceptions of who we are and whether we are an asset or liability to their own well-being.

Beginnings can, of course, be deceptive. A prime example is the New Year’s resolution. What too often happens is that people use the clean slate of a new year as their motivation to lose weight, quit smoking, or improve their love life. However, time is only one of the factors necessary for achievement.

I like to use “firsts” such as New Years, the first day of a month, a Monday (the first business day of the week), the day after Labor Day (the first day culturally of the Fall season), and so on, as possible times for beginning projects – but, really, they only make a “beginning” nice and even.

Not long ago, I sat across a lunch table from a friend of mine and announced that I planned to begin a diet and exercise program after the first of the year. “Why not tomorrow?” my friend cheerfully chided me. The surface problem for me was that “tomorrow” was Thanksgiving and the next week I was anticipating a chocolate mint ice cream birthday cake. Then there was Christmas as well as New Years with their accompanying parties which I planned to celebrate with good food and drink.

The real barrier was my lack of both enthusiasm or will to change my lifestyle to accommodate the demands it would take to lose the weight. Even more, I wasn’t sufficiently unhappy with the way I was conducting my life to make that change. In the absence of that will, it was impossible to muster either the energy or resources that would make a difference.

Successful or solid beginnings require a clear dissatisfaction with the status quo and a determination to change or create. Identifying available resources, summoning energy and the will to sustain yourself throughout your journey of change or achievement are exceedingly essential for success. In short, a successful beginning must contain all your resources of will, focus and energy and this, in turn, will allow you to meet your goal.

How about this beginning! The only way to start a successful moon flight is to possess a sufficiently powerful rocket. The answer for our 1960’s space program was the Saturn V rocket.

The Saturn V’s maiden test voyage took place from the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, November 9th, 1967. It stood 363 feet in height (as tall as a thirty-six story building), was 33 feet in diameter, and weighed approximately six million pounds. Its mass was so great that the barn or hanger it was stored in had to be furnished with air conditioning equipment because without such equipment it would create its own weather and it could have rained within the storage structure. Its payload capacity was 260,000 pounds. One observer said after its launch that it was as if we had yanked a Navy destroyer out of the water and thrust it to the moon. It caused the innards of anyone or anything standing within three and-a-half miles of its launch site to tremble. It made more noise than 25,000 stereo sets blasting at once. Now, if you ask me, a ride at the business end of that rocket has got to be one hell of a beginning.

“Very well,” you may observe, “but when does a beginning end and what happens afterward?”

The answer to that one depends on two things. It depends on the situation or circumstance but, ultimately, it depends on you and me. If you’re losing weight, the end of the beginning may be when you lose your first pound or five pounds. If you are quitting smoking, the end of the beginning may be the first time you didn’t miss having a cigarette. If you’re a partner in love, the end of the beginning perhaps is when together you acknowledge the existence of your love and grant one another permission to dare to discover. If you’re seeking spiritual sustenance, the end of the beginning may occur with the very realization as to how much you need God in your life.

Once the end of the beginning occurs, your assessment of your unsatisfactory past, your application of the activities and resources you’ve marshaled for your undertaking, and the possibilities the future holds will sustain you.

Yes, indeed, I love those beginnings. They’re essential and they can be powerful. They may figuratively or literally enable you to soar into the azure.

Whether you remain aloft, however, ultimately depends on you.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE REPUBLICANS—THE SUPPLY-SIDE PARTY

By Edwin Cooney

He knew it was unwise and he really and truly didn’t want to do it, but he did. Franklin Pierce, our fourteenth President, a New Hampshire Democrat (often called “Young Hickory of the Granite Hills”), surrendered to pressure from his Secretary of War and from one of the Senate’s most powerful senators that Sunday, January 22nd, 1854.

The issue at hand was whether the Missouri Compromise of 1820 should be violated in favor of the Kansas-Nebraska act which would allow the voters of those territories to decide whether or not to adopt slavery.

Two of the visitors to President Pierce that Sunday were his Secretary of War Jefferson Davis and Illinois Senator Steven A. Douglas. Senator Douglas had made a deal with southern senators to allow for the possibility of slavery in both territories (“popular sovereignty” it was called) in exchange for southern support for construction of a transcontinental railroad from Chicago through one of these two territories to Sacramento, California.

Frank Pierce didn’t like to work on Sundays. He and his wife Jane were filled with remorse after the death of their child, eleven year-old Benny, who died in a train accident shortly before Pierce’s inauguration. They had already lost two other children earlier in their marriage. Jane Appleton Pierce was convinced that God had taken their last son so that Frank wouldn’t be distracted during his presidency. Hence, Sunday was a day for prayerful meditation. Secretary Davis and Senator Douglas believed that pressuring the president on a Sunday would allow them to sway him: accept this bill or lose the support of the South, Pierce was told that Sunday.

So, he surrendered -- but instead of losing the South he lost the North by indirectly creating a new political Party. Within months, angry northern Democrats, members of the dying Whig Party, and those who had joined the Free Soil party, the first anti-slavery expansionist party, began to merge into an even more potentially powerful entity: the Republican Party.

The first Republican nominating convention opened in Philadelphia’s Music Fund Hall on Tuesday, June 17th, 1856. Its first presidential nominee was John Charles Fremont, the illegitimate son of a French immigrant who had fled from the French Revolution. Fremont made his name as a surveyor and explorer of the American West in the 1830’s and 1840’s. In 1850, he was one of the first two men sent to the U.S. Senate to represent California.

In 1856, the Republican Platform:
called for an end to the advancement of slavery into free territories;
held the Pierce Administration responsible for “bleeding Kansas”, a metaphor for the bloodshed which was the result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act;
criticized the Pierce administration for plotting to forcibly take Cuba from Spain; and
pledged to construct a transcontinental railroad.

Fremont and his running mate William L. Dayton of New Jersey carried just eleven of the thirty states in 1856.

History has recorded and re-recorded the combination of conscience and practicality of the Republican Party’s first great leader Abraham Lincoln. Most of us were raised to believe that “Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves.” While it is true that he hated slavery, Lincoln, rather than abolishing it as feared by the South, ultimately used that “peculiar institution” to entice Southern states back into the Union. The tool he used was the Emancipation Proclamation. Issued in September 1862, it gave Southern states the ability to both keep their slaves and re-enter the Union if they did so by January 1st, 1863. Only when the war continued did President Lincoln and his fellow Republicans in Congress advance the Thirteenth Amendment to the American Constitution to outlaw slavery. Hence, it can never be said that either the Civil War or freeing the slaves was any part of a Republican Party social agenda.

The Republican Party’s roots can be traced back to the Federalists who didn’t call themselves a party because their leader, George Washington, loathed the idea of political parties. However, many of his federalist contemporaries such as Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and John Jay were more realistic.

The next generation of “Federalists” was made up of men such as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and young Abraham Lincoln. They all served as members of the Whig party between 1834 and 1854. Whigs, like their Federalist forebears, believed that the government had an obligation to promote American commerce through the construction of canals, harbors, turnpikes, financial institutions, and a high protective tariff. They called it “The American System”.

It was this view of the role of government that was passed on to the Republican Party. During the first major phase of Republican Party rule, between 1860 and 1912, banking and business were the major supporters and beneficiaries of the GOP or “Grand Old Party” (a phrase first used to describe the party during the 1876 campaign). Originally, the phrase referred to the “Gallant Old Party”.

Ironically, it was a Republican president’s view of the role of the party that would expose the party’s ultimate weakness. Like his predecessors, Theodore Roosevelt was pro-business. However, he also saw business growing steadily out of control. Believing that responsibly regulated business would be most beneficial to the country, Roosevelt:
• launched a suit against the Morgan-Harriman Northern Securities Railroad Trust in 1902;
• involved himself in the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902 urging recognition of the union;
• signed the Food and Drug Act of 1906 along with the Hepburn Act which strengthened the usefulness of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.

In short, due to Teddy Roosevelt’s desire to create a strong presidency, the Republican Party (which had been financed and elected for the most part to sustain business and commerce) was force-fed a social conscience. It was this social conscience that would split the GOP in 1912 and begin the schism that would create the modern Republican Party.

Angered when his handpicked heir William Howard Taft (President from 1909 until 1913) seemed to be caving in to the demands of the Republican Party’s Old Guard, TR split away from the GOP in 1912 and formed the Progressive or “Bull Moose Party.” In so doing, TR spoke of a doctrine he called “the New Nationalism”. In short, a benign central government would control big business. TR was audacious enough to assert that human rights were even more precious than property rights. These social sentiments were beyond the pale for traditional Republicans, but reasonable to over four million voters that fall. Many of these “radical” ideas returned to the Republican Party along with TR in 1916 and then lingered within the liberal element of the party for decades after.

Throughout the 1920’s, the Conservative wing of the party largely prevailed under men such as Calvin Coolidge and his Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon. Even under Herbert Hoover, whom many of the Old Guard considered to be a “Progressive,” the idea that “the business of America was business” predominated.

Then came FDR’s New Deal along with Harry Truman’s Fair Deal and an absence of Republican leadership during the years from 1933 until 1953. Even with the return to power of the GOP under Dwight D. Eisenhower (who served from 1953 until 1961), many Republicans believed that the essence of the party, limited government, was being checked by an all-pervasive liberalism.

Along came the unsettling 1960’s which seemed to bring about more government, more regulation of business, more government-enforced conformity and, worst of all, higher taxes. “Tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect” came the cry from men such as Barry Goldwater and, ultimately, Ronald Reagan.

By 1980, the string had run out on nearly fifty years of what was called “twentieth century enlightened liberalism.” It was time for “supply-side economics” and a new brand of “compassionate Conservatism” to guide the national ship of state. Was this something new or was it merely Calvin Coolidge made more suave and eloquent in the optimistic personage of Ronald Wilson Reagan? Would it be strong enough to permanently strengthen the military, economic, and moral fiber of America? Or, would it, like its liberal opposite, need to be re-tooled from time to time? Only time would tell.

The question now is: has the promise of 1980 run its course or will it be renewed by the American voter this fall?

Whatever the answer to that question, the soul of Republicanism is somewhere in these words spoken by President Reagan in his 1985 State of the Union Address:

“Freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few; it is the universal right of all God’s children. Look to where peace and prosperity flourish today. It is in homes that freedom built. Victories against poverty are greatest and peace most secure where people live by laws that ensure free press, free speech, and freedom to worship, vote, and create wealth.”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY