By Edwin Cooney
As Americans observe the situation in Wisconsin between newly elected Republican Governor Scott Walker, and traditionally Democratic-supported public service unions, the question that must be answered is which position is in our long-term best interest?
From the end of the Nineteenth Century through much of the Twentieth Century, history was bedecked with labor strife. I say “strife” because much of the time the general public (which had little interest in the issues between management and labor) found the inconvenience of a strike irksome and the political ideology of the strikers threatening. Space here doesn’t permit a comprehensive history of labor vs. management but even the highlights are fascinating.
The first industrial strike in America occurred in Lynn, Massachusetts on Washington’s Birthday in 1860. The strikers were local shoemakers (both men and women) who, in the wake of a supply and demand bottleneck that forced wages as low as fifty cents a day, struck in protest. Ironically, one of their most prominent supporters was someone who was first to be elected a Republican president: Abraham Lincoln. He asserted, counter to many of his GOP successors, that even contentious wage labor was morally superior to slave labor.
“I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails in New England under which laborers can strike when they want to, where they are not obliged to labor whether you pay them or not. I like a system which lets a man quit when he wants to, and wish it might prevail everywhere.”
Although employers eventually prevailed in that strike, the union movement did not die.
In 1894, President Grover Cleveland and his pugnatious Attorney General Richard Olny (who had investments in railroad stocks) sent troops to Chicago to break the strike against the Pullman Company. Cleveland insisted that because the strike was inhibiting the mail, he was obliged to make sure that a single letter was delivered if it took the whole United States Army to deliver it. President Cleveland, who had run as a friend of Labor, nevertheless offered a sop to his working man constituency by approving the annual celebration we call Labor Day.
Ever so gradually and agonizingly, the American worker’s right to strike grew. Theodore Roosevelt became the second GOP president to befriend labor by dramatically involving himself in the 1902 Anthracite Coal Strike. He insisted that management must recognize the right of the union to strike. He was unsuccessful in that, but the strike was successfully mediated so that the winter of 1902-03 wasn’t a disaster above the Mason/Dixen line. (Note: TR was never a favorite of the GOP establishment!)
Insofar as the public was concerned, management initially had the advantage since most people dislike any change in the status quo. However, the tide turned in favor of unions during the “Great Depression.”
As 1920s prosperity was replaced by unemployment along with massive farm and home foreclosures -- the result of insensitive and irresponsible practices of American capitalism -- the rise of unions became increasingly popular and productive down on “main street”.
If modern rank-and-file Republicans and Democrats have been consistent on any issue, it has been on issues affecting labor. FDR signed the Wagner Act guaranteeing the rights of labor to strike and President Truman tried to veto the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act which sought to put the brakes on labor. However, the Republican Congress passed Taft-Hartley over Harry Truman’s veto.
Today, nearly eighty years after FDR’s struggle with those he called “economic royalists,” a comparatively prosperous America is far less grateful to unions than it once was.
Since the 1981 inauguration of President Reagan, the year in which he successfully hogtied the Air Traffic Controller’s union, the workforce represented by unions has dropped from 30% to 11%. Most manufacturing jobs have moved overseas where labor is much cheaper. The competence, reputation and even patriotism of government employees and especially public school educators have been under attack by determined modern anti-New Deal politicians. Additionally, there is the inevitable force of human nature which, in the absence of immediate need for unionism, remembers labor’s sins and shrugs off its rewards by the age-old question: “What, Mr. Union Leader, have you done for me lately?”
In Wisconsin, we seem to have an unconquerable force—Governor Walker--meeting an immovable object, public service unions. Governor Walker and his legislative majority in both houses want to control public worker’s wages, benefits and the union itself. Union leaders insist that they are willing to compromise on wages and benefits, but they say that the union’s legitimate business is absolutely not the governor’s business.
If the need to control the high costs of public employees is compelling in a time of high deficits and taxes, is it not also vital to insure the right of American workers to have something to say about the wages they make and the conditions under which they work? Stripped of union protection is American labor free or slave?
We already know what Abraham Lincoln thought and felt. What say you?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, February 28, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
WONDERS, THEY TRULY NEVER CEASE!
By Edwin Cooney
On January 14th, 2011, the GOP, in its wisdom, chose Wisconsin State Republican Chairman Reince Priebus to be Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Born Reinhold Reince Priebus on Saturday, March 18th, 1972 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the son of Greek and German parents, young Reince reached his majority in 1993 while studying history and political science at the University of Wisconsin.
As a child of the late seventies, eighties and early nineties, it’s only natural that Ronald Reagan is one of his heroes. However, as I see it, there is much that is inconsistent in the personalities and political outlooks of President Reagan and Chairman Priebus’s other proclaimed hero: Abraham Lincoln.
Today’s Republican Party seems to have totally abandoned the fate of black America - the beneficiaries of Father Abraham’s most lasting legacy. Although GOP leaders say that Republicans treat blacks like they are self-reliant citizens while insisting that Democrats treat blacks like “plantation slaves,” somehow up to 95 percent of black voters just don’t see it that way. Not since Dwight Eisenhower has a Republican presidential candidate won the black vote. Blacks, GOP leaders insist, would surely become Republicans if Democrats would stop pandering to their demands to be “cared for” by the federal government. That’s a really powerful message since every red-blooded American realizes that today’s Republican Party simply has no constituency to pander to.
Over the years, many have wondered whether Washington or Lincoln could be elected president in the age of television. Normally, I resist trying to decide whether make-up could sufficiently cover the mole above and to the right of Abe Lincoln’s mouth or soften the lines on his long and weathered face enough to make him presentable on television. I don’t even spend much time wondering whether Mr. Lincoln’s awkward appearance and rather high and occasionally piercing voice would attract or frighten modern voters. However, in view of its constituency, I think it’s reasonable and even useful to wonder if Abraham Lincoln could come close to getting the modern Republican Party’s presidential nomination! I’m absolutely sure Ike, Gerry Ford and Richard Nixon couldn’t get the 2012 GOP presidential nod. Even more, in view of his disdain for the Christian right, it’s not likely that even Barry Goldwater would pass muster in today’s GOP.
Abraham Lincoln believed, as today’s Republicans do, that private enterprise should be the driving economic force in America. However, like President Obama, Mr. Lincoln also believed that government should invest in America’s infrastructure. The Lincoln Administration invested in land grant colleges and in the Homestead Act which enabled otherwise financially strapped farmers to settle the west. It was also Mr. Lincoln whose administration proposed the first income tax (later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court) and created the first paper money (known as “greenbacks”) to finance the Civil War. He also insisted that: “…as our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”
At the outset of the Civil War, President Lincoln sought to save the union while allowing slavery in the states where it existed as long as that “peculiar institution” didn’t expand. As the war progressed, Lincoln realized that the status of black men and women had a direct effect on the war and on the future of the nation. Thus, he abandoned the GOP’s 1860 platform and not only issued the Emancipation Proclamation, but also eventually supported the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution which outlawed slavery.
It’s undeniable that the Old South, the heart of today’s GOP, continues to resent Lincoln’s greatest legacy. There’s a reason why the states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, all of which voted for segregationist Strom Thurmond in 1948 and against LBJ and civil rights in 1964, remain the base of the new Republican Party’s quadrennial electoral vote expectations.
Hence we have something of a puzzle. Mr. Lincoln’s party’s newest leader, Reince Priebus, insists that, along with our fortieth president, our sixteenth president is one of his heroes. It should be noted that Chairman Priebus, as a law student, interned in the offices of the NAACP Defense Fund. Perhaps that sufficiently connects Chairman Priebus to Mr. Lincoln’s legacy, but Mr. Priebus’s internship hardly can do the same for a party that still worships the Confederate flag!
Chairman Priebus insists that the 2012 Republican candidate will save America from -- among other things -- abortion, high corporate taxes and government investment in infrastructure. Furthermore, counter to Mr. Lincoln’s administration and despite ongoing pecuniary obligations, Republicans promise low taxes and money based on the gold standard.
Question: It’s easy to spot Mr. Reagan’s legacy in all of this, but please tell me where in tarnation is Father Abraham’s?
We’ll just have to stay tuned, I suppose!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
On January 14th, 2011, the GOP, in its wisdom, chose Wisconsin State Republican Chairman Reince Priebus to be Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Born Reinhold Reince Priebus on Saturday, March 18th, 1972 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the son of Greek and German parents, young Reince reached his majority in 1993 while studying history and political science at the University of Wisconsin.
As a child of the late seventies, eighties and early nineties, it’s only natural that Ronald Reagan is one of his heroes. However, as I see it, there is much that is inconsistent in the personalities and political outlooks of President Reagan and Chairman Priebus’s other proclaimed hero: Abraham Lincoln.
Today’s Republican Party seems to have totally abandoned the fate of black America - the beneficiaries of Father Abraham’s most lasting legacy. Although GOP leaders say that Republicans treat blacks like they are self-reliant citizens while insisting that Democrats treat blacks like “plantation slaves,” somehow up to 95 percent of black voters just don’t see it that way. Not since Dwight Eisenhower has a Republican presidential candidate won the black vote. Blacks, GOP leaders insist, would surely become Republicans if Democrats would stop pandering to their demands to be “cared for” by the federal government. That’s a really powerful message since every red-blooded American realizes that today’s Republican Party simply has no constituency to pander to.
Over the years, many have wondered whether Washington or Lincoln could be elected president in the age of television. Normally, I resist trying to decide whether make-up could sufficiently cover the mole above and to the right of Abe Lincoln’s mouth or soften the lines on his long and weathered face enough to make him presentable on television. I don’t even spend much time wondering whether Mr. Lincoln’s awkward appearance and rather high and occasionally piercing voice would attract or frighten modern voters. However, in view of its constituency, I think it’s reasonable and even useful to wonder if Abraham Lincoln could come close to getting the modern Republican Party’s presidential nomination! I’m absolutely sure Ike, Gerry Ford and Richard Nixon couldn’t get the 2012 GOP presidential nod. Even more, in view of his disdain for the Christian right, it’s not likely that even Barry Goldwater would pass muster in today’s GOP.
Abraham Lincoln believed, as today’s Republicans do, that private enterprise should be the driving economic force in America. However, like President Obama, Mr. Lincoln also believed that government should invest in America’s infrastructure. The Lincoln Administration invested in land grant colleges and in the Homestead Act which enabled otherwise financially strapped farmers to settle the west. It was also Mr. Lincoln whose administration proposed the first income tax (later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court) and created the first paper money (known as “greenbacks”) to finance the Civil War. He also insisted that: “…as our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”
At the outset of the Civil War, President Lincoln sought to save the union while allowing slavery in the states where it existed as long as that “peculiar institution” didn’t expand. As the war progressed, Lincoln realized that the status of black men and women had a direct effect on the war and on the future of the nation. Thus, he abandoned the GOP’s 1860 platform and not only issued the Emancipation Proclamation, but also eventually supported the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution which outlawed slavery.
It’s undeniable that the Old South, the heart of today’s GOP, continues to resent Lincoln’s greatest legacy. There’s a reason why the states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, all of which voted for segregationist Strom Thurmond in 1948 and against LBJ and civil rights in 1964, remain the base of the new Republican Party’s quadrennial electoral vote expectations.
Hence we have something of a puzzle. Mr. Lincoln’s party’s newest leader, Reince Priebus, insists that, along with our fortieth president, our sixteenth president is one of his heroes. It should be noted that Chairman Priebus, as a law student, interned in the offices of the NAACP Defense Fund. Perhaps that sufficiently connects Chairman Priebus to Mr. Lincoln’s legacy, but Mr. Priebus’s internship hardly can do the same for a party that still worships the Confederate flag!
Chairman Priebus insists that the 2012 Republican candidate will save America from -- among other things -- abortion, high corporate taxes and government investment in infrastructure. Furthermore, counter to Mr. Lincoln’s administration and despite ongoing pecuniary obligations, Republicans promise low taxes and money based on the gold standard.
Question: It’s easy to spot Mr. Reagan’s legacy in all of this, but please tell me where in tarnation is Father Abraham’s?
We’ll just have to stay tuned, I suppose!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, February 14, 2011
ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING
By Edwin Cooney
I wasn’t going to write about this subject. I really wasn’t! Then, someone wanted to know:
“What does love have to do with Valentine’s Day?”
The inquirer went on to say that she wasn’t putting the romantic aspect of Valentine’s Day down, but she suspected that Valentine’s Day had more meaning for greeting card and candy companies than it did for lovers.
Cynical as this question may sound on its surface, it seems that this lady is in rather good company. The late great comedian Will Rogers spent nearly a half hour of radio time on Mother’s Day 1935 expounding on the observation that florists benefit as much if not more than mothers do from Mother’s Day. Noting that florists, of course, have mothers too, Rogers went on to observe that florists invariably “…got more flowers than they got mothers!”
Come to think of it, February 14th is a rather strange time of the year to be celebrating romance. I would guess that most think of romance as being associated with flowers—just as mothers are so associated. Since Mother’s Day is celebrated the second Sunday in May, just at the peak of the spring flower season, one would think that Valentine’s Day might be the third Sunday of May or perhaps the second Saturday of May. Then the florists would have a truly gigantic bonanza of a weekend! However, if I’m going to be responsive to the inquiry (what does love have to do with Valentine’s Day?), I suppose I’d better stop fantasizing and lay out the facts and fables as I’ve found them.
Valentine’s Day had its roots in pagan Rome. Each year in ancient Rome, the ides of February would find the good citizens of Rome celebrating the festival of eroticism which was called the Lupercalia. Lupercalia celebrated the Goddess Juno Februata of febris (“fever” of love.)
With the coming of Christianity, there was a movement to replace what Christians thought of as the sinful celebration of the flesh with a more spiritual festival. At first, Christian clerics sought to coax the good citizens of Rome to celebrate the virtues of their favorite saint and to do the celebrating on the day before Lupercalia which traditionally began on February the fifteenth. However, even as Rome was becoming increasingly dedicated to Christianity, somehow piety was something the people found hard to get excited over.
Then suddenly things changed about 269 A. D.
It seems that Emperor Claudius II was finding it hard to get men to enlist in the army he was trying to put together for fighting his most recent war. The specific problem was that too many men were getting married and were thus exempt from the Emperor’s draft. The only solution to that was to hand down a decree outlawing romance and marriage—at least for the present.
Enter the priest who would be known as Saint Valentine. (His actual name was Valentinus.)
Valentinus began secretly marrying young couples in defiance of the Emperor’s decree. This wouldn’t do, of course, and one dark night, just as he was performing a secret marriage, he and the couple he was marrying heard soldiers outside. Fortunately, the couple got away, but Valentinus, not being as agile as he used to be, got caught.
Thrown into prison and sentenced to death, he was visited by hundreds of couples who agreed with him that Claudius the Cruel’s decree was terrible.
While he was awaiting execution, the daughter of his jailor was blinded by a disease and Valentinus was able to cure her. Hence, she fell in love with Valentinus. However, being the chaste man that he was and since he was about to die, he couldn’t marry the young lady even in the wake of her intense longing.
On the day of his scheduled execution, he sent her a note which he signed:
“With Love from your Valentine!”
Shortly thereafter, the good priest Valentinus was beaten and decapitated. In 496 A.D., Pope Gelasius declared Valentinus a Saint and urged that every February fourteenth be celebrated as a day of romance thus superseding Lupercalia.
In America, the root of Valentine’s Day is commercial rather than either religious or legendary! The mother of modern Valentine’s Day was Esther Howland of Worcester, Massachusetts. Born in 1828, Miss Howland graduated from Mount Holyoke Female Academy in 1847. About that time, she received a Valentine from a friend in Britain which she decided she could reproduce as well if not even better than the one she’d been sent. Her father, who owned a book and stationary store in Worcester, ordered some lace paper and Esther put together some samples for the catalogue that was being made up by the store.
It was Esther’s hope to get about two hundred orders once her brother had distributed the catalogue, but she ended up with the unbelievable number of over five thousand orders. She first advertised her Valentines as messages of romance in the Daily Spy, a local newspaper, on February 5, 1850. By the time she sold the business, Esther Howland was quite a rich lady. Miss Howland wasn’t the first person to send a valentine, but she certainly was the major force that popularized the valentine in increasingly commercial America. Esther Howland died in 1904 at the age of seventy-six -- believe it or not -- a maiden.
Love doesn’t always prevail on February fourteenth. For example, if you were one of seven members or associates of Bugs Moran’s North Side Chicago gang, Al Capone would deliver a deadly Valentine to you that Thursday, February 14, 1929. Those machine and shotgun blasts you felt pumped into your heart in that Chicago garage may have come from Al’s heart, but they could hardly have been received as a symbol of Al’s love!
For most of us, Valentine’s Day has been pretty lovely. February 14, 1859 and 1912 saw the admission into our union of the states of Oregon and Arizona as the thirty-third and forty-eighth states respectively. Comedian Jack Benny was born on Valentine’s Day in 1894. In addition, the first plane load of American prisoners of war from North Vietnam arrived in California on Valentine’s Day 1973.
Can you recall a favorite valentine card from childhood? I can: it was in the shape of a dump truck and it was sent to me by my foster brother Danny. Its message was simple:
“Here’s a load of love for you on Valentine’s Day.”
No, it certainly wasn’t romantic, but it came from the only person who has ever considered me to be his brother. Thus I’ll carry the memory of that valentine for the rest of my life!
Not all love is erotic, feverish, or romantic, nor should it be--but it is something else quite special.
Love is definitely what makes Valentine’s Day!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
I wasn’t going to write about this subject. I really wasn’t! Then, someone wanted to know:
“What does love have to do with Valentine’s Day?”
The inquirer went on to say that she wasn’t putting the romantic aspect of Valentine’s Day down, but she suspected that Valentine’s Day had more meaning for greeting card and candy companies than it did for lovers.
Cynical as this question may sound on its surface, it seems that this lady is in rather good company. The late great comedian Will Rogers spent nearly a half hour of radio time on Mother’s Day 1935 expounding on the observation that florists benefit as much if not more than mothers do from Mother’s Day. Noting that florists, of course, have mothers too, Rogers went on to observe that florists invariably “…got more flowers than they got mothers!”
Come to think of it, February 14th is a rather strange time of the year to be celebrating romance. I would guess that most think of romance as being associated with flowers—just as mothers are so associated. Since Mother’s Day is celebrated the second Sunday in May, just at the peak of the spring flower season, one would think that Valentine’s Day might be the third Sunday of May or perhaps the second Saturday of May. Then the florists would have a truly gigantic bonanza of a weekend! However, if I’m going to be responsive to the inquiry (what does love have to do with Valentine’s Day?), I suppose I’d better stop fantasizing and lay out the facts and fables as I’ve found them.
Valentine’s Day had its roots in pagan Rome. Each year in ancient Rome, the ides of February would find the good citizens of Rome celebrating the festival of eroticism which was called the Lupercalia. Lupercalia celebrated the Goddess Juno Februata of febris (“fever” of love.)
With the coming of Christianity, there was a movement to replace what Christians thought of as the sinful celebration of the flesh with a more spiritual festival. At first, Christian clerics sought to coax the good citizens of Rome to celebrate the virtues of their favorite saint and to do the celebrating on the day before Lupercalia which traditionally began on February the fifteenth. However, even as Rome was becoming increasingly dedicated to Christianity, somehow piety was something the people found hard to get excited over.
Then suddenly things changed about 269 A. D.
It seems that Emperor Claudius II was finding it hard to get men to enlist in the army he was trying to put together for fighting his most recent war. The specific problem was that too many men were getting married and were thus exempt from the Emperor’s draft. The only solution to that was to hand down a decree outlawing romance and marriage—at least for the present.
Enter the priest who would be known as Saint Valentine. (His actual name was Valentinus.)
Valentinus began secretly marrying young couples in defiance of the Emperor’s decree. This wouldn’t do, of course, and one dark night, just as he was performing a secret marriage, he and the couple he was marrying heard soldiers outside. Fortunately, the couple got away, but Valentinus, not being as agile as he used to be, got caught.
Thrown into prison and sentenced to death, he was visited by hundreds of couples who agreed with him that Claudius the Cruel’s decree was terrible.
While he was awaiting execution, the daughter of his jailor was blinded by a disease and Valentinus was able to cure her. Hence, she fell in love with Valentinus. However, being the chaste man that he was and since he was about to die, he couldn’t marry the young lady even in the wake of her intense longing.
On the day of his scheduled execution, he sent her a note which he signed:
“With Love from your Valentine!”
Shortly thereafter, the good priest Valentinus was beaten and decapitated. In 496 A.D., Pope Gelasius declared Valentinus a Saint and urged that every February fourteenth be celebrated as a day of romance thus superseding Lupercalia.
In America, the root of Valentine’s Day is commercial rather than either religious or legendary! The mother of modern Valentine’s Day was Esther Howland of Worcester, Massachusetts. Born in 1828, Miss Howland graduated from Mount Holyoke Female Academy in 1847. About that time, she received a Valentine from a friend in Britain which she decided she could reproduce as well if not even better than the one she’d been sent. Her father, who owned a book and stationary store in Worcester, ordered some lace paper and Esther put together some samples for the catalogue that was being made up by the store.
It was Esther’s hope to get about two hundred orders once her brother had distributed the catalogue, but she ended up with the unbelievable number of over five thousand orders. She first advertised her Valentines as messages of romance in the Daily Spy, a local newspaper, on February 5, 1850. By the time she sold the business, Esther Howland was quite a rich lady. Miss Howland wasn’t the first person to send a valentine, but she certainly was the major force that popularized the valentine in increasingly commercial America. Esther Howland died in 1904 at the age of seventy-six -- believe it or not -- a maiden.
Love doesn’t always prevail on February fourteenth. For example, if you were one of seven members or associates of Bugs Moran’s North Side Chicago gang, Al Capone would deliver a deadly Valentine to you that Thursday, February 14, 1929. Those machine and shotgun blasts you felt pumped into your heart in that Chicago garage may have come from Al’s heart, but they could hardly have been received as a symbol of Al’s love!
For most of us, Valentine’s Day has been pretty lovely. February 14, 1859 and 1912 saw the admission into our union of the states of Oregon and Arizona as the thirty-third and forty-eighth states respectively. Comedian Jack Benny was born on Valentine’s Day in 1894. In addition, the first plane load of American prisoners of war from North Vietnam arrived in California on Valentine’s Day 1973.
Can you recall a favorite valentine card from childhood? I can: it was in the shape of a dump truck and it was sent to me by my foster brother Danny. Its message was simple:
“Here’s a load of love for you on Valentine’s Day.”
No, it certainly wasn’t romantic, but it came from the only person who has ever considered me to be his brother. Thus I’ll carry the memory of that valentine for the rest of my life!
Not all love is erotic, feverish, or romantic, nor should it be--but it is something else quite special.
Love is definitely what makes Valentine’s Day!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, February 7, 2011
IT’S THE STRUGGLE, NOT THE CAUSE
By Edwin Cooney
I usually understand and can explain what and why something matters to me. What sometimes befuddles me is what and why something matters to somebody else. What’s grabbing me at present is why the Confederate Flag is so important to so many folks.
Recently, “The Sons of Confederate Veterans,” based in Florida, made a public issue of their unhappiness over an art display at the Tallahassee, Florida Mary Brogan Center of Art and Science entitled “The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate Flag.” The display, designed by black artist John Simms, shows a Confederate Flag hanging by a noose from a thirteen-foot gallows.
Art isn’t always easy to interpret. However, a gentleman by the name of Robert Hurst of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has no trouble interpreting Mr. Simms’ art. In fact, Hurst doesn’t consider Simms’ display to be art at all. To Mr. Hurst, John Simms’ display is tasteless as well as offensive.
In addition, Mr. Hurst said that he is considering a lawsuit against the Mary Brogan Center for Art and Science because they insist on displaying something that amounts to desecration of the Confederate flag.
Now there is a statute on the books in Florida that outlaws abuse of the Confederate flag. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has rather consistently overruled laws protecting “Old Glory,” everyone’s flag, from desecration. Therefore, it seems unlikely that the good justices in Washington, D. C. would look with much favor on laws that protect the flag of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis! However, one never can tell.
What I have found most difficult to fathom is why so many people who insist that “Old Glory” is sacred seek to pledge their allegiance to a flag of a foreign entity. That, after all, is exactly what the Confederate States of America really and truly sought and fought to become.
It should be noted that while the original Confederate Flag (The Stars and Bars) was adopted at the first session of the Confederate Congress meeting in Montgomery, Alabama in 1861, that flag would never be universally recognized as the official symbol of the Confederate states of America. As time went on, there would be a total of three flags adopted by the Confederate Congress. They were:
The Stars and Bars which resembled Old Glory in shape and design;
The Stainless Banner which incorporated the Saltier or St. Andrews Cross along with thirteenwhite stars — and, because it was twice as long as it was wide, didn’t fly gracefully;
and a modified version of The Stainless Banner which featured a red stripe to distinguish it from what appeared from a distance to be a surrender flag. This last flag was approved in March 1865 and is what most people think of when they see the Confederate Flag. Furthermore, it was this flag that was recently featured atop the General Lee, the car of television’s “The Dukes of Hazzard.”
Additionally, there also was the General P. G. T. Beauregard Battle Flag (square in shape and featuring St. Andrew’s cross) as well as the Bonnie Blue Flag and the Naval Jack plus a host of state flags.
Still, the number of Confederate flags in existence as well as which one was the official flag is quite beside the point in my opinion. What both puzzles and fascinates me is how the American flag -- our national symbol of freedom and justice for all -- can be considered so sacred by some people that they become almost apoplectic at what they consider to be abuse of it by some political movement.
Yet these same people can be equally passionate about a symbol of oppression, insurrection and treason—which is exactly what the flags of the Confederate States of America were.
Many blacks, although by no means all, have another take on the flags of the Confederate States of America. They consider all Confederate flags to be flags of racism. A local talk show host where I live, a black comedian and writer named Brian Copeland, made that exact point during an hour-long talk show. Although I found his argument pretty compelling, there may be another aspect of this whole thing that all of us who feel as we do understandably miss.
One of the unique aspects of American history, as many historians and commentators have pointed out, is that the United States was the first nation ever born with a birth certificate: The Declaration of Independence. Our struggle for independence made us not merely rebels, but something else that was very special -- underdogs.
Here we were, a population of three million, largely agricultural, and in comparison with Western Europe, not only unsophisticated but uncivilized. Unlike our British and European forebears, we didn’t even stand up and fight under the banner of loud colors, drums and bugles. We slipped, like Indians, behind houses and trees.
George Washington forced General Howe’s forces to chase him all across New Jersey once he abandoned New York City rather than fighting in the open like a traditional European Duke. After seven years of exhaustion, heavily favored Britannia was defeated by the American “underdog” --with some strategic assistance from France.
Thus America, now on her way to superstardom, gave birth to a new American folk hero -- The Underdog! We all love him, especially when inspired by him. What is more, southern rebels weren’t the first to identify with him. The poor, of course, were the first.
Only five years after the British surrendered at Yorktown, Daniel Shays led a group of poor farmers in their struggle to preserve their property from heavy taxation which was actually being encouraged by well-to-do bankers and landlords. Although Shays Rebellion would drive Dan Shays himself into temporary exile in Vermont, the rebellion rang the wake-up bell that brought George Washington out of retirement to encourage the formation of a strong central and stable government. That time, The Underdog had only to bark loud enough and he was heard!
Then again, in 1794, the poor of western Pennsylvania rose up against wealthy land speculating capitalists like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton when the federal government sought to tax all the profit out of their corn liquor. The poor western Pennsylvanians felt that the federal government wasn’t adequately protecting them from British-inspired Indian raids, while at the same time, it was attempting to steal their money and ultimately their land. So, they rebelled.
President George Washington himself rode at the head of the government’s army as far as Harrisburg from which point the troops passed over the Alleghenies. Eventually the poor farmers surrendered and President Washington pardoned two of the leaders sentenced to be hanged, because one was supposedly insane while the other was a simpleton. Still, The Underdog had struck again!
Twenty years later, it was another group’s turn to think insurrectionist thoughts. It was in 1814, the year in which British forces invaded Washington, D.C., burning the White House and the Capitol Building, that certain New England bankers, merchants and shippers called the Hartford Convention into session. They wanted to consider making a separate peace with Great Britain and perhaps seceding from the Union—despite their current prosperity. That convention met from December 15, 1814 to January 4, 1815. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and there was no call for secession. However, the precedent for appealing to “states’ rights” when unhappy with the federal government was begun by the granddads and fathers of those who would take the field forty-seven years later to preserve the union against an especially fierce and determined Underdog who howled and snarled with a southern drawl!
As for the Civil War itself, by its close it was considered by many to have been “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight!” Keep in mind that in a part of the country that had a total population of nearly nine million of which 3.8 million were slaves, there were about 385,000 slaveholders. While these slave owners controlled the politics and policies of the south, it’s my guess that it was the sense of identification with their home states and communities that brought the boys in gray to the battlefield. Since the years of war were probably the only time a boy from Georgia would wander much farther than fifteen miles beyond his parents’ farm, one can readily see how important the adventure of war was to the average country boy as opposed to the outcome.
Thus, the Civil War was the country boy’s “derring-do,” against the northern industrialist and the endless stream of European immigrants brought to the field to overwhelm “Johnny Reb.” I believe that it’s that struggle over mechanized odds that lies at the root of that pride in the Confederate flag and lingers to this very day.
The life of all underdogs is a strange one. It’s a life that’s adventurous and heroic, often short and tragic. Because no underdog can ever win and remain himself, he takes pride in the very outcome and even shuns total victory, actually preferring to win battles and “to hell with the war!”
With victory comes care, worry and responsibility and the loss of status as an underdog. Thus, in a nutshell, you have the South!
Perhaps therein lays a challenge for the American black man and woman. There can, of course, never be any pride in having been captured, abused beyond endurance, enslaved, beaten, raped, and sold at whim—but there can be pride in how individuals coped with that “hellish tyranny!” Perhaps a little dramatization of how the spirit of the American black prevailed as opposed to stories about their obvious and real victimization might enable blacks to realize a powerful level of “soul pride,” fully as compelling as anyone’s flag.
As for the Old South, it’ll never rise again. Even more than the Brooklyn Dodgers, the South is forever an underdog! As for the descendants of those it captured and brought to American shores in indignity and abuse, they may, with a powerful dose of soul pride, rise above and look down on “Old Dixie” shed of their bonds and status as underdogs! As for the Confederate Flag itself, in the wake of considerable reflection, I understand it, but I still don’t buy it. Like the Old South, as far as I’m concerned you can stick a fork in it -- it’s done!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
I usually understand and can explain what and why something matters to me. What sometimes befuddles me is what and why something matters to somebody else. What’s grabbing me at present is why the Confederate Flag is so important to so many folks.
Recently, “The Sons of Confederate Veterans,” based in Florida, made a public issue of their unhappiness over an art display at the Tallahassee, Florida Mary Brogan Center of Art and Science entitled “The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate Flag.” The display, designed by black artist John Simms, shows a Confederate Flag hanging by a noose from a thirteen-foot gallows.
Art isn’t always easy to interpret. However, a gentleman by the name of Robert Hurst of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has no trouble interpreting Mr. Simms’ art. In fact, Hurst doesn’t consider Simms’ display to be art at all. To Mr. Hurst, John Simms’ display is tasteless as well as offensive.
In addition, Mr. Hurst said that he is considering a lawsuit against the Mary Brogan Center for Art and Science because they insist on displaying something that amounts to desecration of the Confederate flag.
Now there is a statute on the books in Florida that outlaws abuse of the Confederate flag. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has rather consistently overruled laws protecting “Old Glory,” everyone’s flag, from desecration. Therefore, it seems unlikely that the good justices in Washington, D. C. would look with much favor on laws that protect the flag of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis! However, one never can tell.
What I have found most difficult to fathom is why so many people who insist that “Old Glory” is sacred seek to pledge their allegiance to a flag of a foreign entity. That, after all, is exactly what the Confederate States of America really and truly sought and fought to become.
It should be noted that while the original Confederate Flag (The Stars and Bars) was adopted at the first session of the Confederate Congress meeting in Montgomery, Alabama in 1861, that flag would never be universally recognized as the official symbol of the Confederate states of America. As time went on, there would be a total of three flags adopted by the Confederate Congress. They were:
The Stars and Bars which resembled Old Glory in shape and design;
The Stainless Banner which incorporated the Saltier or St. Andrews Cross along with thirteenwhite stars — and, because it was twice as long as it was wide, didn’t fly gracefully;
and a modified version of The Stainless Banner which featured a red stripe to distinguish it from what appeared from a distance to be a surrender flag. This last flag was approved in March 1865 and is what most people think of when they see the Confederate Flag. Furthermore, it was this flag that was recently featured atop the General Lee, the car of television’s “The Dukes of Hazzard.”
Additionally, there also was the General P. G. T. Beauregard Battle Flag (square in shape and featuring St. Andrew’s cross) as well as the Bonnie Blue Flag and the Naval Jack plus a host of state flags.
Still, the number of Confederate flags in existence as well as which one was the official flag is quite beside the point in my opinion. What both puzzles and fascinates me is how the American flag -- our national symbol of freedom and justice for all -- can be considered so sacred by some people that they become almost apoplectic at what they consider to be abuse of it by some political movement.
Yet these same people can be equally passionate about a symbol of oppression, insurrection and treason—which is exactly what the flags of the Confederate States of America were.
Many blacks, although by no means all, have another take on the flags of the Confederate States of America. They consider all Confederate flags to be flags of racism. A local talk show host where I live, a black comedian and writer named Brian Copeland, made that exact point during an hour-long talk show. Although I found his argument pretty compelling, there may be another aspect of this whole thing that all of us who feel as we do understandably miss.
One of the unique aspects of American history, as many historians and commentators have pointed out, is that the United States was the first nation ever born with a birth certificate: The Declaration of Independence. Our struggle for independence made us not merely rebels, but something else that was very special -- underdogs.
Here we were, a population of three million, largely agricultural, and in comparison with Western Europe, not only unsophisticated but uncivilized. Unlike our British and European forebears, we didn’t even stand up and fight under the banner of loud colors, drums and bugles. We slipped, like Indians, behind houses and trees.
George Washington forced General Howe’s forces to chase him all across New Jersey once he abandoned New York City rather than fighting in the open like a traditional European Duke. After seven years of exhaustion, heavily favored Britannia was defeated by the American “underdog” --with some strategic assistance from France.
Thus America, now on her way to superstardom, gave birth to a new American folk hero -- The Underdog! We all love him, especially when inspired by him. What is more, southern rebels weren’t the first to identify with him. The poor, of course, were the first.
Only five years after the British surrendered at Yorktown, Daniel Shays led a group of poor farmers in their struggle to preserve their property from heavy taxation which was actually being encouraged by well-to-do bankers and landlords. Although Shays Rebellion would drive Dan Shays himself into temporary exile in Vermont, the rebellion rang the wake-up bell that brought George Washington out of retirement to encourage the formation of a strong central and stable government. That time, The Underdog had only to bark loud enough and he was heard!
Then again, in 1794, the poor of western Pennsylvania rose up against wealthy land speculating capitalists like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton when the federal government sought to tax all the profit out of their corn liquor. The poor western Pennsylvanians felt that the federal government wasn’t adequately protecting them from British-inspired Indian raids, while at the same time, it was attempting to steal their money and ultimately their land. So, they rebelled.
President George Washington himself rode at the head of the government’s army as far as Harrisburg from which point the troops passed over the Alleghenies. Eventually the poor farmers surrendered and President Washington pardoned two of the leaders sentenced to be hanged, because one was supposedly insane while the other was a simpleton. Still, The Underdog had struck again!
Twenty years later, it was another group’s turn to think insurrectionist thoughts. It was in 1814, the year in which British forces invaded Washington, D.C., burning the White House and the Capitol Building, that certain New England bankers, merchants and shippers called the Hartford Convention into session. They wanted to consider making a separate peace with Great Britain and perhaps seceding from the Union—despite their current prosperity. That convention met from December 15, 1814 to January 4, 1815. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and there was no call for secession. However, the precedent for appealing to “states’ rights” when unhappy with the federal government was begun by the granddads and fathers of those who would take the field forty-seven years later to preserve the union against an especially fierce and determined Underdog who howled and snarled with a southern drawl!
As for the Civil War itself, by its close it was considered by many to have been “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight!” Keep in mind that in a part of the country that had a total population of nearly nine million of which 3.8 million were slaves, there were about 385,000 slaveholders. While these slave owners controlled the politics and policies of the south, it’s my guess that it was the sense of identification with their home states and communities that brought the boys in gray to the battlefield. Since the years of war were probably the only time a boy from Georgia would wander much farther than fifteen miles beyond his parents’ farm, one can readily see how important the adventure of war was to the average country boy as opposed to the outcome.
Thus, the Civil War was the country boy’s “derring-do,” against the northern industrialist and the endless stream of European immigrants brought to the field to overwhelm “Johnny Reb.” I believe that it’s that struggle over mechanized odds that lies at the root of that pride in the Confederate flag and lingers to this very day.
The life of all underdogs is a strange one. It’s a life that’s adventurous and heroic, often short and tragic. Because no underdog can ever win and remain himself, he takes pride in the very outcome and even shuns total victory, actually preferring to win battles and “to hell with the war!”
With victory comes care, worry and responsibility and the loss of status as an underdog. Thus, in a nutshell, you have the South!
Perhaps therein lays a challenge for the American black man and woman. There can, of course, never be any pride in having been captured, abused beyond endurance, enslaved, beaten, raped, and sold at whim—but there can be pride in how individuals coped with that “hellish tyranny!” Perhaps a little dramatization of how the spirit of the American black prevailed as opposed to stories about their obvious and real victimization might enable blacks to realize a powerful level of “soul pride,” fully as compelling as anyone’s flag.
As for the Old South, it’ll never rise again. Even more than the Brooklyn Dodgers, the South is forever an underdog! As for the descendants of those it captured and brought to American shores in indignity and abuse, they may, with a powerful dose of soul pride, rise above and look down on “Old Dixie” shed of their bonds and status as underdogs! As for the Confederate Flag itself, in the wake of considerable reflection, I understand it, but I still don’t buy it. Like the Old South, as far as I’m concerned you can stick a fork in it -- it’s done!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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