Category: People of Character

Why Has the “Official” U.S. History Overshadowed the Real Heroes? [Part 1 of 2]

Not a surprise to FDR, Pearl Harbor was a surprise to thousands of sailors that died that day! FDR’s economic policies in 1940 and into 1941 maneuvered the Japanese to strike out at Pearl Harbor while the US Navy had broken the Japanese code which Washington DC deciphered and did not pass on to sailors at Pearl Harbor.

Time and again lately, I run into a bit of history, real history, of real heroes in the United State’s past, I have NEVER heard about them, in a substantial way, in United States academia’s “official” history!

I think I am getting a bit ticked that the “great”, “free” and “exceptional” United States of American would have to twist its own history apparently to paint our government itself as exceptional, all day everyday, apparently.

A few months ago I ran across this article, promptly bookmarked, from ‘New American’ by John J. Dywer that outlines what has happened all along in this country (and other countries as well):

But the actual histories of the men suggest that “history” is often little more than propaganda that has been oft repeated. An accounting of the quality of the men’s judgments, their standards of behavior in interpersonal conflicts, and their personal accomplishments makes it logical that American history should, instead, laud Lindbergh while recoiling from Roosevelt.

There you have it. History as told by the intellectual class in academic books and in academia in a democracy ends up being a distorted version of what really happened. History is written by the victors, not just of wars, but of political struggles as well.

Enter two heroes of the early 20th century in the United States, one you will remember, the other, you may know a few passing facts.

FDR is well known as a four-term president, stories of his “fireside” chats, as well as the myth that he guided the United States out of the Great Depression with his New Deal, and that FDR, having promised peace, reluctantly guided the United States to fight Japan across the Pacific and Germany/Italy across the Atlantic to win WWII.

Lindbergh, flew solo across the Atlantic and had his son kidnapped and murdered, and later, as myth would have it, was an isolationist.

Does this fit what your high school history book or teacher taught you? My guess is that you may agree with me.

So let us tackle in “Part 1 of 2”, the hero that everyone is familiar with, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who in the beginning of his political career …:

… capitalized on the fact that his distant cousin Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most admired U.S. presidents and managed to become governor of New York. After winning two gubernatorial terms, “FDR” parlayed his own handsome visage, galvanizing charisma, and message of hope for Great Depression-ravaged America into the presidency in 1933

So far so good right? Well, it about to come off the rails if you are a fan of FDR:

Roosevelt, riding a historic wave of success and popularity, issued an executive order in early 1934 that outlawed an entire industry, private airline mail carrying. Instead, Roosevelt determined, the U.S. military would provide the air transportation for delivering air mail.

It is one thing to transition the USPS from horses to delivery vehicles, even though they STILL can’t run the monopoly with a profit, but to take on mail delivery with army pilots? Only government can come up with a decision like this, no free-market business would have been that stupid. John shares more along this line:

Brave army pilots, ill trained for their new mail-carrying mission and flying planes far inferior to the airlines’ (one commercial liner, for instance, could carry the load of six army planes) and inadequate for either the pitch black of night or the freezing, snow-blown winter, began immediately to perish.

As the body count rose to 12 and accidents to 66, masses of air mail were delayed or never delivered, and public fury mounted at the administration.

90 days later, FDR reversed his stupid decision, and one of his own shared the quick lesson learned:

Roosevelt ally Henry “Hap” Arnold, later five-star commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces during WWII, summarized the fiasco: “Within two weeks we were forced to realize that although the ‘will to do’ might get the job done, the price of our doing it was equal to the sacrifice of a wartime combat operation. Courage alone could not substitute for years of cross-country experience; for properly equipped airplanes; and for suitable blind flying instruments, such as the regular air-line mail pilots were using.”

A business leader making decisions like that would be sidelined to some area of the company where they might do the least damage, but not in government. Stupid is promoted and made exponential:

His famed “first hundred days,” contrary to many of his campaign promises about avoiding the centralization of government power, unleashed an unparalleled blizzard of legislation in which the federal government sought to correct the supposed failures of the capitalistic system — through the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the National Industrial Recovery Act, and many other new laws. “It is common sense to take a method and try it,” he explained. “If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”

Letting economic lightweights take charge of the whole American economy, what can go wrong? The myth that capitalism got the country in a position where unemployment was almost 25% was enough for the masses to think that FDR could do this, just with his charisma!

So we not only have stupid government, but we have stupid people.

About government, Albert J. Nock, an avid writer in FDR’s days, wrote:

“I wonder how many such men in America would know that Communism, the New Deal, Fascism, Nazism, are merely so-many trade-names for collectivist Statism, like the trade-names for tooth-pastes which are all exactly alike except for the flavouring.”
― Albert Jay Nock

About stupid people, Albert J. Nock offered a counter-balance:

The Remnant has always existed, since the beginning of man and it survives today.  It is not possessed with extraordinary intelligence, wealth or power.  Those that comprise it are just ordinary human beings, average by—and—large and you will never recognize them for what they are when you meet them, see them or hear them. They are the builders, re—builders and redeemers of humanity.  They are the ones who sustain and regenerate society — and above all else — they persevere.  You can guess who they are or might have been but you will never know with any certainty.  They are friends of liberty though, that much I know.

It was in Nock’s writings that actually gave me hope a few years ago. Discouraged by both personal and social media attempts to help people see the truth, to research for themselves the truth, I wondered if this was just a recent phenomenon. Then I found that in Albert J. Nock’s writings that in the 1930s the masses actually believe that government could not only help, but be the savior for the USA. The wisdom he offered can be found in the following:

it is Nock’s contention that when one has something of value to say, a strong and workable principle if you will, speaking to the masses and expecting wholesale results is the incorrect approach, rather, speaking through mass—man to the ‘reachable’ few is the accurate and rewarding path to take.  In that way your message is not prostituted or diluted in any way and remains true and whole.  It reaches those ‘with ears to hear,’ who are able to understand and make use of its intelligence.

This gives me hope in the few ears that can hear in 2019! I don’t need to hear rave reviews of the articles I share, I just can rest knowing that the seeds are planted, for later comes the harvest.

To quickly summarize the balance of FDR’s “wisdom”, (as we in the US Navy would call a CF, Cluster F**k, Mr. Dwyer shares:

Though the realization gradually dawned on Roosevelt and his minions that no amount of constitutionally questionable New Deal programs and Machiavellian presidential scheming could end the Depression, Roosevelt kept his programs going full steam ahead. Near the end of Roosevelt’s second term, Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau, a key New Deal architect, penned this startling confession regarding the administration’s failure: “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and now if I am wrong somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosper. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started. And enormous debt to boot.”

As nations on nearly every continent emerged from the economic cataclysm, U.S. unemployment skyrocketed back up to nine million workers in 1939 — 12 million if counting Americans employed at taxpayer-funded “make-work” jobs — a total nearly that of when Roosevelt first won the presidency, and after oceans of New Deal spending.

All that debt for nothing, nada, zero benefit. About this time the government started the habit of “cooking the books” to make it look like things were on the up and up. There are economists that have gone back to the “books” and found blatant lying on the economic stats produced in that day, that I believe persists to the present!

So what does the state do when it feels itself back in the corner economically with no good place to go inside an election cycle? It seeks war!

In September 1939 when Germany and Russia invaded Poland, precipitating WWII, Roosevelt saw his chance to eliminate U.S. unemployment. Amity Schlaes opined in her Depression chronicle The Forgotten Man: “A war … would hand to Roosevelt the thing he had always lacked — a chance, quite literally, to provide jobs to the remaining unemployed ..  Roosevelt hadn’t known what to do with the extra people in 1938, but now (1940) he did: he could make them soldiers.” Never mind that the private-sector unemployment problem was exacerbated by the economic drag caused by his costly Big Government programs — or that going to war would make government even more expensive.

So if the New Deal fiasco was not enough, why not create more debt and involve the US in a war it didn’t need to participate in? Beside trying to entice Germany to do something, anything as an excuse to mobilize for war (like what the US did with the Lusitania to get the US in WWI), Hitler refused to take the bait. So FDR turned to Japan:

The president [FDR] implemented all eight planks of the infamous McCollum memorandum. Authored by Lieutenant Commander Arthur H. McCollum, head of the Far East desk of the Office of Naval Intelligence, these planks advocated actions about which McCollum stated, “If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war [against the United States], so much the better.” They included a new and dramatic U.S. military presence in the Far East; the gradual choking off of all crucial manufacturing elements to Japan by America and its allies; and placement of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii, an isolated outpost thousands of miles toward Japan from the American mainland.

Admiral James O. Richardson, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, immediately recognized the jeopardy in which this move placed the fleet and protested so strongly to Roosevelt that the president fired him.

After meeting with the president on October 16, 1941, Republican Secretary of War Henry Stimson, a staunch internationalist and member of the world-government-promoting Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in his diary: “We face the delicate question of the diplomatic fencing to be done so as to be sure Japan is put into the wrong and makes the first bad move — overt move.” A diary entry six weeks later following a meeting of the War Cabinet — less than two weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — clarifies what Stimson meant by “overt move”: “The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.” After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Stimson confessed that “my first feeling was of relief … that a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people.” After the war, he added that, “We needed the Japanese to commit the first overt act.”

So FDR got his war, costing thousands of sailors at Pearl Harbor their lives as well as a large chunk of the Pacific Fleet. But the propaganda worked once more, the “surprise” attack was bought by 99% of Americans and suddenly, everyone was for war. Truth is indeed the first causality of war!

So enough of FDR, who I consider to be one of the five WORST presidents of the United States of American, and on to Charles Lindbergh, a true hero as you will soon see in “Part 2 of 2” to be posted soon!

Stay tuned

-SF1

While Fathers are Very Important to Sons, Mothers in the Absence of Fathers Can Help Mold a Young Man’s Character

By design, I contend, our Creator designed us to be raised for a time in a home with both a father and a mother. In a broken world, this is not always achievable no matter how hard we might try as death, divorce and estrangement can all drive a wedge in a family. Sometimes the fallout, both bad and good might not be known for years or even decades. I also contend, that God can redeem all this and then some!

In reading a literature piece from 1877 I am amazed that both George Washington and Robert E. Lee lost their fathers at about age 11. For the purposes of this post, I will focus on the life that Robert E. Lee lived, his relationship with his mother and eventually his wife that shows the grace of God through providing a man who could be both tough and loving in every situation that this broken world threw at him.

The foundation for Robert’s life came in part from the following, couple this with his own free will and willingness to decide in his own mind what his character’s pillars would reside on, his life is a testament to what God can reveal about himself through just one individual.

Having read a majority of Robert E. Lee’s personal correspondence from his time in the Mexican War to that of his duties out West and eventually when he was a General in the Confederate States of America, I have only admiration as to the humble and Christian nature this man had in the extremes that life had to offer.

The following is a great resource (no longer free on Amazon probably due to the Political Correctness Movement) for understanding Robert E. Lee’s character (as well as Stonewall Jackson’s in later chapters):

This piece then goes on to assess:

.. the character of those women with whom General Lee was associated in the ties of family consanguinity, who, doubtless, had their share in moulding his character, most certainly in promoting his happiness.

Happiness. That word. Some believe money, fame or fortune will lead one to happiness, but just wait until you see what it was for Robert E. Lee:

The maiden name of General Lee’s mother, to whom he was accustomed to say he ‘owed everything’, was Anne Hill Carter, and she was a daughter of that branch of the well-known Virginia family of Carters residing at Shirley, a scat of old-time splendor and hospitality, on the James river.

Lee’s mother was born into a wealthy family .. and had quite an education, not in a boarding school, but in life and all that was brought her way:

In summer, an open-handed hospitality brought such an abundance of company to their homes, that the young people found little occasion for seeking amusement in places of dissipation and pleasure. And in the long winter months, the reading of English classical authors, foreign periodicals, new books, the study of music, etc., laid the foundation for thorough and practical education, such as is not always supplied in the famous boarding-school of to-day. No more skilled housekeepers, faithful nurses, and pleasant companions, were to be found than the Virginia matrons and maids of that day. Such was the home of Anne Carter, who became the second wife of that Henry Lee of the Revolutionary war, so well known under the sobriquet of ‘Light Horse Harry’

Marriage then removed her from this foundational environment as she sought to raise a family of her own:

For some years after their marriage they resided at Stratford, in Westmoreland county, Va., the old seat of the Lee family, and a most charming residence, situated on the banks of the Potomac. Here their illustrious son Robert Edward was born, January 19th, 1807, in the same chamber where two signers of the Declaration of Independence had first seen the light—Richard Henry and Francis Lightfoot Lee.

Within a few years, some tough circumstances came about:

When his son Robert, however, was only four years old, General Henry Lee moved to Alexandria, that his children might enjoy greater advantages of education. But in a few years his health failed, and, after sustaining a severe injury in endeavoring to quell a riot in Baltimore, in 1814, he continued rapidly to grow worse. In a vain attempt to recover his strength he repaired to the West Indies, hoping for beneficial effects from the change of climate; leaving his wife, also an invalid, in charge of their children, with the exception of the eldest son, Charles Carter Lee, who was absent from home, going through a collegiate course at Cambridge. In his correspondence, the husband showed that he had perfect confidence in the guardianship to which he had committed his sons as well as daughters. In one place he thus speaks of his wife and youngest son: ‘Robert, who was always a good boy, will be confirmed in his happy turn of mind by his ever watchful and affectionate mother’.

So with the father away in the West Indies attempting recuperation, and Lee’s mother, an invalid needing care, this all fell on young Robert.

We are told by one who knew Mrs. Lee intimately, that ‘she inculcated upon her children, by precept and example, the difficult duties of self-denial and self-control, as well as the strictest economy in all financial concerns’. This is the more remarkable, as we have seen she had been reared in the lap of wealth, and been used to living in style and elegance.

Lee’s mother, born into wealth, was able to be humble in this circumstance of life, and was quite a role model to her young son.

General Henry Lee was never to be reunited to his family, but died on his way home to the United States, in 1818, on Cumberland Island, near St. Mary’s, Georgia. Speaking of Mrs. Lee at this period, Miss Emily V. Mason writes:—’ This good mother was a great invalid; one of her daughters was delicate, and many years absent in Philadelphia, under the care of physicians. The oldest son, Carter, was at Cambridge; Sidney Smith was in the navy, and the other daughter was too young to be of much aid in household matters. So Robert was the housekeeper, carried the keys, attended to the marketing, managed all the out-door business, and took care of his mother’s horses. At the hour when the other school-boys went to play, he hurried home to order his mother’s drive, and would then be seen carrying her in his arms to the carriage, and arranging her cushions with the gentleness of an experienced nurse. . . .

Awwww .. how tender that Robert would be the one to help his mother through this difficult time. Oh how this helped to form his character as it could either have him grow more resentful or have him learn to self-sacrifice as he served.

When he left her to go to West Point, his mother was heard to say:—” How can I live without Eobert? He is both son and daughter to me”.’

General Lee always preserved a tender recollection of those scenes of his childhood and youth. …

Note that his response to these years as a servant for his mother, he still cherished that time. How honorable and noble is that?

For a long series of years Mrs. Lee was a sufferer, and, being left a widow in reduced circumstances, cumbered with the care of children, her trials must have been of a complicated nature. Yet she seems not only to have submitted with uncomplaining gentleness to the hardships of her lot, and not only to have risen superior to her own trials, but also to have sustained and cheered all about her. Her sick-room was airy and bright; all its arrangements were conducive to cheerfulness and comfort; the invalid, tall and stately in form, with finely cut features, added to these marks of a born gentlewoman a saintliness and purity of expression, which made still more beautiful her naturally lovely countenance. Her declining days were cheered by the most tender nursing on the part of her children, especially Robert, who, after graduating at West Point, devoted himself most tenderly to his mother, of whose fostering care and judicious counsels he was so soon to be deprived.

It seems that Lee’s mother also modeled a cheerfulness in the midst of pain and financial worry without her husband leading the family. The fact that Lee returned to his mother after West Point is quite a testament to his character!

Yet, it seems that this experience of his youth made him the perfect fit for his wife, Mary Randolph Curtis, who was described after her death:

Of Mrs. Lee it may be truly said, that she was worthy to grace the home and cheer the eventful life of this king of men. Though rendered by sickness incapable of walking, and never free from pain, she bore her sufferings with Christian cheerfulness, and always seemed contented and happy.

.. and after they as a family lost the Curtis mansion at Arlington (current site of Arlington National Cemetery):

No one ever heard vain words of lament, anger, or revenge pass her lips. In meekness she bowed to this sorrow as to a dispensation of Providence; in the silence of a true magnanimity she quietly laid this sacrifice beside many heavier ones upon the altar of country, and unmurmuringly, even cheerfully, accepted her lot among the reprobated ‘refugees’ of her stricken laud.

Furthermore, the character of Lee’s wife can be seen once again here:

When, after the war, General Lee lived upon a moderate salary, the compensation for his yearly labors as president of Washington and Lee University, the authorities of the college, who were so gratefully reaping the benefits of those labors, voted him a new and handsome residence as a gift, the General declined most positively to accept the gift, and would only reside in the new mansion which they persisted in rearing for him, on condition that it should remain college-property, and be called ‘The President’s House’, and reserved for future incumbents of the chair.

All unknown to himself and to his family, the board of trustees deeded the property to Mrs. Lee. When, after his death, the fact was delicately communicated to her, in order that she might know that the affliction of leaving her comfortable, pleasant home was not to be superadded to the irreparable one she had just experienced, and that, moreover, an annuity of $3000 per annum was hers for life, with the same high-mindedness as her husband had shown, she gracefully, but politely, declined to accept the annuity so generously proffered her, the house, or in anywise to tax the funds of the college for her support.

Founded as the institution had been by Washington, and fostered into a sudden prosperity beneath her husband’s rule, surely Mary Custis Lee might have accepted these offers with dignity; but she did not think so; and who can fail to admire the lofty self-respect and uprightness of soul which dictated the refusal of that which would have softened for her the asperities of life?

After Lee’s death, his wife would actually care for their own daughter:

After General Lee’s death, in 1870, his widow grew rapidly more infirm; yet still her fingers, stiff though they were with rheumatism, were employed mainly in a work of piety and love —her object being to aid in completing the memorial chapel which was to commemorate her noble husband’s deeds and the love borne him by the people.

Mrs. Lee seemed to find a sad, sweet solace for her grief in tinting the photographs of General Lee and herself, the proceeds of their sale to be used for the benefit of the chapel fund. It was sad to see almost a fevered glow flush her pallid cheek, as she would go on with her task, despite pain, weariness and soul-sickening grief. And another proof she gave, even then, of the modesty and humility of her character, in the low estimate she made of the value of this work; although those who are now fortunate enough to own them, regard them as inestimable mementoes, to be treasured with sacred care.

But, her labors were soon to cease. In the fall of 1873, her lovely daughter Agnes — the sweet and congenial sharer of her every fortune — sickened unto death. Day after day the agonized mother was moved, in her invalid’s chair, to her daughter’s bedside, her only comfort seeming to be in clasping the hand of the sweet sufferer, or gazing with fondest grief upon her loved and lovely form. Often too she was seen to be wrestling in prayer, that the word of healing might yet be spoken. But when finally the stroke of death came, the strength of the mourner gave way, and she was lifted to a bed from which she never arose.

Nature seemed to have no power to rally from the shock, and in a few weeks more, Mary Custis Lee was released from the pains and sorrows of this mortal life, and admitted to the dear companionship of her loved ones, who had ‘but gone before’. The whole Southern people grieved for her loss; and, as when General Lee died, the fountains of their grief for the disastrous close of the war seemed to open afresh, and from one end of the land to the other was heard the voice of mourning.

A mother’s love touches so many, and endures all things, until they return Home to a place where there are no tears.

-SF1