Free bus tours to the FDR Library?

June 6, 2011

Franklin Roosevelt voting in Hyde Park, New York

Franklin Roosevelt voting in Hyde Park, New York, November 2, 1937 - FDR LIbrary image

In the Dallas district, and across much of Texas, field trips are being cut out.  Budget restraints, you know.  Rick Perry’s math is atrocious, and the “surplus” he claimed we had in the budget turned out to be a $27 billion deficit.

So, I got quite excited to read this press release from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For information call:
Clifford Laube at (845) 486-7745

YOUR BUS COULD BE ON US!

New funding available for field trips to historic Hyde Park destinations

HYDE PARK – Field trips are back! The National Park Service and FDR Presidential Library and Museum are pleased to offer new transportation grants for 2011 field trips to five renowned Hyde Park destinations – FDR Presidential Library and Museum, Home of FDR National Historic Site, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, Top Cottage and Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site.

The new grants are managed by Teaching the Hudson Valley (THV), a nonprofit that helps educators and students discover and appreciate the natural, historical and cultural treasures of the Hudson Valley. A list of available programs and grant application form are available in the Grants section of THV’s website.

“These sites are brimming with world-class learning opportunities for local students,” said Sarah Olson, superintendant of the Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites. “We recognize that many school districts have cut back or eliminated field trips due to budget constraints. These grants are designed to put great field trips back in reach.”

Educators are free to create their own curriculum, and the sites have a wide variety of prepared curricula, including:

  • Pretend You are the President, grades 4-6
  • Eleanor Roosevelt: First Lady of the World, grades 4-6
  • FDR’s Boyhood Farm, grades 1-3
  • Searching for Salamanders, grades 7-12
  • Podcasts interpreting the many trails that traverse the 5 sites

“To walk in the footsteps of history, to touch and hear nature – these are the experiences that make learning vivid and memorable,” said Lynn Bassanese, director of the FDR Presidential Library & Museum. “Field trips are becoming an endangered species, but the need for them is still great. Together these sites have provided decades of great experiences for educators and students. These new grants will help us continue the tradition.”

K-12 educators in public and private schools may apply for regular, summer or after-school programs. Trips should be related to core curriculum or programs and take place by December 31, 2011. Teachers in the same school or district may apply together.

ABOUT THV

Launched in 2003, Teaching the Hudson Valley (THV) helps educators and students discover and appreciate the natural, historical, and cultural treasures of the Hudson Valley. THV programs foster collaboration between schools and informal learning sites. Our growing collection of free K-12 lessons uses significant Valley sites to teach all subjects. For details, visit http://www.TeachingtheHudsonValley.org.

THV is a program of the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area and HRV Greenway Conservancy, Inc.; National Park Service – Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites; Hudson River Estuary Program/NY State Dept. of Environmental Conservation; and Hudson River Valley Institute at Marist College.

#   #   #

Alas, it turns out it’s not intended for Texas classrooms.  Drat.

I’ve taken large groups of 14-16 year-olds through those sites.  An halfway interested teenager can get eyes opened seeing how FDR grew up, in the place he grew up.  The library and museum offer spectacular displays on FDR’s presidency and the times.  It’s exactly the sort of experience a lot of my students have never had, but need.

I’ll have to see what we can do with museums and libraries a little bit closer — the George H. W. Bush Library in College Station, Texas, the Lyndon Johnson Library in Austin, and the  Bill Clinton Library in Little Rock.  Possibilities of touring close-by sites make me quiet about the odd situation at the George W. Bush Library and Center for Right-Wing Propaganda planned for Southern Methodist University.   There’s a great chance that the advantages of having the educational resources will outweigh the ignominy of the propaganda activities (though the Hoover Institute makes one appropriately wary).

Look for some reports back, soon.  While you wait, call the Texas Lege and tell them to appropriate enough money to educate the students in the American Way, will you?  The Lege is still meeting in Austin, in emergency, special session.

Leave a Comment » | 1941-1945, Education, Franklin Roosevelt, Great Depression, History, Libraries, Museums, Teaching, World War II, WPA - Works Progress Administration | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

No, Henry Wallace would not have been president long, had FDR died a few months early

March 25, 2011

Oh, it’s a technical quibble, I know.

Henry Wallace campaign button from 1948

Henry Wallace campaign button, probably from 1948. R. Emmett Tyrell worries unnecessarily that Henry Wallace might have been president, had FDR died a few months earlier.

I’ve read R. Emmett Tyrell for years.  Back in the day, when American Spectator was scratching to get anyone to read, they sent me free copies — I presume because they got my name off of a list for National Review.  At some point they decided they could actually get someone to pay for the magazine, and I fell off their list.

It was a fun read back then.  American Spectator showed up on newsprint, not slick paper.  There was a college newspaper feel to it.  They had a great section called “Brayings from the barnyard,” in which they’d quote stupid things that people said.  That was the first place I encountered the old saw, “Those whom the gods destroy, they first make mad.”

And I’m sure that, had he thought about it for three minutes, he wouldn’t have written it.  But Tyrell didn’t think.

In the on-line blog for the Spectator, in the traditionally-named “The Current Crisis,” Tyrell wrote:

Progressives have long been in favor of One World vouchsafed by the United Nations. Henry Wallace, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s second vice president and the 1948 presidential candidate for the Progressive Party, spoke of it often. On the campaign trail in 1948 he spoke of “jobs, peace, and freedom” that “can be attained together and make possible One World, prosperous and free, within our lifetime.” He too promised to coordinate policy through the United Nations. Had President Roosevelt died but six months earlier, America would have had this fantastico in the White House. As it was, in one last act of cunning for his country, Roosevelt maneuvered Wallace out of the vice presidency and Harry Truman in. Harry was green but he was not naïve. We came that close to Henry Wallace and his “Gideon’s Army” in the White House.

Does Tyrell really believe that?

Henry Wallace could not have succeeded to the presidency at any time after noon, January 21, 1945, and had he succeeded to the presidency any time before January 21, he’d have served only until January 21.  Had Roosevelt died any time after November 7, 1944, Harry S Truman would have been inaugurated on January 21, 1945.  Had Roosevelt died between the Democratic Convention and the election, one could make an argument that Truman would not have won the nomination nor the presidency — we’ve never had a candidate die before election day, nor between election and inauguration (though William Henry Harrison sure pushed it).

Berryman cartoon, 1948, Truman v. Tom Dewey

Berryman cartoon, probably from the Washington Star, 1948 — New York Gov. Thomas Dewey was expected to handily defeat President Harry S Truman; the election was held anyway. Elections have consequences.

Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945.  Six months earlier quickly calculated would have been October 12.  [I goofed when I submitted a comment at the Spectator site, and calculated December — too quick a calculation!]  Wallace, then the vice president to FDR, almost certainly would not have won the Democrats’ nomination for president.  It may have been possible for the party to name a new ticket, and if so, it would not have had Wallace on top.  One can make a case that Truman wouldn’t have been on top of a new ticket, either — but even October 12 may have been too late to change the ballot, for pragmatic purposes, prior to the election.  Most discussions I’ve seen suggest that the vice presidential candidate would be moved up in such a case.

So, had Roosevelt died months prior to April 12, 1945, we would have had Henry Wallace as president for only a few weeks, until inauguration day the next January.  Then we would have had Harry S Truman, or Thomas E. Dewey.  Dewey ran against Truman in 1948, and lost.  There’s a good case to be made that Truman would have defeated Dewey in 1944, had they run against each other then.  Truman would have had the sympathy vote, and he would have been thought to have been the heir to the Roosevelt legacy and policies near the end of World War II.  With Hitler and Tojo on the run, it would have been a bad time to switch parties and policies.

We’ll never know, but Tyrell need not worry.

Harry Truman and Chicago Tribune from November 4, 1948

Harry Truman and Chicago Tribune from November 4, 1948

Leave a Comment » | 1941-1945, Elections, FDR, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, History, History What Ifs, Presidential Eligibility, Presidents, U.S. Constitution, World War II | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

March 14: Happy birthday, Albert Einstein! (b. 1879)

March 14, 2011

E=mcc - logo from AIP

E=energy; m=mass; c=speed of light

Happy Einstein Day!  Almost fitting that he was born on π Day, no?  I mean, is there an E=mc² Day?

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany, to Hermann and Pauline Einstein.  26 years later, three days after his birthday, he sent off the paper on the photo-electric effect, the paper that would win him the Nobel Prize in Physics five years later, in 1921.  In that same year of 1905, he published three other papers, solving the mystery of Brownian motion, describing what became known as the Special Theory of Relativity and solving the mystery of why measurements of the light did not show any effects of motion as Maxwell had predicted, and a final paper that noted a particle emitting light energy loses mass.  This final paper amused Einstein because it seemed so ludicrous in its logical extension that energy and matter are really the same stuff at some fundamental point, as expressed in the equation demonstrating an enormous amount of energy stored in atoms, E=mc².

Albert Einstein as a younger man - Nobel Foundation image

Albert Einstein as a younger man - Nobel Foundation image

Any one of the papers would have been a career-capper for any physicist.  Einstein dashed them off in just a few months, forever changing the field of physics.  And, you noticed:  Einstein did not win a Nobel for the Special Theory of Relativity, nor for E=mc².  He won it for the photo electric effect.  Irony in history.

106 years later Einstein’s work affects us every day.  Relativity theory at some level I don’t understand makes possible the use Global Positioning Systems (GPS), which revolutionized navigation and mundane things like land surveying and microwave dish placement.  Development of nuclear power both gives us hope for an energy-rich future, and gives us fear of nuclear war.  Sometimes, even the hope of the energy rich future gives us fear, as we watch and hope nuclear engineers can control the piles in nuclear power plants damaged by earthquakes and tsunami in Japan.

If Albert Einstein was a genius at physics, he was more dedicated to pacifism.  He resigned his German citizenship to avoid military conscription.  His pacifism made the German Nazis nervous; Einstein fled Germany in the 1930s, eventually settling in the United States.  In the U.S., he was persuaded by Leo Szilard to write to President Franklin Roosevelt to suggest the U.S. start a program to develop an atomic weapon, because Germany most certainly was doing exactly that.  But Einstein refused to participate in the program himself, sticking to his pacifist views.  Others could, and would, design and build atomic bombs.  (Maybe it’s a virus among nuclear physicists — several of those working on the Manhattan Project were pacifists, and had great difficulty reconciling the idea that the weapon they worked on to beat Germany, was deployed on Japan, which did not have a nuclear weapons program.)

Einstein was a not-great father, and probably not  a terribly faithful husband at first — though he did think to give his first wife a share of a Nobel Prize should he win it in the divorce settlement.  Einstein was a good violinist, a competent sailor, an incompetent dresser, and a great character.  His sister suffered a paralyzing stroke.  For many months Albert spent hours a day reading to her the newspapers and books of the day, convinced that mute and appearing unconscious, she would benefit from hearing the words.  He said he did not hold to orthodox religions, but could there be a greater show of faith in human spirit?

Einstein in 1950, five years before his death

Einstein in 1950, five years before his death

When people hear clever sayings, but forget to whom the bon mots should be attributed, Einstein is one of about five candidates to whom all sorts of things are attributed, though he never said them.  (Others include Lincoln, Jefferson, Mark Twain and Will Rogers).  Einstein is the only scientist in that group.  So, for example, we can be quite sure Einstein never claimed that compound interest was the best idea of the 20th century.  This phenomenon is symbolic of the high regard people have for the man, even though so few understand what his work was, or meant.

A most interesting man.  A most important body of work.  He deserves more study and regard than he gets.

More, Resources:

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Beginning, beginning of the end, end of the beginning, end

January 30, 2011

January 30 is a momentous date, according to the AP list of events that occurred on this day.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, National Portrait Gallery

Franklin D. Roosevelt, National Portrait Gallery

Beginning: Franklin Roosevelt, the only president of the U.S. to break the tradition of getting elected to two terms only, was born on January 30, 1882,  in Hyde Park, New York.  (Both Ulysses Grant and his cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, had tried to break the two-term tradition  before.)  Roosevelt served at the 32nd president, winning election in 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944.  During his first term the date of presidential inaugurations was moved from March 21 to January 21, partly in appreciation for the period of time the nation drifted seemingly deeper into depression between Roosevelt’s election in November 1932 and his inauguration in March 1933.  Roosevelt contracted polio in 1921, won election as New York’s governor in 1928, and then won the 1932 presidential race.  His death on April 12, 1945, pushed Harry Truman into the presidency for three years before he had to face the electorate.

End of the beginning: On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler took office as chancellor of Germany.  A World War I veteran, Hitler had spent time in prison for trying to overthrow the government. Hitler was seven years younger than FDR, but their careers occasionally coincided on key years.  Hitler’s assuming power in January gave him a two-month jump on FDR; at the time, few people, if anyone noticed the coincidental rise, nor could see the significance of the events of the year.  According to The History Place:

Germany was a nation that in its history had little experience or interest in democracy. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler took the reins of a 14-year-old German democratic republic which in the minds of many had long outlived its usefulness. By this time, the economic pressures of the Great Depression combined with the indecisive, self-serving nature of its elected politicians had brought government in Germany to a complete standstill. The people were without jobs, without food, quite afraid and desperate for relief.

Now, the man who had spent his entire political career denouncing and attempting to destroy the Republic, was its leader. Around noon on January 30th, Hitler was sworn in.

“I will employ my strength for the welfare of the German people, protect the Constitution and laws of the German people, conscientiously discharge the duties imposed on me, and conduct my affairs of office impartially and with justice to everyone,” swore Adolf Hitler.

Democratic-based government in Germany was doomed for the foreseeable future.  Few foresaw that.

Beginning of the end: On January 30, 1968, during the Vietnamese new year celebration known as Tet, Vietcong and North Vietnamese army regulars kicked off the Tet Offensive, striking targets all over Vietnam simultaneously.  Caught nearly completely by surprise, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces lost control of Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital for a time.  While the U.S. and South Vietnamese eventually won these many battles and pushed out the invading forces,  the simple fact that the thought-to-be-decimated forces of Ho Chi Minh could pull of the offensive at all sent the chilling message that victory in this guerrilla did not yet belong to South Vietnam and the U.S., nor had a tide been turned.   After tumultuous elections in the U.S., Richard Nixon’s presidency could not turn the tide, either.  A “peace” was negotiated, mostly between North Vietnam and the U.S., in 1973, but it did not hold.  In 1975 relations between North Vietnam and South Vietnam hit crisis again, and the U.S. pulled out the last forces left in South Vietnam in April.  Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces defeated the rapidly dissipating military of the South, and the country was united under communist, North Vietnam rule.

Mahatma Gandhi addresses Indians

Mahatma Gandhi addresses Indians

An end: Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse shot and killed Mohandas K. Gandhi in India, on January 30, 1948.  Gandhi was known as “Mahatma,” which means “Great Soul.”  Gandhi campaigned for India’s independence and end of British colonial rule for most of the 1920s, including a period of time in prison for subversive activities.  Gandhi’s great contribution to political change is the massive use of non-violent, non-cooperation.  Non-violent tactics tend to highlight the moral positions of groups in conflict, and make the non-violent side appear to have the stronger case.  Such tactics expose hypocrisy and despotic government rules.  Though he resigned from his political party in 1934, Gandhi remained a key icon of the drive for India’s independence.  When violence broke out over the Mountbatten plan to grant independence in 1947, creating two nations of Pakistan and India divided along religious, Gandhi again appealed for peace, but became the most famous victim of the religious violence that still roils the region today.  Committed to peace and non-violence, Gandhi himself did not ever win the Nobel Peace Prize, perhaps because his life was cut short.  His work inspired other Nobel Peace laureates, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1964), the Dalai Lama (1989), Aung San Suu Kyi (1991), Nelson Mandela (with Frederik Willem deKlerk, 1993), and U.S. President Barack Obama (2009).

On January 30, 2011, much of the world holds its breath, watching events in North Africa, including especially Tunisia and Egypt.  Which of these traditions will today follow, to peace, or toward war?

Leave a Comment » | 1941-1945, 1968, Franklin Roosevelt, Gandhi, Germany, India, Vietnam, World War II | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Darkest political skullduggery: Coup d’etat in the U.S.

August 20, 2008

Here’s a story you won’t read in your U.S. history text: Sore from losing the White House, conservatives try to use an economic “crisis” as an excuse to seize the White House and oust the sitting president.

It might make a good movie — but it hasn’t yet. It actually happened.

Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, The Fighting Quaker - twice winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor

Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, "The Fighting Quaker" - twice winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor

The American Liberty League tried to persuade double-Medal of Honor winner Major Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler to do one more military campaign to save the nation — from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1933. The story was told in a book that quoted extensively from hearings before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Un-American Activities Committee, the group that would become infamous for harassing leftists before the House finally choked it to death. Of course, since no one would believe such a plot, the book is out of print.  The American Liberty League was quite the opposite of leftist – they favored the fascists.

Oh, the wonder of the intertubes! You can download the book, Jules Archer’s The Plot to Seize the White House, at a site called Information Clearinghouse, “News you won’t find on CNN.”

None of the plotters faced any other official investigation beyond the hearings in Congress.

Had the plot succeeded how different would World War II have been?

Tip of the old scrub brush to Progressive Gold’s del.icio.us feeds.

1 Comment | Elections, FDR, Franklin Roosevelt, History, New Deal, Politics, Presidents | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the moment: Peter Drucker, on leadership and very high objectives

December 27, 2007

I will never forget when [Franklin D.] Roosevelt announced that we would build thirty thousand fighter planes. I was on the task force that worked on our economic strength, and we had just reached the conclusion that we could build, at most, four thousand. We thought, “For goodness sake — he’s senile!” Two years later we built fifty thousand. I don’t know whether he knew, or if he just realized that unless you set objectives very high, you don’t achieve anything at all.

 

BusinessWeek cover, Why Peter Drucker's Ideas Still Matter; November 27, 2005

BusinessWeek cover, Why Peter Drucker’s Ideas Still Matter; November 27, 2005

–Peter R. Drucker (November 19, 1909–November 11, 2005), in interview with Bill Moyers, 1988

More: 

1 Comment | Business, Business Ethics, Franklin Roosevelt, History, Jurisprudence, Leadership, Winston Churchill | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas was thankful first

November 22, 2007

Thanksgiving? Texas had it first. No kidding (unless you count the Vinlanders, who probably were grateful to be out of Greenland, but left no records that they ever actually had a feast to say so — but see the comments in the posts linked at various places).

Mrs. Bathtub is in the hospital. Nothing major, but it appears the staff who should have signed her out yesterday all headed off for Turkey Day and may not return until mid-December, so Mrs. Bathtub languishes at the expense of the insurance companies because security is tight and there are only enough sheets to get her down two stories, and she’s on the third floor (and the people-with-unknown-fathers at the hospital have sealed the door to the balcony anyway — that’s got to get you thinking). So Mr. Bathtub is frantically reading the back of the Libby’s Pumpkin can, and you can imagine what antics are up in the kitchen today. Blogging will be sparse.

So it’s reprise post stuff, mostly, today. If you need more, go here:

Google's Thanksgiving logo, 2007

Here’s the main reprise post, text below (there were some good comments last year); Margaritas and nachos do sound good, don’t they?
___________________________
Patricia Burroughs has the story — you New Englanders are way, way behind.

Palo Duro Canyon in a winter inversion

Palo Duro Canyon during inversion, Winter 2001, site in 1541 of the first Thanksgiving celebration in what would become the United States. Go here: www.visitamarillotx.com/Gallery/index3.html, and here: www.tpwd.state.tx.us/park/paloduro/

Update, 11/27/2006: Great post here, “Top 10 Myths About Thanksgiving.”

_______________________

Resources for 2007:

1 Comment | Abraham Lincoln, DBQ sources, Fly your flag today, Food history, Franklin Roosevelt, George Washington, Historic documents, History, James Madison, Rachel Carson, Separation of church and state, Texas history, Thomas Jefferson, Travel | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Slowdown for study

January 25, 2007

Posting will be light this weekend — I’m off to Pasadena, California, for a Liberty Fund seminar on the “Hoover-Roosevelt Conversation,” regarding the debates between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt between 1928 and 1945.  Good fun, great company, hoped-for good stuff for future lesson plans.

But little time for blogging (and who knows how well the connections work).

Discuss.

1 Comment | Economics, Education, Franklin Roosevelt, Free market economics, Great Depression, Herbert Hoover, New Deal, Socialism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the Day: FDR’s Four Freedoms

January 24, 2007

Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered the State of the Union speech for 1941 on January 6.  Eleven months and one day later, Japan attacked the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii. I have been fascinated by Roosevelt’s clear statement of the freedoms he thought worth fighting for, especially considering that most Americans at that moment did not consider it desirable or probable that the U.S. would get involved in the war that raged across the Pacific and Atlantic.

FDR and Churchill, August 9, 1941, aboard U.S.S. Augusta

Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, August 9, 1941; aboard the U.S.S. Augusta, in the Atlantic. Library of Congress.

Here is an excerpt of the speech, the final few paragraphs:

I have called for personal sacrifice, and I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call. A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my budget message I will recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying for today. No person should try, or be allowed to get rich out of the program, and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation.

If the Congress maintains these principles the voters, putting patriotism ahead of pocketbooks, will give you their applause. Read the rest of this entry »

11 Comments | 1941-1945, Accuracy, Famous quotes, Franklin Roosevelt, Free speech, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, Good Quotes, History, Lesson plans, Presidents, Quotes, Religious Freedom, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

State of the Union

January 23, 2007

Clay Bennett cartoon, Bush at SOTU

Clay Bennett cartoon, copyright Clay Bennett. Bennett is the editorial cartoonist for the Christian Science Monitor and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for his editorial cartoons there.

Tonight President Bush delivers his State of the Union speech to Congress. State of the Union speeches are increasingly the only time we get to see presidents live, and that may lead to the extreme crabbiness about the speech Ed Brayton shows over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. It’s a Constitution-required exercise (Article II, section 3), though the prime-time television broadcast and other pomp and ceremony are not mentioned.

Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.

In our history as a republic, presidents have done everything from just sending the details in a letter to Congress to the current pageant. My recollection is that Richard Nixon gave the first prime-time speech — before that the speeches were given during the business day, and not broadcast live — and that Ronald Reagan was the first president to give all of his SOTUs in the evening. (I’m very willing to correct that information if you have better details.)

And while they have occasionally made history, such as Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 SOTU (the “four freedoms”), my fondness for the events is mostly personal. Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Cartoons, Current History, Franklin Roosevelt, History, Political cartoons, Politics, Presidents, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

After the end, Hoover showed the way for Bush

December 28, 2006

Herbert Hoover, White House Portrait

Herbert Hoover, White House Portrait

Herbert Hoover is one of the great foils for U.S. history courses. The Great Depression is on national standards and state standards. Images from the dramatic poverty that resulted win the rapt attention of even the most calloused, talkative high school juniors. Most video treatments leave students wondering why President Hoover wasn’t tried for crimes against humanity instead of just turned out of office.

In most courses, Hoover is left there, and the study of Franklin Roosevelt‘s event-filled twelve years in office (with four elected terms) takes over the classroom. If Hoover is mentioned again at all in the course, it would likely be for his leading humanitarian work after World War II.

But there is, hiding out in California, the Hoover Institution. Hoover’s impact today? Well, consider some recent fellows of the Hoover Institution: Condaleeza Rice, Milton Friedman, George Shultz, E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Gary Becker, Diane Ravitch, Chester Finn. The Hoover Institution, “at Stanford University,” is the conservatives’ anchor in the intellectual and academic world.

Hoover’s legacy is being remade, constantly, through his post-Presidential establishment of an institution to promote principles of conservatism (and liberalism in its old, almost archaic education sense). The Hoover Institution has carried Hoover’s ideas and principles back into power.

Dallas has been wracked recently with the shenanigans and maneuvers around the work of Southern Methodist University to be named as the host for the George W. Bush Presidential Library. In a humorous headline last week the Dallas Morning News (DMN) said such a library could lead Dallas’s intellectual life in the future (the headline is different in the on-line version — whew!).

Humor aside, there is grist for good thought there. Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | Business Ethics, Dissent, Economics, Franklin Roosevelt, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, Great Depression, Herbert Hoover, History, Politics, Presidents | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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