Blog 4 History

This looks like a great event, and as most of you know. I am a student at American Public Univsersity and Dr. Woodworth is current one of my instructors. Well they have a great event coming up: Discovering the Civil War Online – Live Webcast.

From their website:

Have you ever handled a document over 150 years old? The American Civil War left behind a vast paper trail of soldiers’ letters and diaries, as well as newspapers and periodicals; all of these documents provide accounts of crucial events of the era, enabling historians to piece together the events that shaped America’s past during this defining time.

Today, these documents are widely and easily accessible online, thanks to historic preservation, the advent of online research portals such as Best of History Web Sites, and educational institutions such as American Public University. APU educates people on the importance of preserving these documents by providing quality higher education including History and Military History degrees. In many cases, these online documents are the next best thing to handling the originals.

Dr. Steven E. Woodworth, Professor of History at American Public University, and Tom Daccord, Educational Technology Specialist at Best of History Web Sites, will discuss researching and handling original Civil War documents through the Internet and how they apply it to their own projects.

For more info…

I’m looking for history instructors or educators, graduate students or college professors who are interested in being a regular contributor here at blog4history.com. Potential revenue sharing once the advertising kicks in and it will. I am looking for 2-3 people interested in writing a weekly news or history piece. Nothing to serious every week, certainly more like the “blog” format. If interested email me: admin-@-blog4history.com

Not a political post, but a factual one. Ten days ago President Obama signed legislation to increase the federal government’s borrowing authority by nearly $2 trillion.

After President Obama signed a law last week authorizing the United States Treasury to borrow an additional $1.9 trillion….

They reveal startling facts, says Jeffrey:

• When calculated by the average annual percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) that he will spend during his presidency, Obama is on track to become the biggest-spending president since 1930, the earliest year reported on the OMB’s historical chart of spending as a percentage of GDP.
• When calculated by the average annual percentage of GDP he will borrow during his presidency, Obama is on track to become the greatest debtor president since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• Obama will outspend and out-borrow the admittedly profligate George W. Bush, a man Obama and his lieutenants routinely malign for fiscal recklessness and who, when in office, was often hailed even by his allies as a Big Government Republican.
• Obama will even outspend — but not quite out-borrow-his fellow welfare-state liberal FDR, who had to contend with both the Depression and World War II.

To read more…

I’ve spent several weeks giving you what some historians thought of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s economic policies as well as my own opinion. What I would like to do now is explain why I feel that FDR was indeed a great president. Now, some may react to this statement by asking, “How can he not be remembered as a great president?” Indeed, some may ask that question.

However, I believe that without World War II, FDR would have been remembered as, at best, an average president. His New Deal policies are debated to this day. Some would say, ah, a “New Deal Denier” as one reader has already accused me of. (Note the connotation of “denier” and think of other historical conspiracies, denials, ect.”)

To settle the New Deal programs debate, there can be no doubt that some of the reforms to this day have made an impact on America: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Social Security Act (though a good idea in theory, the federal government has constantly stolen from it and it is now in serious trouble… and some of you want more government control over things like Health Care!?)

Most importantly, his immediate action (Emergency Banking Act) in 1933 probably avoided hyper inflation and other catastrophic events.

And finally, the New Deal rebuilt America’s infrastructure with programs such as Civil Works Administration, thus placing the United States in a strong position once the war came.

But still, without World War II we do not get out of the Great Depression, and without the war, the brilliance of FDR as a Commander-in-Chief in war time would never have been known.

FDR struggled with the Isolationists and the limitations of the Neutrality Acts, but even as early as 1938 he sought schemes to evade the serious legal and political obstacles blocking his desire to give aid to the British. Clearly that he even considered such actions indicates how far ahead of the American public FDR was in seeing the evil of the Nazi’s and understanding the serious circumstances facing the British. [Source: David M. Kennedy's "The American People in World War II", Oxford 1999] Roosevelt was also effective in guiding a hesitant American populace towards war with his Fireside Chats, press conferences, and unflinching leadership.

After December 7, 1941, Roosevelt was as steely as his British counterpart, Churchill, and was every bit the American Lion as some described him. Churchill and FDR became kindred friends, dominate politicians, and more than competent commanders of the military. Together (with Stalin the Russians) they led the Western World in defeating Hitler and the National Socialists. And just as importantly, together they realized the threat of communism as the war was drawing to an end.

Taken as a whole, there is little doubt that FDR deserves to be remembered as one of our greatest Presidents.

I don’t know when or if I will get a chance to read and review Colin Grant’s Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey from Oxford University Press due to come out in March. 544 pp. $17.95. But I appreciate the folks at Oxford for sending me a copy. I skimmed through the book and check out the bibliography and it looks like a lively narrative and well researched.

From the Publisher:

The story of Marcus Garvey, the charismatic and tireless black leader who had a meteoric rise and fall in the late 1910s and early ’20s, makes for enthralling reading, and Garvey has found an engaging and objective biographer in Colin Grant… Grant’s book is not all politics, ideology, money and lawsuits. It is also an engrossing social history… Negro With a Hat is an achievement on a scale Garvey might have appreciated. Dazzling, definitive biography of the controversial activist who led the 1920s ‘Back to Africa’ movement… Grant’s learned passion for his subject shimmers on every page. A riveting and well-wrought volume that places Garvey solidly in the pantheon of important 20th-century black leaders. This splendid book is certain to become the definitive biography. Garvey was a dreamer and a doer; Grant captures the fascination of both.” Grant’s strength lies in his ability to re-create political moods and offer compelling sketches of colorful individuals and their organizations… An engaging and readable introduction to a complicated and contentious historical actor who, in his time, possessed a unique capacity to inspire devotion and hatred, adulation and fear. A monumental, nuanced and broadly sympathetic portrait. A searching, vivid, and (as the title suggests) complex account of Garvey’s short but consequential life.

I received today my A.P. United States History catalog from SocialStudies.com which was filled with books, DVDs, and other resources and guides for purchase.

First off, I wish I had a budget I would order a ton of materials from this resource. But I would be remiss if I did not mention that this publication, which goes out to thousands of teachers, had a one-page dedication to “Howard Zinn” and numerous materials including his book A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present. Now, they can promote whoever and whatever they want. Not my point. Two things, are they promoting Zinn’s propaganda or are they simply being wise marketers and pitching the right thing to what is probably the right crowd? Why not a page dedicated to William Bennett’s America: The Last Best Hope, or something equivalent? Zinn’s book is the only one to get the special treatment. I don’t know, you decide. Makes me want to start my own resource for teachers that does not promote one thing over another.

So this goes back to past discussions on Howard Zinn’s materials and books in the classroom and how they are used. Remember, Zinn’s books are propaganda and the work of an activist with limited historical accuracy. [See here, here and here.]

I have to admit that I have on occasion caught parts of the Glenn Beck show; you know that far Right-Wing fear and hate monger. Mainly I catch it on the weekends, if at all. Anyway, Beck for well over a year has been preaching about the coming economic apocalypse.  However frightening and interesting it is to listen to him drone on and on, I remained skeptical of his apparent delusions of grandeur. We’re too big to fail, the economic make up of our country today is so vastly different than it was in the late 1920s and early 1930s, right?

However, as a student of history I am beginning to have some cause for concern. With the recent closed door signing of a bill by the President to increase the Federal deficit to $14.3 trillion, along with: a potential massive health care bill and the jobs bill that supposedly will create jobs (remember we already had one that was to keep us from seeing 8-9% unemployment; we are now hovering around 10%.)  That’s not to mention Cap and Trade and other bills lurking in Congress. The fact that future taxation will have to become a burden for not just the wealthy but for most of us who hold jobs, has got me wondering if Mr. Beck is right?

According to the report [linked above]:

White House Office of Management and Budget projects that these changes will raise taxes on wealthy Americans by $636.7 billion over the next decade.

Spend and tax did not get America out of the Great Depression as unemployment never stabilized because the job creation initiatives by FDR failed to initiate true economic recovery (it was a government injected mirage that was never sustainable). Some argue FDR did not go far enough, did not spend enough. FDR wanted to keep the deficit somewhat under control. How did he achieve this? Taxes, especially on the wealthy and small business (those that survived). It’s the private sector, the small businesses that will create long term sustained job growth. However, not when they face no incentive to create jobs as their government will simply tax their profits to some extreme measures. Spending money by the government can be just fine and dandy, but when that is combined with heavy taxation, the private sector is doomed. Spend money on what you must, but cut taxes on the small businesses (and corporations) and watch them grow and grow and before you know it, you have the tax money needed because the private sector has grown, thus producing more tax revenue. Think of it this way, when Henry Ford introduced his assembly line and sought to produce more and more cars at a cheaper price in order to create more demand, he made more money. Same thing applies to taxation, create more tax payers without increasing the tax, and you make more money.

Several arguments. What got us out of the Great Depression? You could argue that the New Deal created the infrastructure that allowed the country to survive. The massive spending on war materials in the late 1930s early 40s. But mainly, and this is a point of serious debate, is the simple fact that after the war the United States was the only industrial economy left standing and this allowed the private sector to blossom and with it the complete recovery of our economy.

In comparison, the Great Depression did not truly become great until three years after the stock market crash of 1929. When the floor fell out of the economy (1932) is when true suffering occurred and thus produced the  “great” depression. Recently, our stock market crash was 2008-09.  Will we see a similar result by 2012 that we did by 1932 (per graph unemployment hits 25%)? I hope not.

FDR did not listen to small business owners. Henry Ford (you know, that great capitalists mentioned above) equated FDR’s policies to communism and refused to sign into the National Recovery Administration’s policies [for more on that click here]. FDR relied on economists who were ideologues and theorists who knew little about running a business. I hope our current President is not making the same mistake?

The facts are daunting. A $14 plus trillion dollar deficit will probably doom my generation from ever enjoying the sustained prosperity of our parents. The Republicans started the spending under Bush, and now the Democrats are doing the same times ten. Meet the new bosses, same as the old bosses. It’s hard to keep a straight face when I teach American Government and Politics as a high school teacher.

We can, however, hopefully, do something for our children. That probably starts this year when we elect fiscally responsible politicians? I don’t care if these include Democrats, Libertarians, Tea Partiers, whoever, it is our most direct way to avoid a potential disaster if Glenn Beck and others are right. And I hope they are not!

UPDATE: Lone voice warns of debt threat to Fed

The US must fix its growing debt problems or risk a new financial crisis, Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, warned on Tuesday, adding a mounting deficit could spur inflation.

Economists Predict Cutbacks, Tax Increases That ‘Aren’t Even Imaginable’…

American political and economic leaders have sounded the alarm for years about the red ink rising in reports on the federal government’s fiscal health.

David Muir looks into how the deficit has become so large.But now the problem of mounting national debt is worse than it ever has been before with — potentially dire consequences for taxpayers, according to a report by the nonpartisan Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform.

Brigham Young University sent me the following results of a study that analyzed pension and medical records from a random sample of the 179,000 black soldiers enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War and found some interesting, though not surprising results. The study was performed by Sven E. Wilson of Brigham Young University.

Twenty years after the Civil War ended, the 179,000 African-American veterans of the Union Army saw racial inequality widen as the Pension Bureau left most of them out of a rapid expansion.

According to a new Brigham Young University study, the program shifted away from its relatively color-blind roots when it began granting disability claims based on chronic illness to soldiers who had not been wounded in the war.

During the 1880s, the Pension Bureau approved applications from uninjured white veterans at more than twice the rate of approval for uninjured black veterans.

“Black veterans were far less successful than whites for conditions that were hard to verify and required a degree of trust,” said Sven Wilson, an associate professor of political science at BYU.

To read more…

[PHOTO CREDITS: Union Army veteran John Pinkey served in Company B of the 104th Infantry Regiment of the USCT (U.S. Colored Troops). Pinkey submitted this photo as part of his pension application. ]

On February 4, 2010, Google.com announced that it had added an historical imagery feature to Google Earth.

From their blog:

The historical imagery feature gives people a unique perspective on the events of the past using today’s latest mapping technology. We hope that this World War II imagery will enable all of us to understand our shared history in a new way and to learn more about the impact of the war on the development of our cities.

You will be able to compare war time reconnaissance images to modern satellite photos to gain a unique perspective of the destruction on such cities as Stuttgart (Germany) — that experienced over 50 air raids. I am not sure if the destruction is due completely to Allied air raids or if there was ground fighting that took place as well. Images from Italy, Poland and France are also available.

Here is a nice presentation on what it looks like before you do ahead and download Google Earth:

(Please see Part I first if you have not done so already)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt entered office on the heels of the 1932 collapse of the American Financial system. The floor fell out of the economy. At the time of the November election, unemployment stood at 31% and the GDP fell from $104 billion in 1929 to 76$ billion, and agriculture prices fell 61% from 1929 to 1933. Over 5,000 banks closed their doors in 1933 taking $3.4 billion with them.

The situation when FDR took office, was perilous. Unemployment rates were astonishing: 50% in Cleveland, 60% in Akron, 80% in Toledo, and 90% in Gary (Indiana). The suffering was nation wide, New York City reported 95 people starved to death in 1932.

During his 100 days FDR moved quickly to get the National Relief Act in motion and stabilize the banks. If you look at the chart (below) the downward trend in unemployment after FDR’s election seems to indicate that his actions early on stopped the bleeding. Indeed, I would lean toward that conclusion. The banks were neglected by Hoover and FDR reacted to that need.

Folsom states that “Capitalism had failed in FDR’s view” and I do not agree. FDR was not anti-capitalism. Left wing Progressive economists argued FDR did not spend enough and did not maintain a high enough deficit. As a matter of fact, FDR was not even the socialist that his critics accused him of being. “The lessons of history, confirmed by evidence immediately before me,” said Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber.” Not the words of a socialists. FDR was not anti-capitalism as Folsom believes and he would be shocked today if someone told him he was trying to turn America into a socialists state.

But yet the Keynesian philosophy that will be mainly followed by FDR had already failed by 1932. President Hoover was not a fiscal Conservative and many of the initiatives he started were apart of FDR’s New Deal. Hoover spent a lot of money and maintained huge deficits, $903 million for the 1931 fiscal year.

I believe that FDR surrounded himself with too many economist/theorists and not enough businessmen (indeed he included none) as Folsom does correctly point out. The National Industry Recovery Act overthrew America’s free market economy. FDR also declared war on the wealthy private businessmen who would have led the way out of recovery before World War 2. He raised taxes on the private and corporate sectors that created long term jobs. The short term reduction in unemployment (as shown in the graph) was probably do to the creation of government run jobs. But these job gains could not be maintained without high taxation without growth in the private sector, which did not happen.

FDR did not want to run high deficits and decided to tax the wealthy; who were the small businesses and job creators. (Note: Had FDR took an initial hit on a high deficit in return for low taxes, expansion in the private sector would have probably brought in more tax money due to growth.) FDR taxed pretty much everyone, indeed, as those making less that 5K were hit with a 0.4% tax, and on up to those making over 100K who were taxed at a rate of sixty-five percent. Roosevelt even signed an executive order in 1942 taxing all people making over 25K at the astonishing rate of 100%, proving his dependency on tax and spend which never worked until the private sector was energized by massive stimulation due to the war. The President never completely understood the public business sector, which lead the way in recovery during WW2. In this regard, FDR was more a Progressive than a Socialist. He wanted the government to be the instigator of change.

Still, lots of questions can be raised by the tax graph, as during WW2 taxation increased, yet the economy recovered, why? To be discussed in Part III.

Works Cited:
Roger Biles, A New Deal for the American People, 11-12; 22-23;31;104.
Burton W. Folsom Jr, New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America, 93, 130