Remembering Pearl Harbor

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941--a date which will live in infamy--the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” — President Franklin Roosevelt, Speech to Congress, December 8, 1941.

At 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time on a beautiful Sunday morning 71 years ago on this date, a Japanese dive bomber bearing the red symbol of the Rising Sun of Japan on its wings appeared out of the clouds above the island of Oahu. A swarm of 353 Japanese warplanes followed, descending on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in a ferocious assault. The surprise attack struck a critical blow against the U.S. Pacific fleet and drew the United States irrevocably into World War II.

With diplomatic negotiations with Japan breaking down, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his advisers knew that an imminent Japanese attack was probable, but nothing had been done to increase security at the important naval base at Pearl Harbor. It was Sunday morning, and many military personnel had been given passes to attend religious services off base. At 7:02 a.m., two radar operators spotted large groups of aircraft in flight toward the island from the north, but, with a flight of B-17s expected from the United States at the time, they were told to sound no alarm. Thus, the Japanese air assault came as a devastating surprise to the naval base.

Much of the Pacific fleet was rendered useless: Five of eight battleships, three destroyers, and seven other ships were sunk or severely damaged, and more than 200 aircraft were destroyed. A total of 2,400 Americans were killed and 1,200 were wounded, many while valiantly attempting to repulse the attack. Japan's losses were some 30 planes, five midget submarines, and fewer than 100 men. Fortunately for the United States, all three Pacific fleet carriers were out at sea on training maneuvers. These giant aircraft carriers would have their revenge against Japan six months later at the Battle of Midway, reversing the tide against the previously invincible Japanese navy in a spectacular victory.

The day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, President Roosevelt appeared before a joint session of Congress and declared, "Yesterday, December 7, 1941--a date which will live in infamy--the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." After a brief and forceful speech, he asked Congress to approve a resolution recognizing the state of war between the United States and Japan. The Senate voted for war against Japan by 82 to 0, and the House of Representatives approved the resolution by a vote of 388 to 1. The sole dissenter was Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, a devout pacifist who had also cast a dissenting vote against the U.S. entrance into World War I. Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war against the United States, and the U.S. government responded in kind.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was intended to neutralize the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and hence protect Japan's advance into Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, where it sought access to natural resources such as oil and rubber. War between Japan and the United States had been a possibility of which each nation had been aware (and developed contingency plans for) since the 1920s, though tensions did not begin to grow seriously until Japan's 1931 invasion of Manchuria. Over the next decade, Japan continued to expand into China, leading to all-out war between those countries in 1937. Japan spent considerable effort trying to isolate China and achieve sufficient resource independence to attain victory on the mainland; the "Southern Operation" was designed to assist these efforts.

From December 1937, events such as the Japanese attack on the USS Panay and the Nanking Massacre (more than 200,000 killed in indiscriminate massacres) swung public opinion in the West sharply against Japan and increased Western fear of Japanese expansion, which prompted the United States, the United Kingdom, and France to provide loan assistance for war supply contracts to the Republic of China.

The attack had several major aims. First, it intended to destroy important American fleet units, thereby preventing the Pacific Fleet from interfering with Japanese conquest of the Dutch East Indies and Malaya. Second, it was hoped to buy time for Japan to consolidate its position and increase its naval strength before shipbuilding authorized by the 1940 Vinson-Walsh Act erased any chance of victory. Finally, it was meant to deliver a severe blow to American morale, one which would discourage Americans from committing to a war extending into the western Pacific Ocean and Dutch East Indies. To maximize the effect on morale, battleships were chosen as the main targets, since they were the prestige ships of any navy at the time. The overall intention was to enable Japan to conquer Southeast Asia without interference.

Striking the Pacific Fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor carried two distinct disadvantages: the targeted ships would be in very shallow water, so it would be relatively easy to salvage and possibly repair them; and most of the crews would survive the attack, since many would be on shore leave or would be rescued from the harbor. A further important disadvantage—this of timing, and known to the Japanese — was the absence from Pearl Harbor of all three of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's aircraft carriers (Enterprise, Lexington, and Saratoga). Ironically, the Imperial Japanese Navy’s top command was so imbued with U.S. Admiral Mahan's "decisive battle" doctrine — especially that of destroying the maximum number of battleships — that, despite these concerns, Yamamoto decided to press ahead.

Japanese confidence in their ability to achieve a short, victorious war also meant other targets in the harbor, especially the navy yard, oil tank farms, and submarine base, could safely be ignored, since — by their thinking — the war would be over before the influence of these facilities would be felt

The American contribution to the successful Allied war effort spanned four long years and cost more than 400,000 American lives. There were many naval and land battles during the ensuing years including such names as Midway, The Battan Death March, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa that saw some of the most vicious fighting of the Second World War. Finally after 1,347 days and the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the Japan's Emperor Hirohito announced his country's unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of "a new and most cruel bomb."

Today I wager that not many people in the United States under the age of forty are familiar with the causes and effects of the Japanese attack on our naval base at Pearl Harbor. I am sure they are ignorant of the viciousness of the Japanese soldiers and the many atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese forces, especially to their captives — including men, women and children. They are also not aware of the horrific medical experiments carried out on civilians by Unit 731 in Manchuria to develop chemical and biological weapons — more horrific than anything the Nazis did in their concentration camps.

These younger citizens while not knowing much about the causes and atrocities of the Japanese during World War II are able to quote page and verse about the evils of our dropping the two atomic bombs to end the war. This is what they learn in our schools today. The other day while listening to a radio talk show I heard a caller state that his fourth grade daughter came home with an assignment that was based on a child’s book about a little girl who had lived through the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The caller, a former Marine, after reading the book was so incensed that he requested a meeting with the teacher to discuss what he was teaching. The caller went on to state that when he confronted the teacher on the lack of context for this atomic bomb book and the reasons we were at war with Japan and the ferociousness of the atrocities of the Japanese Imperial Forces he said the teacher had no answer. All the teacher could say is that this was the required reading according to the prescribed lesson plan. In other words the teacher was clueless about the events of the Second World War and Japan’s involvement.

We have revised and perverted history in our public school system to such an extent that our K-12 students no virtually nothing about our involvement in the Second World War — or much anything else. All they seem to learn today is about civil rights, Gay marriage, and redistribution of wealth. The latest example of this is a new animated video released by the California Federation of Teachers that shows the rich “1 percent” urinating on and stealing money from the less fortunate and middle class. The purpose of the video is to explain “economic inequality” and the need for wealthy people to pay their “fair share of taxes.”

According to the Blaze:

“Tax the rich: An animated fairy tale, is narrated by Ed Asner, with animation by award-winning artist Mike Konopacki, and written and directed by Fred Glass for the California Federation of Teachers. The 8 minute video shows how we arrived at this moment of poorly funded public services and widening economic inequality. Things go downhill in a happy and prosperous land after the rich decide they don’t want to pay taxes anymore. They tell the people that there is no alternative, but the people aren’t so sure. This land bears a startling resemblance to our land. After you watch this video, click here to share with friends, and send an email to your elected officials to let them know they need to restore higher federal tax rates on the wealthy so that we may once more enjoy properly funded public services.”

Tax the rich: An animated fairy tale, is narrated by Ed Asner

There have been several films made about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Three come to mind; Tora, Tora, Tora; Pearl Harbor, and Air Force.

Of all of the films Tora, Tora, Tora (Tiger, Tiger, Tiger) is by far and away the best and most accurate portrayal of both the Japanese and American sides of the attacks. Made in 1970 with the cooperation of the United States Navy the film details the intelligence and tactical failures of our government leading up to the attack and how the Japanese planned the attack. It also has a fantastic musical score by Jerry Goldsmith along with some terrific aerial combat scenes that are not computer generated.

Air Force, made in 1943, before all was known about the attack is based on the story of the nine B-17 bombers flying into Hickham Field during the attack. It’s basically a true story based on the crew of this B-17 Bombers.

The worst film by far is the 2001 soap opera Pearl Harbor. This film follows the story of two best friends, Rafe and Danny, and their love lives as they go off to join the war. Eventually they have a conflict over a Navy nurse (the soap opera part) and end up flying two P-40 fighter planes to take on the Japanese. The film ends with the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo. If you view this film to get your history you will end up knowing nothing. Don’t waste your time on this 2001 chick flick starring Ben Affleck, it’s basically a love story with very little historical accuracy — pure Hollywood.

Over the years there have been numerous books and articles promoting a conspiracy at the highest levels of our government to drag us into a war in Europe. Most of these “theories” blame Roosevelt for pushing Japan into a corner and forcing them to attack the United States. Due to Japan’s three party agreement with Germany and Italy after we declared war on Japan the Germans and Italian would be forced to declare war on the United States (which they both did).

It is oft times easier and more comfortable to believe fiction than the truth. In 1941 there were two major bureaucracies in the United States. One was the alphabet soup of federal agencies created during the past eight years of the Roosevelt administration. These bureaucratic agencies grew out of the efforts to mitigate the effects of the Great Depression and often worked at odds with one another. The other and more entrenched bureaucracy was the United States military. Since the end of the First World War the military had been dramatically downsized. In 1941 U.S. Army ranked seventeenth among armies of the world in size and combat power, just behind Romania. It numbered 190,000 soldiers. (It would grow to 8.3 million in 1945, a 44-fold increase.) When mobilization began in 1940, the Army had only 14,000 professional officers. The average age of majors — a middling rank, between captain and lieutenant colonel — was nearly 48; in the National Guard, nearly one-quarter of first lieutenants were over 40 years old, and the senior ranks were dominated by political hacks of certifiable military incompetence. Not a single officer on duty in 1941 had commanded a unit as large as a division in World War I. At the time of Pearl Harbor, in December 1941, only one American division was on a full war footing.

There was a constant conflict over dollars and appropriations between the Army and the Navy and the services did not share intelligence easily. This was very similar to the situation prior to 9/11 with the various intelligence agencies. It should also be noted that there were two air forces; one under the control of the Army and the other belonging to the Navy. They flew different airplanes and trained their pilots differently. The Army Air Corps wanted strategic bombers while the Navy wanted carrier-based attack fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo bombers for fighting a war at sea.

It was this military bureaucracy that created the intelligence breakdown and lack of tactical preparedness at Pearl Harbor causing both Lt. General Short (Army commander) and Admiral Kimmel (the navy commander) to be relieved of their commands after the attack for negligence and disgraced throughout history. An example of the tactical errors was General Short’s commanding that all USAAF fighters (P-40) be parked in the center of the tarmac to avoid potential sabotage thus making them a perfect target for the Japanese planes. As for the Navy it was purely by luck that Adm. Kimmel ordered his three carriers out to sea before the attack thus saving these incredibly valuable naval assets from the Japanese.

By late 1941, many observers believed that hostilities between the U.S. and Japan were imminent. A Gallup poll just before the attack on Pearl Harbor found that 52% of Americans expected war with Japan, 27% did not expect war, and 21% had no opinion. While U.S. Pacific bases and facilities had been placed on alert on multiple occasions, U.S. officials doubted Pearl Harbor would be the first target. They expected the Philippines to be attacked first. This presumption was due to the threat that the air bases throughout the country and the naval base at Manila posed to sea lanes, as well as the shipment of supplies to Japan from territory to the south. They also incorrectly believed that Japan was not capable of mounting more than one major naval operation at a time.

The U.S. government has had ten official inquiries into the attack – the inquiry by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox (1941), the Roberts Commission (1941–42), the Hart Inquiry (1944), the Army Pearl Harbor Board (1944), the Naval Court of Inquiry (1944), the Hewitt investigation, the Clarke investigation, the Congressional Inquiry (1945–46) and the top-secret inquiry by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, authorized by Congress and carried out by Henry Clausen (the Clausen Inquiry; 1946). The tenth inquiry, the Thurmond-Spence Hearing, took place in April 1995. The Dorn Report resulted from this tenth hearing. (Click here to read Vice Admiral David Charles Richardson’s critical analysis of the Dorn Report)

All ten reported incompetence, underestimation and misapprehension of Japanese capabilities and intentions, problems resulting from excessive secrecy about cryptography, division of responsibility between Army and Navy (and lack of consultation between them), and lack of adequate manpower for intelligence (analysis, collection, processing).

One perspective is given by Vice Admiral Frank E. Beatty, who at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack was an aide to the Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and was very close to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's inner circle, with perspicuous remarks as:

"Prior to December 7, it was evident even to me that we were pushing Japan into a corner. I believed that it was the desire of President Roosevelt, and Prime Minister Churchill that we get into the war, as they felt the Allies could not win without us and all our efforts to cause the Germans to declare war on us failed; the conditions we imposed upon Japan — to get out of China, for example — were so severe that we knew that nation could not accept them. We were forcing her so severely that we could have known that she would react toward the United States. All her preparations in a military way — and we knew their over-all import — pointed that way."

Another "eye witness viewpoint" akin to Beatty's is provided by Roosevelt's administrative assistant at the time of Pearl Harbor, Jonathan Daniels; it is the telling comment about FDR's reaction to the attack — "The blow was heavier than he had hoped it would necessarily be. But the risks paid off; even the loss was worth the price. "

Ten days before the attack on Pearl Harbor", Henry L. Stimson, United States Secretary of War at the time entered in his diary the famous and much-argued statement - that he had met with President Roosevelt to discuss the evidence of impending hostilities with Japan, and the question was “how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.”

In the 71 years since the attack on Pearl Harbor no credible evidence has been uncovered to point to a willful conspiracy by members of the Roosevelt administration or the U.S. Military to allow the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor. Sometimes as Sigmund Freud stated “a cigar is just a cigar.”

The attack on Pearl Harbor began at 7:55 am Hawaiian Island time, which equates to 12:55 pm Eastern Standard Time. If you were at the New York’s Polo Grounds you would have been watching the Brooklyn Dodgers getting ready to Kick Off against the New York Giants. At Washington D.C’s Griffith Stadium where the Washington Redskins were playing the Philadelphia Eagles you would have heard the public address announcer page high-ranking government and military personnel who were in attendance, but did not mention the attack. Reporters were told to check with their offices.

President Roosevelt did not learn of the attack until sometime that afternoon and within a few hours his Solicitor General, Charles Fahy, was in the White House recommending the detention of some 1,000 Japanese-Americans in the Hawaiian Islands on suspicion of espionage. This was the beginning of one of the greatest civil rights violations in the history of the Republic.

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized military commanders to designate “military areas from which any or all persons may be excluded.” The result: More than 110,000 Japanese-Americans, plus several thousand German — and Italian-Americans, were forcibly removed from their homes and relocated to remote internment camps — “War Relocation Camps,” — Roosevelt and other officials called them where they remained until 1945.

The Roosevelt administration argued that the internment of Japanese-Americans, most of who lived on the West Coast, was a matter of military necessity. Persons of Japanese ancestry living in the United States were, the administration said, suspected of disloyalty, espionage, and otherwise aiding their fatherland, with which the United States was at war. Moreover, wrote Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Command, “it was impossible to establish the identity of the loyal and the disloyal with any degree of safety.” Therefore, the administration maintained, the government had little choice but to relocate and incarcerate them all.

Some of the wronged parties fought back through the courts. In 1943, Gordon Hirabayashi challenged a curfew the government had imposed on Japanese-Americans, while the next year Fred Korematsu took on the internment policy. Both clearly had the Constitution on their side. Roosevelt had unilaterally suspended habeas corpus for Japanese-Americans, though the Constitution — Lincoln's precedent notwithstanding — only permits Congress to undertake such a drastic action, and then only “in cases of rebellion or invasion.” The Fifth Amendment prohibits both the curfew and the relocation because both deprived individuals of their liberty (and, in the case of relocation, their property) without due process of law. The 14th Amendment mandates that all persons be afforded “the equal protection of the laws,” yet Americans of certain ethnicities were being singled out for unequal treatment.

The Roosevelt administration, never much concerned with the document FDR swore four times to “preserve, protect, and defend,” was determined to defend its policies toward Americans of Japanese descent at all costs, even to the point of lying to the highest court in the land. Solicitor General Charles Fahy defended the administration’s policies before the Supreme Court in the cases brought by Hirabayashi and Korematsu. Fahy argued that the curfew and relocation were matters of “military necessity” and “military urgency.” The court bought Fahy’s arguments and upheld Hirabayashi’s and Korematsu’s convictions, thereby declaring the administration’s policies constitutional.

Fast-forward to 2010. In the course of doing research on some immigration cases, Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal began looking into the World War II internment cases. On May 24, 2011, at a Justice Department event honoring Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Katyal revealed the following:

“By the time the cases of Gordon Hirabayashi and Fred Korematsu reached the Supreme Court, the Solicitor General had learned of a key intelligence report that undermined the rationale behind the internment. The Ringle Report, from the Office of Naval Intelligence, found that only a small percentage of Japanese Americans posed a potential security threat, and that the most dangerous were already known or in custody. But the Solicitor General did not inform the Court of the report, despite warnings from Department of Justice attorneys that failing to alert the Court “might approximate the suppression of evidence.” Instead, he argued that it was impossible to segregate loyal Japanese Americans from disloyal ones. Nor did he inform the Court that a key set of allegations used to justify the internment, that Japanese Americans were using radio transmitters to communicate with enemy submarines off the West Coast, had been discredited by the FBI and FCC. And to make matters worse, he relied on gross generalizations about Japanese Americans, such as that they were disloyal and motivated by “racial solidarity.”

“It seemed obvious to me that we had made a mistake,” Katyal added. “The duty of candor wasn’t met.”

The Roosevelt Justice Department had done far more than simply make a “mistake.”

“This was a deliberate, knowing lie by Fahy to the Supreme Court,” University of California at San Diego Professor Peter Irons told the Los Angeles Times. In the 1980s, wrote the paper, Irons “had found reports in old government files that showed the U.S. military did not see Japanese Americans as a threat in 1942. His research led to federal court hearings that set aside the convictions of Korematsu and Hirabayashi. Congress later voted to have the nation apologize and pay reparations to those who were wrongly held.”

This internment was simply another act of a nation on the verge of panic after the attack on Pearl Harbor. We had been through 10 years of a devastating depression, giant dust storms on the Great Plains, migrations of thousands of unemployed, and the 1938 Orson Wells radio program scare of an invasion by Martians as he dramatized H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds.” The nation was ready to take almost any action to prevent the fear of an invasion of the West Coast by the Japanese. There are many today that point fingers at the civil liberties advocates who did not speak out in 1942 against executive order 9066, but I doubt they would have done much better in the context of the times.

The final chapter of the war with Japan ended on August 6, 1945 when a B-29 bomber named the Enola Gay dropped a 20 megaton atomic bomb on Hiroshima and 3 days latter a similar bomb on Nagasaki. On August 15, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan announced its surrender to the Allies, signing the Instrument of Surrender on 2 September, officially ending World War II.

To explain to students that the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan was ethically and morally wrong is pure nonsense. Without a thorough explanation of the causes that led to the dropping of these bombs the teacher or writer does a tremendous disservice to the students and the nation. This is one more example of how revisionist history plagues our K-12 school system today. I wonder, with trepidation, how the attack on Pearl Harbor will be remembered on the 100^th anniversary of the attack.

You can read a more detailed account of the attack on Pearl Harbor in my December 7, 2010 blog “Remember Pearl Harbor.”

What Was the Value of the CCC and WPA

“An old English judge once said: “Necessitous men are not free men.” Liberty requires opportunity to make a living—a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.” — Franklin Roosevelt, 1936 Democratic Convention.

In his speech to the Democratic Convention in 1936 presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt stated:

“Here, and in every community throughout the land, we are met at a time of great moment to the future of the Nation. It is an occasion to be dedicated to the simple and sincere expression of an attitude toward problems, the determination of which will profoundly affect America.

I come not only as a leader of a party, not only as a candidate for high office, but as one upon whom many critical hours have imposed and still impose a grave responsibility.

For the sympathy, help and confidence with which Americans have sustained me in my task I am grateful. For their loyalty I salute the members of our great party, in and out of political life in every part of the Union. I salute those of other parties, especially those in the Congress of the United

States who on so many occasions have put partisanship aside. I thank the Governors of the several

States, their Legislatures, their State and local officials who participated unselfishly and regardless of party in our efforts to achieve recovery and destroy abuses. Above all I thank the millions of Americans who have borne disaster bravely and have dared to smile through the storm.

America will not forget these recent years, will not forget that the rescue was not a mere party task. It was the concern of all of us. In our strength we rose together, rallied our energies together, applied the old rules of common sense, and together survived.”

Roosevelt made this speech in defense of the numerous policies he and Congress had instituted during his last four years in office. These policies were enacted as measures to mitigate the effects of the Great Depression and the Dust Storms that plagued the Great Plains and farmers.

In my last blog post, Reflections on the Dust Bowl, I made brief mention of the Works Progress Administration (renamed during 1939 as the Work Projects Administration; WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Both of these programs were instituted during the early years of the Roosevelt Administration with the support of Congress as federal government funded and managed programs to mitigate the effects of the Great Depression.

Both Roosevelt and his powerful advisor Harry Hopkins did not believe in handouts without work and wanted programs that would not only provide money for the millions of unemployed, but that would provide dignity through useful work. Hopkins argued that although the work relief program was more costly than direct relief payments, it was worth it. He asserted, "Give a man a dole, and you save his body and destroy his spirit. Give him a job and you save both body and spirit."

Before I get into the subject of the value of the CCC and WPA let me tell a personal story of my association with the CCC and how it may have affected my life.

Upon my graduation from high school I took a full time job as a surveyor’s assistant. After working for the firm that had allowed me part-time work while in high school I was induces to take on a position with a civil engineering and land surveying firm closer to my home. The firm was owned by three partners and had a staff of about 25 persons working in the office and field. The person who managed the field staff, Otto Slabe, was the professionally registered land surveyor in the State of Ohio.

Otto told in interesting story about his entry into the profession of land surveying. According to Otto he grew up in a very rough neighborhood on the southwest side of Cleveland and was in involved in gang activities. One day, in 1938, after a gang shooting Otto was arrested and charged as a member of the gang, but not a part of any shooting activity. Otto stated that his part of the crime was hiding the gun for the gang.

At his sentencing the judge gave Otto a choice to do jail time or enlist in the CCC. Of course Otto elected for the second choice. Within a few days Otto, with his suitcase, boarded a train at the Cleveland terminal and was headed west. In a few days he disembarked from the train in Jackson Hole, Wyoming where he was assigned as a brush cutter for a survey crew doing surveys for telephone lines over the mountains to the state of Washington. According to Otto he enjoyed the work in the wide open spaces and took advantage of the opportunity to learn surveying. When World War Two broke out Otto joined the Navy and was assigned as a surveyor to the Navy’s Construction Battalion (Seabees) where he served out the duration of the war. After his discharge from the Navy he took a position with the Cuyahoga County’s surveyor’s office. After several years working for the county Otto and two other partners founded their own civil engineering and land surveying firm of Burden, Slabe, and McKay, a firm the is still in existence to this day.

Otto was not only my boss, but in many respects a mentor to me. He taught me much about the surveying profession, encouraged me to go to night school for the education I needed, and gave me the opportunity to grow in my profession.

After eight years I moved to California where I eventually, along with two partners, founded my own civil engineering and land surveying firm. Over the ensuing years my firm grew and was merged with another similar firm to where, when I retired several years ago we employed 850 persons on a global basis.

I tell this tale because in a way I am indebted to how Otto turned his life around by enlisting in the CCC and how what he did eventually affected my growth and career.

America was in the grip of the Great Depression when Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated in March of 1933. More than twenty-five percent of the population was unemployed, hungry, and without hope. The New Deal programs instituted bold changes in the federal government that energized the economy and created an equilibrium that helped to bolster the needs of citizens.

Out of this economic chaos emerged the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Its purpose was two-fold — conservation of our natural resources and the salvage of our young men. The CCC is recognized as the single greatest conservation program in America and it served as a catalyst to develop the very tenets of modern conservation. The work of America's young men dramatically changed the future and today we still enjoy a legacy of natural resource treasures that dot the American landscape.

Eighty years ago the nation was plunged into the Depression when the excesses of the 1920s caught up with society. Like the current recession, the economic bubble and collapse was the result of excessive debt spending by consumers and excessive risk taken on by investors. At the worst depths of the Depression 25% of the workforce was unemployed.

With such high unemployment and people with jobs suffering major pay cuts, many across the country suffered. Out in the Plains States years of poor farming practices, coupled with a severe drought, led to massive soil erosion and the Dust Bowl, leaving millions of fertile acres a wasteland.

The depression hurt young men especially. They had the fewest skills and the lowest earnings and savings, and many found themselves coming of age in a decade with high unemployment. They were at the greatest risk for poverty and starvation. Any sociologist will tell you that restless young men without a purpose will usually lead to social instability and skyrocketing crime rates.

President Franklin Roosevelt saw all these problems and sought ways to fix them. One of his “100 Days” programs he passed was the Emergency Conservation Work Act (ECW), a temporary program that would become the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Roosevelt described the goals of the CCC when he introduced the legislation:

“I propose to create a civilian conservation corps to be used in simple work, not interfering with normal employment, and confining itself to forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control, and similar projects. I call your attention to the fact that this type of work is of definite practical value, not only through the prevention of great present financial loss but also a means of creating future national wealth…More important, however, than the material gains will be the moral and spiritual value of such work. The overwhelming majority of unemployed Americans, who are now walking the streets and receiving private or public relief, would infinitely prefer to work. We can take a vast army of these unemployed out into healthful surroundings.”

Formed in March 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps, CCC, was one of the first New Deal programs. It was a public works project intended to promote environmental conservation and to build good citizens through vigorous, disciplined outdoor labor. Close to the heart of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the CCC combined his interests in conservation and universal service for youth. He believed that this civilian “tree army” would relieve the rural unemployed and keep youth “off the city street corners.”

The American public made the CCC the most popular of all the New Deal programs. Principal benefits of an individual's enrollment in the CCC included improved physical condition, heightened morale, and increased employability. Of their pay of $30 a month, $25 went to their parents. Implicitly, the CCC also led to a greater public awareness and appreciation of the outdoors and the nation's natural resources; and the continued need for a carefully planned, comprehensive national program for the protection and development of natural resources’

During the time of the CCC, volunteers planted nearly 3 billion trees to help reforest America, constructed more than 800 parks nationwide and upgraded most state parks, updated forest fire fighting methods, and built a network of service buildings and public roadways in remote areas.

CCC camps in Michigan; the tents were soon replaced by barracks built by Army contractors for the enrollees.

The CCC operated separate programs for veterans and Native Americans.

Despite its popular support, the CCC was never a permanent agency. It depended on emergency and temporary Congressional legislation for its existence. By 1942, with the war industries booming and the draft in operation, need declined and Congress voted to close the program.

The CCC operated under the army's control. Camp commanders had disciplinary powers and corpsmen were required to address superiors as “sir.” By September 1935 over 500,000 young men had lived in CCC camps, most staying from six months to a year. The work focused on soil conservation and reforestation. Most important, the men planted millions of trees on land made barren from fires, natural erosion, or lumbering—in fact, the CCC was responsible for over half the reforestation, public and private, done in the nation's history. Corpsmen also dug canals and ditches, built over thirty thousand wildlife shelters, stocked rivers and lakes with nearly a billion fish, restored historic battlefields, and cleared beaches and campgrounds.

Although professing a nondiscriminatory policy, the CCC failed to give a fair share of work to blacks, especially in the South where local selection agents held sway. But in spite of rigid segregation and hiring quotas, black participation reached 10 percent by 1936.

In all, nearly 3 million young men participated in the CCC The army's experience in managing such large numbers and the paramilitary discipline learned by corpsmen provided unexpected preparation for the massive call-up of civilians in World War II.

A few of the notable alumni of the CCC are:

• Hyman G. Rickover, 4-star Admiral, former Corps Area Commander
• Raymond Burr, actor, former enrollee
• Archie Moore, the Light Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World, former enrollee
• Robert Mitchum, actor, former enrollee
• Edward R. Roybal, politician, former enrollee
• Chuck Yeager, test pilot (first human to break the sound barrier), former enrollee
• Stan Musial, baseball player, former enrollee
• Walter Matthau, actor, former enrollee
• Red Schoendienst, baseball player/manager, former enrollee
• Conrad L. Wirth, U.S. administrator, National Park Service supervisor of CCC Program.

A sample of the accomplishments CCC are:

• Between 2 and 3 billion Trees Planted,
• 800 State Parks Developed,
• 52,000 acres of Public Campground Developed,
• 125,000 of Miles of Roads Built,
• 89,000 miles of Telephone Lines Strung,
• 13,100 Miles of Foot Trails Built,
• 40 Million Acres of Farmlands Benefited from Erosion Control Projects,
• 154 Million Square Yards Stream and Lake Bank Protection,
• 814,000 Acres of Range Re-vegetation
• More than 8 million Firefighting Days

For its brief period of existence the CCC not only served the nation by providing conservation and public works, it also served those who took advantage of the opportunities it offered. Unlike today, where everyone believes they have a right to go to college and accumulate thousands of dollars in debt for an education that in many cases is not worth the money spent the youth who enrolled in the CCC were given the opportunity to learn through working and develop habits and skills that would last the rest of their lives.

The CCC taught discipline and personal responsibility, and generated the type of camaraderie that is only found in the military today. It is estimated that the CCC was responsible for a 55% decline in crime during this period. When Pearl Harbor happened, most of the workers of the CCC joined up and found that they already had most of the training they needed.

On May 6, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA was just one of many Great Depression relief programs created under the auspices of the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act, which Roosevelt had signed the month before. The WPA, the Public Works Administration (PWA) and other federal assistance programs put unemployed Americans to work in return for temporary financial assistance. Out of the 10 million jobless men in the United States in 1935, 3 million were helped by WPA jobs alone.

The Great Depression stands as an event unique in American history due to both its length and severity. With the unprecedented economic collapse, the nation faced an emergency some said more serious than war. The Depression was a time of tremendous suffering and at its worst, left a quarter of the workforce unemployed. During the twentieth century, the annual unemployment rate averaged double-digit levels in just eleven years. Ten of these occurred during the Great Depression.

A confused and hungry nation turned to the government for assistance. With the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt on March 4, 1933, the federal government’s response to the economic emergency was swift and massive. The explosion of legislation — which came to be collectively called the “New Deal” — was designed, at least in theory, to bring a halt to the human suffering and put the country on the road to recovery. The president promised relief, recovery and reform.

Of all of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) is the most famous, because it affected so many people’s lives. Roosevelt’s vision of a work-relief program employed more than 8.5 million people. For an average salary of $41.57 a month, WPA employees built bridges, roads, public buildings, public parks and airports.

Although the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and the National Recovery Administration (NRA) were all begun two years earlier, the Works Progress Administration (latter renamed the Work Projects Administration) became the best known of the administration’s alphabet soup agencies. Although the CWA provided much employment there were many taxpayers who saw leaves being raked but nothing of permanent value. Roosevelt told his cabinet that this criticism moved him to end the program and replace it with the WPA which would have long-term value for the society, in addition to short-term benefits for the unemployed.

Indeed, for many the works program is synonymous with the entire New Deal. Roosevelt devoted more energy and more money to the WPA than to any other agency. The WPA would provide public employment for people who were out of work. The administration felt that the creation of make-work jobs for the jobless would restore the human spirit, but dignity came with a price tag — an appropriation of almost $5 billion was requested. From 1936 to 1939 expenditures totaled nearly $7 billion ($124 billion in today’s dollars). Annual figures are shown below:

• 1936 $1,295,459,010
• 1937 $1,879,493,595
• 1938 $1,463,694,664
• 1939 $2,125,009,386

The legislation that created the WPA, the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 sailed through the House, passing by a margin of 329 to 78 but bogged down in the Senate where a vocal minority argued against the measure. Despite the opposition, the legislation passed in April of 1935.

Harry Hopkins headed the new organization. Hopkins became, after Roosevelt, the most powerful man in the administration. All WPA administrators, whether assigned to Washington or to the agency’s state and local district offices, were employees of the federal government and all WPA workers’ wages were distributed directly from the U.S. Treasury. The WPA required the states to provide some of their own resources to finance projects but a specific match was never stipulated — a fact that would later become a source of contentious debate.

The agency prepared a “Guide to Eligibility of WPA Projects” which was made available to the states. Nineteen types of potentially fundable activities were described ranging from malaria control to recreational programs to street building.

Hopkins and Roosevelt proposed that WPA compensation be based on a “security wage” which would be an hourly amount greater than the typical relief payment but less than that offered by private employers. The administration contended that it was misleading to evaluate the programs’ effects solely on the basis of wages paid — more important were earnings through continuous employment. Thus, wages were reported in monthly amounts.

Wages differed widely from region to region and state-to-state. Senator Richard Russell of Georgia explained, “In the State of Tennessee the man who is working with a pick and shovel at 18 cents an hour is limited to $26 a month, and he must work 144 hours to earn $26. Whereas the man who is working in Pennsylvania has to work only 30 hours to earn $94, out of funds which are being paid out of the common Treasury of the United States”. Recurring complaints of this nature led to adjustments in the wage rate that narrowed regional differentials to more closely reflect the cost of living in the state.

The WPA employed far many more men than women, with only 13.5 percent of WPA employees being women in the peak year of 1938. Although the decision had been made early on to pay women the same wages as men, in practice they were consigned to the lower-paying activities of sewing, bookbinding, caring for the elderly, school lunch programs, nursery school, and recreational work. Ellen Woodward, director of the women’s programs at the WPA, successfully pushed for women’s inclusion in the Professional Projects Division. In this division, professional women were treated more equally to men, especially in the federal art, music, theater, and writers’ projects.

While FDR believed in the elementary principles of justice and fairness, he also expressed disdain for doling out welfare to otherwise able workers. So, in return for monetary aid, WPA workers built highways, schools, hospitals, airports and playgrounds. They restored theaters — such as the Dock Street Theater in Charleston, S.C. — and built the ski lodge at Oregon's Mt. Hood. The WPA also put actors, writers and other creative arts professionals back to work by sponsoring federally funded plays, art projects, such as murals on public buildings, and literary publications. FDR safeguarded private enterprise from competition with WPA projects by including a provision in the act that placed wage and price controls on federally funded products or services.

When federal support of artists was questioned, Hopkins answered, “Hell! They’ve got to eat just like other people.” The WPA supported tens of thousands of artists, by funding creation of 2,566 murals and 17,744 pieces of sculpture that decorate public buildings nationwide. The federal art, theater, music, and writing programs, while not changing American culture as much as their adherents had hoped, did bring more art to more Americans than ever before or since. The WPA program in the arts led to the creation of the National Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Opponents of the New Deal in Congress gradually pared back WPA appropriations in the years leading up to World War II. By 1940, the economy was roaring back to life with a surge in defense-industry production and, in 1943, Congress suspended many of the programs under the ERA Act, including the WPA.

On 27 May 1935, in the court case of Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, the Supreme Court held the mandatory codes section of NIRA unconstitutional, because it attempted to regulate commerce that was not interstate in character, and that the codes represented an unacceptable delegation of power from the legislature to the executive. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote for a unanimous Court in invalidating the industrial "codes of fair competition" which the NIRA enabled the President to issue. The Court held that the codes violated the United States Constitution's separation of powers as an impermissible delegation of legislative power to the executive branch. The Court also held that the NIRA provisions were in excess of congressional power under the Commerce Clause.

The Court distinguished between direct effects on interstate commerce, which Congress could lawfully regulate, and indirect, which were purely matters of state law. Though the raising and sale of poultry was an interstate industry, the Court found that the "stream of interstate commerce" had stopped in this case: Schechter's slaughterhouses bought chickens only from intrastate wholesalers and sold to intrastate buyers. Any interstate effect of Schechter was indirect, and therefore beyond federal reach.

Specifically, the Court invalidated regulations of the poultry industry promulgated under the authority of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, including price and wage fixing, as well as requirements regarding a whole shipment of chickens, including unhealthy ones, which has led to the case becoming known as "the sick chicken case." The ruling was one of a series which overturned some New Deal legislation between January 1935 and January 1936, and which ultimately caused Roosevelt to attempt to pack the Court with judges that were in favor of the New Deal.

As an aside; in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1933, DeBenneville "Bert" Bell formed a new National Football League franchise to replace the defunct Frankford Yellow Jackets, naming this team the Eagles in recognition of the NRA (a name the team retains to the present).

Liquidated on June 30, 1943 as a result of high employment due to the industry boom of World War Two, the WPA had provided millions of Americans with jobs for 8 years.

The WPA should not be confused with the Public Works Administration (PWA). While similar in its nature to put people back to work the PWA was focused on large projects built by private contractors with government financing in a more traditional manner.

The Public Works Administration, part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act in June 1933 in response to the Great Depression. It built large-scale public works such as dams, bridges, hospitals, and schools. Its goals were to spend $3.3 billion in the first year, and $6 billion in all, to provide employment, stabilize purchasing power, and help revive the economy. Most of the spending came in two waves in 1933-35, and again in 1938. Originally called the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, it was renamed the Public Works Administration in 1939 and shut down in 1943.

The PWA spent over $6 billion in contracts to private construction firms that did the actual work. It created an infrastructure that generated national and local pride in the 1930s and remains vital seven decades later. The PWA was much less controversial than its rival agency with a confusingly similar name, the Works Progress Administration, headed by Harry Hopkins, which focused on smaller projects and hired unemployed unskilled workers.

In essence the PWA should not be confused with its great rival the Works Progress Administration (WPA), though both were part of the New Deal. The WPA, headed by Harry Hopkins, engaged in smaller projects in close cooperation with local governments — such as building a city hall or sewers or sidewalks. The PWA projects were much larger in scope, such as giant dams. The WPA hired only people on relief who were paid directly by the federal government. The PWA gave contracts to private firms who did all the hiring on the private sector job market just as governmental contracting is done to this day. The WPA also had youth programs (the NYA), projects for women, and arts projects that the PWA did not have.

When President Roosevelt moved industry toward war production, the PWA was abolished and its functions were transferred to the Federal Works Agency in June 1943.

During the Great Depression (1929-1942) the nation had an unemployment rate that averaged around 18%. In 1929 it was 3.2% and the rate peaked in 1933 at 25%. By 1939 it had it had dropped to 17% and at the onset of WWII the rate had plummeted to less than 6% due to shift to defense spending and the induction of millions into the military.

During this period the nation had major programs to provide work for the millions of unemployed. The PWA was a traditional program to provide “stimulus” dollars for major infrastructure projects. It infused money into the private sector for the construction of large-scale public works such as dams, bridges, hospitals, and schools. Of all the New Deal programs it was the least controversial. It’s the way federal, state, and local projects are funded and constructed today.

The CCC was a program to restore and protect or natural environment, build minor civil works projects such as irrigation lines, trails, and wind-breaks. They planted 3 billion tress, built trails and roadways in our national parks, and constructed telephone and power lines in rural America. The program was designed to get unskilled (and in many cases uneducated) youth off the streets and into military-like camps where they would earn some money for their families, learn a work ethic, and provide some lasting benefit to the nation, especially in the Dust Bowl region. While having critics, such as the unions and those fearing it to become a Fascist type of government controlled organization similar to what was happening on Italy and Nazi Germany, the CCC did a great deal of good for the monies spent. Otto Slabe was the perfect example of a CCC success story.

The WPA was the most controversial of Roosevelt’s alphabet soup. While putting unskilled workers (like my uncle) to work building civil works projects such as roads and sewers the program, in many cases, put too many people working on make-work projects. When the WPA began to hire artists, actors, and writers the controversy became intense. (Click here for a gallery of images of the WPA)

The strongest attacks were that it was the prelude for a national political machine on behalf of Roosevelt. Reformers secured the Hatch Act of 1939 that largely depoliticized the WPA.

Others complained that far Left elements played a major role, especially in the New York City unit (which was independent of the New York State unit). Representative Martin Dies, Jr. went so far as to call the WPA a “seedbed for communists”. Exaggeration was rife—such as a false report circulating in 1936 that the cost of killing a single rat in one extermination endeavor was $2.97 (over $49 in current dollars).

Much of the criticism of the distribution of projects and funding allotment is a result of the view that the decisions were politically motivated. The South, as the poorest region of the United States, received 75 percent less in federal relief and public works funds per capita than the West. Critics would point to the fact that Roosevelt’s Democrats could be sure of voting support from the South, whereas the West was less of a sure thing; investing in the West was a way of swaying voters.

There was a perception that WPA employees were not diligent workers. Employers said the "WPA is bad for people since it gives them poor work habits. They believe that even if a man is not an inefficient worker to begin with, he gets that way from being on WPA." Having been on the WPA made it harder for alumni to get a job because employers said they had "formed poor work habits" on the WPA.

A Senate committee reported that:

"To some extent the complaint that WPA workers do poor work is not without foundation. Poor work habits and incorrect techniques are not remedied. Occasionally a supervisor or a foreman demands good work."

The WPA and its workers were ridiculed as lazy. The organization's initials were said to stand for "We Poke Along", "We Piddle Around", "We Putter Along", "Working Piss Ants", or the "Whistle, Piss and Argue gang". These were sarcastic references to WPA projects that sometimes slowed down deliberately because foremen had an incentive to keep going, rather than finish a project. My uncle along with a supervisor at my first full-time job as a surveyor’s assistant, both having worked for the WPA, stated that for the most part it was an organization more intent on prolonging the work than completing an a well-constructed, efficient project.

There are those today who argue for the return of some form of the CCC and WPA. Programs like the Job Corps have demonstrated the failures of these programs. With today’s governmental regulations regarding the workplace and the involvement of unions it would be near impossible to take unemployed, unskilled, and uneducated youth of the streets and put them to work planting trees, cleaning up oil spills, or picking up the trash off the highways.

These programs worked at the time they were instituted because the culture of the nation was much different than it is today. Every youth did not believe they had a right to a college education and looked down on those who worked with their hands. People were more comfortable with work than with government handouts. They wanted a job, not a free TV, cell phone, or a vacation. Governmental relief without work was a sign of failure to most Americans. If you watch any “man on the street” interviews with today’s college students you might believe it would be much better for them and our country if they were planting trees and building trails than running up thousands of dollars in debt for a college education with dubious benefits.

Do You Have A Right To Your Neighbor’s Labor

“I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate whenever the Government assumes a freer aspect and the laws favor a subdivision of Property.” — James Madison

My brother oft times tells me that it takes only a few minutes in any conversation for me to bring up a reference to James Madison — considered by most historians to be the father of our Constitution. I plead guilty to that charge. If Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, is consider the icon of the American Mind then James Madison must be considered the icon of the American Regime.

It was Madison, who along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, authored 85 essays on government and the rights of citizens collectively known as the Federalist Papers. These essays were published under the collective pseudonym of "Publius", in honor of Roman consul Publius Valerius Publicola, and were intended to advance the argument for a federalist form of a republic as our regime for the government of the newly independent 13 colonies and a replacement of their Articles of Confederation.

One of the more important of these essays was Federalist Paper No. 10, authored by James Madison and published Friday, November 22, 1787. This essay is the most famous of the Federalist Papers, along with Federalist No. 51, also by Madison, and is among the most highly regarded of all American political writings.

Federalist No. 10 addresses the question of how to guard against "factions", or groups of citizens, with interests contrary to the rights of others or the interests of the whole community. Madison argued that a strong, large republic would be a better guard against those dangers than smaller republics—for instance, the individual states. Opponents of the Constitution offered counterarguments to his position, which were substantially derived from the commentary of Montesquieu on this subject. Federalist No. 10 continues a theme begun in Federalist No. 9; it is titled, "The Same Subject Continued: The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection". The whole series is cited by scholars and jurists as an authoritative interpretation and explication of the meaning of the Constitution. Jurists have frequently read No. 10 to mean that the Founding Fathers did not intend the United States government to be partisan.

In Federalist No. 10 Madison not only wrote about Factions he also commented of the role of government in protecting the property rights of citizens. In our Declaration of Independence when Jefferson referred to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness he was using “happiness” in the context of John Locke as meaning the right to your property. In Madison’s view property meant your money, your land, your labor, and you opinions.

Central to the tenth paper in the Federalist series is faction. The argument Madison makes is that faction and liberty are inseparable. Instead of focusing on trying to eliminate the causes for faction, the choice that government can control the effects of faction. Madison makes the argument that the means to control the causes of faction is to stamp on dissenting opinions, and remove liberty. In other words oppress until all the society is of the same opinion. This is totalitarianism. Madison dismisses this as being against the nature of man:

“As long as the reason of man continues to be fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.”

Faction is a normal part of liberty, and wrapped in the fallibility of humankind. John Stuart Mills makes similar arguments as to why freedom of expression should never be curtailed. An individual can never be sure that they are not suppressing a truthful opinion as humanity's reasoning abilities are not perfect. Madison uses a similar argument to Mills as to why liberty cannot be abolished in a functioning government:

“Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.”

From this Madison concludes that liberty and faction are essential in any healthy government system. What isn't healthy is the violence of faction. Madison argues that controlling the effects of violent faction can be achieved through the Republican model of government.

Any individual needs to be concerned about government using the apparatus of the nation-state for the purposes of coercion. Madison was also concerned with this issue. He saw the violence of faction being when a group of individuals created a faction with a common interest that was adverse to individual rights, the rights of minorities and against the common good. Madison's view of common good is similar to the Aristotlean notion of virtue being necessary in the ruling elite.

Madison also shares Aristotle's disdain for the workability of a democracy. Aristotle wrote that a democracy fails as the individual is too distracted with the day to day trivialities like working and eating to have an understanding of the public good. Aristotle believes that only an idle class have the time and hence virtue to devote themselves to the public good and the glory of the nation-state.

Madison writes that humankind naturally falls into animosity and this clouds the ability of individuals in a democracy to be aware of the common good and articulate legislation for that purpose:

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities that where no substantial occasion presents itself the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their infriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.”

Another flaw that Madison identifies in a democracy is that it allows individuals to be their own judge in their own interests. This assumes that an individuals self-interest will blind an individual to the public or common good. A notion that individuals are not capable of public good without the coercion of the nation-state. Madison writes;

“No man is allowed to be a judge in his own case, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time.”

Madison in Federalist Paper No.10 writes that property and its unequal distribution is the most constant source of faction. He is undoubtedly correct, that the new federal government kept in place the practice of allowing one human to own another is testament to this.

Madison argues from the opposing points of view of creditors and debtors. Legislators are subject to the advocacy of their constituents, and if this advocacy is biased by a faction, then there is no justice in the legislation, as the larger party or faction will drown out the smaller factions. With the recent changes in the U.S. system of advocacy being dominated by lobbyists, attorneys, and money, the public good has been ignored by legislators in areas such as spending of the taxpayers’ money. Legislators have created new forms of property and property crimes in an ever expanding definition of what can be owned or controlled by governments and corporate interests. This is the classical definition of Fascism.

Madison states in 1792 Essay on Property:

“This term in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual."

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.”

Madison continues:

“More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government, where a man's religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy. Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. A magistrate issuing his warrants to a press gang, would be in his proper functions in Turkey or Indostan, under appellations proverbial of the most compleat despotism.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly so called. What must be the spirit of legislation where a manufacturer of linen cloth is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in order to favor his neighbor who manufactures woolen cloth; where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen cloth are again forbidden the economical use of buttons of that material, in favor of the manufacturer of buttons of other materials!

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again applied, by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be spared from the supply of his necessities.”

I have referenced Madison’s thoughts on factions and property to lay the groundwork for the remainder of this post. I do this in order to illustrate the vast difference in government philosophies that will, hopefully, be presented to the American electorate for the next 84 days.

In 1944 in his annual address to Congress President Franklin Roosevelt presented his vision for American by proposing a second Bill of Rights — rights that would be granted by government. In his progressive agenda he proposed an Bill of Rights based on the equality of results and not on the rights stated in the Declaration. Roosevelt proposed:

“The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.”

It was Roosevelt’s plan to institutionalize Progressivism in the United States — something that has come to fruition drip by bit over the past 68 years. Let’s take a look a each of these so-called government granted rights.

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation.

By this right Roosevelt was stating that the federal government should mandate a minimum wage to be paid by business to their employees. It was Madison who stated:

“He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.”

A minimum wage not only reduces the chances of employment for unskilled and untrained persons to entry-level positions where they can learn and develop their skills it also causes inflation of prices and in this instance could be considered a tax. The Progressives, while proposing feel-good programs, take no responsibility for the unseen consequences of their actions.

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.

Again we see the Progressives desire to dictate how much a person should earn based on the term “adequate food and clothing and recreation.” What is considered adequate? Some masterminds in Washington, D.C. will sit in an office and decide what is adequate. Should every American be able to have a 60” flat-screen TV or a new pair of $100 Nike sport shoes? Should every American get a two-week vacation to Hawaii or a 10-day cruise?

If you look at what is considered necessary and adequate by our welfare and food stamp programs you would be astonished to see what is considered adequate. If you doubt me just stand in line at the supermarket checkout counter and watch someone with an EBT card or WIC voucher check out and see what is considered adequate by the government. Of course all of this is paid for with tax dollars — dollars are taken out of the economy and your pocket. This is pure Marxism and the root cause of class warfare. In essence one class states I need or want this or that and you have an obligation to pay for it with no accountability accruing to me.

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living.

On the surface this sounds good, but once again government intervention has turned the price of food and the freedom of the farmer upside-down. Farm subsidies are nothing more than coercion by the federal government telling the farmer what he can grow when he can grow it and what he can sell it for. Once again the unseen consequences of this program has driven many small, family owned farms out of business and allowed large agribusiness corporations like Archer, Daniel, Midlands to monopolize the farming in this country. Under Roosevelt’s own Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 a small Ohio farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was sued by the United States Government for growing wheat that would be used for his personal use. (See Wickard v Filburn)

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.

Once again we have the federal government intervening how people run their businesses and determining the winner and the losers. It was Madison who stated:

“What must be the spirit of legislation where a manufacturer of linen cloth is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in order to favor his neighbor who manufactures woolen cloth; where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen cloth are again forbidden the economical use of buttons of that material, in favor of the manufacturer of buttons of other materials!”

What is considered “unfair”?” Will federal government dictate how fairness is defined. If a furniture manufacturer in North Carolina or a clothing manufacturer in New England believe he can increase his business and serve his customers better by buying furniture from China or having their clothing made in Sri Lanka is it the government role to dictate where and how he should obtain his products?

Progressives believe that the government has the responsibility to regulate all aspects of business today and have passed numerous and onerous laws and regulations, including guitars, on small businesses. Large business, who have lobbyist to support their faction are often immune from these rules.

The right of every family to a decent home.

This “right” has been one of the main causes for our current recession and the collapse of the housing market in the United States. By forcing lending institutions to make loans for mortgages to people they knew could not pay back the government not only destroyed the housing market it damaged people’s lives. Talk about Bastiat’s seen and unseen, this one takes the cake. Yet the progressive masterminds take no responsibility for their actions. They blame the banks they coerced into making these loans by using the force of the Department of Justice and their Civil Rights Division. Banks and lending institution were in fear of being brought into court by the Justice Department for violation of civil rights by discriminating who would be able to pay a loan back. Once the toxic loan was made it was sold to the federal government and the taxpayers took the hit.

This so-called right also pertains to the many public housing projects the federal government has financed where each and every one has failed and turned into a ghetto slum.

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.

The United States has had the best health care in the world. Our cancer survival is much higher than Great Britain with its National Health Care. According to FactCheck.org the U.S. has a cancer survival of 83.9% while the Brits have 69.7% and the average European survival rate is 73.1%:

“It’s certainly the case that we have higher survival rates than the United Kingdom and other countries with nationalized health care. Across the board, the United States boasts a higher five-year relative survival rate than the European average, according to a 2008 study in the British medical journal Lancet. For breast cancer, for instance, the U.S. survival rate was 83.9 percent, the U.K. rate was 69.7, and the average European rate was 73.1.”

Kathleen Doheny writes in WebMD that cancer survival rates vary by states and race:

“A racial gap in survival was evident, with white patients more likely than blacks to survive, especially breast cancer. "The comparison is confirmed right across the USA, in all 16 states," Coleman says of the racial gap.”

Could this mean that those with access only to public health care have a lower rate than those with access to private health care? It is also true that the lowest rate of cancer survival in the United States is for those patients on Medicare.

The United States has developed more advanced medical devices, drugs, and procedures than any nation in the world under a free-market health care system. The one single thing that is draining our health care resources and driving up the costs is what we are paying for the health care for illegal immigrants.

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment.

Our system of social security is a fraud. Originally touted by the progressives as an insurance program, social security is anything but that. If you and your employer pay into the program your entire working life and die soon after retirement your estate gets nothing except a pittance for burial costs. All of the monies you and your employer paid into the program belong to government to give to some other recipient who manages to outlive you. If this was a true insurance annuity you would receive all of the funds acquired from your contributions, including interest, and not paid out. The program is a fraud and is nothing more than a tax-funded Ponzi scheme where the government takes the money and then decides what to do with. They can stop payments anytime they desire.

Unemployment insurance and welfare is also a fraud as the federal government takes from workers and doles the money out to those who do not work. In socialist Denmark they discovered that as long as unemployment insurance was available people did not aggressively look for work until the last days of the insurance. While they were paying 99 weeks if benefits they found out that the recipients would find a job in week 97 or 98. When they reduced the term of payments to 40 weeks they discovered that people would find a job in week 38 or 39.

Today we have federal unemployment for 99 weeks and an average unemployment rate of 9% (much higher in some states). Unemployment insurance programs should be left entirely in the hands of the states. The federal government has no warrant in the Constitution to pay tax dollars to the unemployed. As Madison stated:

“That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.”

The right to a good education.

A few weeks ago I was having a conversation on education with my sister-in-law who is a school teacher. When I expressed my belief that the federal government should not spend one cent on education either in direct payments, grants or student loans she responded “what about the right to an education?” This took me back for a moment as I was a that surprised that a person with a Master’s in education would not know the Constitution.

My reply was to her was very simple. I asked her to show me where in the United States Constitution there was a warrant allowing the federal government to spend tax dollars on education, certainly not in Article I, Section 8. I explained that funding for education was an issue our Founders, while in favor of, left to the people. Otherwise to the states. Education is a state and local issue and the federal government has no business in taxing us for the purpose of sending money back to the states for education, money bound in a wrapper of corrosive requirements and regulations. This includes money for school lunches.

Most Americans pay for education though their property taxes. This money is then passed on to local school boards, run by local, elected officials beholden to the local taxpayer, not some mastermind at the Department of Education. Local control of education has and should be the keystone of public education. It is up to the states to set education standards and policies along with providing addition funding, if needed, to poorer school districts. Each state has it their state constitution as to how public education in that state shall be dealt with.

Some states may spend more per child on education than other states. That is the business of the people of that state. If they are unhappy with the way their state is dealing with public education the people can change their state’s constitution, change those in office overseeing education, or move. As I said above there is no warrant in the Federal Constitution claiming education as a right or in funding it. People in Arkansas are not responsible for funding public education, including school lunches and teacher union benefits in California or vice versa.

In 1979, President Carter advocated for creating a cabinet-level Department of Education. Carter's plan was to transfer most of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare's education-related functions to the Department of Education. Carter also planned to transfer the education-related functions of the departments of Defense, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, and Agriculture, as well as a few other federal entities. Among the federal education-related programs that were not proposed to be transferred included Headstart, the Department of Agriculture's school lunch and nutrition programs, the Department of the Interior's Indian education programs, and the Department of Labor's education and training programs.

Upgrading Education to cabinet level status in 1979 was opposed by many in the Republican Party, who saw the department as unconstitutional, arguing that the Constitution doesn't mention education, and deemed it an unnecessary and illegal federal bureaucratic intrusion into local affairs. However many progressives and Democrats see the department as constitutional under the Commerce Clause, and that the funding role of the Department is constitutional under the Taxing and Spending Clause. The National Education Association supported the bill, while the American Federation of Teachers opposed it.

As of 1979, the Office of Education had 3,000 employees and an annual budget of $12 billion. Congress appropriated to the Department of Education an annual budget of $14.2 billion and 17,000 employees when establishing the Department of Education. Today the Department of Education has over 5,000 employees and an estimated annual budget (2011) of $71 billion dollars.

With the trillions of taxpayers’ dollars spent by the federal government on education since 1979 education has not advanced one iota, in fact it has been dumbed down with federal regulations such as No Child Left Behind, another progressive/socialist good idea with unseen consequences. Once again refereeing to -Frederic Bastiat when he stated in treatise The Law:

"These socialist writers look upon people in the same manner that the gardener views his trees. Just as the gardener capriciously shapes the trees into pyramids, parasols, cubes, vases, fans, and other forms, just so does the socialist writer whimsically shape human beings into groups, series, centers, sub-centers, honeycombs, labor-corps, and other variations. And just as the gardener needs axes, pruning hooks, saws, and shears to shape his trees, just so does the socialist writer need the force that he can find only in law to shape human beings. For this purpose, he devises tariff laws, relief laws, and school laws."

This next presidential election presents a choice between two social contracts: the socialist-fascist contract of Mr. Obama and the Democrat Party, and the limited government-free enterprise-capitalist contract of Mr. Romney and the Republican Party.

(A simple description of Socialism is a philosophy that disfavors individual property rights and autonomy and places them in service to centralized governing elite; a Fascist philosophy cedes industrial control over private-sector market forces to a central government.)

To help you choose your contract, please answer the following question. A simple Yes or No will do.

Do you have and inalienable right to your neighbor's labor?

(I use the term inalienable in the same sense it was used in our Declaration of Independence: a right self-evidently granted by Nature's God and Creator. It is a permission granted to you by no other merit than your existence. It does not come from others or a government; you are born with it, and to diminish it is inherently evil and against the natural order.)

If you believe that you have this right, than it is perfectly acceptable to demand that your neighbor labor for you, and you for him. Practically extending this right, you have a right to the earnings of your neighbors' labor, such as wages and rents — and they to yours. It means that private property is a meaningless fiction. This sort of social contract — where one is not permitted private property — is either indentured servitude or slavery.

If you believe that you do not have this right, then by definition, you must receive permission to acquire your neighbor's labor or private property. You must not steal. You must exchange something of sufficient value in trade for your neighbor's labor.

If you believe that someone less well-off than another self-evidently justifies your forcing the better off to labor for the worse — because it is the right thing to do — then indeed, you obviously believe that your neighbor's labor is yours to claim. You have the same worldview as America's antebellum slave owners and indentured servant contractors. Our Constitution's 13th Amendment established that slavery is forbidden, so how is it that you now wish to philosophically bring slavery back?

Once again to quote Madison; “…nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.”

If you believe that it is in the community's interest to provide a safety net for the less well-off in order to prevent more burdensome expenditures, such as a public education or childhood health care, then it might be best to create economic incentives that promote voluntary charitable support for less fortunate.

Consider national health care. If you believe that you have an inalienable right to another's labor, you might compel a hospital to provide emergency services (skilled medical labor and private medical supplies and lodging) to the indigent without compensation at market prices. Such an arrangement requires the hospital to subsidize the emergency room by raising the costs of other hospital services offered to patients who have the means to pay or else the hospital can operate at a loss and eventually shut its doors.

An alternative approach — one that does not claim a right to skilled medical labor or property — pursues tax incentives that make charitable contributions to hospitals compellingly reasonable. If you want to provide a benevolent safety net to those who are willing but unable to work (the only population that merits assistance), then make such benevolent assistance to them more valuable than investing money elsewhere. This might be accomplished by granting a 150% gross income tax reduction for all charitable contributions to health care facilities that serve the indigent. For every $100 one gives to an inner-city health clinic, $150 is deducted from gross taxable income. Let's legislate a social contract that makes benevolent giving economically compelling, without placing a claim on our neighbors' labor.

We concluded our most deadly Civil War (1860-1865) with the affirmation that one did not have an inalienable right to another human being's labor. How ironic it would be to elect a president of color who will return us to such plantation thinking?

On November 6^th you will have the opportunity to select the vision for America that fits your thinking. You can vote for the socialistic/fascistic compact or the vision of America espoused by our Founders — a vision of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The debate is on.