Category Archives: American History

Infinity Clause

In the fall of 1789 recently inaugurated President, George Washington called for a National day of Thanksgiving. Under the previous frame of government, the unworkable Articles of Confederation, such proclamations had customarily been sent to the governors of each state. However, Washington abandoned that practice. As the first US President, Washington instead issued the proclamation to the American People.

This President deliberately bypassed state governments.

The new Constitution, practically wet with ink, had been intentionally addressed to “We The People,” and Washington aimed through his administration to join every citizen, regardless of state, to the national government. This proclamation, seemingly banal, clearly signaled a dramatic reset of power in the new Republic.

Two years prior, in Philadelphia, the framers turned attention to composing a Preamble, otherwise understood as a mission statement. Preambles were not unusual, each state government began with them, but in that hot, humid chamber of Constitution Hall work commenced to define America’s mission. Gouverneur Morris, a delegate from New York, most probably authored the statement, and it was Morris who set out the language.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The heart of these guiding principles begin with the phrase “The People,” followed by the active verb, “To Form.”

The Preamble rests upon this infinitive clause, implying America is a work in constant progress. This mission is a founding legacy fixed upon enduring bedrock.

Susan B Anthony sought justice voting in the Election of 1872. Arrested for casting her ballot, Anthony faced a Federal judge, and received a verdict of guilty. The 19th Amendment, ratified nearly fifty years later extended the vote to women. Hounded by settlers from the 17th Century onward, Native Americans sought survival and the tranquility to peacefully co-exist with whites. It’s ironic that indigenous Americans were not citizens until 1924.The United States in 1860, teetered on a knife point of dissolution. President, Abraham Lincoln, could not stand by and watch democracy die under the threat of secession. Preparing for the common defense Lincoln mobilized northern forces to defend the Union. From Jane Addam’s Hull House, a Chicago settlement center for immigrants, promoting the general welfare, to Dred Scott, and Homer Plessy’s struggle to reap the blessings of liberty, each generation stood tall in their historic moments.

To honor the principles of the document, and as heirs of Constitutional law, our charge, like those before, is weightier than our private comfort. We The People have no choice but to continue Gouverneur Morris, and President Washington’s wishes To Form A More Perfect Union.

Modern America’s mini tyrants must not prevail. Make your voice heard at the ballot box on Tuesday, November 8, 2022.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles are available on Kindle. Chumbley has written two historical plays, “Clay” regarding the life of Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears,” an exploring the roots of slavery and racism.

Fight Club

A biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, (by Robert A. Caro) presents an in-depth look at LBJ’s Senate career. Aptly titled “Master of the Senate,” Caro describes the future president’s considerable ability to push bills he championed through the US Senate.

Using his boundless energy to cajole, intimidate, and hound opponents, Senator Johnson proved remarkably effective. When candidate John F Kennedy selected LBJ to serve as his running mate, Johnson’s reputation as a political wheeler dealer sealed his selection. 

A look at the backgrounds of all 46 American Presidents, only one-third rose from Congress’s upper chamber. From 1900 to today only seven Chief Executives began in the Senate. Perhaps as candidates, these politicians carry controversial voting records, or personal foibles leaving too much baggage for a successful run. In spite of inherent liabilities, most modern Senators-turned-President, bring an effective array of skills to the White House.

For both Truman with his Fair Deal, and John F Kennedy’s New Frontier, legislative wins were scarce. Truman did enjoy a moment with passage of the Marshall Plan to rebuilt war-torn Europe, and Kennedy with the ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963.

Following JFK’s murder Lyndon Johnson seized that tragic moment initiating his Great Society program, and then showed America how to get things done. Public Television, highway beautification, Medicare, Medicaid, and both the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Johnson’s achievements were many, and important. 

Richard Nixon served in the Senate, as well. Once President, Nixon promoted the Environmental Protection Agency, and the passage of Title IX for women in sports. It wasn’t all evil in that White House, the guy had skills.

In 2010, single-term Senator from Illinois, turned President, Barack Obama signed into law The Affordable Care Act. Standing near, watching was Obama’s Vice-President, Joe Biden, himself a 36 year veteran of the Senate. 

The thing is Mitch McConnell lobbed every counterpunch in the rules to stop Obamacare. But he failed in the face of three wily tacticians, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi in the House, and, of course, Joe Biden.

Now Joe has entered the White House in his own right.

The supposition that legislative cunning ensures a successful presidency is only an interesting thought. But Truman did see reelection, while LBJ collapsed under the weight of Vietnam, not his legislative magic. Nixon sabotaged himself, but the Biden presidency appears to be chugging along on a steady course. 

In the Senate since 1973, this 46th President cut his political teeth on Capitol Hill. Senate rules, cloture, floor privileges, and more are some of the lethal weapons in his political arsenal. For example, when Senator Manchin suddenly came on board with the Inflation Reduction Act, Mitch McConnell, another sly dog, staggered, blindsided.

The point remains. There is a lot more to Joe Biden than meets the eye. This is not a President to dismiss for superficial reasons, like his grandpa appearance, and folksy demeanor. If anything, Biden’s Senate career has forged him into a political shark. The Infrastructure package, Covid Relief, and College Debt Forgiveness have largely passed, allowing his opponents no time to breathe.

And Joe’s VP? She’s a former Senator, too.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles are on Kindle. Chumbley has written two historical plays, “Clay” regarding the life of Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears,” an exploration of American racism and slavery.

Only Good News

I attended college in the mid-1970’s, starting around the end of the Vietnam War, and Nixon’s resignation. A restless atmosphere permeated campus as antiwar radicalism faded, leaving time to address other pressing dangers.

Newspaper headlines told the story. Ohio’s Cuyahoga River had caught fire, the blaze feeding upon nothing more than sewage laced with flammable sludge. Developers in upstate New York broke ground for a planned community over a topsoil-covered chemical waste dump. Later the “Love Canal” housing project reported residents dying from leukemia in alarming numbers. A nuclear plant chemist in Oklahoma, Karen Silkwood, turned whistleblower, testifying before the Atomic Energy Commission, regarding the dangerous levels and exposure of radiation at the facility.

Silkwood later died in a suspicious car accident.

As Americans focused on ending the war in Southeast Asia, sustainable life visibly deteriorated in America. As we protested the effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam, we missed the incessant dumping of chemical runoff into Florida’s Everglades. Car exhaust, and acid rain doused the “Rust Belt” region surrounding the Great Lakes. 

Some politicians stepped up to the moment, like Georgia Governor, Jimmy Carter. Carter, a Democrat, ran for and won the 1976 Presidential Election. For many, Carter presented a serious, intelligent and incorruptible problem-solver. Grasping the petroleum bull by the horns, President Carter prioritized America’s need to conserve energy. He pointed out that domestic transportation literally depended on the whims of Middle Eastern cartels who bore no love for the United States. Addressing the crisis, Carter appeared on prime time, wearing a sweater, imploring the country to turn down the heat to 65 degrees, and cut back on driving.

Though he was right, Carter served only one turbulent term, replaced by smiling Ronald Reagan. The Reagan campaign understood Americans wanted to hear only good news, and how exceptional Americans inherently were.

This changing guard had no love for Federal bureaucracy, quickly dispensing with environmental restrictions. James Watt served as Interior Secretary, and Anne Buford Gorsuch at the EPA. Both ignored Congressional environmental statutes, slashing budgets, cutting staff, and relaxing regulations on private logging rights and clean water standards.   

In the 1990’s another voice rose to school Americans on the reality of environmental decay; former Vice President, Al Gore. In his 2006 film, “An Inconvenient Truth” Gore presented a compelling case highlighting the ravages of climate change, and global warming. At the end of the film the Vice President adopted an encouraging tone. Now that American’s understood this impending threat, we would act as one to save our home planet.

For his stance, George H.W. Bush anointed Al Gore “Captain Ozone.” Pappy Bush was, after all, an oil man from Texas.

The kicker is that we knew in the 1970’s which way this story would end. 

Today Lake Mead hosts more dead bodies than boaters, while vast catastrophic fires incinerate the Red Woods. Endless 100 degree-plus days extend longer every summer, and floods flow through the arroyos of the Desert Southwest. In the highest latitudes polar ice shelves calve mountains of glaciers raising the ocean levels globally. 

If the purpose of politics is to nurture dim, aggrieved consumers, the GOP has accomplished that, in spades. But the crisis is real, and the GOP is not helping.

In point of fact, the Trump Administration referred to global warming as a hoax. The US formally withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, ratified during the Obama years. According to the Washington Post, under Trump’s watch, over 125 Obama era protections were reversed, loosening regulations on endangered species and oil spills.

For those of us of a certain age, we have watched this crisis evolve over fifty years. Buck passing, unfettered capitalism, combined with political postering renders this moment impossible to fix. If pursuit of wealth and hubris outweighs preservation, greed is our undoing.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Chumbley has also written two plays. “Clay” deals with the life of Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, and “Wolf By The Ears,” explores the beginnings of racism and slavery.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

A Renaissance Man

Nothing short of brilliant, Dale Olson could expound on almost any topic. His knowledge of sports, history, and literature rendered him as a true Renaissance man. He also loved the Simpsons. 

Dale Curtis Olson joined the planet on February 10, 1954. 

Born and raised in Spokane he attended public schools and graduated from Joel E. Ferris in 1972. A graduate of the University of Washington in History and Political Science, he pursued jobs that carried him around the globe. With positions from Antarctica and to Johnson Island, Dale found the world his finishing school. He did not simply tour destinations, Dale relished them, as food for his soul.

His children were his books, and those surrounded him. Still news of his grandnephews and niece arrived welcome to his home. 

Throughout Dale’s long trials with illness he persevered, aided in large part by our brother David. Our gratitude is heartfelt.

Dale was predeceased by our father, David E. Olson, and survived by our mother, Rita Olson. Also his sister Gail Chumbley(Chad) of Garden Valley, Idaho, brothers Stephen (Elizabeth), and David Olson of Spokane. He is remembered by all his nieces and nephews residing from Spokane to Portland, to Salt Lake City.

We will have no service, and in lieu of flowers donations to American Battlefield Trust, https://www.battlefields.org are suggested.

Oh to live on Sugar Mountain

With the barkers and the colored balloons

You can’t be twenty on Sugar Mountain

Though you’re thank that you are leaving there too soon.

Neil Young

Symmetry

This is one of my favorite twists in American history.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Chumbley has penned two plays, as well. “Clay” on the life of Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears,” exploring the beginnings of racism and slavery.

The Past Isn’t Past

The above diagram, or other similar images frequently pop up in American history textbooks. The purpose of the image is to represent Southern society in the years up to the Civil War. A quick look reveals that this system was top down and not in any way democratic.

Small scale farmers and poor whites near the bottom pose some interesting questions regarding antebellum (before the war) social class interactions. How much authority did small farmers actually wield in this ordered system? How did customs and rules shape relations between poor whites and slaves? The most pressing question asks why would lower class whites risk all to do battle for the lofty Planter class? After all, these same aristocrats strictly associated within their own circle, and would not give the time of day to any social inferiors.

So again why did the lower rungs answer the call to battle?

One explanation must touch upon race and identity. Small land holders and poor whites, as hard as they struggled to survive somehow believed or wanted to believe they shared more in common with the aristocrats at the top. Identifying with the enslaved below, despite living in similar adversity was unthinkable.

And these sons of the South fought hard. Some 300,000 Confederate soldiers died of shot, disease, or returned home maimed to preserve a culture that held them down.

Let’s put a pin there.

Keeping in mind the above image fast forward to the 2008 victory of Barack Obama. For many of us the election of our first black president marked a high point in racial history, seemingly proof that America had finally faced and redeemed the violent legacy of injustice.

And despite President Obama’s two successful terms in office, (Obama is somewhere among the top ten presidents of all time) the persistent legacy of racial hatred roared back to life as virulent as any year in old Dixie.

Like demons summoned from the dead, the ugly ghosts of white supremacy rose, once again fueled by a latter day white aristocracy. America is witnessing in real time DJT and his plutocrats purposely riling up lower class whites to again man their battle fronts.

A black president, a very popular and effective black president united malicious forces of hubris, greed, and malignant hate.

This toxic furnace of racism has honestly emerged as something of a shock. For those of us who bore witness to the Civil Rights movement, applauded affirmative action policies, and celebrated landmark legislation in housing and voting rights, led us to believe a A More Perfect Union was underway. But we were wrong.

Stunningly wrong.

47”s first administration emboldened a Klan-style march in Charlottesville, where he remarked there were “good people on both sides.” Left unmentioned was the fate of Heather Heyer, a counter protestor, who was deliberately targeted and killed in the melee. In 2021 47 groomed his working class foot soldiers to “stand back and stand by.” When the order came, these emboldened thugs sacked the US Capitol toting Confederate and Nazi flags. Neither Robert E Lee or Hitler ever got that close to our center of government.

In both cases MAGA militia in red caps waving blue flags proved that America has made no racial progress at all. Hate, especially racial hate has been simmering all along. Forget that 47 and his GOP are gutting social safety nets and services (Medicaid and FEMA come to mind) that support many of his minions (and the rest of us). Effectively manipulated MAGA enthusiasts proudly, defiantly, swill the poison of grievance.

Planter society would easily recognize this tried and true method of cultural conditioning. Working class whites once again believe they share the same interests as the ruling elite. After all they are all white. However, that same elite has no further use for those who elected them. And this resurrected aristocracy doesn’t think much of democracy either. Utah Senator Mike Lee publicly said as much.

The 21st Century rallying cry echoes that of an earlier century. The worst white man is still better than the best man of color. (And I don’t mean Joe Biden.)

And that is how those with little to nothing are schooled to preserve those who have everything.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir River of January, and River of January; Figure Eight. Chumbley has authored three stage plays, Clay, a look at the life of Henry Clay, Wolf By The Ears, an examination of racism and slavery, and Peer Review, where Donald Trump meets four former presidents.

gailchumbley@ymail.com

A Scandalous Life

And I didn’t include GW Bush

A video blog. Forgive the quality, but the point is clear.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles available on Kindle. In addition Chumbley has complete two plays, “Clay,” on the life of Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears” exploring the beginnings of racism and slavery.

A Different Code

“He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.”Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments 1848.

Nurse Margaret Sanger related an experience that inspired her career in family planning. Called to a dilapidated tenement building, Sanger found a pre-teen immigrant girl writhing in the throes of childbirth.

Attempting to assist the child, Sanger soon recognized the girl was slipping away, bleeding out on a filthy mattress. Indifferent, the girl’s family crowded nearby in a small parlor seemingly resigned to the life and death drama in the next room. 

Soon the bloody battle ceased, as both girl and infant were no more.

A mother herself, Sanger built her life’s work in promoting a woman’s right to choose if, or when to bear a child. 

As for Sanger, she found herself under arrest in 1916 for advocating sex education and birth control through the mail. The charge sheet read that her actions were indecent. Despite that legal setback, a determined Sanger founded Planned Parenthood later that same year.

June 24th, 2022 the Supreme Court ruled women no longer have physical autonomy. The government claims an overriding interest in American women’s reproduction. Plainly females are once again set aside as second-class citizens, leaving men free of any culpability for their actions. For one moment think if men were required a reversible vasectomy at age 16. No male would tolerate such a law, and this is the same invasion of privacy women are forced to obey.

Justice Alito, in his majority opinion, stressed moral judgement over legal arguments when the issue is reproduction. 

In fact, in overturning Roe, women are stripped of the most consequential of life decisions, reinforcing Mrs Stanton’s phrase in 1848, that “a different code” is still alive and well. Women cannot be trusted with their own bodies.

That Planned Parenthood offers so many other services is not the point. That neonatal disorders portend a fatal, and agonizing death for newborns isn’t the point, either.

One of the most precious American underpinnings is the right to privacy. And remember that Prohibition, too, attempted to police private practices. That fiasco resulted in an uptick of violent crime, and corruption because like it or not, people drink. The same is true of abortion. The procedure has not been halted in the country, but made more risky.

The Supreme Court has not ended abortion in America. 

This isn’t over.

*Justice Thomas indicates he would go after birth control next. Does he realize he opens a pandora’s box that could threaten overturning Loving V. Virginia? 

A Scandalous Life

Through open doors down a long hallway, reminiscent of The Shining, a cacophony of noisy televisions competed. Soap operas, news reports, and talkshows spilled from empty uncleaned guest rooms. It was the summer of 1974 that I began a brief stint as a hotel maid in Spokane, Washington. Through the course of that summer I began to notice each maid had different approaches to their routine. Some girls stripped the beds, or beelined for the bathroom, but all, to the last dust mop, first switched on the television. 

And the biggest news that summer, outside of Expo ‘74, was the Watergate hearings. Chairman Sam Ervin, Senator Howard Baker, Congressman Pete Rodino, and others became my new favorite TV personalities. Watergate Burglar, Alexander Butterfield spilled the beans on Nixon’s White House taping system, and John Dean spoke of a ‘cancer on the presidency.” For me these hearings were riveting as I placed fresh towels on the rack, and changed toilet paper rolls.

By the end of that summer, August 9, 1974 Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. 

Fast forward 13 years later, and I had just given birth to my second baby, a girl, and she and I cuddled as the television introduced a whole new set of “off the books” operatives. This time the scandal concerned the Reagan Administration’s convoluted plot known as the Iran-Contra Affair. American arms were illegally sold to Iran, our sworn enemy, to continue their war against Iraq. The proceeds from those sales were funneled to anti-Communists fighters battling in Nicaragua. Both efforts violated the Boland Amendment, passed by Congress, explicitly prohibiting American meddling in Central America.

Reagan operatives had hoped that selling Iranians weapons would soften them up because the White House needed a favor. Would the Ayatollah Khomeini help encourage Lebanon’s jihadists to release American hostages secreted around Beirut? The Reagan people gambled that trading illegal arms would secure Tehran’s help. 

While rocking my infant I learned a litany of new names: NSA chief, Robert McFarland, Marine, Oliver North, North’s secretary, Fawn Hall, and the recently deceased mastermind, CIA director, William Casey. My take, as I patted my girl’s little back, was that the Reagan White House had privatized foreign policy in defiance of Congress through renegade agents.

In 1988 Ronald Reagan, in a video deposition, admitted he had done just that, but due to his failing memory, couldn’t recall. 

That brings me to my golden years. I tuned in to the January 6th hearings, as a retired grandma. My husband and I watched and listened to the evidence regarding the violent attack on our nation’s capitol. To say this hearing was electric would be an understatement. Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Capitol Police Officers, particularly Caroline Edwards, left me spell bound. Representative Liz Cheney owned the evening, making clear the person responsible for the attempted coup-the former guy. 

Donald Trump is the first sitting president in American History to be impeached twice.

So what element ties all three scandals together? For one, the course of a single life-from college kid, to motherhood, to grandmother. And I suppose one could conclude I’ve watched a helluva lot of television. 

But for me the message means something else. 

The modern Republican Party has undergone a long death spiral marked by greed, rot and decay. As Liz Cheney said, “there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

For nearly 50 years, from 1974 to 2020 the Grand Old Party has cast off its once, principled moorings, slowly imploding before our eyes. As my generation grew from young students to senior citizens the party of Lincoln silently died. 

And like Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining, there is no redemption, nor any future, only relief these mercenaries can do no more harm.

Gail Chumbley is the author of a two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Chumbley had also completed to historic plays, “Clay,” regarding the life of Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears,” an examination of slavery and racism in America.