Category Archives: Joe Biden & Kamala Harris

A Rendezvous

One central  philosophy guided my years of American history instruction. The story had to feel personal to each student, after all it is their country. For the unit on World War Two, I aimed to act as a bridge between my grandparents generation to the kids seated before me. While growing up, my grandparents played a large part in shaping my world view, as the old folks often shared their life experiences. Each had a unique tale on how they committed to fight totalitarianism abroad in the 1940’s, and defend democracy at home. 

All the following accounts involved inconvenience, sacrifice, and interruptions to family life. At that singular moment all they knew was to serve their country, and defeat foreign tyranny. 

A new dark age lay in America’s defeat.

This is Ray Turner, born in 1905 in Hammond, Illinois. This young man migrated west, joining family members in Northern Idaho. Ray soon found his way to Spokane, Washington, where he found work as a postal carrier. Stopping for lunch along his mail route he met a waitress in a downtown cafe, Ailene Peterson, a single mother of one, and after a while they fell in love. Marrying in the fall of 1941, the newly weds, while on a Sunday drive caught a breaking news bulletin on the car radio that the Japanese had attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Ray turned his automobile around, motored back to Spokane, and joined the Coast Guard the next morning. Stationed out of Willapa Bay in Tokeland, Washington, Ray and the crew of the USS Manzanita patrolled the extensive, rugged Pacific coastline of Washington and Oregon monitoring for Japanese vessels. And it was aboard the Manzanita that Ray remained until August,1945 when he mustered out of the service and returned to Spokane. After a life of grandkids, holidays, and fun on his lake property, he retired from the US Postal Service, passing away in 1974.

Kurtz Olson hailed from Wing River, Minnesota, born on a frigid day in January, 1905. Kurtz, as the youngest of seven children took up welding as a young man, and made a fair living during the difficult Depression years. This photo, take in the 1930’s, (Kurtz on the left) indicates that Hitler was considered harmless and laughable. That certainly changed in 1939, and after the Pearl Harbor attack brought America into the war, Kurtz packed up his wife and family and traveled west to Tacoma, Washington in search of war work. Kurtz spent his days dismantling scrap metal in a welding yard preparing the steel for conversion to ships, planes, tanks, and other war materiel. After the war Kurtz moved his family to Spokane, where he welded, owned a series of mutts, cut firewood with his son, and grandson’s. Kurtz passed on in 1989. 

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This GI is Joe Tucker, this snapshot taken somewhere in France around 1944. Born in Craig County, Oklahoma in 1907, Joe found himself back in uniform at the ripe old age of 37, much older than the 18 and 19 year-olds in his outfit. Joe had actually been in the army until 1939, receiving his first discharge before the war. Making his way to the Pacific Northwest he too, settled in Spokane where he met and married a widow with three children. His daughter from his first marriage lived in the city, as well, and he wanted to remain near her. Working for the Northern Pacific Railroad, with his new, larger family, Joe joined the Washington National Guard for the extra pay guard duty brought in. After Pearl Harbor the US Government nationalized the Washington Guard, and off he went to war. After training stateside, then stationed in the south of England, Joe found himself on Normandy Beach on June 7, 1944, D+1. Surviving those first days he and his fellow Guardsmen suffered through the Battle of the Bulge, finally winding their way to Germany. On one particular night, Joe stood guard duty somewhere in Germany. He heard his sergeant grouse was the soldier on duty asleep? The reply was no, it’s Tucker, and he’s awake alright. (Joe liked telling that story). Eventually Joe shipped home to reunite with his family in 1945.

From her waitressing job, Ailene Peterson, turned Ailene Turner followed her new husband Ray to the Washington coast. Traveling with her young daughter Ailene looked for war work as well. Born in 1914, in Clinton, Minnesota, Ailene had married quite young, desperate to leave her father’s stump farm in North Dakota. Husband #1, Joe Tucker had failed her, and with her young daughter in tow, sought refuge with family members in Spokane. It was in Bremerton, Washington that she found employment wiring mine sweepers for America’s Russian allies, (she said they were very rude). In later life, Ailene proudly mentioned that her work never had to be redone. She always wired it right the first time. In an operators cab of a crane, Ailene noticed the girls below waving their arms and jumping about. Shutting down the motor she heard them yell that the Japanese had surrendered, and the war was over. Ailene scrambled down from her seat, and joined the victory celebration. She, too, along with Ray returned to Spokane until her death in 1990.

Besides being my grandparent’s, and generously sharing their remarkable stories with me, what else did these people share in common? They put aside their personal lives to step up in defiance of fascism and authoritarianism. They knew that service to America, to our democracy, was their first duty.

Retelling my grandparent’s war-time sacrifices to my history students added a vividness to the coursework that encouraged the kids to do the same with their elders. That, once again is how I bridged the war years to now, making it personal for students. 

President Roosevelt had characterized that moment as America’s “Rendezvous with Destiny,” and those people rose masterfully to the challenge. And despite all the hostility to democracy today, we cannot surrender to those forces, and betray our forebears who stood up to defend our way of life.

Perhaps now is our “Rendezvous with Destiny,” and this time all we have to do is vote for the Democrat over the wannabe dictator.

Once again, a new dark age lay in America’s defeat. 

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both are available on Kindle. Chumbley has also penned two history stage plays, “Clay,” and “Wolf By The Ears.” She is the co-author of “Dancing On Air,” and feature length screenplay, and is working on “Peer Review,” for the stage, a series of short plays where DJT meets real presidents from the past.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

Stay The Course

1864 was an election year, and an apprehensive President Lincoln believed he faced certain defeat. Despite victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg the endless lists of casualties had left Northern families weary of war. Two years prior the Democrats gained 27 seats in the House, as critics bashed emancipation and the draft riots in New York. As the President privately despaired, “The bottom is out of the tub.” 

Lincoln’s greatest frustration centered on finding a general who could and would defeat General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. A series of Union generals, all lackluster, had failed the President repeatedly. Irvin McDowell’s troops ran at Bull Run, Ambrose Burnside presided over a bloodbath at Fredericksburg, and “Fighting Joe Hooker” was roundly flanked at Chancellorsville. But the most troublesome of this difficult brood was General George Brinton McClellan.

On paper General McClellan had all the attributes of a winner. Studious, McClellan graduated 2nd in his class at West Point, joined the Army Corps of Engineers, and served in the Mexican War. Following a brief stint in the private sector McClellan returned to service when the war thundered to life at Ft. Sumter. Following a couple of minor victories in western Virginia, President Lincoln brought McClellan to the Capitol appointing him commander of the Army of the Potomac.

In Washington McClellan did whip his army into fine condition, and his men loved him in return. The difficulty the President faced was that McClellan would not fight. Over many months, with growing frustration at the army’s inaction, Lincoln stooped to sarcasm, composing a request to borrow McClellan’s army to go south, since the General wasn’t using them. McClellan returned the rancor referring to Lincoln as a “well meaning baboon,” and rudely rebuffing the President when Lincoln paid a house call. 

Other McClellan gems include:

“By some strange operation of magic I seem to have become the power of the land.”

“Who would have thought, when we were married, that I should so soon be called upon to save my country?” (To his wife.)

and, reminiscent of a current blowhard candidate,

“I can do it all.”

During the greatest national emergency since the Revolutionary War, Mr. Lincoln, with so many other demands, had to cope with a difficult, obstinate officer. As the nation watched, the President could not get the man to budge. In one instance McClellan, in Virginia, argued he couldn’t move his forces as the horses were fatigued. Lincoln asked what could the horses have done to be fatigued?

McClellan needed to be replaced, but Lincoln hesitated to do so. Considering the love the Army of the Potomac held for “Little Mac” may have stayed the President’s hand. And there were no other officers suitable to replace him. 

Later, after the Battle of Antietam in 1862, Lincoln fired the reluctant warrior after he permitted General Lee and his army to slip away.

As for the election of 1864, the President fully understood he was growing quite unpopular. He had spoken with General Grant on how to tie up the war before inauguration day when he would surely have to leave the White House. In an unexpected twist of irony Northern Democrats convening in Chicago, nominated their candidate to challenge Mr. Lincoln. They chose George Brinton McClellan.

Defeating the rebels grew even more urgent if that imperative was possible, for McClellan made clear his intention to negotiate a peace with slavery intact. 

It is difficult to imagine the President’s anguish in such an impossible situation.

So it is a remarkable thing that Abraham Lincoln emerged from the contest victorious. Severe Northern opinion hadn’t softened, the press relentlessly criticized Lincoln’s war policies, so how did this miracle happen?

Credit the Army of the Potomac.

Though the men did admire their former commander, they knew President Lincoln remained committed to the cause they shared: freedom and Union. Oceans of blood had been spilled, uncountable hardships endured, and still Union forces and the President stayed the course. These comrades-in-arms kept the faith with their president, in a war for America’s future. 

Lincoln had their backs, and these men fully understood their duty.

Today, as America approaches the election of 2024 Americans of good will must also vote for the President who solidly supports their interests. Mr. Biden’s successes include The American Rescue Plan, a stimulus bill, Build Back Better, an infrastructure spending act, and a bill lowering drug costs, such as capping insulin for diabetics, demonstrates Biden’s priorities. Like 1864, the opposition party has nothing to offer but a self-deluded windbag who has proven himself more ineffectual, and delusional than General McClellan, who at least had a real resume. Nonsense is nonsense.

An advocate for all we hold dear, voters must remain as faithful to our ideals as Joe Biden, our Chief Executive. Today the task of preserving America is as crucial as the crucible of the Civil War

We have an obligation to defend our national laws, and the ideals that shaped them. Americans, yet unborn are counting on us.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir River of January, and River of January: Figure Eight, both available on Kindle. Chumbley has also authored “Clay,” and “Wolf By The Ears,” two historically-set plays.

Fighting Bees

Young Abraham Lincoln came of age, politically speaking, during the administration of Andrew Jackson. And the rough, aspiring frontier politician did not approve of the Democratic Party and their blind, cult-like dedication to “Old Hickory.” Speaking first in New Salem, Illinois, then in Springfield, Lincoln held forth on the subject of Jackson’s arbitrary and autocratic style compared to his man, Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky.

Young Mr. Lincoln viewed Henry Clay as a true statesman. He admired Senator Clay for his rational, stable economic plans to nurture a growing America bursting with potential.

Central to Clay’s program was a bank, a central depository to finance new infrastructure projects like roads, canals, and railroads. Senator Clay championed the Federal Government as the best instrument to plan and carry out public works, improving commercial activity across the young nation.

To Lincoln scratching out a life in a muddy, stump-ridden western wilderness, Clay’s American System of improvements was welcome. Clay’s platform would bring order, jobs, prosperity, and hope to Lincoln’s own rough-hewn region.

Young Lincoln also shared Clay’s conviction that slavery did not belong in new western territories. All Lincoln wanted was a fair chance for all Americans, and that slavery impeded human talent, and he believed, like Clay, that slavery also devalued free labor. Free market capitalism and slavery could not co-exist.

To Lincoln, President Jackson’s mercurial style of leadership did not serve America’s future either. Jackson not only vetoed many improvement bills, arguing one state benefiting from federal funds was unfair to others, he in one instance vetoed a road bill because the project lay entirely in Kentucky, Henry Clay’s home state.

Excessive emotional discord in politics caused more problems than it remedied, and impeded national growth. Nation building wasn’t a sectional competition, a personal challenge, nor a game to pit political egos.

At the time of Jackson a religious revival burned hot across the country. Known today as the Second Great Awakening this movement, foaming over with emotion, had drenched politics as well, with candidates often taking on an evangelical, absolute tones.

Lincoln’s once joked he didn’t much like these stump orators unless they looked like they were “fighting bees.” To Lincoln, such emotional public displays had no value in advancing America.

So what did Lincoln believe? In the founders ideals of the United States of America. Embracing presidents as religious, messianic manifestations had no purpose, and produced only the tainted fruit of extremism.

Lincoln was, above all else, a moderate, logical, and measured man. His inspiration, his convictions, centered on a secular faith in the ideals of America.

Mr. Lincoln like to think of the Declaration of Independence as a golden apple, (equality and rights) set in the silver frame of the Constitution (the law). In other words certain inalienable rights protected by We the People.

Former President Obama exemplified Lincoln’s America in so many ways; relying on his cabinet, advisors, or his own formidable intellect to govern. And Lincoln’s Jackson nightmare repeated when a dumber version of Old Hickory proclaimed America is a terrible place.

Today the United States’ perpetual election cycle keeps emotions raw, but accomplishes little else. Mr. Lincoln would take a dim view of today’s constant political turmoil, arguing that we need to keep our wits about us and vote with our heads.

More infrastructure needs attention as well as national security, civil rights, and climate change. Instead a thin-skinned ego maniac welcomes billionaires to pilfer and taint good government. And the computer age has presented a complicated network neither Lincoln nor Clay could have imagined. We rely on those cooler heads to prevail, making policy, and conducting the people’s business, or we end up paying homage to wannabe dictator who is as arbitrary as he is vacuous.

Today, at this moment, in a country full of pointless Jacksons, be a thoughtful Lincoln. There is no need to fight bees all of the time, over and over, when the real work of America needs to be done.

Gail Chumbley is the author of “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Chumbley also penned two stage plays, “Clay,” examining the life of Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears,” a study of racism and slavery in America. Currently Chumbley is working on “Peer Review.” This piece is a cross of Dickens A Christmas Carol converges with presidential history.

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Reading Tea Leaves

Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision.

Abraham Lincoln

From 1790 to now, American midterm elections have functioned as an effective gauge of public opinion. 

Despite southern secession, and the subsequent war of rebellion, President Lincoln viewed national elections as the indispensable foundation of a free government. There were dissenting voices calling for cancellation of the 1862 midterms due to the war, but Lincoln did not hold to that. 

After two years in office, Lincoln needed to know where he stood with the people. The Republican Party kept majorities in Congress, but a significant shift among unhappy voters surfaced. 

Democrats (those still in the Union) picked up 27 seats in the House. Though the Senate did remain in Republican hands, Lincoln understood the first two years of war had cost him plenty. Bloody defeats on the field of battle at Bull Run, the Peninsular Campaign, plus the massive casualties at Antietam had cost his administration.

In the Twentieth Century, the bi-election in 1934 delivered a powerful message of support to Franklin Roosevelt and his administration. Not only did the public approve of his New Deal, they added nine more members to the House majority, and an additional nine to the Senate. Clearly Roosevelt’s economic measures had grown in popularity across the stricken nation. Conversely, by 1938, Democrats lost 72 House seats with 81 gains for the GOP.  FDR took those results to heart changing course on some of his policies.

Harry Truman, FDR’s successor inherited a more divided America. The Democrats had enjoyed nearly fourteen years in power, but Truman’s presidency faced a shifting change. In the midterm election of 1946 the GOP secured majorities in both the House and the Senate. Fifty-five seats changed hands in the lower chamber, and seated twelve more in the Senate. The public did not view Harry Truman in the same light as his predecessor.

There are other illustrative bi-elections to examine. For example, 1982, where the Democrats picked up 26 seats in the House, and seven in the Senate after two years of the Reagan Administration. And in 1994 Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America,” where the GOP picked up 54 House seats, and eights seats in the Senate. With that majority, Republicans worked to undermine the Clinton Administration. 

The midterms do act as a barometer of America’s political winds. A great deal is to be learned by analyzing voter turnout and the winners and losers. Political Parties can find where they stand with the people, and adjust accordingly.

In that light this last 2022 midterm spoke volumes as well. In a most unlikely scenario, where inflation and high gas prices, plus low poll numbers for our sitting president, the public rejected the GOP’s crazy MAGA’s. Yes a hand full of seats did shift the House, but barely. The former guy has clearly worn out his welcome, and voters have had enough of that sideshow. 

That he and his followers are oblivious to the temperament of the people makes no difference. The numbers don’t lie.

If this half-dozen, or so reelected extremists believe they have a mandate from the American people they are seriously mistaken. For next the two years the country will be forced to watch the same tiresome, noisy political antics they rejected at the polls.

You all are going to overplay your hands, and sink your party.

Don’t believe me? Just ask Newt Gingrich. He’s out of office and has time for your call.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Chumbley has also penned two historical plays, “Clay” on the life of statesman, Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears,” an exploration of racism and slavery in America.

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.

The Long Haul

After the 1929 Market Crash the world fell into regional, nearly feudal isolation, and international trade quickly dried up. America, too, focused inward largely due to the nation’s earlier participation in the Great War in Europe.

Across the Pacific the Japanese Empire aimed to take advantage of global disinterest promoting its own national interests. Sold to other Asian countries as the “Co-prosperity Sphere,” hyper-nationalistic Japan intended to expand across the region, especially toward vulnerable, resource rich China.

Great Britain as well, struggled alone in a financial malaise, as did the French across the channel; both nations saddled with debt to American banks from the previous war. Germany, the defeated nation struggled with their own war debt demanded by the British and French.

The shroud of economic depression hung like a millstone over Europe and the rest of the world.

As the financial, and political fallout grew wildly unstable, regimes hunkered down and hoped for better times. However the climate instead became chaotic, bringing anti-democratic demagogues to power.

The Italians were first, producing a Fascist strongman, Benito Mussolini. El Duce, as he was known suppressed political diversity, harnessed economic efficiency, and soon, like the Japanese, pursued colonial inroads into Libya, and later the conquest of Ethiopia.

Germany soon flirted with its own style of fascism, with a meaner, violent credo. In a reaction to impossible debts, and national pride, Adolf Hitler, a feckless dreamer, stood on beer hall tables, and passionately spoke of national betrayal. Hitler revealed his malicious intentions by blaming Bolsheviks, Capitalists, and Jews for the hated Armistice of 1918, and war debt owed to the Allies.

Yet America, unlike the rest of the world, clung with all their might to the national system of Constitutional norms. At the same time Germany elected Hitler in 1932, the U.S. found their champion in Franklin Roosevelt. 

A popular Roosevelt Coalition steered the country through those hard years holding America together. FDR’s New Deal and Fireside Chats broadcasts kept at bay the fears of a nation. That’s not to say there weren’t kooks, to borrow Lindsay Graham’s phrase, but Americans faced the long haul together, believing better days had to be ahead.

The current President is no Franklin Roosevelt. And his autocratic tendencies, strongly echo those in the 1930’s.

In Project 2025 Trump aims to raise tariffs, shut down borders, all done to economically and politically isolate America. Using the same playbook of past despots specific groups are targeted as the problem. The guilty include immigrants, the LGBTQ community, liberals, educators, women, and the rule of law all in the crosshairs. All done to divert and distract while he lines his pockets.

And his tactics, so far have succeeded making half of the electorate real mean.

So, here is the question. Can America survive?

Can Americans remain bound to the framework of our 238 year old republic as it did in the Great Depression? Or will this nation forsake our financial, social, and political traditions and turn to petty retribution and scapegoating?

Will we, as a nation withdraw from the world and exchange our democracy for a strong man who insists he has all the answers?

The signs are clear. When this national crisis has passed will there be enough of us left who stood resolute for our democracy? That is the question of this historic moment. 

Gail Chumbley is a writer and history educator.

Inheritance

Harry Truman understood the gravity of his duty right off. When FDR died in April, 1945, the newly installed Vice President got the word he was now president. And what a Herculean task he had before him. A world war to end, conferences abroad, shaping a new post-war world, and grappling with the human rights horrors in both Europe and in the Pacific. Add to all of that, he alone could order use of the newly completed Atomic Bomb.

On his White House desk, President Truman placed a sign, “The Buck Stops Here.” With that mission statement Harry Truman stepped up to his responsibilities despite the formidable challenges he faced.

Did Truman inherit the worst set of circumstances of any new president? Maybe? But it is open to debate.

America’s fourth President, James Madison, found himself  in one god-awful mess. His predecessor, Thomas Jefferson had tanked the US economy by closing American ports to all English and French trade. Those two powerful rivals had been at war a long time, and made a practice of interfering with America’s neutrality and transatlantic shipping. Despite Jefferson’s actions the issue of seizing US ships and kidnapping sailors never stopped. By 1812 President Madison asked for a declaration of war against England that, in the end accomplished nothing but a burned out White House and defaced Capitol.

Following the lackluster administrations of Franklin Pierce, then James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln stepped into a firestorm of crisis. Divisions over the institution of slavery had reached critical mass, and Lincoln’s election was enough for Southern States to cut ties with the North. So hated was Lincoln, that his name did not appear on the ballot below the Mason-Dixon. And the fiery trial of war commenced.

The Election of 1932 became a referendum on Herbert Hoover, and the Republican presidents who had served since 1920. Poor Hoover happened to be in the White House when the economic music stopped, and the economy bottomed out. And that was that for Hoover. His name remained a pejorative until his death. 

Franklin Roosevelt prevailed that 1932 election, in fact won in a landslide victory. Somehow Roosevelt maintained his confident smile though he, too, faced one hell of a national disaster. 

In his inaugural address the new President reassured the public saying fear was all we had to fear. FDR then ordered a banking “holiday,” coating the dismal reality of bank failures in less menacing terms-a holiday. From his first hundred days the new President directed a bewildered Congress to approve his “New Deal.” 

The coming of the Second World War shifted domestic policies to foreign threats as the world fell into autocratic disarray. FDR shifted his attention to the coming war. When President Roosevelt died suddenly, poor Harry Truman was in the hot seat. But that is where I want to end the history lesson.

If any new President has had a disaster to confront, it is Joe Biden. Without fanfare or showboating Biden, too, has stepped up to the difficulties testing our nation. 

Much like Truman and Lincoln before, 46 is grappling with a world in chaos, and a divided people at home. In another ironic twist, like Madison, Biden witnessed, a second violent desecration of the US Capitol.

To his credit, though his predecessor left a long trail of rubble, Biden understands the traditional role of Chief Executive, while clearly many Americans have forgotten, or worse, rejected. Biden is addressing the issues testing our country, not only for those who elected him, but those who did not. An American President can do no less.

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. She has completed her second play, “Wolf By The Ears.”

gailchumbley@gmail.com

A Reasonable Man

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The Senator visualized a clear future for America; a nation of groomed roadways, busy canals, sturdy bridges, and mighty iron railways. He believed America, in order to mature into a truly great nation, required the best in structural innovation. Despite his noble intentions, this practical statesman faced an insurmountable barrier impeding his work–Andrew Jackson.

Henry Clay first arrived in Washington City as a green Kentucky Congressman in 1803. Serving in the House for three years, Clay eventually moved over to the Senate, appointed by the Kentucky legislature to fill an unexpected vacancy.

Early in his legislative career young Clay committed his fair share of blunders. A fierce booster for war in 1812, Clay worked with other young ‘ War Hawks,’ who favored this second brawl against Great Britain. However, by the end of that conflict, Clay realized this do-over against England had generated nothing of real substance.

Fully embracing this epiphany, the young Senator turned his efforts to building America from within. Clay devised a long-range program of development he called The American System. Components of his plan were three-fold: a strong protective tariff to nurture America’s fledgling industrial base, a Second Bank of the United States to administer federal funds, that in turn would underwrite his ‘internal improvements,” (infrastructure projects). For Henry Clay this three-tiered plan would provide the solid foundation a mighty nation-state needed to prosper. And the Senator enthusiastically advanced his crusade in the spirit of a secular evangelical.

Henry Clay’s progressive program found considerable support among his fellow legislators, so much so, The American System seemed on the brink success. 

Unfortunately for Clay, a dashing war hero rose to thwart his vision. Tennessean, Andrew Jackson, the victor of New Orleans, among other military escapades had set his sights on becoming president.

In the beginning Clay thought little of the uneducated, volatile militiaman, believing voters would not take this uncouth hellion seriously. But Clay misread public sentiment. Jackson’s popularity soared among all classes, particularly among poor whites. Jackson successfully won not only a first term, but enjoyed reelection four years later.

Most ominous for Henry Clay, this formidable president did not like him, not one little bit.

Very quickly Congressional appetite for public works dissolved. New Jacksonian supporters filled the House, and to a lesser degree the Senate, leaving Clay hard pressed to pass any of his program. In fact, Jackson made fast work on Clay’s earlier successes by killing the Second Bank of the US, and vetoing countless internal improvement projects. The only portion of the American System Jackson defended was the Tariff, and merely because a separate Jackson enemy threatened to ignore the law.

Henry Clay found himself fighting tooth and nail for every economic belief he championed. And the harder he pushed, the harder the mercurial man in the (White House) blocked him. 

The intractable issue of slavery soon dwarfed all other political and economic conflicts. Clay, a slave owner himself, preached gradual emancipation, finding enemies in both the North and South. Northerners hated him because he was a slave owner, and Southerners because he believed in emancipation. This guy couldn’t win.

Sadly, Senator Henry Clay did not live to see his American System become a reality. But there is a silver lining to this tale. Abraham Lincoln, a staunch Clay-ite shepherded passage of the Pacific Railways Act, the Morrill Act, and a National Banking Act through Congress. These three laws built the Transcontinental Railroad, Land Grant Universities in the west, and funding the Union war effort in the Civil War.

Oh, and Clay’s desire to emancipate slaves became a reality in 1863.

The moral of the story transcends time: America stalls when irrational politics displaces thoughtful, reasonable policies and the legislators who promote them.

Note-I have co-authored a new play celebrating the life of this remarkable, essential American simply titled “Clay.”

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, River of January and River of January: Figure Eight. Both are available on Kindle. Gail is the author of two stage plays, “Clay,” and “Wolf By The Ears.”

gailchumbley@gmail.com