Stumble It!Oct 15 2008
The Men from “Hope”
Economically turbulent times are good for American society.
There I said it.
I’m not talking about the high unemployment rates or the loss of capital, but about the direction American society heads.In 1819, riding high on the post-war economic boom, agricultural products were rated on what portion of what territory it was grown in. For instance, wheat grown in southeast Ohio was amongst the highest prices paid per bushel than anywhere else in the country. This boutique agricultural production kept pushing territorial boundaries westward ahead of the social stability of official police or even federal laws. This led to a spike in lawlessness on the frontiers where one settler fought wars against his neighbors - a literal, shooting war. The crash came toward the end of that year, causing land values to plummet and grain price to bottom out. Unemployment in Philadelphia - America’s grain exporting capital - surged to 50% or more (according to anecdotal evidence). The Panic of 1819 spurred Joseph Sill and his wife Jane to take up the burden of caring for the destitute. Mr. and Mrs. Sill also began to buck the trend in the Protestant work ethic of the time by suggesting that being poor is not a moral failing. Their efforts helped found numerous aid societies who say it as their Christian duty to aid those less fortunate than themselves.
The market crash of 1929 caused waves of suicide and unemployment of epic proportions all across the country and all across the world. Herbert Hoover, the infamous first-term President of the United States was slow to react, insisting that if Americans just worked harder, then the problem would right itself shortly. The hiccup in that theory is that Americans were working hard; harder than ever. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his campaign as the Democratic nominee, preached charity and hope. When veterans of World War One marched to Washington DC to demand their promised war bonuses, Herbert Hoover ordered the U.S. Army to disperse the “Hoverville” because demanding relief was “un-American.” The actions of Douglas MacArthur and George Patton in 1932 essentially handed the election to FDR.
!979’s election between the incumbent Jimmy Carter and Republican nominee Ronald Reagan focused on economics. Carter’s ill-chosen description of the receding economy would come back to haunt him. While Carter admonished the American populace for allowing a “malaise” to settle over their work ethic, Reagan fired back that he loved this country too much to let its greatness slip away. And the people believed in his message of hope and prosperity, handing him a landslide election in November.
Fast forward to 2008 and there are two messages which are becoming abundantly clear; voting for the idea of change, indeed the idea of hope, is not putting your country first. Throughout his campaign, Obama has seemingly learned from the precedent set by his predecessors; hope speaks to America when it is on the verge of cataclysm. There is nothing wrong with hope, he advocated. In fact he called it “audacious” in his memoir. America’s past has always been audacious - Immediately after the Revolutionary War, English merchants bet how long the United States of America would last, giving it less than a handful of year. Americans were audacious enough to prove them wrong. Spanish admirals and generals laughed at the farm boys that America had conscripted into its service before the invasion of Cuba and the Philippines saying that Americans were twisted and mal-formed because they were poorly fed and the descendants of the rejects of Europe. Theodore Roosevelt’s charge up Kettle Hill took them all by surprise and brought hope to a nation feeling the stirrings of national pride. Hitler referred to the United States as a nation of “mongrels” who were too stupid to be a threat. Today, al Qaeda talking heads laugh at the discomfiture of the West’s economics, saying that Americans and Europeans are fools and idiots.
It’s time to prove them wrong all over again. Go out and be audacious.
