Speaking of religious affiliation, by 2070, Christianity may represent less than 50% of the public. Pew Research first established a baseline view of current U.S. religious demographics. As of 2020, it is estimated that around 64% of Americans, both adults and children, are Christian, while the portion of those identifying as religious “nones” stands around 30%. The remaining 6% is made up of adherents of other faiths, including Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists. 

Much of Pew’s study revolves around the growing trend of “switching,” a term that refers to changing one’s religious affiliation. “Switching” refers to any change between the religion in which a person was raised and their religious identity as an adult, be it by conversion or faith abandonment. Pew uses the term for anyone who changes their religious identity, whether they are entering or leaving Christianity. 

Furthermore, Pew noted that the study did not seek to explain the rise of religious “nones,” but rather to analyze recent trends to predict how the U.S. religious landscape might change should they continue.  With that in mine, one can understand the fear of many Christians, especially Evangelical, white nationalists, who form the core of this issue of America of Christian nationalism.

Growing numbers of religious and political leaders are embracing the “Christian nationalist” label, and some dispute the idea that the country’s founders wanted a separation of church and state. On the other side of the debate, however, many Americans – including the leaders of many Christian churches – have pushed back against Christian nationalism, calling it a “danger” to the country. In fact, 15 of 16 of our Founding Fathers, hardly called themselves Christians.  Only John Jay was a religious Christian. Few believed in the core elements of Christianity: the Virgin Birth, the Trinity of the Resurrection.  For instance, many supporters of Christian nationhood define the concept in broad terms, as the idea that the country is guided by Christian values. Those who say the United States should not be a Christian nation, on the other hand, are much more inclined to define a Christian nation as one where the laws explicitly enshrine religious teachings.

Who were the Founding Fathers? American historian Richard B. Morris, (his son Donnie is a classmate of mine- MVHS/AB Davis-Class of 1963) in his 1973 book Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny: The Founding Fathers as Revolutionaries, identified the following seven figures as the “key” Founding Fathers:  John Adams, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison and George Washington.

Of these, only John Jay can be considered an orthodox Christian. As Congress’s Secretary for Foreign Affairs, he argued (unsuccessfully) for a prohibition forbidding Catholics from holding office. On October 12, 1816, Jay wrote, “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest, of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” It is John Jay that the modern Christians have in mind when they talk about the Founding Fathers. Luckily, for the rest of us, and all freedom-loving Americans, he was not in the majority.

With that in mind, none of the Founding Fathers were atheists. Most of the Founders were Deists, which is to say they thought the universe had a creator, but that he does not concern himself with the daily lives of humans, and does not directly communicate with humans, either by revelation or by sacred books. 

They spoke often of God, (Nature’s God or the God of Nature), but this was not the God of the bible. They did not deny that there was a person called Jesus, and praised him for his benevolent teachings, but they flatly denied his divinity. Some people speculate that if Charles Darwin had lived a century earlier, the Founding Fathers would have had a basis for accepting naturalistic origins of life, and they would have been atheists.  We’ll never know; but by reading their own writings, it’s clear that most of them were opposed to the bible, and the teachings of Christianity in particular.

Yes, there were Christian men among the Founders. Just as Congress removed Thomas Jefferson’s words that condemned the practice of slavery in the colonies, they also altered his wording regarding equal rights. His original wording is here in blue italics: “All men are created equal and independent. From that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable.”  Congress changed that phrase, increasing its religious overtones: “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.”  But we are not governed by the Declaration of Independence– it is a historical document, not a constitutional one.

One of the many attacks on our constitutional framework of government is from the Religious Right and their claim that our country is a Christian Nation…not just that the majority of people are Christians, but that the country itself was founded by Christians, for Christians. However, a little research into American history will show that this statement is a lie. Those people who spread this lie are known as Christian Revisionists. They are attempting to rewrite history, in much the same way as holocaust deniers are. But, in fact, the men responsible for building the foundation of the United States were men of The Enlightenment, not men of Christianity. They were Deists who did not believe the bible was true. They were Freethinkers who relied on their reason, not their faith. These men knew quite well the marriage of religion and the state, which dominated 18^th Century Europe. They were fearful of the church and for sure, an “established church!”

The Declaration of Independence gives us important insight into the opinions of the Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson wrote that the power of the government is derived from the governed. Up until that time, it was claimed that kings ruled nations by the authority of God. The Declaration was a radical departure from the idea that the power to rule over other people comes from god. It was a letter from the Colonies to the English King, stating their intentions to separate themselves. The Declaration is not a governing document. It mentions “Nature’s God” and “Divine Providence”– but as you will soon see, that’s the language of Deism, not Christianity.

If the U.S. was founded on the Christian religion, the Constitution would clearly say so–but it does not. Nowhere does the Constitution say: “The United States is a Christian Nation”, or anything even close to that. In fact, the words “Jesus Christ, Christianity, Bible, Creator, Divine, and God” are never mentioned in the Constitution– not even once. Nowhere in the Constitution is religion mentioned, except in exclusionary terms. When the Founders wrote the nation’s Constitution, they specified that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” (Article 6, section 3)   This provision was radical in its day– giving equal citizenship to believers and non-believers alike.  They wanted to ensure that no religion could make the claim of being the official, national religion, such as England had. 

The 1796 Treaty with Tripoli states that the United States was “not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”  This was not an idle statement meant to satisfy muslims– they believed it and meant it. This treaty was written under the presidency of George Washington and signed under the presidency of John Adams.

Still, aside from what really happened, most U.S. adults believe America’s founders intended the country to be a Christian nation, and many say they think it should be a Christian nation today, according to a new Pew Research Center survey designed to explore Americans’ views on the topic. But the survey also finds widely differing opinions about what it means to be a “Christian nation” and to support “Christian nationalism.” Despite our true history, overall, six-in-ten U.S. adults – including nearly seven-in-ten Christians – say they believe the founders “originally intended” for the U.S. to be a Christian nation. And 45% of U.S. adults – including about six-in-ten Christians – say they think the country “should be” a Christian nation. A third say the U.S. “is now” a Christian nation.

In the early years after the American Revolution, almost all states started to shift slowly toward state-controlled school systems. In 1779, Thomas Jefferson pushed to shift education in Virginia from private and church schools to a broad public system, arguing that new “kings, priests, and nobles” would arise if “we leave the people in ignorance.” But property taxes were still often controversial, and collection systems inadequate. In many states, growing urban centers led the way toward universal public schooling in the early nineteenth century. Many in rural farming areas had deemed formal education unnecessary, but as urban populations grew,

Of course, historically, the revision in thinking about our Founding and its religious heritage started with the Baptists in, and around, 1820. In those days, the United States was almost universally Protestant, with few Catholics, Jews and almost no Asians or Muslims. They had always controlled most of the schools (since the early days of the colonies) and they also controlled the narrative of our history and this dominance would continue, more or less, until the Great Immigration of 1848 to 1852. In those years there was our first massive immigration of mostly Catholics; Irish because of the Potato Famine and mostly German Catholics and liberals, reflective of the triumph of Bismarck and his policies of Kultur Kampf.

Because of this influx of Catholics, the Know Nothing Party, a nativist political group emerged in the United States in the 1850’s. The party was officially known as the “Native American Party” prior to 1855 and thereafter, it was simply known as the “American Party”. Members of the movement were required to say “I know nothing” whenever they were asked about its specifics by outsiders, providing the group with its colloquial name.

Supporters of the Know Nothing movement believed that an alleged “Romanist” conspiracy by Catholics to subvert civil and religious liberty in the United States was being hatched. Therefore, they sought to politically organize native-born Protestants in defense of their traditional religious and political values. The Know Nothing movement is remembered for this theme because Protestants feared that Catholic priests and bishops would control a large bloc of voters. In most places, the ideology and influence of the Know Nothing movement lasted only one or two years before it disintegrated due to weak and inexperienced local leaders, a lack of publicly proclaimed national leaders, and a deep split over the issue of slavery. In the South, the party did not emphasize anti-Catholicism as frequently as it emphasized it in the North and it stressed a neutral position on slavery, but it became the main alternative to the dominant Democratic Party.

Know Nothings are occasionally referred to as an anti-Semitic movement due to their zealous xenophobia and religious bigotry; however, the movement was not openly hostile towards Jews because its members and supporters believed that Jews did not allow “their religious feelings to interfere with their political views.”

The Know Nothing Party, prioritizing a zealous disdain for Irish Catholic immigrants, reportedly “had nothing to say about Jews”, according to historian Hasia Diner. In New York, the virulently anti-Catholic Know Nothings supported a Jewish candidate for governor.

Thus, after this influx of immigrants, the concern over the growth of slavery, reflective of the Great Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, the Baptists split between northern and southern conventions. As the country matured, local education governance and thus policies started to gravitate to the states, as opposed to the earlier control the Protestant Churches. Tax-funded schools were originally less popular outside of New England and in some places, colonists preferred schools sponsored by particular religions, such as the traditional Baptist controlled or Quaker or Catholic schools. Some also opposed the property taxes often used to fund schools, viewing them as infringing on property rights. In a sense, fear and paranoia among the majority Protestants is an age-old dynamic

Still, aside from what really happened, most U.S. adults believe America’s Founders intended the country to be a Christian nation, and many say they think it should be a Christian nation today, according to a new Pew Research Center survey designed to explore Americans’ views on the topic. But the survey also finds widely differing opinions about what it means to be a “Christian nation” and to support “Christian nationalism.” Despite our true history, overall, six-in-ten U.S. adults – including nearly seven-in-ten Christians – say they believe the founders “originally intended” for the U.S. to be a Christian nation. And 45% of U.S. adults – including about six-in-ten Christians – say they think the country “should be” a Christian nation. A third say the U.S. “is now” a Christian nation.

One of the many attacks on our country from the Religious Right is the claim that our country is a Christian Nation…not just that the majority of people are Christians, but that the country itself was founded by Christians, for Christians. However, a little research into American history will show that this statement is a lie. Those people who spread this lie are known as Christian Revisionists. They are attempting to rewrite history, in much the same way as holocaust deniers are. Interestingly, More than four in ten Americans (44%) identify as white Christian, including white evangelical Protestants (14%), white mainline (non-evangelical) Protestants (16%), and white Catholics (12%), as well as small percentages who identify as Latter-day Saint (Mormon), Jehovah’s Witness, and Orthodox Christian. As for white Protestants, who used to be over 98+% of the population in 1789 (aside from 8% of the country that were slaves, and only counted at 2/3rds), they represent 33% of all Americans.

PS: But stop and ask yourself: Was Christ really born on Christ-mas Day? After all, the Bible nowhere tells us the day of His birth. In fact, most credible secular historical writings tell us that Christmas, more than 200 years after Jesus’ death, was considered sinful: “As late as A.D. 245 [the early Catholic theologian] Origen . . . repudiates as sinful the very idea of keeping the birthday of Christ” (The Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, 1910, Vol. 6, p. 293, “Christmas”).

In A.D. 354, a Latin chronographer mentioned Christmas, but even then he did not write about it as an observed festival (ibid.). There is no biblical evidence that Dec. 25 was Jesus’ birth date. In fact, the Bible record strongly shows that Jesus must not have been born then.

For example, Luke tells us that the shepherds were keeping their sheep in the fields at night when Jesus was born. “And she [Mary] brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger . . . Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night” (Luke 2:7-8, emphasis added throughout).

But late December is Judea’s cold and rainy season. Would shepherds actually keep their fragile flocks out in the open fields on a cold late-December night near Bethlehem?

No responsible shepherd would subject his sheep to the elements at that time of year when cold rains, and occasional snow, are common in that region.

“The climate of Palestine is not so severe as the climate of this country is not as severe as Northern Europe or North America; but even there, though the heat of the day be considerable, the cold of the night, from December to February, is very piercing, and it was not the custom for the shepherds of Judea to watch their flocks in the open fields later than about the end of October” (Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, 1959, p. 91).

Luke also tells us that Jesus was born at the time of a census ordered by the Roman emperor (Luke 2:1-3). The Romans were brilliant administrators; they certainly would not have ordered people to journey to be registered at a time of year when roads would have been wet and muddy and traveling conditions miserable. Such a move would have been self-defeating on its face.

The belief that Jesus was born on or around Dec. 25 simply has no basis in fact, even if untold millions of people have accepted it without question. As the famous playwright George Bernard Shaw said, “If 50 million people believe a foolish thing, it’s still a foolish thing.”

If the Christmas holiday is an important celebration to honor the birth of Jesus Christ, why is it nowhere mentioned in the Bible? Why didn’t Christ instruct His closest followers, His 12 chosen apostles, to keep Christmas? Why didn’t they institute or teach it to the early Church?

Before you answer, consider that Jesus gave great authority to His 12 apostles, assuring them that they will hold positions of great importance and responsibility in His Kingdom (Matthew 18:18; 19:28; Luke 22:29-30). But since Jesus never taught His apostles to keep Christmas, nor did they ever teach it to the Church even though they had years of opportunity to do so, shouldn’t that make us question whether Christmas is something Jesus really wants or appreciates?

Most people never stop to ask themselves what the major symbols of Christmas—Santa Claus, reindeer, decorated trees, holly, mistletoe and the like—have to do with the birth of the Savior of mankind. In the southern hemisphere summer climate of December, few people question why they observe a Christmas with northern hemisphere winter scenery!

The fact is, and one can verify this in any number of books and encyclopedias, that all these trappings came from ancient pagan festivals. Even the date, Dec. 25, came from a festival celebrating the birthday of the ancient sun god Mithras.

AND: Meanwhile, Constantine, who was born in modern day Serbia, became Emperor of the western part of the Roman Empire in 306 CE, while serving his father’s military interests in York, England. There is much debate over why he became a Christian, and though it happened after his fortieth birthday, many attribute his conversion to his mother’s Christian worship. Christian persecution basically ended with the Edict of Milan in 313 CE and at the first ecumenical council held in Nicaea in 325 CE. He was considered the first Christian Emperor and founded Constantinople as the first Christian city. The Byzantine Empire considered him its follower and even the later Holy Roman Empire held that Constantine was to be considered one of its venerable forbearers. Therefore, with Constantine and his followers, the linkage between Christianity and the Roman Empire was set in stone. So the stage was set for the next 17 centuries where church and state would be married, for better, and often for worse. In the same way, the Middle East, that had at one time been called the cradle of civilization, eventually became the center of Muslim rule, as Mohammad (530-632 CE) and by his death he had conquered almost all of the Arabian peninsula. This rise in the power of the Moslem hegemony would become the most obvious case of the union between religion and the state.

In the early days of empire, from 750 CE onward, the Muslim world eventually stretched in the west from the city of Toledo in Spain, to Aswan on the Nile, to the horn of Africa, to the southern border of the Caspian Sea, and north to Samarkand, and east to the banks of the Indus. The Muslims gave greater freedoms to the Jewish population under their domination than had the Christians. In Toledo, the Jews opened their gates to welcome the Muslims as liberators. The Muslim conquerors never treated the Jews with the frequent massacres and expulsions that they had experienced under the rule of Christendom. But times eventually changed, and the intertwined and internecine religious aspects of Muslim rule started to turn with violence on other peoples under their domination. In 1066, more than five thousand Jews were murdered during Arab riots. In Fez, Morocco, in 1033, six thousand Jews were massacred. In Kairawan, in 1016 CE, now in modern Tunisia, the Jews were expelled. The remaining Jews of Tunis had a long history of persecution that started in the 1100’s that commenced with forced conversions. In Marakesh in 1232 CE thousands of Jews were massacred. Muslim Arabs in 637 CE conquered Jerusalem and between that early period and the Crusades their treatment of the Jews and other non-believers varied. Jews were caught between the competing interests of their Muslim rulers and the Christian onslaughts of the Crusades. In 1099 CE Jews took part in the defense of Jerusalem against the Crusaders, and the next year they helped defend Haifa. In the period from 1099 to 1291 the Christian Crusaders mercilessly persecuted and slaughtered the Jews of Palestine along with any Muslims they could defeat and capture. Interestingly when the Mameluks, who were also Muslim, ousted the Crusaders in 1291 CE, and ruled until 1516, Jewish settlement was encouraged. Jews sought refuge from anti-Semitic persecution in Europe during this period of Mameluk rule, and even after the Ottoman Turks conquered the area in 1517 CE, many European Jews sought sanctuary in places like Tiberius, Safed, Hebron, and Jerusalem. Obviously Jews had never abandoned the land that Moses was promised. Time and time again Jews filtered back into what we know today as Israel.

This marriage of church and state would thrive in Europe and with the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither holy nor Roman. It was centered in modern Germany and established in 814 CE, after Charlemagne’s death. The title of Emperor (Imperator) carried the dual role as the secular leader and that of the protector of the Catholic Church.  Emperors were ordained as sub deacons in the Roman Catholic Church, and eventually this dualism would lead to direct conflict with the rise of the power of the Papacy during the Middle Ages. It would come to a peak in the 11^th Century with the Investiture Controversy between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. The pope had excommunicated Henry over his convening of the National Council at Worms, Germany. This conflict arose over Henry’s dissatisfaction regarding the activity of Catholic Bishops and the internal struggle within Germany over the legitimacy of Hildebrand’s succession to the throne of Saint Peter in the name of Gregory VII.

Virgin Birth, doctrine of traditional Christianity that Jesus Christ had no natural father but was conceived by Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit. The doctrine that Mary was the sole natural parent of Jesus is based on the infancy narratives contained in the Gospel accounts of Matthew and Luke. It was universally accepted in the Christian church by the 2nd century, was enshrined in the Apostles’ Creed, and, except for several minor sects, was not seriously challenged until the rise of Enlightenment theology in the 18th century. It remains a basic article of belief in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and most Protestant churches. Muslims also accept the Virgin Birth of Jesus.

A corollary that has been deduced from the doctrine of Mary’s virginity in the conception of Jesus is the doctrine of her perpetual virginity, not only in conception but in the birth of the child (i.e., she was exempt from the pain of childbirth) and throughout her life. This doctrine is found in the writings of the Church Fathers and was accepted by the Council of Chalcedon (451). It is part of the teaching of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Protestantism has generally accepted the Virgin Birth but not the notion of perpetual virginity, often citing a literal understanding of the brothers and sisters of Jesus mentioned in Mark 6:2 and Matthew 13:55.

Matthew 1:18-25 – Joseph and the Virgin Birth

The two places in the New Testament that speak about the virgin birth display a remarkable difference. Comparison of the stories recorded in Matthew 1 and in Luke 1 brings to light that they focus on different persons. Luke describes the events through the eyes of Mary. An angel appeared to her and told her that she would have a son (Luke 1:31). Matthew, on the other hand, describes the events as Joseph experienced them. ¹  An angel appeared to him in a dream to give him instructions. Even the birth of Jesus is described from Joseph’s perspective: “He had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave Him the name Jesus” (Matthew 1:25).

What is Matthew’s purpose in focusing on Joseph? Is Joseph here described as a faith hero, a role model for Christian behaviour? This is of great importance for our understanding and use of this story. If Joseph is portrayed as a faith hero, then we should concentrate on Joseph as an example and try to become as faithful in our situation as Joseph was in his. On the other hand, if it is not Matthew’s intention to show Joseph as a hero of the faith, why does he concentrate on him? Matthew even records Joseph’s thoughts. We have to follow closely Matthew’s description to see what he wants us to learn from these events.

Joseph Excluded⤒🔗

To understand the events we have to realize first of all that Joseph and Mary were already married at the time. The expression “betrothed” used by the RSV may give us today a different impression, just as the expression of the NIV: “pledged to be married.” Matthew makes it very clear in this passage, however, that they were married. He calls Joseph “her husband” (1:19) and Mary “his wife” (1:20, 24). That Joseph considers divorce (1:19) puts it beyond doubt that Joseph and Mary were man and wife.

The situation described here was common in Israel but is no longer known in our Western world. When a marriage contract has been made between two parties, the boy and the girl were considered to be married before the law. Such contracts could be made when the girl was still young, possibly not older than twelve years old. A number of years would go by before the lawful husband would bring his wife to his house and they would live together. They were considered man and wife, however, from the moment the marriage contract was signed.

That is the situation between Joseph and Mary, as described in Matthew1:18. It was during this period that it became apparent that Mary was expecting a child. Matthew uses an uncommon expression: “She was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.” At first glance, this may give the impression that other people began to notice that Mary was pregnant. The difficulty is, however, that other people may have noticed that Mary was expecting, but they could not know that she was pregnant through the working of the Holy Spirit.² There is only one who could notice the pregnancy and at the same time know that it was the work of the Holy Spirit: Mary herself.

Matthew’s story, however, does not focus on Mary and her predicament, but on Joseph. Matthew implies that Mary told him that she was expecting a child. Did she also tell him that this was the direct result of the working of the Holy Spirit? There are two details in the story indicating that she did. There is in the first place the fact that Joseph considers to divorce her quietly. If he thought she had committed adultery, there would be no reason for him to leave her quietly. Joseph was planning effectively to divorce her, but not in such a way that she would be put to shame. This implies that he did not think Mary had done something dishonourable. In the second place, when the angel encourages him to bring Mary to his house, he makes the strange remark: “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary, your wife.” Joseph, obviously, was not angry at Mary or disappointed in her, he was afraid. Joseph, then, was aware that the Holy Spirit had required Mary for the important task of bearing a special child, and he did not dare to press his marital right.

In this situation where his rights had been overruled by the Holy Spirit, Joseph was looking for an honourable way out. He could have gone to the judges and received an official divorce on the basis of Mary’s pregnancy before she began living with him. Such a course of action, however, would expose Mary as an adulteress in the view of people. Or he could give her a private letter of divorce. In that case, Mary would be clear in the public eye, but the blame would be laid on Joseph for leaving his young wife. And only Mary would have the proof that he had divorced her and that she was free from him.

The end result would be that Joseph would lose his wife Mary. Joseph was willing to bring this sacrifice, since God had clearly shown that He needed Mary for his purposes. That brings us back to denied. He was willing to do something that was both painful and shameful for him. Even if it was an arranged marriage, we should not suppose that he did not love her. Moreover, the way Joseph planned the divorce meant that he would end up bearing the blame for leaving his wife. And yet Joseph went ahead and gave Mary her freedom. Joseph’s faith proved to be strong.

But we should also consider another question: Does Matthew in his description of Joseph portray him as a faith hero? Honest reading of the text shows that is not the case. To give an example, Matthew does not write at the beginning of 1:20: “As Joseph was agonizing about this…” Any feelings Joseph may have had are not described. His disappointment, his uncertainty, or his grieving over the end of a marriage before they had begun to enjoy it, none of this is mentioned. The spotlight is not on Joseph and on his experiences and emotions.

Although the event is viewed from the position of Joseph, it focuses on someone else, as the very beginning of this passage indicates: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.” Matthew is not so much describing how Joseph was tested in his faith and overcame the temptation, he is recounting the story of Jesus Christ’s birth.

The point of the story is to prove beyond doubt that Joseph is not the father of Jesus. Jesus is truly born out of Mary, but Mary’s husband before the law, Joseph, is not his father. No human agency could bring the Christ into this world, not even the righteous Joseph. Jesus the Saviour came into this world through a divine miracle, through the extraordinary work of the Spirit of God. Joseph is not described as a faith hero, he is described as being excluded.

That affects all of us. We need a Saviour, but He cannot come into this world through our effort. We are sinners and we cannot contribute anything to our salvation. Our Saviour had to come into this world through the Holy Spirit. Our salvation is from beginning to end the work of God. That pattern is visible here, at the very beginning of the life of the Saviour. Even the righteous Joseph (1:19) had to be excluded. Joseph is not an example for us as a faith hero, rather the exclusion of the faithful Joseph in the virgin birth is the living proof that we cannot contribute to our salvation.

Joseph Involved

While Joseph was considering secret divorce, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. He was commanded not to leave Mary but to take Mary to his home. The first, legal part of their marriage should now be followed by the second, personal part. Mary should leave her parents’ home and move in with Joseph, her husband.

As a result, Mary’s child will be born in Joseph’s house. Joseph has to accept her son as his own son, and he must assume responsibility for him. Although the boy is not Joseph’s son, he must receive the place of Joseph’s firstborn.

The angel mentions yet another task for Joseph to fulfil: he has to call the child “Jesus.” We need not now go into the meaning of this name, although the angel indicates that the meaning is important. The issue is that Mary should not name her son, but Joseph has to give this name to the boy. This underlines that Joseph publicly adopts Mary’s son as his son.

Joseph faithfully follows the two instructions given by the angel. He brought his wife home, although he did not live with her (1:24). This was not something expressly commanded by the angel. Moreover, when Mary gave birth to her son, Joseph called him Jesus.

Again we are confronted with the question whether Joseph shows himself to be a faith hero. If faith is to accept what God has said, and to act accordingly, then Joseph undoubtedly proves to be a believer. Yet it is difficult to judge how much heroism there was in his behavior. Was it a struggle for Joseph to follow the command of the angel, or was he glad, at any rate, that he could marry Mary? What did he think and how did he feel? We have no way of knowing since the Bible does not give us insight into the struggles and triumphs of Joseph. The Bible appears to be focused on a different, far more factual aspect.

This is indicated in the way the angel addresses Joseph as “son of David” (1:20). David was Israel’s great king. In the genealogy with which the gospel of Matthew begins, Jesus Christ is right away presented as “Jesus Christ, the son of David” (1:1). Later, David is called the king (1:6). Jesus, as the adopted son of Joseph, is legally included in the royal line. He is the great king promised to the house of David (Isaiah 9).

David’s line, however, had gone into decline, not long after David. Eventually, his offspring had become unknown and unimportant figures during the Babylonian captivity. Rather than producing a new king, David’s line had fizzled out. The final proof that the promised king could not come from David is the virgin birth itself. Only through an adoption by Joseph could the Saviour become the legal heir to David’s throne.

To be sure, Joseph had to act in faith to make this possible. But the emphasis in this section is not on the faith of Joseph but on the faithfulness of God. God had given great promises to the house of David; history had made it painfully clear that David’s house could not make these promises come true. Then God remembered His promises and addressed Joseph, an unknown son of David. He sent an angel to order Joseph to bring Mary into his house and to adopt Mary’s son. In this extraordinary way, God made all his promises come true.

The story of the virgin birth in Matthew does encourage us to live in faith. It does not, however, do that by holding out Joseph as a good example of a faith hero. Rather, it does this by showing us God fulfilling His word. Joseph’s example would not help us much, since we do not know his struggles and triumphs. It is God’s work here that is the real reason for us to live in faith. When we meditate on how much God did for us in the virgin birth, we will learn to trust Him to continue His salvation work today in us.

“The Berlin Mission” by Richard Breitman is the very interesting story of the American Raymond Geist, (1885-1955) who was born in America to German immigrants. Geist attended Oberlin, and Case Western Reserve Colleges and received his law degree from Harvard University. He entered the Foreign Service and being fluent in a number of languages, especially German. He was assigned to the level of Counsel at the American Embassy in Berlin in 1929. He would serve there until 1939, during some of the most demanding years one could imagine. He basically dealt with enabling American Jews, who were being persecuted In Germany to get out of detention or prison and return home. He also had to deal with the myriad of problems facing the 500,000+ Jews living in Germany at the time of the ascension of Hitler and his Nazi Gang to power. In 1933.  These problems are well-documented. He also was able to enable the immigration of Albert Einstein and his wife, despite governmental harassment, road blocks and problems with American visas.

In 1921, the new US immigration Act was based on the 1910 census, reflective of the population in America. This created a quota system based on National Origin. The basis of that law was to definitively limit immigration of Jews, among others from Eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean Basin.  Raymond Geist was first interviewed by Wilbur Carr regarding his entry into the diplomatic service in 1921. Carr, regarded Jews in a pseudo-scientific doctrine of the hierarchy of races and Jews were determined to be a lower group. In his testimony before the House Immigration Committee, drafting the 1921 bill, Carr singled out Eastern European Jews as a “filthy, un-American and often dangerous in their beliefs.” He stated that they were “economically and socially undesirable, abnormally twisted and inclined to be agitators.”  This was not an unusual belief in America, nor in the State Department of that era.

In the 1921 bill, which reduced Jewish immigration because of a very low quota for immigrants from Eastern Europe, it did allow for a quota of over 51,000 from Germany, which had a population of 500,000 Jews.

Three years later, the new 1924 Immigration Law, known as the Reed-Johnson Act, which lasted until the 1950s, reduced the annual immigration from Europe to 153,774 and based the National Origins on the 1890 census, which was before the huge Eastern European immigration that existed up until 1920. The new German quota was cut virtually in half to 25,957, and allowed only 10,000 from Russia, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia and Yugoslavia. The law did allow some exceptions that were outside the quota: relatives of US citizens, ministers, professors, etc. In 1930, amidst American’s deteriorating economic conditions and a general climate of hysteria regarding foreigners, President Herbert Hoover asked the Cabinet how to reduce immigration radically without going to Congress. Wilbur Carr, now an Assistant Secretary of State, recommended a provision in the Immigration Act of 1917, banning anyone, “likely to be a public charge.” From 1929 until June of 1930, the annual German Quota was filled. But, after the new instructions in September, the month quota numbers dropped significantly. By the end of the fiscal year (June 1931) fewer than 10,000 visas for Germany were issued.  Hoover demanded fewer to be issued. Thus, in the fiscal year ended in June, 1932, only 2068 individuals received visas under the German quota of over 25,000, less than 10%. Many of these were for people whose relatives were living in the United States. The State Department that was inherited by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in March of 1933, was basically staffed by career officers, who had been appointed under the previous twelve years of three Republican, isolationist and anti-immigrant Presidents; Harding, Coolidge and Hoover. Also, let us not forget, that most Americans were anti-immigration, and the American Labor movement, a key element in the new Roosevelt Coalition was assuredly anti-immigrant during the depths of the Great Depression when one-third of all American workers were unemployed.

After Hitler attained supreme power in 1934, the fate of the Jews of Germany was basically sealed. But, in between 1933 and 1935, there were all sorts of twists and turns regarding the Jews, the fate of the SA and their leader Ernst Rohm, violence in the streets and the Nuremberg Laws which would legally insure the end of Jewry in Germany.

In this early period, the new US Ambassador to Germany, William E. Dodd, who was basically an anti-Semite, was not prepared for the job for which he was appointed. Before his departure, Dodd’s old friend Carl Sandburg told him he needed “to find out what this man Hitler is made of, what makes his brain go round, what his blood and bones are made of” and still “be brave and truthful, keep your poetry and integrity.” He expected to finish his multi-volume history of the American South. Also, before he left for Germany, Dodd met with members of the Jewish-American community, including Stephen S. Wise and Felix Warburg, who asked him to seek a reversal of the Nazis’ repressive anti-Jewish policies. Dodd promised he would “exert all possible personal influence against unjust treatment” of German Jews, but not in his official capacity.

President Roosevelt advised him on June 16, 1933:

The German authorities are treating Jews shamefully and the Jews in this country are greatly excited. But this is also not a government affair. We can do nothing except for American citizens who happen to be made victims. We must protect them, and whatever we can do to moderate the general persecution by unofficial and personal influence ought to be done.

(Of course, there were few reliable reports that were really believable in June of 1933. Hitler would not gain absolute power until the basic dissolution of their parliament, the Reichstag, the ending of the freedom of the press and the death of President Paul von Hindenburg. During 1933 and 1934, Hitler was very aware that Hindenburg was the only check on his power. With the passage of the Enabling Act and the banning of all parties except the Nazis, Hindenburg’s power to sack the chancellor was the only means by which Hitler could be legally removed from office. Given that Hindenburg was still a popular war hero and a revered figure in the Reichswehr “Army,” there was little doubt that the Reichswehr would side with Hindenburg if he ever decided to sack Hitler. Hindenburg remained in office until his death at the age of 86 from lung cancer at his home in Neudeck, East Prussia, on 2 August 1934. The day before, Hitler received word that Hindenburg was on his deathbed. He then had the cabinet pass the “Law Concerning the Highest State Office of the Reich,” which stipulated that upon Hindenburg’s death, the office of president would be abolished and its powers merged with those of the chancellor under the title of Führer und Reichskanzler (Leader and Chancellor of the Reich) )

Edward M. House, a veteran in Democratic Party circles since the Wilson administration, told Dodd that he should do what he could “to ameliorate Jewish sufferings,” but cautioned, “The Jews should not be allowed to dominate economic or intellectual life in Berlin as they have done for a long time.” Dodd shared House’s views and wrote in his diary that “The Jews had held a great many more of the key positions in Germany than their numbers or talents entitled them to.” 

 He left for Germany on July 5, 1933, accompanied by his wife and two adult children. Once in Germany, he eventually had his one and only meeting with Hitler. Based on his view of the proper role of Jews in society, he advised Hitler that Jewish influence should be restrained in Germany as it was in the United States. “I explained to him [Hitler],” wrote Dodd, “that where a question of over-activity of Jews in university or official life made trouble, we had managed to redistribute the offices in such a way as to not give great offense.” Hitler ignored Dodd’s advice and responded that “if they [the Jews] continue their activity we shall make a complete end of them in this country.”

Though he was alarmed by Hitler’s bombast, he not only failed to impress upon Hitler the vast power of America, nor understood the real, unremitting threat to Germany’s Jews. He never really understood what the Nazis were about, He assumed that they may even be overthrown and he never reported enough of what was going in Germany to the American State Department. His report to Secretary of State Cordell Hull never revealed the potential threat and danger of the Nazi regime.

Of course, Geist would continue doing remarkable work for American citizens, Jewish and non-Jewish, who either were traveling in Germany, living in Germany or involved with business in Germany. He also dealt with the Nazi High Command, especially Himmler, Werner Best and others, regarding the continual demand for visas for Jews to escape Germany, the treatment of German Jews and American citizens. Most interesting was the almost confused policy on Jews which often changed on a day by day policy with regards to their immediate future. Geist’s activity and struggles would continue through the absorption of Austria; the Anschluss, the Western allies capitulation regarding the Sudetenland, the bloodless conquering of the remainder of Czechoslovakia, and Kristallnacht. No matter what Geist and the new American Ambassador, Hugh R. Wilson did, after Ambassador Dodd became persona non-grata in 1937, nothing in Germany would improve for Jews or anyone else who questioned the authority of Hitler and the Nazis.

But, eventually more visas were issued in Germany, more openings were filled in the German quota and changes in the State Department, the improved economic conditions in America and the realization from President Roosevelt that more had to be done about the German-Jewish refugee crisis, along with the threat of Germany to world peace were actuated by 1937 through late 1938. During this period Raymond Geist became the greatest authority for America on what Nazi Germany was all about. He became an invaluable source of information regarding Germany’s march to war. Where many others in the State Department and elsewhere, like Charles Lindbergh and the isolationists of the American First Movement downplayed the threats of Germany to Europe and to the security of the United States, Geist did not. The people around Geist knew that not only was his information on the Nazis correct, but his analysis of their plans was 100% on target.

Once back in the United States, after the outbreak of WWII, Geist became one of our greatest assets regarding what was happening in Germany. He had a very prescient sense of the future actions of Hitler and his collection of rivalrous Nazis. In the years after his return, he began to speak at various meetings around the country, especially on German propaganda. Also remember, before the war, there was great internal debate over the effect of anti-German stories regarding the treatment of Jews. In other words, criticizing the Nazis and their anti-Semitic acts, seem to have little salutary effect, but often made conditions a lot worse.

One of his most important speeches was delivered in May of 1942, when we were now in the war. His talk was given to National Conference of Christians and Jews. He spoke of the “Special German Path,” of development which allowed Hitler to gain widespread obedience amongst the German populace. Geist praised the antecedents of rational enlightened civilization from ancient Athens to the Magna Carta. Germany had ignored them. He also added the “Four Freedoms,” which President Roosevelt had proclaimed as incontestable rights of mankind, which were denied to the Germans.

Of course, he was able to personally meet with President Roosevelt and articulated his views which were quite informative and revelatory. The war would take its course, Geist’s career continued, but he was never able to go back to post-war Germany as a member of the Foreign Service. His life and efforts have been basically forgotten, but his story is an important one that should remembered by the many he helped and their descendants. 

I am re-reading the 1948 Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Roosevelt and Hopkins,” by Robert Sherwood, four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author, screen writer, playwright, poet, critic and speechwriter in the last years of the late President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Sherwood received Pulitzer Prizes for Drama (1936, 1939, 1941), Academy Award for Best Screenplay (1947) and Pulitzer Prize for Biography (1948) for “Roosevelt and Hopkins.”

This book is one of a series of remarkable and personal accounts from people who knew and worked with FDR. Another contemporary account is “Working with Roosevelt,” (1952), by Samuel I. Rosenman, (1896-1973)- who was a senior advisor to presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, He was also the first official White House Counsel, then called Special Counsel, between 1943 and 1946. Rosenman edited “The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt,” published in 13 volumes from 1938 to 1950. He received his Law Degree from Columbia University. Served as a Justice of the NY State Supreme Court. His granddaughter is the wife of Attorney-General Merritt Garland.

Another notable firsthand account was the three volumes of, “The Secret Diary of Harold Ickes,” (1950-2) written by FDR’s Secretary of Interior, Harold L. Ickes (1874-1952.) Ickes was a graduate of the University of Chicago, where he received his BA and LLB. He is the father of Harold M. Ickes, who was the Deputy Chief of Staff for President Bill Clinton, 1993-7.

The last of these remarkable, accounts was from the unfinished writings of the late Supreme Court Justice, Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) which was written in the early 1950’s, before his untimely death in 1954., In the remarkable book, “That Man,” published in 2004, fifty years after his death, Justice Jackson offers an intimate, personal portrait of Roosevelt–on fishing trips, in late-night poker games, or approving legislation while eating breakfast in bed, where he routinely began his workday. We meet a president who is far-sighted but nimble in attacking the problems at hand; principled but flexible; charismatic and popular but unafraid to pick fights, take stands, and when necessary, make enemies. “That Man” is not simply a valuable historical document, but an engaging and insightful look at one of the most remarkable men in American history. In reading this memoir, we gain not only a new appreciation for Roosevelt, but also admiration for Jackson, who emerges as both a public servant of great integrity and skill and a wry, shrewd, and fair-minded observer of politics at the highest level.

Of course, there were many other intimates of FDR, including Louis McHenry Howe, Marguerite “Missy” Le Hand, Frances Perkins, Henry Morgenthau, Daisy Suckley, Benjamin V. Cohen, Thomas Corcoran, Edward Flynn, James Farley, Basil O’Connor his law partner, members of the Brain Trust; Raymond Moley, Adolph Berle, Rexford Tugwell, along with Henry A. Wallace and John Garner, his first two Vice –Presidents. A number of them wrote books about their time with FDR and others did not.

But, of course, the story of Hopkins and his unique relationship with Roosevelt, is told eloquently, by Robert Sherwood (1896-1955), who knew and worked with them both. Hopkins became an American statesman, an unprecedented public administrator, and finally a presidential advisor. He was the most trusted deputy to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt  during WWII.

Hopkins was a unique individual, who was born in Grinell, Iowa, in 1892, where he graduated from Grinnell College. His career before being hired by the then Governor of NY, Franklin Roosevelt, was not only extensive, but remarkable.

Hopkins settled in New York City after he graduated from Grinnell College. He accepted a position in New York City’s Bureau of Child Welfare and worked for various social work and public health organizations. Hopkins moved to New Orleans where he worked for the American Red Cross as director of Civilian Relief, Gulf Division. Eventually, the Gulf Division of the Red Cross merged with the Southwestern Division and Hopkins, headquartered now in Atlanta, was appointed general manager in 1921. He was elected president of the National Association of Social Workers in 1923. In 1931, New York Temporary Emergency Relief Administration chairman Jesse I. Straus hired Hopkins as the agency’s executive director. His successful leadership of the program earned the attention of then-New York Governor Roosevelt, who brought Hopkins into his federal administration after he won the 1932 presidential election.

Before the war, Hopkins directed New Deal relief programs before serving as the 8th United States Secretary of Commerce from 1938 to 1940 and as Roosevelt’s chief foreign policy advisor and liaison to Allied leaders during World War II. During his career  in Washington, Hopkins supervised the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), the Civil Works Administration (CWA), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which he built into the largest employer in the United States.

His philosophy on the unemployed is reflected in these words: “Three or four million heads of households don’t turn into tramps and cheats overnight, nor do they lose the habits and standards of a lifetime… They don’t drink any more than the rest of us, they don’t lie any more, and they are no lazier than the rest of us…. An eighth or a tenth of the earning population does not change its character which has been generations in the molding, or, if such a change actually occurs, we can scarcely charge it up to personal sin.

The things they have actually accomplished all over America should be an inspiration to every reasonable person and an everlasting answer to all the grievous insults that have been heaped on the heads of the unemployed.”

Hopkins was not afraid to express his strong opinions. He reflected his concern for the poor in testimony in front of a Senate committee. He said: “People don’t eat in the long run – they eat every day.” He also stated, “That the Constitution means nothing to a starving man!” This reflects his character as much as anything else he said or did! He was accused most famously for this oft-quoted remark!

“We shall tax and tax, and spend and spend, and elect and elect!” This was first published by Frank Kent, and then by Joseph Alsop and Robert Kintner in their syndicated column as well as Arthur Krock in the New York Times. Hopkins denied he ever said that and denied “the whole works and the whole implication of it.” Later, under oath, Krock admitted that he had not interviewed any eye witnesses to the conversation.

Years later, the quote was attributed to Max Gordon, a successful Broadway producer, who had met Hopkins at the Empire City Raceway one summer’s afternoon. Also present were Heywood Broun and Daniel Arnstein. Both of them reported their version of the momentous conversation, which was extremely offhand and somewhat bored on Hopkins’ part. Neither recalled that he had made that famous, or infamous statement. According to Max Gordon’s recollection of the racetrack conversation, even though Hopkins didn’t actually say those precise words, “That’s what he meant!” That baseless canard would follow Hopkins and cause a great deal of wear and tear on him, but by 1940, more critical world events would intervene and he much more problems to deal with.

Hopkins had made many, many enemies in Washington with both anti-New Deal Republicans and conservative Democrats. He was a driven and dedicated man, who ruffled many feathers, cut through “red tape” and the bureaucracy that dominated Washington for endless years.

Later, in the days before we entered World War II, he oversaw the $50 billion Lend-Lease program of military aid to the Allies and, as Roosevelt’s personal envoy, played a pivotal role in shaping the alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom.

Hopkins enjoyed close relationships with President Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and was considered a potential successor to the president until the late 1930s, when his health began to decline due to a long-running battle with stomach cancer.

As Roosevelt’s closest confidant, Hopkins assumed a leading foreign policy role after the outset of World War II. From 1940 until 1943, Hopkins lived in the White House and assisted the president in the management of American foreign policy, particularly toward the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. He traveled frequently to the United Kingdom, who’s prime minister, Winston Churchill, recalled Hopkins in his memoirs as a “natural leader of men” with “a flaming soul.”

Hopkins, who was noticeably ill during a visit with the president in May 1940, spent the night in a White House suite. At one time President Abraham Lincoln’s study, the suite was just down the hall from Roosevelt’s room. Hopkins lived there for the next three and a half years. When he married for the third time in July 1942, his wife, Louise, joined him and his daughter Diana in the White House. The family remained there until December 1943, when Harry rented a house in nearby Georgetown. Other members of Roosevelt’s circle, such as Rexford Tugwell and Henry Morgenthau, came to accept Hopkins’ closeness to the president as a fact of Washington life. Not everyone, however, was happy with the arrangement. Harold Ickes resented Hopkins’ insider role, and the two remained at odds for years. “I do not like him,” Ickes once noted in his diary, “and I do not like the influence that he has with the president.” Wendell Willkie, Roosevelt’s opponent in the 1940 presidential campaign, asked Roosevelt why he placed such faith in Hopkins when he knew that others resented it. The president told Willkie that if he ever became president, “You’ll learn what a lonely job this is, and you’ll discover the need for someone like Harry Hopkins who asks for nothing except to serve you.”

Winston Churchill’s initial reaction upon receiving word of Hopkins’ impending visit was, “Who?” When the tall, lean American arrived in London, however, he quickly impressed Churchill with his forthrightness. British officials who were initially taken aback by Hopkins’ rumpled appearance soon accepted him as he was. He seemed to the British to be the stereotypical American: confident, secure, and oblivious to formality. Sherwood wrote that “Hopkins naturally and easily conformed to the essential Benjamin Franklin tradition of American diplomacy, acting on the conviction that when an American representative approaches his opposite numbers in friendly countries with the standard striped-pants frigidity, the strict observance of protocol and amenities, and a studied air of lip-curling, he is not really representing America—not, at any rate, the America of which FDR was President.”

Hopkins’ visit heartened British citizens, who saw his presence as a sign of forthcoming U.S. help. Churchill confidante Brendan Bracken told the prime minister’s secretary, John Colville, that Hopkins “was the most important American visitor to this country we had ever had . . . . He could influence the president more than any living man.”

For his part, Hopkins was struck by the spirit of the British people. At a dinner given by newspaper magnate and Minister of Aircraft Production Lord Beaverbrook, Hopkins addressed the press. He described the feelings he experienced while visiting Britain’s blitzed cities and spoke of the affection and admiration that Roosevelt had for Britain. Beaverbrook later wrote that Hopkins’ ”speech left us feeling that although America was not yet in the war, she was marching beside us, and that should we stumble she would see that the President and the men about him blazed with faith in the future of Democracy.”

Scheduled for two weeks, Hopkins’ visit ended up lasting nearly six. Staying at the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street, Hopkins met with government officials, business leaders, and many others, trying to assess what kind of assistance Britain needed. He toured industrial sites and shipyards, witnessed bomb damage firsthand, and was impressed with Britain’s resolve to fight. Churchill affectionately dubbed him “Lord Root of the Matter” for his ability to quickly get to the heart of problems.

Hopkins attended the major conferences of the Allied powers, including the Cairo Conference (November 1943), the Tehran Conference (November–December 1943), the Casablanca Conference (January 1943), and the Yalta Conference (February 1945)

In May of 1945, Hopkins wrote Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall that he was leaving government. Marshall replied:

You have literally given of your physical strength during the past three years to a degree that has been, in my opinion, heroic and will never be appreciated except by your intimates. For myself, I wish to tell you this, that you personally have been of invaluable service to me in the discharge of my duties in this war,. Time after time you have done for me things I was finding exceedingly difficult to do for myself and always in matters of the gravest import. You have been utterly selfless as well as courageous and purely objective in your contribution to the war effort.

This was high praise from one of the most honored and respected Americans of the Second World War and the Twentieth Century. Also, let us not forget, Marshall was not a liberal, certainly wasn’t a New Dealer or even a supporter of FDR. In fact, he and the president were on the most formal of terms. With all that said, Hopkins was the symbol of the New deal and its most ardent supporter. But, once when national defense became out most critical issue and the war reached America, Hopkins was its greatest civilian asset.

He served the Nation and the President almost to the end. His last trip was to Moscow and after that there was little life left in him. In the words of Sherwood, “Hopkins, in the end, took with him the knowledge that there were very few men who ever lived who were as fortunate as he in the possession of such enemies and such friends.”  His health continued to decline, and he died in 1946 at the age of 55.

 Epilogue I: I was reminded of the story of Harry Hopkins’ son Robert. In his book “Witness to History,” Castle Pacific, 2002. Bob Hopkins, who was a combat US Army photographer during WWII, told some amazing stories about his adventures covering some of the great events in history. After enlisting in the Army on October 7, 1941, he was assigned to Fort Dix.  On November 29^th, he received his first pass and he arranged with his father to spend it at the White House. With only $1.50 he hitchhiked to Washington in the rain. He arrived at the White House soaking wet, was ordered to take a bath by his father and after Arthur Prettyman, FDR’s valet ironed his soaking wet uniform dry, he joined Missy Le Hand, his father and the President for the usual round of martinis. After dinner, and a great deal of talk and laughter he realized it was after midnight and he had to get back to Fort Dix before reveille. He knew he couldn’t get there if he hitchhiked back so he asked his father if he could lend him five dollars for the bus. The President’s chief aide, and a cabinet member, Mr. Harry Hopkins, said he did not have it! The President said, “I’ll lend you five dollars.” Of course young Hopkins said he couldn’t possibly take it. The President insisted. Then, taking a card bearing the Presidential seal embossed in gold from a nearby table he said, “Let me give you this in case you don’t arrive on time for reveille.”

November 30, 1941

To Whom it May Concern:

Private Robert Hopkins is to be excused from reveille. He has been in consultation with the Commander-in-Chief.-signed Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Another son of Harry Hopkins was Steven, who was a US Marine PFC. He was killed in the Marshall Islands at the age of 18.

On the night of February 1, 1944. After a full day of fighting, during which he saved the lives of several comrades by shooting an enemy with a grenade, Hopkins was ordered to accompany his squad forward of the lines to set up a firing position. Nobody could see much in the dark, and a sound ahead warned of trouble. As Hopkins tried to bring his carbine to bear on the sound, a bullet struck him in the head. He died of his wounds the following morning, and was buried at sea from a hospital ship anchored in the lagoon. When news of his death reached combat correspondents, they descended upon his still-shocked company and squad asking for heroic stories. The Marines obliged, stretching the truth in some cases and obliterating it in others. Rumors that Hopkins had been killed by friendly fire were quickly put down. The story was put out over the AP Wire Service, and variations appeared in many newspapers around the country.

Epilogue II: In the days after FDR’s death, Sherwood interviewed Harold Smith, who was Director of the Budget from 1939-1946.  Smith was a modest, methodical and a precise man far removed from Hopkins or Roosevelt. His judgment and integrity and common sense was trusted implicitly by the president. When asked about writing an article about the late president on the first anniversary of his death, he demurred, because he felt he was not ready to make a correct evaluation. Smith said the following: “when I worked with Roosevelt for six years – I thought as many others that he was a very erratic administrator. But now, when I look back, I can really begin to see the size of his programs. They were by far the largest and most complex programs that any President had put through. People like me had the responsibility of watching pennies could only see the five or six percent of the programs that went wrong, through inefficient organization or direction. But now I can see in perspective the ninety three or four or five percent that went right – including the winning of the biggest war in history – because of unbelievably skillful organization and direction. And if I were to write the article now, I think I’d say that Roosevelt must have been one of the greatest geniuses as an administrator that ever lived. What we couldn’t appreciate at the time was the fact that he was a real artist in government.”

Sherwood wrote on the last two pages of his massive 934 page book the following: When I was coming to the end of the long work on this book, I went to London for the final checking on some of the material I had included. I attended the unveiling by Mrs. Roosevelt of a statue of her husband at Grosvenor Square. At a later dinner at the Pilgrims Society given for Mrs. Roosevelt, Churchill expressed his solemn conviction, “that in Roosevelt’s life and by his actions he changed, he altered decisively and permanently, the social axis, the moral axis of mankind by involving the New World inexorably and irrevocably in the fortunes of the Old. His life must therefore be regarded as one of the commanding events in human destiny.”  Churchill added,       “The longer his life and times are studied, the more unchallengeable these affirmations I have made tonight will become!”

Since Hoover the Republicans created 24.29 million jobs in 44 years. The Democrats created 96.58 million jobs in 50 years. Without Hoover and FDR, the Democrats created 80.38 million jobs in 42 years and the Republicans in 40 years created 30.69 million jobs. Therefore, since Truman the Democrats created 2.6 times the jobs!

BIDEN  10.9   TWO YEARS

TRUMP -3.4   FOUR YEARS

OBAMA 11.57  EIGHT YEARS

GW BUSH  1.35  FOUR YEARS

CLINTON 23.6  EIGHT  YEARS

GHW BUSH 1.9  FOUR YEARS

REAGAN 16.14  EIGHT YEARS

CARTER 10.34  FOUR YEARS

FORD 5.07  THREE YEARS

NIXON 6.13  FIVE YEARS

LB JOHNSON 9.87  FIVE YEARS

JF KENNEDY 5.9  THREE YEARS

EISENHOWER 3.5  EIGHT YEARS

TRUMAN 8.2  EIGHT YEARS

FD ROOSEVELT 16.2 TWELVE YEARS

HOOVER -6.4 FOUR YEARS

The 1932 United States presidential election was the 37th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1932. The election took place against the backdrop of the Great Depression, the worst economic catastrophe since the age of industrialization. It not only affected America, but the whole world. Incumbent President Herbert Hoover, a well-educated man, a graduate of Stanford University, an engineer, a self-made millionaire, and one who was considered a “progressive” among the coterie of Republican conservatives, most embodied by his predecessor, Calvin Coolidge had been elected in a landslide in 1928. Because of his failure regarding the collapse of our economy and social system, he was defeated in the greatest landslide by a Democrat since Andrew Jackson, by Franklin Delano Roosevelt the two term Governor of New York. Roosevelt, who had been re-elected in 1930, by the largest statewide majority of any candidate in history and the vice presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in 1920 was the odds on favorite to win the nomination by the Democratic Party in 1932. But it was not easy, or guaranteed that he would even be the nominee. As it turned out, Roosevelt became the first Democrat in 80 years to win an outright majority in the popular and electoral votes, the last one being Franklin Pierce in 1852. Hoover was the last incumbent president to lose an election to another term until Gerald Ford, almost 44 years later.

Roosevelt won by a landslide in both the electoral and popular votes, carrying every state outside of the Northeast and receiving the highest percentage of the of the popular vote of any Democratic nominee up to that time. Hoover had won over 58% of the popular vote in the 1928 election, but his share of the popular vote declined to 39.6% in 1932.  Roosevelt’s election ended the era of Republican dominance in presidential politics that lasted from the beginning of the Civil War in 1860 to the middle of the Great Depression in 1932.

But, how did his nomination and election come about? Roosevelt was able to accomplish the feat of winning the nomination in 1932, by over-coming the Two-Third’s Rule that dominated the selection of a nominee in the 1932 Democratic National Convention. That rule stated that a nominee must get two-thirds of the delegates to be nominated. The Republican Party had abandoned that archaic methods years earlier, and the Democrats would jettison it in 1936. Because of the “Rule” the Solid South bloc of conservative states’ rights Democrats could block almost any nominee from the Northeast. Reaching the requisite 704 votes was not easy as he faced not only opposition from favorite son Governors, like Oklahoma’s Alfalfa Bill Murray and Maryland’s Albert Richie, but a loose coalition of opponents for nomination. These included former Governor of New York Al Smith, who was defeated by Hoover in 1928, William Gibbs McAdoo, Woodrow Wilson’s son-in-law, dark horse Speaker of the House John “Cactus Jack” Garner from Texas, Newton Baker, Wilson’s Secretary of War, and the isolationist publisher, William Randolph Hearst. Also, not to be forgotten, was his wife Eleanor’s opposition to his running for president. She feared being thrust into the confided role as First Lady. There was even talk that she even considered divorce so as to continue to remain in her independent role. FDR was able to manage only 666.25 votes on the first ballot, or 62.4%. In the subsequent next two ballots he would on go from 677.75 to 682.75 votes, or 64%. He was still short of the magic two-thirds until a deal was made to throw Garner’s 101.25 votes to FDR, in exchange that he be nominated as his Vice-{residential running mate. Thus, history was made and with 88% of the delegates, FDR with 945 votes was finally nominated on the 4^th ballot.

Roosevelt assembled a very strong team, starting with his long-time advisor, supporter and confidant, Louis McHenry Howe, (1871-1936) a former newspaper man, who abandoned all of his previous pursuits to hitch his “wagon” to FDR’s star in 1910.

Howe, who was from a well-off Indianan family, saw something in the young Roosevelt and from FDR’s first political victory to the New York State Senate in 1910, through FDR’s years as Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1913 through 1920, Howe worked for him. Howe would later be responsible for aiding on his physical, mental and political “resurrection” after he was struck down with Polio in 1921. He would remain at his side until his death in 1936. Another critical person who assisted his campaign was Samuel I. Rosenman, a close advisor and speech writer, originally from San Antonio, Texas. He was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Columbia University’s Law School in 1919, where FDR had attended, before he passed the NY State Bar Exam. Rosenman became active in Democratic politics and was a member of the New York State Assembly and later a justice of the New York Supreme Court from 1936 to 1943. By the mid-1930s, Rosenman had emerged as a leading spokesman for the New York Jewish community.

Rosenman was a senior advisor to FDR and later FDR’s Special Counsel (the first official White House Counsel) from 1943 through 1946. He was his longest serving speechwriter, who had helping Roosevelt with his speeches from his days as governor. Rosenman was responsible for the term “New Deal” a phrase in the conclusion of FDR’s acceptance speech at the 1932 Democratic National Convention. While he was not heavily involved in speechwriting during Roosevelt’s first term, he started traveling to Washington to help out with important talks during the 1936 campaign and was a key speech aide for the remainder of Roosevelt’s life. He officially joined the White House after ill health forced him to have to choose between his judicial work and his presidential work.

Roosevelt’s campaign manager, was James A. Farley, the head of the New York State Democratic Party. Farley was commonly referred to as a political kingmaker, as he was responsible for Roosevelt’s rise to the presidency. He was the campaign manager for New York State politician Alfred E. Smith’s 1922 gubernatorial campaign and Roosevelt’s 1928 and 1930 gubernatorial campaigns as well as Roosevelt’s presidential campaigns of 1932 and 1936. Farley predicted large landslides in both, and revolutionized the use of polling data. Farley was responsible for pulling together the New Deal Coalition of Catholics, labor unions, African Americans, and farmers. Farley and the administration’s patronage machine over which he presided helped to fuel the social and infrastructure programs of the New Deal. He handled most mid-level and lower-level appointments, in consultation with state and local Democratic organizations. A close associate of Farley’s was Edward J. Flynn, the Bronx County Democratic Leader. He graduated from Fordham Law School in 1912, was admitted to the bar in June 1913. and practiced in the Bronx He entered politics as a Democrat; and was a member of the New York Assembly from 1918 to 1922. He was chairman of the Executive Committee of the Bronx County Democratic Committee (1922–1953), New York Secretary of State (1929–1939), Democratic national committeeman from New York (1930–1953), and chairman of the Democratic National Committee (1940–1943). He was a close associate of President Roosevelt for many years. Along with James Farley he was the president’s chief advisor of patronage. He helped Roosevelt through all of his elections, but repeatedly refused offers of jobs in the Roosevelt administration.

Even as terrible as was the Hoover Administration, the country was still nominally Republican since 1860, and aside from the conservative administrations of the moderate-conservative Grover Cleveland and the reformer Woodrow Wilson, the Democrats were a bifurcated, loose-coalition of regional interests, from the Deep South States of the former Confederacy to the anti-Washington Westerners, and the city-machine politics of the urban centers. There was little in common than bound these disparate groups together, except opposition to Wall Street, the banks and the power of the railroads.

Roosevelt faced editorial criticism from many of the newspaper alliances, and no one, among these commentators was more critical than the esteemed Walter Lippman, (1889-1974, Harvard University) the country’s leading journalist. With FDR’s caution on locking himself into any set positions, Lippman wrote, that Roosevelt belonged to, “the new postwar school of politicians who do not believe in stating their views unless and until there is no avoiding it…Where, for example, does he stand on the tariff, on reparations, and debts, on farm relief, on taxation, on banking reform, on the railroad perceived problem?” Lippman asserted that his policies were to gather delegates first, and adopt policies later. Lippman’s oft-quoted and most famous remark on the subject of FDR’s candidacy, was “an amiable man with many philanthropic impulses, but…not the dangerous enemy of anything. He is too eager to please!” He later added, Roosevelt, “is no crusader. He is no tribune of the people. He is no enemy of entrenched privilege/ He is a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be president. Ironically, Lippman was wrong on all accounts. In fact, regarding almost every president in our history, he had more qualifications: serving in the state legislature of New York, basically the Secretary of the Navy, in all but name, during the Great War (WW I), running for Vice-President twelve years earlier and a most popular and effective two-term Governor of New York, the largest and most powerful state in the union. Lippman, a great journalist would be hardly remembered for anything, aside from those words.

As for the campaign itself FDR put together a coalition of top notch advisers, later termed first the “Brains Trust,” and later known as the “Brain Trust.” His group started with Judge Rosenman and then his law partner, the talented Basil O’Connor. O’Connor did his undergraduate work at Dartmouth College and graduated from the Harvard Law School. He was then was admitted to the bar to practice law in 1915. For one year he worked in New York for the law firm of Cravath & Henderson, and for the next three years for Streeter & Holmes in Boston. In 1919 he founded his own law firm in New York.

In 1920 O’Connor met FDR, who was running for Vice President on the Democratic ticket. O’Connor became his legal advisor. In 1922, they met almost by accident in the lobby of the building of FDR’s company, Fidelity and Deposit Company. FDR slipped on the marble floor and no one attempted to assist him, but the young lawyer, Basil O’Connor. The two men became associated in their own law firm in 1924, which existed until Roosevelt’s first Presidential inauguration in 1933. These two would form the nucleus of “Brains Trust,” (named by a NY Times journalist) with its famous members, three Columbia professors: Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell and Adolph Berle Jr.

Moley was a graduate of Oberlin College and had earned a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1918. He would later teach at Barnard College, and after five years joined Columbia University’s Law School faculty. Moley recruited Rexford Tugwell, who had advance degrees in economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and Columbia University. He joined the Columbia faculty in 1920 after teaching at Pennsylvania and the University of Washington. He was an advocate of planning, especially in agriculture, which had been devastated by overproduction and sharply reduced farm income. The most brilliant of this triumvirate was the youngest at 37, Adolph Berle Jr., a child prodigy who entered Harvard College at age fourteen and then attended the Harvard Law School. He served in the Great War, as did Rosenman. Later he started to teach at the Harvard Business School and was critical of the structure of American corporations. After a grant from the newly established Social Science Research Council and an appointment as a professor at the Columbia Law School, he had the time to work on his famous book, The Modern Corporation and Private Property, which he published with Gardner Means in 1932, a Harvard Ph. D in economics.

These individuals would meet and put together their thoughts on agriculture, banking, the markets, regulations and institutional reform that would be used by Roosevelt in his campaign and later in his famed 100 Day, where 15 pieces of critical legislation was passed by the new Congress.

As there were different perspectives that emerged from the convention, aside from the nomination and the coming campaign, DNC Chairperson, Jim Farley believed that the most vital moment of the convention was the battle over the platform plank supporting the repeal of Prohibition. That would be a struggle between two solid factions in the Democratic Party, the Southern wing of conservative and Northern urban liberals.

As the convention proceeded, Roosevelt decided to make a dramatic move and break the back of the archaic and almost moronic custom that the candidate not address the convention, nor even be aware of its decision. Therefore, against the advice of almost everyone, he took an arduous and very dangerous eight hour flight from New York to Chicago to address the delegates. The flight was held up by headwinds, bad weather along with many landings for fuel.

Before he reached the long-delayed convention, he was handed in the car a completely different speech written by Louis Howe. In fact, during the long 8 hour trip from New York to Chicago, there were many drafts of his acceptance speech. Roosevelt was a caught in a bind. How could he abandon his carefully crafted speech for one he had not even read? Of course, he cleverly took the first page of the Howe version, substituted for the first page of the final draft. Basically he delivered the speech he and worked on and approved.

Finally at the convection, he was assisted to the lectern and settled in as he calmed the excited delegates. In his dramatic speech to the convention on July 2^nd, he first of all apologized for arriving late, as he underscored the peril he faced in the journey, which had many takeoffs and landings. Roosevelt declared, “I pledge you, I pledge myself to a new deal for the American People. Let us all here assembled constitute ourselves as prophets of a new order,” Mindful of the country’s long history of religious fervor, he envisioned the campaign as a “crusade to restore America to its own people. The speech was approved with thunderous applause. Neither FDR nor his close associate and speechwriter, Sam Rosenman, who had drafted the speech could imagine the impact which the words, “new deal” would have. No one could have imagined then that these two words would eventually become the eternal name for what Roosevelt would promote and achieve in his first eight years.

After his nomination FDR told NY Times reporter Anne O’Hare McCormick that the nation someone in the White House who could understand and treat the country a whole entity, not region by region.

In the wake of the convention, there were a number of delegates, who in the words of journalist and social critic, HL Mencken, considered Roosevelt, as “one of the most charming man, but like many another charming man, he leaves the beholder the impression that he is also shallow and futile.” Mencken felt that Roosevelt would sacrifice principles for political harmony. After the convention, Chicago bookies were posting 5 to 1 odds that Hoover would win.

Mencken, a curmudgeon, an expert on the English language and a bigot, known as “The Sage of Baltimore,” supported Roosevelt in the early days of his administration, but grew to hate him and became one of his greatest critics. Roosevelt never took the bait, but almost 2.5 years later, at the Gridiron Dinner, where Mencken was host, in December of 1934, held for newspapermen from all over the country, who covered the administration, where Mencken was host, Roosevelt destroyed him by quoting his own words in his closing remarks.

Shortly after the acceptance speech, the Brain Trust established their own headquarters at the Roosevelt Hotel, as the national campaign was located at the Biltmore. Here at the Roosevelt, Moley continued to act chairman and supervised their activities.

They would stay together through campaign. The group probably got its name from Howe, who mockingly referred to this group, when talking to FDR, as “your brain’s trust!” Some newspaper men picked up on it and the “s” was dropped. The term Brain Trust continued to be applied to all of FDR’s intimate group of advisors long after the original group was disbanded. (Moley and Berle would eventually be appointed Assistant Secretaries of State and Tugwell was appointed an Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. Rosenman returned to his work as a NY York State Judge.)

FDR was advised to stay at home, make a few radio broadcasts and some addresses at selected locations. After the convention, in late July, the issue of the army’s destruction of the “Bonus Army” caught the attention of all of America. Thousands of veterans had squatted in some abandoned buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue and in the Anacostia Flats, where a tent city had been erected by them as they demanded a WWI bonus authorized by Congress in 1924. They were cleared by the Chief of Staff of the US Army, medal-bedecked General Douglas MacArthur along with his chief aides, Majors Dwight Eisenhower and George S. Patton. This action and its resulting tumult gave a greater urgency to winning the White House for Roosevelt. With less than one-third of the voters being registered Democrats, Roosevelt knew he had to take action. He also knew that he had a problem with the ongoing scandal revolving around NYC’s mayor Jimmy Walker. He had to decide to either remove him or stall his actions to after the election. Either way, he would alienate someone. But, on September 1, 1932 before Labor Day and the official start of the active campaign, Walker resigned and left for Europe. With that issue resolved Roosevelt began his post Labor Day cross-country tour of cities in the Midwest and West. In eight arduous weeks from Boston to California, he traveled more than 13,000 miles, mostly by train, and gave twenty-five speeches. He knew the criticality of speaking to the local populace about issues they were most concerned about. For example, in Topeka Kansas, he addressed the problem of agriculture and the plight of the farm. He talked of Republican leaders as the Four Horseman of Destruction, Delay, deceit and Despair.

In 1932, FDR was aware that the country needed a plan that would bring “relief, recovery, and reform” to the nation. He wasn’t sure of the dynamics of such a course of action so he deferred offering an outline to his actions for fear it would alienate legislators and create immediate opposition. He felt that he needed to raise the hope of the public, who were unhappy and disillusioned with the dour Hoover.

The brilliant Ed Flynn, (1891-1953, graduate of Fordham Law School) the Democratic Leader of Bronx County, suggested to Louis Howe, the president’s close confidante that they jettison “Anchors Away” as the campaign tune for “Happy Days are Here Again,” which was from the finale of the 1930 movie, “Chasing Rainbows.”

Hoover criticized him for opportunism and straddling of the issues, with generalities. He claimed that his contradictory appeals were contrived to win votes, not end the Depression. With that in mind, Hoover called the Democrats, “the party of the mob!” How different was this from the campaign of 1884 where days before the election, Republican James Blaine visited the crucial swing state of New York, attending a morning meeting in a New York City hotel. During a speech made by Presbyterian minister Samuel Burchard, the Democratic Party was assailed as the party of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.” In many ways, this phrase singled out Irish Catholics, many of whom lived in the large urban centers like New York and Boston. The phrase catered to the stereotype of the drunken Irishman and demeaned the Catholic faith. Most all Irish were Roman Catholic.

Of course, FDR was quite circumspective and often commentators felt they could not discern Hoover’s words from Roosevelt’s, or the converse. Hoover incredibly believed that Roosevelt’s radicalism would alienate the business community and lead to his defeat. The journalist Elmer Davis (who later worked for FDR as the Director of War Information during WWII) followed closely the Roosevelt campaign.

He reported that there were few Roosevelt statements that could indicate future policies of his coming administration. He like many others were not able to read Roosevelt’s mind. He wrote, “You could not quarrel with a single one of his generalities!” But he added, “What they mean, if anything, is known only to Franklin D. Roosevelt and his God.” In a sense, Davis’s remarks foreshadowed much of the thoughts that many of FDR’s associates and colleagues had about him until the day he died. At one time or another, he was labeled the Sphinx.

As the campaigned moved close to November, Hoover realized that the attacks on Roosevelt as an unprincipled chameleon was not enough to defeat him. Thus, in the final days of the campaign he replaced his plan of giving only a few selected speeches, with a crowded schedule of personal attacks with uncharacteristic stridency. The crowd’s reaction to him was filled with vituperation, hisses, boos, and threats of violence, a reflection of his unpopularity. He denounced Roosevelt and the Democrats as zealots under the same spell of the philosophy of a government which poisoned all of Europe – “the fumes of a witch’s cauldron which boiled in Russia. Roosevelt’s proposed “new deal” would destroy the very foundation od\f our American system!”

As long as he and the Republicans remained in Washington, they would know “how to deal with the mob.” This evoked memories of his actions against the helpless Bonus Army. Exhausted by his last effort and public’s adverse reaction to his campaign’s bleating, he seemed near a nervous breakdown.

On Election Day, November 8^th, 90 years ago, FDR won in a landslide. Someone sent Hoover a telegram that read, “Vote for Roosevelt and make it unanimous!” FDR won 42 of the 48 states, winning 472 Electoral votes to Hoover’s 59. It was a complete reversal from Hoover’s victory over Al Smith in 1928.

Members of the Brain Trust:

Basil O’Connor 1892-1972, Law partner of FDR.  On January 2, 1958 the National Foundation celebrated its 20th anniversary at Warm Springs, Georgia and Basil O’Connor was honored by having his bust inducted into the Polio Hall of Fame next to FDR and fifteen polio scientists from two centuries. Received his Law Degree from Harvard University. He refused to be appointed to a government position and remained a practicing attorney his whole career.

Samuel I. Rosenman-1896-1973- Rosenman was a senior advisor to presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Under their administrations, he was a leading figure in the war crimes issue. He was also the first official White House Counsel, then called Special Counsel, between 1943 and 1946. Rosenman edited The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, published in 13 volumes from 1938 to 1950. Author of Working with Roosevelt (1952). Received his Law Degree from Columbia University. Served as a Justice of the NY State Supreme Court. His granddaughter is the wife of Attorney-General Merritt Garland.

Raymond Moley 1886-1975, Moley supported then-New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt, and it was Moley who recruited fellow Columbia professors to form the original “Brain Trust” to advise Roosevelt during his presidential campaign of 1932. Despite ridicule from editorial and political cartoonists, the “Brain Trust” went to Washington and became powerful figures in Roosevelt’s New Deal, with Moley writing important speeches for the president. For example, he wrote the majority of Roosevelt’s first inaugural address. He was an Assistant Secretary of State. He was also a trenchant critic of fascism, as his participation in a March 1934 mock-trial event in New York City condemning Nazi Germany, titled “The Case of Civilization against Hitler,” indicates. It was attended by 20,000 New Yorkers and featured Mayor La Guardia, Rabbi Wise, Governor Alfred E. Smith. Served as an Assistant Secretary of State. Received his PhD from Columbia University. Author of After Seven Years -1939, The First New Deal, 1966

Rexford Tugwell-1891-1979, n 1932 Tugwell was invited to join President Franklin Roosevelt‘s team of advisers known as the Brain Trust. After Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933, Tugwell was appointed first as Assistant Secretary and then in 1934 as Undersecretary of the United States Department of Agriculture. He helped create the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) and served as its director. He served as Governor of Puerto Rico. The Democratic Roosevelt: A Biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1957.The Art of Politics, As Practiced by Three Great Americans: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Luis Munoz Marin, and Fiorello H. LaGuardia, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1958. FDR: An Architect of an Era, Macmillan, 1967.The Brains Trust, Viking Press, 1968. (among his many books and articles)

Adolph A. Berle– 1891-1979, Berle was an original member of Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s “Brain Trust“, a group of advisers who developed policy recommendations. Berle’s focuses ranging from economic recovery to diplomatic strategy during Roosevelt’s 1932 election campaign. Roosevelt’s “Commonwealth Club Address“, a speech written by Berle on government involvement in industrial and economic policy, was ranked in 2000 as the second-best presidential campaign speech of the 20th century by public address scholars. While remaining an informal adviser of Roosevelt after the election, Berle returned to New York City and became a key consultant in the successful mayoral election campaign of reformer Fiorello LaGuardia. From 1934 to 1938, Berle managed the city’s fiscal affairs as its last Chamberlain. He was an Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs, and a graduate of the Harvard Law School.

FDR tackles HL Mencken for a loss at the 1934 Gridiron Dinner!

Upon FDR’s return to the District from his Thanksgiving holiday at his Warm Springs retreat, known as “The Little White House,” he was to be the featured guest at the Gridiron Dinner, which was hosted by the press corps which covered the White House and all the action that abounded within the political scope of the Congress.

FDR understood that the host of this annual event was HL Mencken, whose diaries later revealed his dark side. When the diaries were made public, his racism and anti-Semitism, not to mention his deep anti-democratic sentiments came to the surface. Innately he had little concern for people and for sure almost no compassion for the needy. But most of this was certainly hinted about in his lifetime. Mencken relished his reputation and his friends and apologists, thought of him as an eccentric contrarian, but in truth he was basically a chronic, dissatisfied complainer. But, all in all, he was more venal and self-absorbed, and his vehemence showed more and more to FDR as his initial support for the president quickly waned.

At the December, 1934 event, the sponsors seemed to be inspiring mischief and therefore were looking for “blood in the water,” Mencken was well known for venting his spleen and he was expected to reveal his true venom as the Roast Master. Maybe it was because of the President’s presence at the event, that the so-called “Sage of Baltimore” was a bit more cautious and reserved or possibly it was because FDR represented the “home team” and would speak last. Mencken opened with welcoming, “fellow subjects of the Reich,” and he said, “Every day in this great country is April Fool’s Day,” He started out relating his support for the President, but quickly launched into a diatribe about him being a “slippery posturer.”

When FDR’s turn came to speak, he opened with what Mencken called his “Christian Science smile,” and referred to “my old friend Henry Mencken, “ and then in a room filled with the members of each level of the press, he began a rancorous denunciation against their whole profession. He attacked the “stupidity, cowardice and Philistinism of the working newspapermen.” FDR continued with a look of piety only that he could do, and to the laughter of almost all who were there, he claimed that those assembled did not know what a “symphony is or a streptococcus” and then described their industry as “pathetically feeble and vulgar, and so disreputable.” Of course, the audience became quite frosty and strangely silenced. But his words eventually became crystal clear to many of the old-timers. FDR had taken it all from an editorial called “Journalism in America,” written by Mencken himself, ten years before in his own publication, The American Mercury. Eventually FDR, with a large smile finally revealed to all the true source of such venom.

Mencken, incredibly embarrassed, boiled over and said, “I’ll get the son of a bitch. I’ll dig the skeletons out of his closet.” As he was fulminating and trying get out a retort, FDR moved passed him at the conclusion of his response, as the audience reverberated with laughter when the true author was revealed. FDR had turned the tables on Mencken, got in the last word, and as Harold Ickes would write later, “FDR had smeared Mencken all over.”

Apropos – FDR stated: “Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales. Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the constant omission of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.”

New Deal Spending

We are awash in idiocy in this country amongst the people who on one hand blame the elitists on Wall Street, but have all their money tied up in 401ks. IRA’s , 503bs and every other type of invest vehicle, but do not want transparency and regulation and cry when criminals and brigands steal their savings. But we hear from these same right-wing philosophers about the spending of government and the debt, but conveniently forget that Reagan tripled out National Debt, unemployment averaged almost 8% (was over 10% for two years) in his time cut taxes for the 1% and that his clones the Bush twins did worse.

As for FDR and the New Deal, expenditures on WPA projects through June 1941, totaled approximately $11.4 billion. Over $4 billion was spent on highway, road, and street projects; more than $1 billion on public buildings, including the iconic Dock Street Theatre in Charleston, the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, and the Timberline Lodge on Oregon’s Mt. Hood; more than $1 billion on publicly owned or operated utilities; and another $1 billion on welfare projects, including sewing projects for women, the distribution of surplus commodities and school lunch projects. One construction project was the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, the bridges of which were each designed as architecturally unique. In its eight year run, the WPA built 325 firehouses and renovated 2384 of them across the United States. The 20,000 miles of water mains, installed by their hand as well, no doubt aided in a more fire protected country.

The direct focus of the WPA projects changed with need. 1935 saw projects aimed at infrastructure improvement; roads, bringing electricity to rural areas, water conservation, and sanitation and flood control. In 1936, as outlined in that year’s Emergency Relief Appropriations Act, public facilities became a focus; parks, buildings, utilities, airports, and transportation projects were funded. The following year, saw the introduction of agricultural pursuits in projects such as the production of marl fertilizer and the eradication of fungus pests. As the Second World War approached, and then eventually began, WPA projects became increasingly defense related.

The PWA spent over $6 billion in contracts to private construction forms 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 (WPA), headed by Harry Hopkins, which focused on smaller projects and hired unemployed unskilled workers.

More than any other New Deal program, the PWA epitomized the progressive notion of “priming the pump” to encourage economic recovery. Between July 1933 and March 1939 the PWA funded and administered the construction of more than 34,000 projects including airports, large electricity-generating dams, and major warships for the Navy, and bridges, as well as 70% of the new schools and one-third of the hospitals built between 1933–1939.

Streets and highways were the most common PWA projects, as 11,428 road projects, or 33% of all PWA projects, accounted for over 15% of its total budget. School buildings, 7,488 in all, came in second at 14% of spending. PWA functioned chiefly by making allotments to the various Federal agencies; making loans and grants to state and other public bodies; and making loans without grants (for a brief time) to the railroads. For example it provided funds for the Indian Division of the CCC to build roads, bridges and other public works on and near Indian reservations.

The PWA became, with its “multiplier-effect“ and first two-year budget of $3.3 billion (compared to the entire GDP of $60 billion), the driving force of America’s biggest construction effort up to that date. By June 1934 the agency had distributed its entire fund to 13,266 federal projects and 2,407 non-federal projects. For every worker on a PWA project, almost two additional workers were employed indirectly. The PWA accomplished the electrification of rural America, the building of canals, tunnels, bridges, highways, streets, sewage systems, and housing areas, as well as hospitals, schools, and universities; every year it consumed roughly half of the concrete and a third of the steel of the entire nation.

Some of the most famous PWA projects are the Triborough Bridge and the Lincoln Tunnel in New York City, the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state, the longest continuous sidewalk in the world along 6½ miles of Bayshore Blvd. in Tampa, Florida, and the Overseas Highway connecting Key West, Florida, to the mainland. The PWA also electrified the Pennsylvania Railroad between New York and Washington, DC. At the local level it built courthouses, schools, hospitals and other public facilities that remain in use in the 21st century

Post Script: Four Years Later!

On January 6^th, when the Supreme Court ruled six to three that the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act) was unconstitutional, because it exceeded its taxing authority to transfer money from one group to another beyond what the Constitution allowed, it seemed to confirm Roosevelt’s fear about the collapse of the New Deal. (Not to long ago, in the previous administration, the then incumbent transferred huge amounts of money from the Defense Department to add to his phony, porous and kickback-laden, and incredibly expensive border wall, the cost, upwards of $42 million per mile.)

Conservatives were overjoyed at the prospect of the program’s demise. “Constitutionalism” had triumphed over “Hitlerism,” the Chicago Tribune declared, while the Philadelphia Inquirer called the decision the reemergence of “plain old fashioned Americanism.”  (For whatever that meant!) James McReynolds, the most conservative Justice on the Court, said gleefully, “the New Deal is on the rocks!” Arthur Krock, the columnist for The NY Times saw the ruling as “so broad that few New Deal acts (laws) before the Court now seemed to have any chance of being upheld.” Conservative columnist Mark Sullivan (who FDR called an idiot), believed that the New Deal was “to America what the early phase of Nazism was to Germany” and predicted that unless Roosevelt and his reach for power were reined in, 1936 could mark the country’s last election. The Republican Nation Convention echoed his warning and unless Roosevelt was ousted in 1936, America would become “a socialist state honey-combed with waste and extravagance and ruled by a dictator that mocks the rights of the States and the liberty of the citizen.”

Liberals in Iowa, whom the conservatives press called “Bolshevistic hoodlums,” reacted to the Court’s decision by burning cardboard images of the six justices who had voted on the ruling. The dissenting jurists, led by Harlan Fiske Stone, slammed the majority as out of control and usurping presidential and congressional power. Others complained that a politicized Court was operating as a “judicial dictatorship.” The Dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School wondered whether the government had the capacity to even govern. He noted, that “our national problems appear to have outrun our constitutional capacity to deal with them.”

Of course, there would be much more of the same and eventually the fate of the New Deal would be in the hands of another Justice Roberts, this time Owen, over the fate of Social Security.

Thus, with all that in mind, how much has changed with the Republican Party of its tactics of obstructionism, original intent, and state’s rights?

1. In 1937 The Court upheld the Social Security Act with Justice Owen Roberts one of the 7 to 2 votes. On the Hughes Court, Roberts was a swing vote positioned between the conservative Four Horsemenand the liberal Three Musketeers. Along with Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, Roberts’s vote often decided whether President Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s New Deal legislation would be upheld. His decision to uphold the constitutionality of a state minimum wage law in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish has been called “the switch in time that saved nine.” That term references the decision’s possible role in the defeat of the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, which would have expanded the Supreme Court and thus allowed Roosevelt to appoint Justices more sympathetic to his policies. Roberts’s motivation for upholding the constitutionality of the New Deal and his role in the defeat of the bill remains a matter of debate.

1. The Chicago Tribune– Under the 20th-century editorship of Colonel Robert R. McCormick, who took control in the 1920s, the paper was strongly isolationistand aligned with the Old Right in its coverage of political news and social trends. It used the motto “The American Paper for Americans”. From the 1930s to the 1950s, it excoriated the Democrats and the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, was resolutely disdainful of the British and French, and greatly enthusiastic for Chiang Kai-shek and Sen. Joseph McCarthy. It revealed the United States war plans on the eve of the Pearl Harbor The Tribune‘s June 7, 1942, front page announcement that the United States had broken Japan’s naval code was the revelation by the paper of a closely guarded military secret. The story revealing that Americans broke the enemy naval codes was not cleared by censors, and had U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt so enraged that he considered shutting down the Tribune. By fortune or just plain luck the Japanese never picked up on the story! The Tribune was famous for its headline- The early returns led editors to believe “Dewey Defeats Truman“, turning the paper into a collector’s item. Democrat Harry S. Truman won and proudly brandished the newspaper in a famous picture taken at St. Louis Union Station. Beneath the headline was a false article, written by Arthur Sears Henning, which purported to describe West Coast results although written before East Coast election returns were available.
2. The Philadelphia Inquirer was sold to Moses L. Annenbergin 1936. During the Depression, The Inquirer stagnated, its editors ignoring most of the poor economic news of the Depression. The lack of growth allowed  David Stern‘s newspaper, The Philadelphia Record, to surpass The Inquirer in circulation and become the largest newspaper in Pennsylvania. Under Moses Annenberg after 1936, The Inquirer turned around. Annenberg added new features, increased staff and held promotions to increase circulation. In 1939, Annenberg was charged with income tax evasion. Annenberg pleaded guilty before his trial and was sentenced to three years in prison. While incarcerated he fell ill and died from a brain tumor six weeks after his release from prison in June 1942
3. Mark Sullivan- Sullivan was a reporter for decades (1924-1952) on the NY Herald, later the Herald-Tribune. He said in 1935, that he was a liberal (“Teddy Rooseveltwas my only political god”) and that consistent with liberalism he sought to “take power away from the state” By 1935 his view of Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s New Deal was “frankly apocalyptic”  In 1937, after the Social Security Act was signed into law, he made his secretary of 17 years, Mabel Shea, famous by asking why she should be forced to pay 35 cents social security out of her weekly paycheck of $35 (equivalent to $1017.88 in 2021). This led Time magazine to publish that Sullivan had an annual income of $23,417 (over $408,000 in 2018). During a press briefing, Roosevelt said Sullivan was arguing that Shea had the “absolute freedom, as an American citizen, to starve to death when she got to be sixty-five if she wanted to”. He suggested that Sullivan raise her salary.
4. Arthur Krock-He was a columnist for the NY Times, who was awarded three Pulitzer Prizes. Despite his stature, according to historian David Nasaw, from the earliest days of their friendship in Washington beginning in the mid-1930s, Krock became so staunch an advocate of Joseph P. Kennedyand his ambitions that he seemed to be all but in the pocket of the powerful millionaire (with one son who would later be U.S. president and two others who would contend for that office). Citing the correspondence between the two men in his authorized, yet highly researched and critically acclaimed 2012 biography of Joe Kennedy, Professor Nasaw chronicles how it “reveals something quite disturbing, if not corrupt, about Krock’s willingness to do Kennedy’s bidding, to advise him or write a speech for him, then praise it in his column. It is said that he wrote JFK’s senior thesis at Harvard, Why England Slept, a play on Churchill’s While England Slept. There is no proof of that! After it was published in 1940, the book sold 80,000 copies in the United Kingdom and the United States and collected $40,000 in royalties for Kennedy. Income from the British sales were donated to Plymouth, a British city that had recently been bombed by the Luftwaffe. Kennedy bought a Buick convertible with the income from the book’s North American Joseph Kennedy had initially approached Harold Laski to write the book’s foreword, but Laski declined since he felt that it was “the book of an immature mind; that if it hadn’t been written by the son of a very rich man, he wouldn’t have found a publisher.”
5. The Roosevelt Court-Following the constitutional crisis of 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had made no appointments to the Supreme Court in his first term, eventually named eight men to the bench between 1937 and 1943: Hugo L. Black, Stanley F. Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, James F. Byrnes, Robert H. Jackson, and Wiley B. Rutledge as associate justices, and he elevated Harlan Fiske stone to be chief justice—more appointments than any President other than George Washington. It was assumed that Roosevelt’s appointees would share his philosophy of government and would interpret the Constitution broadly to give the President and Congress adequate power to meet the nation’s needs. In this the President and his followers were not disappointed. The so-called Roosevelt Court took a very liberal approach in its interpretation of the commerce power, giving near carte blancheto the federal government in any matters affecting business and labor. Perhaps the best example of the Roosevelt Court’s broad view of the commerce power is its sustaining part of the Second Agricultural Administration Act (1938). In his Court opinion upholding the wheat quota provisions of the law in Wickard v. Filburn (1942), Jackson abandoned the old distinction between production (essentially a local activity) and commerce, and gave the federal government the power to regulate even the wheat grown on a farm for the farmer’s own use.

60. The Election of 1936- Franklin D. Roosevelt of NY vs. Alf Landon of Kansas- the results: FDR 27,747,636 to 16,679,543- 60.8% to 36.5%= Electoral College 523-8.

At the end of March, 2018, 15 months into the Trump administration, the amount of jobs created were 2,931,000 or 188,700 per month. That was lower than the last year of the Obama Administration and lower than any of the last three years of that same administration. By the end of February of 2018, the unemployment rate 4.4% or approximately .3% lower than in 2016. That is also with the $2 trillion tax signed into law. In fact, In fact in the first three years of the Trump Administration the unemployment rate dropped from 4.7% to 3.5%, a 1.2% decline.  When Trump left office the unemployment rate was 6.9%, it is now 3.6%. In June of 2009, the unemployment rate from the Bush-Derivative Great recession had ballooned to 10%. When Obama left office it was 4.7%, a decline of 5.3% or cut by more than 50%.

The growth of the GDP in 2017 was 2.33%, way below the projected 4-5% that was predicted by the Trump economic team.  Wages grew at 2.5% in 2017. Also, the price of a gallon of gasoline, before the Trump Pandemic, topped out at an average of $2.90 in May of 2019.That was the highest price in five years. That was before the surge in demand and the war in the Ukraine.

As of April 1^st of 2022, in the last 15 months of the Biden Administration there were 7,976,000 jobs created or a monthly average of 531,700. The unemployment rate was 3.6% or 18% lower than the Trump Miracle first 15 months.

Wages grew at 4.4%, the fast growth since 1983, and the GDP for all of 2021 grew at 5.7% or almost 2.5 times the Trump growth rate of 2.33%. The last quarter of 2021 grew at 6.9%. Both annually and in the last quarter, this was the greatest increase in the GDP in over 30 years.

According to a 2017 survey, many large corporations said that they didn’t need the money from the Trump administration’s tax cuts. They were sitting on a record $2.3 trillion in cash reserves, double the level in 2001

.Instead of using the money from tax cuts to increase production, create more jobs, or raise wages, the CEOs of Cisco, Pfizer, and Coca-Cola instead planned to use the additional cash to pay dividends to shareholders. The CEO of Amgen would use the proceeds to buy back shares of stock. As for the tax cut and jobs act of 2017, according to a study by the Booking’s Institute, May, 2020- the Trump Tax Cut did not pay for itself, nor is it likely to do so in the future.

Accordingly in January of 2021, the real unemployment was 25.5% or 15%.

My grandfather, John Kivo, who was a pioneer regarding commercial flight was a great admirer of Eddie Rickenbacker, who made his name in racing, was the most famous American flier from WWI, who eventually ran and owned the Indianapolis Speedway, along with founding Eastern Airlines.

John Kivo was born in Yasi, Romania in the early 1884 and immigrated to the United States two years later with his family. His older brother had escaped the draft into the Russian Army during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, when many Jews left Romania and headed to other parts of Europe and eventually America. He was young, there was a price on his head, and getting out of the country was critical.

As my grandfather prospered, he started to fly commercially and was a very early investor in Pan American Airways. Since like all Americans of that era, he admired speed and racing heroes like Barney Oldfield, who was a pioneer in the field of auto racing and exhibitions of speed racing. Because my grandfather had met Eddy Rickenbacker a number of times, I was always interested in his career.  

Edward Rickenbacker, who was born in 1890, was from Ohio, like Oldfield and was the third child to Swiss German-speaking immigrants. Growing up in the little house, Eddy had the “privilege” of “working long hours before and after school. His life-long love affair with speed and machines also began in his early years. He and his Horsehead Gang buddies constructed “pushcarts” in a kind of precursor to the Soapbox Derby. About the time of the Wright Brothers first heavier-than-air flight, Eddie famously tried to “fly” a bicycle outfitted with an umbrella off his friend’s barn roof. Another time, he tried to design a perpetual motion machine. His father berated him for wasting his time on an invention that had no purpose. One today would call Rickenbacker a “dare devil” who seemed to do all sorts of things and adventures that put his life and limb at risk!

In his first automobile race Rickenbacker failed to finish after crashing through an outer fence. Nevertheless, his passion for speed was confirmed. That summer he went on to win most of the dirt track races he entered, including five of six at Omaha’s Aksarben Festival in October. When he burst onto the scene newspapers misspelled his name as “Reichenbaugh,” “Reichenbacher,” or “Reichenberger,” before settling on “Rickenbacher,” and sometimes “Richenbacher” or “Rickenbacker.

The month before, while he had been in Los Angeles, Rickenbacker had had two chance encounters with aviators. Glenn Martin, founder of Glenn L. Martin Company and more recently with Wright-Martin Aircraft, gave Rickenbacker his first ride aloft. Major Townsend F. Dodd was stranded with his plane in a field and Eddie diagnosed a magneto problem. Dodd later became General John J. Pershing‘s aviation officer and an important contact in Rickenbacker’s attempt to join air combat.

In late May, 1917, a week before he was to race in Cincinnati, Rickenbacker was invited to be chauffeur for General John J. Pershing. By mid-June, he was “somewhere in France,” driving Army officials between Paris and A.E.F. headquarters in Chaumont, between headquarters and various points on the Western Front.

Rickenbacker was given a rank of Sergeant First Class but did not drive for General Pershing. He mostly drove for Major Dodd, whom they had met in late 1916. Once again, Rickenbacker made an important connection by repairing a superior’s broken-down car, famously by fashioning a bearing of babbitt metal in a sand mold at a country mechanic’s shop for Lieutenant Colonel Billy Mitchell. Mitchell, a rising officer in the aviation section of the Army’s Signal Corps, was impressed. He was just the man Rickenbacker needed to ingratiate in order to get flight training, still his main goal. Mitchell would become famous for demonstrating the importance of air power. He created a sensation when he used “banned” tactics in a bombing exercise regarding captured German warships and obsolete American naval ships in the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia and eventually Cape Hatteras. Eventually he was the subject of a famous court-martial case held in 1925.  This case was made into a movie, starring Gary Cooper as Mitchell. On the Board of Inquiry, regarding the court-martial, amongst the “jurors” was the young General MacArthur and Colonel Thomas Lanphier Sr. He was eventually convicted. Col. Lanphier’s son, Thomas Jr, was the lead pilot of a P-38 Lightning, whose group intercepted and shot down the plane carrying the Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Mitchell, who died in 1939, at the age of 56, also was one who predicted that someday the Japanese would bomb Pearl Harbor. The B-25 Mitchell bomber was named after Brigadier General Mitchell, and 16 of those planes were used on the famous Jimmy Doolittle raid of Japan in 1942

For Rickenbacker, it was a chance encounter with Captain James Miller on the Champs-Elysees that put him on the track to become a fighter pilot. Miller asked Rickenbacker to be the chief engineer at the flight school and aerodrome he was establishing at Issoudun. Rickenbacker bargained for the chance to learn to fly at the French flight school outside Toul. He received just five weeks of training, twenty-five hours in the air, in September, 1917. Then he went to Issoudun to start constructing the US Air Service’s pursuit training facility,

American aviation cadets—college men—were just beginning to arrive for their flight training. Rickenbacker resented their cocky attitude. They scorned his rough manner and speech. During the next three months, Rickenbacker stole moments from his work to continue his flight training, standing in at the back of lectures and taking aeroplanes up on his own to practice new maneuvers. He would eventually earn the respect of the aviators, but for now he had just one ally among the cadets, Lieutenant Reed Chambers. In January, 1918, Rickenbacker finagled his way into getting released to gunnery school, the final step on his road to becoming a pursuit pilot.

In February and March, Rickenbacker and the officers of the nascent 1st Pursuit Group completed advanced training at Villeneuve-les-Vertus Aerodrome. There the young lieutenant came under the tutelage and mentorship of Major Raoul Lufbery, whom Rickenbacker would credit for his success in the air. “All I learned, I learned from Lufbery,” he would say Lufbery took him and Douglas Campbell on their first patrol “over the line” even before their Nieuport 28s were outfitted with machine guns. By now Rickenbacker had earned the respect of the other fliers, who had begun calling him “Rick.”

Both squadrons relocated to Toul, in the St. Mihiel sector, where Rickenbacker had begun his training with the French seven months earlier. Now the American air service had its own aerodrome, Gengoult, nearby. Before beginning their patrols each of the two squadrons chose an insignia to paint on its planes. The 95th chose a kicking mule. The 94th chose an Uncle Sam stovepipe hat, tipped inside a surrounding circle. One officer remarked, “Well, I guess our hat is in the ring now!”  And the squadron became known as “The Hat-in-the-Ring Gang.”

Rickenbacker made his first sortie with Reed Chambers on April 13, which almost ended in disaster when both became lost and Chambers had to make a forced landing. Flight commander David Peterson called Rick a “bloody fool for flying off in a fog.” Two weeks later, on April 29, 1918, Rickenbacker shot down his first enemy plane. On May 28, he claimed his fifth victory to become an ace. Rickenbacker was awarded the French Croix de Guerre that month for his five victories. This success did not mean the end of difficulties, however. Several times he almost fired on friendly planes. He nearly crashed when the fabric on his Nieuport’s wing tore off in a dive. He mourned the death of Lufbery. And his guns kept jamming whenever he went in for the kill.

Rickenbacker did get in the air in time for the St. Mihiel offensive based out of Rembercourt Aerodrome, beginning Sept. 12. By this time, the 94th and the others squadrons of the 1st Pursuit had converted from their agile but temperamental Nieuports to the more rugged, higher-powered Spad XIII. The new machine fit Rickenbacker’s style of attack to a tee. He made his first kill on September 14 against a Fokker D-VII, and another the day after that. As Rickenbacker’s performance was rising, the 94th Squadron’s was still disappointing after a sluggish summer at Chateau Thierry. Major Harold Hartney, commander of the 1st Pursuit Group since late August, wanted new leadership to spark the Hat-in-the-Ring Gang (later an early symbol of the NY Yankees) to its former greatness. He chose Lieutenant Rickenbacker over several other captains to become the new commander of the 94th Squadron.

Rickenbacker went to right work turning his men “back into a team.” He gathered his pilots and exhorted them to stay focused on their mission: shooting down enemy planes. Reminding the mechanics that he was one of them, he stressed the crucial importance of their work. Above all, to underscore his point, the next morning Rickenbacker took a solo patrol over the line and shot down two enemy planes.

Building on the leadership skills he had first developed with Maxwell in 1915–1916, Rickenbacker turned the 94th Squadron into a winning team. Rickenbacker was determined to “blind the eyes of the enemy” by taking out his observation balloons. The giant gas bags appeared so temptingly easy to bring down but were in fact heavily guarded and extremely dangerous to attack. He led planning sessions for multi-squadron raids of as many as fourteen planes. One reporter likened him to a big time football coach, “boning up for the season ahead” with “conferences on methods, blackboard talks, and ideas for air battle tactics.” All the planning didn’t guarantee success.

Rickenbacker himself was credited with bringing down five balloons, far fewer than the air service’s most prolific balloon-buster, Frank Luke of the 27th Aero Squadron. Rickenbacker inculcated the squadron with his new principles of engagement, first germinated while confined in a Parisian hospital. Never attack unless there is at least 50–50 chance of success; always break off an engagement that seems hopeless; know the difference between cowardice and common sense. He continued to fly aggressively, but with a calculated caution. What the sportswriter had written about Rickenbacker the race car driver still applied: “the most daring and withal the most cautious”^[ fighter pilot in the 1st Pursuit Group. He also flew more patrols, more hours in the air, than any other pilot in the service, a total of 300 combat hours. He brought down 15 aircraft in the final six weeks of the war, bringing his total victories to 26 and making him The United States. “Ace of aces,” for the war.

The military determined ace status by verifying combat claims by a pilot, but confirmation, too, was needed from ground witnesses, affirmations of other pilots, or observation of the wreckage of the opposing enemy aircraft. If no witnesses could be found, a reported kill was not counted. It was an imperfect system, dependent on the frailties of human observation, as well as vagaries of weather and terrain. Most aces’ records are thus ‘best estimates’, not ‘exact counts’. Nevertheless, Rickenbacker’s 26 victories remained the American record until Richard Bong‘s 40 kills in World War II.

Rickenbacker was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross a record eight times. One of these awards, regarding his victories in the air above Billy, France, was converted in 1930 to the Medal of Honor. It was awarded to him in 1931 by President Herbert Hoover. He was also awarded the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre by France. (See Honors and Awards below.) In 1919, Rickenbacker was discharged from the Army Air Service with the rank of captain, which he had obtained sometime in October.

Rickenbacker was received home as a war hero. At the Waldorf-Astoria, six hundred “friends and admirers, including Secretary of War Newton Baker and his mother, shuttled in from Columbus, Ohio cheered him and toasted him and shouted and sang to him. On the streets, he described getting mobbed by souvenir seekers, tearing buttons and ribbons off his uniform.

After the Liberty Bond tour, Rickenbacker was released from the army with the rank of Major, which he never used. He felt the rank of captain was the only one that was “earned and deserved.” He was often referred to as “Captain Eddie” or just “the Captain” for the rest of his life.

Rickenbacker had a name he could capitalize on in any business he chose. He had already told a reporter, “There is no comparison between the auto and the air. I am through with the automobile and I stand ready to place my skill and talents in flying.” As early as December 1919, Rickenbacker had begun discussing with Reed Chambers the possibility of a joint venture in aircraft manufacturing. But the way forward was not apparent. Airlines did not yet exist. Performance and safety were still a concern. “Aeroplane” was still the preferred spelling. Rickenbacker resorted to his promotional abilities to spur public and governmental enthusiasm, but his efforts did not always pay off. In 1920 and 1921 he made four transcontinental crossings, twice in Junkers-Larsen JL-6s and twice in De Haviland DH-4s. In the course of these four trips, he underwent seven crack-ups, nine near misses, and eight forced landings in cornfields and the like.

Rickenbacker spent the first eight months of 1921 traveling the Golden State, promoting the Sheridan and opening new dealerships there. He often traveled between cities by plane, a leased Bellanca.

Rickenbacker Motor Company marketed its vehicle as “A Car Worthy of Its Name.” It was a high-quality mid-priced car, “up to the minute in every detail,” with models ranging from about $1500 to $2000. The Rickenbacker was selected to make the first transcontinental radio tour in June 1922, because it “offers the least resistance to radio because of vibration.” 

Rickenbacker met Adelaide Frost Durant in Los Angeles before the war. She was married to Clifford Durant, hard-partying son of Billy Durant of General Motors fame and racing competitor of Eddie Rickenbacker. Cliff was also an abusive husband. Adelaide chose to get a hysterectomy to ensure she would bear him no children. Her father-in-law stepped in to allow her to live independently, buying her a comfortable home and giving her $220,000 in equities (half of the value in GM stock). Eventually Rickenbacker married Adelaide Durant.

On November 1, 1927, Rickenbacker bought the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which he operated for nearly a decade and a half, overseeing many improvements to the facility. Once the Speedway operations were under control, Rickenbacker looked for additional opportunities for entrepreneurship, including in sales for the Cadillac division of General Motors, and for various aircraft manufacturers and airlines. After the 500-mile (800 km) race in 1941, Rickenbacker closed the Speedway due to World War II. Among other things, holding the race would have been a waste of valuable gasoline, rubber, and other resources. In 1945, Rickenbacker sold the racetrack to the businessman Anton (Tony) Hulman, Jr.

Rickenbacker kept his fingers in the automotive pot and capitalized on his General Motors connections through his wife, former daughter-in-law of Billy Durant. On November 1, 1927, Rickenbacker purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from Carl Fisher for $700,000. He deemed the income (he gave himself a salary of $5,000 a year) and public relations opportunities more valuable than the $700,000 in additional debt he incurred. In January, 1928, Rickenbacker became assistant general manager for sales at GM its Cadillac and LaSalle models. Later in the year, he took out another loan, this time for $90,000 to buy the Allison Engine Company, and earned a significant amount on the resale to GM. Rickenbacker did much the same thing with Bendix Corporation soon after. Lewis believes Rickenbacker kept some aspects of the transaction secret, saving him taxes and allowing him to pay back his debt.

By mid-1929, Rickenbacker had returned his focus to aviation. He convinced General Motors to purchase Fokker Aircraft Corporation of America, the designer of fighter planes he once faced on the Western Front. As compensation for his advice, Rickenbacker was made FACA’s vice president for sales. Rickenbacker chose not to follow the aviation company when it relocated its headquarters to Baltimore in 1932. He was quickly hired as vice president for governmental relations at American Airways (of American Air Transport), an essential function as at a time when all airlines were both subsidized and heavily regulated by the government. Ten months later, Rickenbacker separated from AAT and returned his attention to GM, prodding the auto maker to purchase North American Aviation, a company he had previously convinced American Air Transport to purchase. The deal went through and Rickenbacker was made vice president for public affairs in GM’s latest aviation venture, starting in June 1933. NAA was the parent company for Eastern Air Lines, Curtiss-Wright Corporation, and Trans World Airlines. Rickenbacker positioned himself to become general manager of Eastern Air Lines when the position opened up at the start of 1935.

Rickenbacker was adamantly opposed to President Franklin Roosevelt‘s New Deal policies, seeing them as little better than socialism. For this, he drew criticism and ire from the press and the Roosevelt administration, which ordered NBC Radio not to allow him to broadcast opinions critical of Roosevelt’s policies after Rickenbacker had harshly denounced the president’s decision to rescind existing mail contracts in 1934 and have U.S. Army Air Corps pilots carry the air mail. At the time, Rickenbacker was vice president of one of the companies affected, Eastern Air Transport. When a number of inexperienced, undertrained Army pilots were killed in crashes soon afterward, Rickenbacker stated, “That’s legalized murder!”

Rickenbacker’s most lasting business endeavor was his longtime leadership of Eastern Air Lines. Through the 1920s, he had worked with and for General Motors (GM): first as the California distributor for its new car, the short-lived Sheridan, then later as a marketer for the LaSalle, and finally as vice president of sales for their affiliate, Fokker Aircraft Company. He persuaded GM to purchase North American Aviation, a conglomerate whose assets included Eastern Air Transport. GM asked him to manage Eastern, beginning in 1935. With the help of some friends, Rickenbacker merged Eastern Air Transport and Florida Airways to form Eastern Air Lines, an airline that eventually grew from a company flying a few thousand miles per week into a major airline. In April 1938, after learning that GM was considering selling Eastern to John D. Hertz, Rickenbacker met with GM’s Chairman of the Board, Alfred P. Sloan, and bought the company for $3.5 million.

Rickenbacker also scripted a popular comic strip called Ace Drummond from 1935 to 1940. He worked with aviation artist and author Clayton Knight, who illustrated the series. The strip followed the adventures of aviator Drummond. It was later adapted into a film serial and radio program. Between 1935 and 1940, Knight and Rickenbacker also did another King Features comic strip, The Hall of Fame of the Air, depicting airplanes and air battles in a fact-based series about famous and little-known aviators. This strip was adapted into a Big Little Book, Hall of Fame of the Air (Whitman Publishing, 1936)

He oversaw many radical changes in the field of commercial aviation. He negotiated with the U.S. government to acquire air mail routes, a great advantage to companies in need of business. He helped develop and support new aircraft designs. Rickenbacker bought the new, large, faster airliners for Eastern Air Lines, including the four-engine Lockheed Constellation and Douglas DC-4. Rickenbacker personally collaborated with many of the pioneers of aviation, including Donald W. Douglas, the founder of the Douglas Aircraft Company, and the designer and builder of the large, four-engine airliners, the DC-4, DC-6, DC-7, and DC-8 (its first jet airliner).

Rickenbacker promoted flying to the American public, but, always aware of the possibility of accidents, he wrote in his autobiography, “I have never liked to use the word ‘safe’ in connection with either Eastern Air Lines or the entire transportation field; I prefer the word ‘reliable’.” Rickenbacker often traveled for business on Eastern Air Lines flights. On February 26, 1941, he was a passenger on a Douglas DC-3 airliner that crashed just outside Atlanta, Georgia. Rickenbacker suffered grave injuries, being soaked in fuel, immobile, and trapped in the wreckage. In spite of his own critical wounds, Rickenbacker encouraged the other passengers, offered what consolation he could to those around him who were injured or dying, and guided the survivors who were still ambulatory to attempt to find help. The survivors were rescued after spending the night at the crash site. Rickenbacker barely survived. This was just the first time that the press announced his death while he was still alive.

In a dramatic retelling of the incident, Rickenbacker’s autobiography relates his astonishing experiences. While he was still conscious but in terrible pain, Rickenbacker was left behind while some ambulances carried away bodies of the dead. When Rickenbacker arrived at a hospital, his injuries appeared so grotesque that the emergency surgeons and physicians left him for dead for some time. They instructed their assistants to “take care of the live ones.”^[76] Rickenbacker’s injuries included a fractured skull, other head injuries, a shattered left elbow with a crushed nerve, a paralyzed left hand, several broken ribs, a crushed hip socket, a pelvis broken in two places, a severed nerve in his left hip, and a broken left knee. Rickenbacker’s left eyeball was also blown out of its socket.

It took many months in the hospital, followed by a long time at home, for Rickenbacker to heal from this multitude of injuries and to regain his full eyesight. Rickenbacker described his terrible experience with vivid accounts of his mental state as he approached death—emphasizing the supreme act of will that it took to stave off dying. Rickenbacker’s autobiography reports that he spent ten days at the door of death, which he illustrated as “having an overwhelming sensation of calm and pleasure”.

Rickenbacker supported the war effort as a civilian. While initially supporting the isolationist movement, Rickenbacker officially left the America First organization in 1940, having only been a nominal member of it for a few months. From this point on he took an outspokenly pro-British stance. He was inspired by “England’s heroic resistance to relentless air attacks” from the Luftwaffe‘s campaign against the island of Great Britain in 1940 during the Battle of Britain, and wrote at that time: “Should these gallant British withstand the terrific onslaught of the totalitarian states until the summer of 1941, it is my sincere conviction that by that time this nation will have declared war.” Rickenbacker was one of a few celebrities who took part in campaigns to rally his fellow World War I veterans to the British cause before the attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1942, he toured training bases in the southwestern United States and in England. He encouraged the American public to contribute time and resources, and pledged Eastern Air Lines equipment and personnel for use in military activities. Under Rickenbacker’s direction Eastern Air Lines, along with other air lines such as Pan American Airlines, provided the means of war to British forces and flew munitions and supplies across the North Atlantic Ocean to the British.

Rickenbacker inspected troops, operations, and equipment, and served in a publicity function to increase support from civilians and soldiers. In 1942, with a sweeping letter of authorization from Henry L. Stimson, U.S. Secretary of War, Rickenbacker visited England on an official war mission and made ground-breaking recommendations for better war operations. He worked with both the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces on bombing strategy, including work with Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris and General Carl Andrew Spaatz.

One of Rickenbacker’s most famous near-death experiences occurred in October 1942. Stimson sent him on a tour of air bases in the Pacific Theater of Operations to review both living conditions and operations, but also to deliver personally a secret message of rebuke to General Douglas MacArthur from the President for negative public comments MacArthur had made about the administration and disparaging cables sent to Marshall. After visiting several air and sea bases in Hawaii, Rickenbacker was provided an older B-17D Flying Fortress (AAF Ser. No. 40-3089) as transportation to the South Pacific. The bomber, (with a crew of eight) strayed hundreds of miles off course while on its way to a refueling stop on Canton Island and was forced to ditch in a remote and little-traveled part of the Central Pacific Ocean.

The failure in navigation has been ascribed to an out-of-adjustment celestial navigation instrument, a bubble octant that gave a systematic bias to all of its readings. That octant reportedly had suffered a severe shock in a pre-takeoff mishap. The pre-takeoff mishap occurred during the first attempt to take off in a different bomber, but the landing gear’s brakes seized mid-takeoff. They kept the same damaged bubble octant on a different plane, which caused the navigational failure. This unnecessary ditching spurred on the development of improved navigational instruments and also better survival gear for the air crewmen. The B-17’s aircraft commander, former American Airlines pilot Captain William T. Cherry, Jr., was forced to ditch close to Japanese-held islands but the Americans were never spotted by Japanese patrol planes, and were adrift on the ocean for thousands of miles.

For 24 days, Rickenbacker, Army Captain Hans C. Adamson, his friend and business partner, and the rest of the 8 crewmen drifted in life rafts at sea. Rickenbacker was still suffering somewhat from his earlier airplane crash, and Capt. Adamson sustained serious injuries during the ditching. The other crewmen who were in the B-17, named Bartek, Reynolds, Whittaker, Cherry, Kaczmarczyk, and De Angelis, were hurt to varying degrees. The crewmen’s food supply ran out after three days. Then, on the eighth day, a seagull landed on Rickenbacker’s head. He warily and cautiously captured it, and then the survivors meticulously divided it into equal parts and used part of it for fishing bait. They lived on sporadic rain water that fell and similar food “miracles”, like fingerlings that they caught with their bare hands.

Rickenbacker assumed leadership, encouraging and browbeating the others to keep their spirits up. One crewman, Alexander Kaczmarczyk, was suffering from dehydration. He drank sea water, knowing it was a bad idea. He died and was buried at sea. The U.S. Army Air Forces and the U.S. Navy‘s patrol planes planned to abandon the search for the lost B-17 crewmen after just over two weeks, but Rickenbacker’s wife persuaded them to extend it another week. The services agreed to do so. Once again, the newspapers and radio broadcasts reported that Rickenbacker was dead.

The seven split up. Cherry rowed off in the small raft and was rescued on day 23. Reynolds, De Angelis, and Whittwaker found a small island, close to another, inhabited one. The natives of the second one were hosting an allied radio station, so all was good for the men. Reynolds was extremely close to death. A U.S. Navy patrol OS2U-3 Kingfisher float-plane spotted and rescued the 3 survivors on November 13, off the coast of Nukufetau in Tuvalu. All were suffering from hyperthermia, sunburn, dehydration, and near-starvation. Rickenbacker completed his assignment and delivered his message, which has never been made public, to General MacArthur.

Rickenbacker had thought that he had been lost for 21 days and wrote a book about this experience titled Seven Came Through, published by Doubleday, Doran. It was not until later that he recalculated the number of days, and he corrected himself in his autobiography in 1967. The pilot of the plane that rescued the survivors, Lieutenant William F. Eadie, USN, was awarded the Navy’s Air Medal for his actions during the rescue. The story was also recounted in Lt. James Whittaker’s book We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing, published in 1943. The story of Rickenbacker’s ordeal has been used as an example for Alcoholics Anonymous when the first of their Twelve Traditions was formulated: “Our common welfare should come first. Personal recovery depends upon AA unity.”

Still determined to support the U.S. war effort, Rickenbacker suggested a fact-finding mission in the Soviet Union to provide the Soviets with needed technical assistance for their American aircraft. Rickenbacker approached Soviet diplomats, and avoided requesting help from President Franklin Roosevelt, due to their prior disagreements. He scheduled resumption of his tour of American air operations in the Far East, interrupted by his ordeal in 1942, while he awaited approval of his visit from the Soviets. With Stimson’s help and by trading favors with the Soviet ambassador, Rickenbacker secured unlikely permission to travel to the Soviet Union. The War Department provided everything Rickenbacker needed, including a highly unusual letter stating that the bearer was authorized to “visit … any … areas he may deem necessary for such purposes as he will explain to you in person”, signed by the Secretary of War.

Rickenbacker’s trip in the spring and summer of 1943 took him along the South Atlantic air route that Eastern Air Lines had helped pioneer in 1941, traveling to Cairo in an AAF C-54 provided him by Gen. Henry H. Arnold, commanding general of the United States Army Air Forces. He made observations about conditions at every stop and reviewed American operations with a critical eye, forwarding reports to authorities. From Cairo he traveled by C-87 to India to experience the Hump airlift into China, on which he reported unfavorably to Arnold after his return to the United States. Continuing over the Hump to China himself, Rickenbacker was impressed by the determination of the Chinese people but disgusted with the corruption of the Kuomintang government. Reaching Iran, he offered to bring along an American officer to the Soviet Union, although approval of the request delayed Rickenbacker’s party several days.

In the Soviet Union, Rickenbacker observed wartime conditions, the extraordinary dedication and patriotism of the populace, and the ruthless denial of food to those deemed unproductive to the war effort. He befriended many Soviet officials and shared his knowledge of the aircraft they had received from the United States. He was lavishly entertained and recalled attempts by NKVD agents and officials to get him intoxicated enough to disclose sensitive information.

Rickenbacker’s mission was successful. He discovered that a commander of Moscow‘s defense had stayed at Rickenbacker’s home in 1937, and personal connections like this and the respect the Soviet military personnel had for him greatly aided his information-gathering. He learned about Soviet defense strategies and capabilities. In the distraction resulting from the outbreak of the Battle of Kursk, he saw a map of the front line showing the locations of all major Soviet military units, which he did his best to memorize. He also persuaded his hosts to give him an unprecedented tour of the Shturmovik aircraft factory. However, comments made by Rickenbacker during his trip alerted the Soviets to the existence of the secret B-29 Superfortress program.

Rickenbacker observed some traces of capitalism (for example, people were allowed to grow food and sell their surplus) and predicted that the Soviet Union would eventually become a capitalist nation. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill interviewed Rickenbacker about his mission. In the U.S., Rickenbacker’s information resulted in some diplomatic and military action, but President Roosevelt did not meet with Rickenbacker. For his service in support of the war effort, Eddy Rickenbacker received the Medal for Merit, a decoration for civilians in service to the United States government equivalent to the military Legion of Merit. For his service in support of the war effort, Rickenbacker received the Medal for Merit, a decoration for civilians in service to the United States government equivalent to the military Legion of Merit.

Rickenbacker’s main home was outside New York City. Rickenbacker was also an avid golfer, often playing at the Siwanoy Country Club course near his home in Bronxville. He is one of a very select few Club members who were granted honorary lifetime membership at Siwanoy. (By the way, I passed Siwanoy CC hundreds of times while I lived in Mount Vernon, NY.)

Rickenbacker owned a winter home in Coconut Grove, Florida, near Eastern Air Lines’ major maintenance and administrative headquarters at Miami International Airport. For a time, Eastern was the most profitable airline in the postwar era. During the late 1950s, however, Eastern Air Lines’ fortunes declined, and Rickenbacker was forced out of his position as CEO on October 1, 1959. Rickenbacker also resigned as the Chairman of the Board on December 31, 1963, at the age of 73. After that, Captain and Mrs. Rickenbacker traveled extensively for a number of years.

In the 1960s, Rickenbacker became a well-known speaker. He shared his vision for the future of technology and commerce, exhorted Americans to respect the adversary, the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but still uphold American values. Rickenbacker endorsed many conservative ideas, which put him at odds with many regarding the current and future needs of all Americans.

Captain Rickenbacker suffered from a stroke while he was in Switzerland seeking special medical treatment for Mrs. Rickenbacker, and he then contracted pneumonia. Rickenbacker died on July 23, 1973, (age 83) in Zürich, Switzerland. A memorial service was held at the Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church with the eulogy given by Lt. General Jimmy Doolittle, and then his body was interred in Columbus, Ohio, at the Green Lawn Cemetery. At the time of his death, he was the last living Medal of Honor recipient of the Air Service, United States Army.

Trump’s pre-pandemic record

Trump’s record offered little legitimate grounds for boasting before the pandemic. The persistent growth in output and decline in the unemployment rate during his first three years extended trends in the recovery from the Great Recession that he inherited from President Barack Obama.

Growth accelerated in early 2018 following Trump’s sole major legislative achievement, the tax cuts he and Congressional Republicans enacted. But that didn’t last long with the economy already near full employment, and the budget deficit swelled. A temporary surge in investment resulted mainly from higher energy prices.

“It provided no long-term benefit,” wrote Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics The counter-productive tariff wars Trump initiated quickly offset any short-term benefit from the tax-cuts and the administration’s deregulation push. That’s why Trump, to avoid further damaging the economy in his re-election year, called a truce with China in January without obtaining the structural reforms he had demanded from Beijing. Trump earlier threw away leverage by abandoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership with allies that the Obama administration had negotiated. (The NAFTA re-structuring was a sham and if Trump would have won re-election he would have ended the tariff War and declared victory!)

By the way, because of the insipid, misdirected, politically-inspired Tariff War, direct farm aid has climbed each year of Trump’s presidency, from $11.5 billion in 2017 to more than $32 billion this year — an all-time high, with potentially far more funding still to come in 2020, amounting to about two-thirds of the cost of the entire Department of Health and Human Services. Trump’s “very serious policy mistakes,” Zandi said, were his attacks on international and domestic institutions. They include “actively trying to undermine” the Fed’s independence. Financial markets vs. the real world. (Pressuring to low interest rates without a recession or the need for a recovery.

Trump can accurately point to above-average financial market gains. Through November the S&P 500 had risen by an average of 14.34% per year during his term, slightly more than the 12.43% under Obama. (a little inaccurate because, Obama faced five months of the Bush 43 Great Recession when the DJIA went from 8200 to 6600, and then rebounded to almost 20,000 at the end of his second term – a tremendous rebound!)

But those gains have largely been driven by rock-bottom interest rates, which drive investors into stocks in search of higher returns. And the benefits of those gains accrue largely to the most affluent Americans who own most of the stocks. (Also on the subject of jobs, even with the economy on steroids, Trump created 19% less jobs in his first three years than Obama in his last three!)

The President can also cite a higher-than-average 3.32% annual gain in real per capita disposable income. But that average conceals the extent of those gains that flowed to the affluent, who benefited disproportionately from his tax cuts.

As a candidate in 2016, Trump championed the beleaguered blue-collar workers he called “the forgotten Americans.” His policies have not closed the gap between them and economic elites. (also, every recovery from recession, since WWII was started by domestic home sales, hiring countless domestic, blue collar workers. The Derivative Bust, brought on the Great Recession which was caused by a glut of 1,000,000 homes, either abandoned or with under- water mortgages.)

Through the third quarter of 2020, Mark Zandi of Moddy’s, says, the least wealthy 50% of Americans own just 1.9% of the nation’s net worth, while the top 1% own 30.5%. The surging pandemic promises make that disparity worse before Trump leaves office. (the last 15 months before the 3rd quarter of 2019 and before the Pandemic, the GDP grew at less than 2%.)

When the Labor Department issues the final monthly jobs report of his presidency in early January, Zandi expects it to show a renewed decline in employment. In the first quarter of 2021, as Trump yields power to Biden, the Wall Street firm JPMorgan predicts that economic output will shrink. (Job losses, including the 6.6 million created in the first three years, now lost, will approach or exceed 12 million. (That is the only time in the last 12 presidencies that jobs were lost since Hoover!)

Where’s the Money?

 In 2019, the Federal Reserve published its 40 years (since 1980) evaluation of Asset Allocation. In those 40 years, $21 trillion went to the 1% and $900 billion was lost by the bottom 50%! If one added $4 trillion that was also transferred to the next 3-4% of the top earners, the total transference would be about $25 trillion. As anyone can see, $25 trillion is a lot of money! It basically reflects the Republican incurred deficits (Recessions and recoveries) since the end of Bill Clinton’s 2^nd term, when the National Debt stood at $5 trillion. It is now about $30 trillion.

The top bracket from John Kennedy to Ronald Reagan was 70%. All of these billions earned over the past 40 years were taxed at a lot less. From Reagan’s 28% for the top bracket through Donald Trump’s 37%, the average could be around 35%. Let us not forget the three disastrous tax cuts from Reagan to Bush 43, to Trump.

Therefore, in the most simplistic fashion, if the government had taxed, over the past 40 years, at the Kennedy Tax Rate, the revenues would have been $17.5 trillion. But, since those $25 trillion were taxed at about half the rate, the revenues dropped to $8.75 trillion. If we divided that difference by 40 years, we would come up with a differential of $220 billion per year. That works out to $2200 for 100 million families. If that $2200 had been put in a tax deferred annuity for 40 years, at the average rate of 5%, those families would have had $256,000. But, if that money had been spent each year on infrastructure, school construction, affordable housing, healthcare and better jobs, we would not be in horrible position that we are in today. We would have had more tax revenues and less debt.

June 5^th, 2022

The last time I looked unemployment was at 3.6% and heading downward, On December 1, 2017 it was 4.1% after 80 straight months of recovery. In 2017, there were 2 million jobs created, so far, in 2021, after 11 months the total is 5.1 million. Let us remember in 2017, there was no COVID and a big, expensive tax cut, which would inflate the National Debt $3 trillion before the Pandemic.

What’s True

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the country’s unemployment rate dropped to 3.5% in fall 2019 — the lowest rate in about 50 years, since December 1969.

What’s False

No evidence showed Trump or his administrations fiscal or regulatory policies caused the 50-year low. Rather, the unemployment rate was steadily declining as part of the country’s overall recovery from the Great Recession before he took office.

The American economy expanded an annualized 6.9% on quarter in Q4 2021, much higher than 2.3% in Q3 and well above forecasts of 5.5%. It is the strongest GDP growth in five quarters with the biggest upward contribution coming from private inventories (4.9 percentage points), namely motor vehicle dealers as companies had been drawing down stocks since the beginning of 2021. Personal consumption increased 3.3%, pushed higher by a 4.7% surge in services spending, namely health care, recreation, and transportation. Fixed investment rebounded by 1.3%, led by intellectual property products that was partly offset by a decrease in structures. Residential investment however, continued to decline and was down 0.8%. Meanwhile, net trade made no contribution to growth as exports jumped 24.5% led by consumer goods, industrial supplies, foods, and travel; and imports went up 17.7%. Considering full 2021, the economy advanced 5.7%, the most since 1984. Under Trump, never broke 3% in the first three years, until it plummeted 36% from January to July 2020! The Trump Economic Miracle.

There was no Trump Economic Miracle! Just the greatest loss of jobs in 4 years since Hoover, record deficits and the rich getting richer as the billionaire class exploded.

Garbo was born Greta Gustaffson in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1905, to working class, impoverished people who could have been thought of at the time as peasants. She was loved by her parents and she loved them. Her father died when she was a teenager, most probably because they couldn’t afford him proper healthcare. She was a shy, day-dreaming young girl, who never attended high school. This was not unusual for girls who needed to work to support their families. Her uncle had said, “Greta was different from any other kids I knew!” Often she hid under a table and he asked her “what she was she thinking of darling?” His niece answered, “I am thinking what I want to do when I am grown!”

She, like many of her friends and peers, escaped the doldrums of their lives by going to the movies, which were quite primitive in that era. She was a student of the dramatic arts and came under the tutelage of the Finnish-Jewish film director Mauritz Stiller, who had immigrated to Sweden. He was an imposing personality, tall, ruggedly, handsome and he rose to prominence in the Swedish film industry at the time of Victor Sjosrtrum. They would be the dominating figures in that industry until Ingmar Bergman in the 1940s.

He saw something in her that even his cameraman who filmed her screen test did not see. Her hair was short, brown and to a degree unkempt, her clothes were plain, without any style and she was certainly not svelte. After her screen test, which she thought she failed, Stiller was incredibly impressed, and offered her a contract. He was a charismatic and dynamic director in the nascent Swedish film industry. He saw something in her that no one else seemed to see. Stiller would always look for new personalities to star in his films. He asked her to lose 20 pounds, taught her how to dress, to act, how to emote and generally how to handle herself.

After some local success in four Swedish films, Stiller contacted MGM and Louis B. Mayer, who was always looking for talent from Europe. It seems Mayer wanted Stiller to come to direct in Hollywood and his disciple and discovery, the newly named Great Garbo was almost a “throw in” regarding the “package” to go to America. So when the contract was signed in November of 1924 in Berlin, Louis B. Mayer told her that in America the public didn’t like fat women. When she heard the translation, she shrugged her shoulders. Interestingly, she wasn’t then very heavy at all.

Stiller and Garbo took the SS Dratningholm out of Goteborg, Sweden. It was the first time either of them had been on an ocean liner. Eventually they docked in NYC, checked into the Commodore Hotel for a two month summer stay in very hot weather. They were never used to the heat of an NY summer, and with limited language skills, life in NYC was not a happy time.

Eventually, after sitting around in NYC they finally headed to Los Angeles. After more than two months in Los Angeles, she was finally noticed by the young Hollywood “genius” Irving Thalberg, who had an excellent reputation regarding taste and talent. She was incredibly naïve, not educated, her movements were clumsy, her feet were considered big, but they really weren’t, and her teeth needed to be fixed. She giggled, laughed loudly and wore cheap clothes. That is what she had. In Garbo’s time, Los Angeles in the mid 1920’s, was smaller than Stockholm, not abounding with culture and was basically a “company” town. Finally, when her screen test was noticed, her hair was changed, a small blemish was removed from her forehead and her nearly perfect teeth were capped and made better.

In “Torrent,” her first film for MGM in 1926, the well-known writer Joseph Alsop, later wrote in 1935 about her hideous clothes, the insipid plot and her beautiful face. Not long after, she was cast in her second film, “The Temptress,” and she received raved reviews. By the next effort, “Flesh and the Devil” with her eventual lover, John Gilbert, her star never faded and audiences were mesmerized by her beauty. It seemed the plots didn’t matter.

Garbo was something new and unique for Tinseltown. She was taller than most women of her day and broad-shouldered. In that day, most women stars were petite, pensive and reserved. America’s sweetheart was the demure Mary Pickford. Garbo seemed to combine a sensual with a spiritual essence, and an androgynous aspect to her mannerisms. She was attractive to both men and women. There was a detachment about her, a wariness, almost a feeling of aloofness. All through her later career, just the movement of her face would evoke a kind attractiveness never found before or since. It created an instant magnetism. She almost got the lead in her first picture in America, “The Torrent” by accident. The Director, Monta Bell was captivated by her screen test and the lead who was chosen, Alma Rubens fell ill. Her co-star was Ricardo Cortez, another Hollywood answer to Ramon Navarro and Rudolph Valentino. This so-called labeled Latin Lover, was actually born in the Bronx, originally acted under the name of Jack Crane, but was born Jacob Krantz. Cortez/Krantz had attended Dewitt Clinton HS, had been a boxer and a runner on Wall Street. After his career fizzled before the 2nd World War, he went back to Wall Street as a successful broker.

With her first film, “The Torrent,” behind her, she was cast quickly cast in “The Tempest.” Her cameraman, William Daniels was the real star. He learned how to light up her face, so it would appear to glow. He had met her on the set of “The Torrent,” and treated her with great care. He created great high, lighting angles on her face so that her long eyelashes would be seen as shadows on her cheeks. This would become a hallmark of her allure.

Again, the public flocked to see her play the “vamp” in the more successful “Tempest!” At this time in her very, early career, she was already complaining about her treatment by MGM. To her friends in Sweden, she wrote that the film was rotten. But when it opened, in 1926, at the Capitol Theater in NYC, she was acclaimed by the reviewers who basically ignored the story. The famous playwright, critic and author, Robert Sherwood, who would be FDR’s last speech writer in 1945, wrote of her as the official “Dream Princess,” and spoke of the “efficacy of her allure.” In NYC, The NY Times, the Herald Tribune and the Mirror were ecstatic about her. Unfortunately, after “The Tempest” her mentor and most probably her first lover, Mauritz Stiller, who was replaced as the director on “The Tempest,” by Fred Niblo, was basically through in Hollywood. He left as a failure, returned to Sweden, became quite ill and died not long after in 1928. She worked insanely hard. She wrote to her great Swedish friend, Mimi Pollak that she was up at 6 am- was at the studio at 9 am and home by 6 or 7pm, exhausted and into bed. She was exhausted. She rarely went out, had no energy left to meet and converse with other film people and had no desire for small talk.

During the filming, she startled by the report of the death of her year older sister Alva from cancer. She had wanted to go home to see her when there were reports of her illness, but the studio would never let her have the time required. This, with her earlier disputes over her contract, added to her distaste with Hollywood and the studio system. That distaste would never abate. Later in 1948, Cecil Beaton would reports what she had written, “What a waste of my best years of my life- always alone it was so stupid not being able to partake more. Now I am just a gypsy, living a life apart.

Her 3rd film, “Flesh and the Devil,” made 11 months later, clicked, made money, and even though the plot was insipid and Garbo’s acting was a letdown, the public was fascinated by the love scenes and the whispered romance between Garbo and the 29 year old John Gilbert fed the audience’s appetite.

In “Flesh and the Devil,” she is again cast as the “vamp,” and all men as her prey. Eventually two of her lovers (noblemen) fight a duel over her, and as the unfaithful wife of an Austrian Count, she falls through the ice and drowns. In a review by the critic of New York Herald Tribune, the two lovers, John Gilbert and Garbo were ecstatically praised. “Never before has John Gilbert been so intense in his portrayal of a man in love, never before has a woman so alluring, with a seductive grace that is far more potent than mere beauty, appeared on the screen. Frankly, never in our screen career have we seen seduction so perfectly done!” Her star was soaring and all around her knew it.

Gilbert and Garbo were an item-talk of marriage that began in earnest regarding their closeness, but it never happened. In fact, she was not interested in marriage or Gilbert. Gilbert had become almost bellicose. He drank, he threatened her, called her incessantly, but the romance had cooled. He blamed her mentor, Mauritz Stiller, but it wasn’t really Stiller. Eventually, he calmed down, their “romance” became a matter of companionship, then friendship, and eventually she moved on. It didn’t happen overnight. They remained in each company, he designed his home to impress her with Swedish art, beautiful furniture and many hideaways for her. He wanted her to be his hostess for his many Sunday invitees. She wasn’t really impressed with his home, the décor, or his attempt to rely on her as his hostess. She certainly wasn’t interested in serving his company!

Many years later, when Gilbert was dead and his memory was fading, Garbo was asked about her romance with him. “There never was a romance,” she answered, “and now I wonder what I ever saw in him.” Was this just cruelty or her idea that whatever intimacy they had was a matter of convenience?

Eventually, Garbo would make demands on the studio of who could come on the set, intrude on her privacy, how she could be treated, the type of films she would accept, and who would direct her. This was unique in this male-dominated era. Along the way, she had lovers from probably Stiller to certainly John Gilbert and very possibly a number of women. It seems she knew little from love or romance, no less anything else. She considered sexual intimacy as a necessity, the urge and activity of the moment. She trusted no one, hated Hollywood and all who supported the studio system, especially the publicity machine. She was not well-read, but was curious. She was never surrounded by thoughtful, introspective people. The Hollywood literati had no influence on her at all. She had no connection with any part of that community. Her social habits were simple and it was dominated by her working on the scripts, getting to the studio on time and leaving every day at 5 pm.

“Flesh and the Devil,” made her an immediate star, hounded by everyone, including the paparazzi of her day, which were insatiable. No one had ever attracted this kind of attention. Every person she saw, with every relationship she had- the questions never ceased. The demands never relented. She refused to be photographed, she would sign nothing, because everything thing she touched, even a cigarette butt, was immediately re-sold on the open market. Once she signed a picture for the director George Cukor, who begged for one. Surreptitiously, a visiting reporter took a picture of it while Cukor had gone in another room and it wound up immediately in the press. The hunt for news about her life was insatiable.

What really elevated Garbo from just a mysterious beauty and charismatic movie personage to a respected actress was the making of the silent movie version of “Anna Karenina,” by Leo Tolstoy. During the filming she became sick with pernicious anemia, the effort was delayed for five weeks and eventually what had been filmed was scrapped, the cast and the director were fired. It was a $200,000 disaster. After her recovery, aided by a different diet, and the help of a Swedish doctor, the shooting began under the direction of Edmund Guilding, a Brit who seem to understand what was needed. The new title was, “Love,” and the studio hired John Gilbert to play the role of Count Vronsky. All the unpleasantness of the past: the contract disputes, the walkout of Garbo, her physical illness and the tempestuous problems and relationship with Gilbert were seemingly forgotten. Garbo excelled way beyond her beauty, charm and charisma with an excellent, understated performance.

Ironically, she wasn’t unavailable to people. She had friends and visited them often. She was constantly invited to small gatherings, but became wary of others who had been invited without her knowledge. Often she would beg out of an invitation at the last moment. She got along with people on the set, but didn’t like an “open set,” and therefore, few people had access to the filming of her scenes. Often people would view her through a hole in a separating, drawn curtain. Again, every day she was well-prepared, always on time and very business-like. Often there were many re-takes, because many of her directors wanted each scene perfect. These re-takes had virtually nothing to do with Garbo or how she reacted to direction. The cameramen knew how to photograph her, reflective of close-ups, whether she was sitting or standing or the trick of catching her facial movements.

Meanwhile the nascent American career of her mentor, Mauritz Stiller, took a turn for the worse. His health deteriorated. He had gone Paramount and they did not renew his contract. His final effort “The Street of Sin,” with the great German star Emil Jannings was not a success. He would leave for Sweden, he returned to the theater there, had some short term successes, but was diagnosed with Tuberculosis, the leading killer of the day, and eventually succumbed to the disease at age 45. Garbo would never see him again.

The picture, “Love,” was a great success, the famed writer Frances Marion had changed the ending of the Tolstoy classic, and the audience was happy that after Karenina’s death, Anna was re-united with her child and her great love, Count Vronsky. The profit to MGM was enormous, over $500,000 and it was 50% greater than the very successful “Flesh and the Devil!”

During this period the “Jazz Singer,” with the dynamic Al Jolson, became an incredible success, but, not all the studios were ready to drop their making of silent films. Even the “Boy Genius,” the real brains at MGM, Irving Thalberg, was not sure that it wasn’t a fad. As said, “Who wants to hear actors talk?” Both Thalberg and Mayer believed that the role of the silent films was not finished. They added sound backgrounds to their new productions, and assumed, incorrectly that the new wind blowing in with talking movies would abate. Also, let us not forget that many of their “stars” were foreigners, who’s English was certainly not perfect, including their now greatest star Greta Garbo. She still had many problems with English and often spoke in a combination of English, Swedish and German. She never really learned proper English grammar.
In “The Kiss,” her last talking film in late 1929, she was starred alongside Conrad Nagel and the young Lew Ayers. Ayers, who would become a major star in “All Quiet on the Western Front,” was placed in “The Kiss,” with Garbo. They had never been even introduced. Later he would say, “I would study her face as she sat there… and no one could tell whether she was plotting a murder, dreaming of her native Sweden, or figuring up her income tax!” He thought she was a wonderful artist, who he found very warm, polite, gracious, lonely and distant women. Though the film was mediocre, she was lionized again by Robert Sherwood. He would write that “we have compared her to Duse, Cavallieri, Mrs. Sidon, Helen of Troy and Venus, and then ground our teeth because we hadn’t made it (the comparison) strong enough! He went on to say that that she was “the best actress in the world.”

As she gravitated to “talking” movies, unlike many of the other great stars who failed, like the Gish sisters, John Barrymore, Douglas Fairbanks Sr, Mary Pickford, her popularity continued to grow, Even the great Chaplin fell from favor. Others like Valentino, Gilbert, Wallace Reed, and Jeanne Eagles, were dead before the “Jazz Singer” exploded on the public, marking the foreshadowing of the death of the silent film era. She would make five more silent films, ending with “The Kiss” in 1929.

Historically, when one reads the original reviews of her films, and even many of the later retrospectives on her, most reviews were negative. Innately the problem in the 1920’s and 1930’s was that the scripts were quite poor. Even decent material was constantly cut up, shortened and significant roles were cut or changed.

After her first talking picture in 1930, based on Eugene O’Neill’s play, “Anna Christie,” (Garbo talks!) success followed success. She seemed to even out act her co-star the great Marie Dressler. The critic’s raved about her performance-as one critic wrote, “The voice that shook the world!” He went on to write, “its Greta Garbo’s, of course, and for the life of me I can’t decide whether it is a baritone or a bass. She makes it heard for the first time on the screen and there isn’t another like it.” In reality, “Anna Christie,” by Eugene O’Neill was not one of his best works and the original story was completely distorted, as were the characters. Most reviewers swooned over Garbo’s style and sensuality. As for the picture, later perspectives were much worse. Many of the supporting players were weak and their parts were almost meaningless. Both co-stars, Marie Dressler and Charles Bickford, who were quite talented in their own right, were basically under-utilized.

After “Anna Christie,” other hits enthralled her legion of fans. In the same way, in “Anna Karenina,” the role of her “jilted” husband, Karenina, played by Basil Rathbone (later of Sherlock Holms fame) was panned. He was way too wooden. In “Camille” where she excelled, everything went wrong. The script was flat, the sets were grotesque, but the direction by George Cukor (a woman’s director) had a light-handed touch which gave her the latitudes she needed. Even the critics disliked Lionel Barrymore, who they thought was under-whelming. As for her lover, Robert Taylor, he was described as a wax dummy in a store window. The picture was only 74 minutes old, but it was another sensational box office hit. Later, it was reshot in German for overseas distribution with eight minutes added and it was even more successful. Ironically the author of the play, Eugene O’Neill never saw the movie.

Garbo was quickly teamed up with Clark Gable in October of 1931, in “Susan Lenox, Her Fall and Rise.” Again many of the critics panned it, the censors didn’t like it, but the audiences loved the electricity of the rugged, new type of American male in the body of Clark Gable and Garbo. In a sense it was a typical MGM tear jerker, regarding a young girl’s being forced into a marriage by her father that she neither wanted, nor would give in to. Meeting Clark Gable, they have an affair, she finds someone else, and eventually tracks Gable down and they begin a new life together.

As for “Grand Hotel,” it had a fantastic cast, which included John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Berry, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone and Jean Hersholt. The scenes with the Russian ballerina, played by the 26 year old Garbo and the 50 year old Barrymore, a German Baron, turned into jewel thief are priceless. Garbo is entranced by Barrymore. He gives her almost a desire to live and perform. Of course, unaware of his sudden death, she leaves the hotel with the hope that this new life with him with will be her renewal. By the way, rest of the cast were excellent. Originally, John Gilbert had been thought of in the role of the Baron. He had been in a number box office failures, turned to drink after his divorce from his quickie marriage to Ina Claire (who later would be Garbo’s love-interest rival in “Ninotchka.”) But, he was despised by Louis B. Mayor and his career was allowed to wither, as he self-destructed. The myth about his speaking voice being inadequate, was just a myth.

In 1932, her five year contract ended and she decided once again to visit her native Sweden. Despite threats by MGM, through Louis B. Mayer and Thalberg, she had never signed a contract extension. The media machine of Hollywood and its character assassins, Louella Parsons, Sidney Skolsky and others like Walter Winchell started their attacks on her. Why was she here? She should be deported because she has no job nor contract, therefore her visa should be revoked. She shouldn’t be allowed to take money out of the country and maybe these foreigners should all be deported who won’t become citizens.

Aside from this xenophobic clamor, the First National Bank of Beverly Hills collapsed and closed during the last crisis of the inept Hoover Administration. She had lost a considerable amount of money in the stock market crash of October 1929, but now most of her assets were in jeopardy, along with the bank accounts of many Hollywood luminaries. As she set sail on the SS Gripsholm, the question of her lifetime savings was in doubt. Eventually, she arrived in Goteborg, was treated like a conquering hero and started a long stay, despite the blustering of the MGM executives, who were starting to worry that they lost their greatest star and revenue producer. After a number of months, a new contract was offered, she was to do a film on the life of the controversial 17th Century Queen Christina of Sweden and her salary would rise to $400,000 per picture. She had to re-apply for a visa, undergo a physical, comply with other regulations under our strict immigration laws and in July of 1933 she headed back to San Francisco by a freighter, the SS Annie Johnson. It was a small ship, with few passengers, the crew treated her wonderfully on her five week trip across the Atlantic, which went through the Panama Canal and up to San Diego where she disembarked, as her luggage sailed on to San Francisco. As usual she wanted to avoid the “feeding” frenzy at the dock in San Frisco.

After an absence of a year, Garbo would finally make “Queen Christina.” It opened on December 26, 1933 at the Astor Theater in NYC. The only leading man that was available and who didn’t turn the part down, was John Gilbert. Others were asked, like Leslie Howard and Ronald Colman, who were great stars and established stage actors, but who feared their part in the picture opposite Garbo. John Gilbert, who announced his retirement in 1933 and was working at the Fox Studios, was worn out and frankly finished as a big draw or even as a star. Garbo insisted that he be casted as her lover. Garbo was top billed, and though the film was a critical success it did not revive Gilbert’s flagging career. Interestingly, Garbo had screen tests with the young Laurence Olivier and found him unsuited for the role. Gilbert was given another opportunity by Columbia Pictures, for which would be his final chance in “The Captain Hates the Sea.” He gave a capable performance, but he was an alcoholic and he would only get worse. He suffered a heart attack in December of 1935 and a few months later in early 1936 he suffered a second and fatal attack. He was only 38. It was like the end of “King Kong,” when it was said, “that beauty killed the beast.” Gilbert had four unsuccessful marriages, each lasting less than three years, but none of these attractive women filled the place in his heart and psyche as Greta Garbo. Did she love him? It is hard to tell, but she liked him and didn’t wish to be controlled by him, or it seems, any other man.

Aside from the huge monetary success of “Queen Christina,” the fictional story of the Swedish Queen horrified Garbo. She thought that her country would be deeply offended when they saw the film. She said, “I often wake up and think with horror about the film coming to Sweden.” But, ironically it was a great success in her home country. The film goers there suspend reality like they did in the states.

Another factor appeared in Hollywood in 1934, with the rise of the power of the Production Code, chaired by an ultra-conservative, Joseph Breen. He became the arbiter of moral rectitude and along with the Catholic Church’s objection to the subject content in many films, he became the Lord High Censor. Aside from these factors, which cast a pall over any idea of realism, no less creativity, Garbo’s films in the South, the Bible Belt and in small Midwestern towns had been falling in revenue for years. They were too sophisticated and challenging to the narrow views of both the Baptists (Evangelicals of that day) and the male-dominated culture.

It would be another year, before her next film, “The Painted Veil,” would be released. There would be only four more films: the remake of Tolstoy’s “Anne Karenina,” with Fredric March, “Camille,” with Robert Taylor, “Conquest,” with Charles Boyer, “Ninotchka,” with Melvyn Douglas and the last film, “Two-Faced Woman,” again with Melvyn Douglas. According to the critics, she was luminous in “Anna Karenina” and “Camille” and the films were great successes. In “Conquest,” as Napoleon’s mistress Countess Marie Waleska, she seemed tired and the film never really resonated with her public. It incurred a great loss at the box office. The censors forced it to be cut to pieces.

With respect to both “The Painted Veil” and “Conquest”: the studio heads at MGM had to struggle with Breen who seemed to answer to no one else. Even if stories were classics that had been accepted by the public for generations, it was up to Joseph Breen what people could see. Any clue that Marie Waleska was actually Napoleon’s mistress and had his child seem to be too harsh for American sensitivities.

As for “Camille,” based on the character of the French courtesan, Marguerite Gaurtier from an 1848 novel, “La Dame aux Camelias,” by Alexander Dumas, it faced many challenges from the Breen office. Many great actresses, from Sarah Benrhardt to Eleanore Duse, Eva Le Gallienne, Alla Nazimova and then Garbo had played her since the novel was turned into a play in 1852. Her story had even been turned into the classic opera, “La Traviata,” by Giuseppe Verdi.

So, after many personal successes, despite inadequate scripts, poor casting and often wooden performances by her co-stars, her career, in her 2nd to last film, would actually reach its summit. With “Ninotchka.” The script was great, there were no shipwrecks, ambiguities, or any sustained passage of vulgarity. The film was funny and promoted with the phrase, “Garbo laughs!” The film was witty, polished and civilized. Ironically, in the film, none of the names were actually Russian. It was pure fantasy, but it clicked then and today. It was pure satire, making fun of everything from Stalin’s Russia to the expatriate communities in the Paris fantasy world. Eventually, her last film with MGM, was part of a two picture contract with Melvyn Douglas. The film, “Two Faced Woman,” was a failure. The studio attempted to make Garbo into an all- American girl and it went nowhere. Even she knew it was a disaster, as did the critics of that day and today! Part of the problem was again with Louis B. Mayer, an arch Republican, who disliked her co-star Melvyn Douglas, an outspoken Democrat, liberal and opponent of fascism. MGM never took on the Nazis or fascism like most of the other studios, aside from Warner Brothers. He actually tried to bribe him into silence by promising better parts for his wife, Helen Gahagan, (She was a bright gal from New York, who attended the Berkeley-Carroll School and Barnard College. She was an actress and opera singer, a political activist, was elected to Congress, served from 1944-51, and was defeated by Richard Nixon in 1950, for the Senate in California.)

The film was basically a silly comedy and there were some parts that Joseph Breen, the blue-nose, head of the Production Code objected to, but, it was cleared. That wasn’t the end of its problems. Then Archbishop Francis Spellman, head of the NY Catholic Diocese started a one-man crusade to bar the film. The Catholic Legion of Decency condemned the film and it was downhill from there onward. It was actually banned in some NE cities and eventually MGM pulled it from the theaters and re-shot some of the scenes. Eventually it was cleared by the Legion of Decency. Again, this was a foreshadowing of what was to become, regarding the mood of the country. In Hollywood’s eagerness to remove all the traces of European decadence, it became Garbo’s undoing.

Thus, the most outstanding of her films of the post silent era were, “Mata Hari,” “Camille,” “Anna Karenina,” “Grand Hotel,” “Conquest,” “Queen Christina,” “As You Desire Me,” and finally “Ninotchka.”Though no one really knew it at the time, even Garbo, her career was over in 1941. The pre-WWII Hollywood was changing and changing fast. Many stars were involved in war work. A number were drafted or volunteered to serve. Even the writers, the directors and the some of the big-time executives followed the call to duty. The theme of the movies changed to patriotism, the home front, and action.

Garbo felt there was no audience for her style of film or the roles she played. She was probably quite correct. She never was really part of the Hollywood scene, the gossip, the publicity, the lack of privacy or even the active foreign colony of stars. Basically, she despised the inner workings of Hollywood and never was really part of the machinery of the industry. Garbo even asked her salary to be cut in half regarding the war effort. There was even one report that LB Mayer gave her a check for either $80,000 or $200,000 (depending on the source) and she handed it back, saying she didn’t earn it. Basically, she was well-off enough to say goodbye.

It is said about her that she came along after the chaos of WWI and the she vanished from the silver screen forever in the early months of WWII. She came into a world that had been made for her, that was wanting of another hero or goddess to appear with all the tools at her command: power, majesty, and splendor. In the audience’s eyes all those things were beyond the range of human aspiration. She could enslave men with a smile or destroy with a glance. Women were not jealous of her, because she was much more beautiful than they would dare to be; men did not desire her, because she was clearly beyond the reach of human desire, even though on the screen she went through the motions of love-making.
On the screen, her early wannabe lovers from Gilbert, to Conrad Nagle, Lars Hanson, and John Mack Brown seemed ridiculous, as every man thought he could do better With this in mind, she became the star above all stars, a transcendental figure. As the war interrupted life all over the planet, it obviously changed hers. Her ability to travel back and forth to the continent ended. She eventually moved from her small, utilitarian home in Hollywood to New York. She was offered many roles during the war, but either she wasn’t interested or the financing collapsed. In a sense, she was neither eager for work, nor disappointed that the right property didn’t appear. She was not in need of money, and every door was opened to her. After the war, she was offered and rejected the role of Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard.” It was filled, very successfully by Gloria Swanson, who in actuality, was a faded star of the silent film era. Her butler was played by another silent film standout, the actor Erich von Stroheim, who was a leading director in that earlier period. Of course, like all things in Hollywood, nothing is often what it seems. Von Stroheim was not a Junker, which was a member of the landed nobility in Germany (Prussia), signified by the “von.” He was born Erich Oswald Stroheim in Austria, the son of middle class observant Jews. The production of the 1950 hit, “Sunset Boulevard,” was ironically the “swan song” of both of those veterans of the silent era.

During the war, she like others helped with the war effort. It was rumored that she helped facilitate the rescue of the Danish Jews to Sweden. But, stateside, she was accused by some of not being patriotic enough. She was one of three major stars, including Chaplin and Cagney, who failed to show up at the Hollywood Canteen, where men and women in uniform were entertained by the people from the movie industry. As for Cagney, he was a very private person, not unlike Garbo, and his reasons for not showing up are not generally known. With Chaplin, I have no idea, but he became such a politically, controversial person that he may have felt that his notoriety would upstage the effort. Obviously, an appearance by Garbo would have had the same riotous effect. Some right-wing, nativists even called for her to be deported if she didn’t approve of our country.

In 1946, Billy Wilder said, I don’t think that she’ll make another picture!” He added, “She’s is frightened of pictures as she is of personal appearances and everything that brings her in contact with people.” Let us never forget that her experiences with the curious, the fanatics, and the public in general, was scary and threatening. Many times out in the public she had her clothes ripped at, buttons torn off as she was often threatened by the over-zealous. Her time with people was never pleasant, almost always exploited and often dangerous.

After the war, and when normal traveling became available, she sailed back to Sweden on the SS Gripsholm and was welcomed like a returning hero. The trip was a mixed blessing with the seeing old friends and her family, along with having to deal with a public that was as bad as the worst public spectacles in America. Everyone wanted a piece of her. Her safety and sanity was constantly compromised.

In the frenetic days after the war, she became probably the first Jet-setter, before even jets. But by 1947, Hollywood’s “witching hour” had arrived with the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). Their noxious efforts started first with their interview with a group called the Motion Picture Alliance, composed of people like John Wayne, Adolph Menjou, Hedda Hopper, Gary Cooper, Ward Bond and Walt Disney. They became the Committee’s first “friendly witnesses.” Many of them did not like the preponderance of Jews in Hollywood, especially those in the Screen Writers Guild and others who were fierce anti-Communists. Menjou and Disney had strong reputations of being anti-Semitic. Many friends of Garbo’s were attacked, threatened and blacklisted. It seemed that anyone who was a Democrat according to Menjou and some of the others, were socialists or communists. Even Ronald Reagan, the President of the Screen Actors Guild, was rumored to be a secret FBI informer (R-10). It wasn’t an easy time for the pre-war liberals, the people that advocated a second-front or the foreign community of Hollywood, especially people like Garbo, who didn’t go along with the studio line. In truth, Garbo was hardly political, but when she heard FDR’s speech regarding Italy’s Declaration of War against France, “on this tenth of June, 1940, the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor,” she openly cried. No one had ever witnessed this reaction by her before. In the years after the war, a few interesting projects came her way, but again they had no real appeal for her. There was talk of her playing Saint Joan, from George Bernard Shaw’s play. But many thought she was too old. These ideas just seemed to be gambits created from wishful thinking. She changed apartments in NYC a few times, had a well-publicized affair with the famous conductor Leopold Stokowski, driving his second wife to the divorce courts. There was a possible romance with the author, of “All Quiet of the Western Front,” Erich Maria Remarque. She was helped financially, spiritually and health wise by the famous German-born, nutritionist and self-help author, Gayelord Hauser. They were close and friendly until the end of his life. She was definitely linked to the Russian-born financier, theater producer and millionaire George Schlee and his wife the Russian fashion designer and icon, Valentina. It was assumed that this interesting arrangement was some sort of ménage a trois. Nothing could be further from the truth. He served as her companion, he traveled with her and became her very trusted advisor for 20 years. As for his wife Valentina, she strongly indicated, after her husband’s death in 1964, that she despised Garbo. They actually lived in the same building, on different floors and after her husband’s death she had everything destroyed in their apartment that was related to Garbo. She supposedly brought in a priest to exorcize her apartment. She arranged with the building to never be in the same elevator with Garbo.

In the immediate years after the war she kept busy. In 1948, “Ninotchka” was re-released over the objections of the Soviet Union and it was very popular, especially, in Europe. She went to the theater with Tennessee Williams to see “Streetcar Named Desire,” and he tried to interest her in a project that was on his mind. Leland Hayward took her to see, “Mr. Roberts,” and the British producer Alexander Korda tried to interest her in Jean Cocteau’s “The Eagle has Two Heads!” Nothing seem to move her in any direction.

The closest she came to returning to the film was a project suggested by the producer Walter Wanger. She seemed interested the “Duchesse de Langeais,” or with its Americanized name, “The Lover and Friend.” Screen tests were started, but the cameraman died of a heart attack. The famous James Wong Howe was brought in and she seemed quite content and serious about the project. Unfortunately, the complex financial arrangements never worked out. American banks would not arrange the funding until the Italian financiers made a commitment. They thought the same. Howard Hughes refused to put up the whole $500,000 and her potential co-star James Mason was unhappy with his guarantees. Even the distribution rights were never finalized. In other words, Garbo was paid for her two horrible weeks in Rome, fighting off the paparazzi and that was the last time anything developed. Basically, she didn’t want to go through the effort and bother.

As for her social life, Garbo also had a rumored affair and a long-time association with the famous photographer and set and costume designer Cecil Beaton, who was bi-sexual, known early on as an anti-Semite, and later became famous for his work on “Gigi” and “My Fair Lady.” I am sure that Garbo, who had many Jewish friends, from her mentor Mauritz Stiller, to her Swedish confidante, Mimi Pollak and Salta Viertal, an Austrian-American actress screen writer and political activist, knew nothing of Beaton’s past. He wanted to marry her, and she wanted no part of marriage. In a sense, she laughed at him, but their on and off again friendship lasted for many years. In the early biographies of Garbo, he is hardly mentioned. But, when his massive letters to her, along with her responses, were posthumously published by Hugo Vickers, who handled his literary estate, his long-term infatuation with her was revealed. Many have wondered, in the years after his biographical letters were published in his memoirs, whether what he said was true. Most of the people who knew him well could not believe that he could have had any intimacy with her, no less anyone else. In fact, the specter of it was laughable to many!

She, for sure, didn’t write him off, and they often met, but his nemesis was George Schlee, who was always around her as a buffer, an adviser, and her guardian. All the men in her life, from Stiller to Gilbert, Beaton, Hauser, Schlee and others were smitten by her. Even though her co-stars were intimidated by her, startled by her demand for privacy and her formality, they respected her professionalism and her kindness. In fact, few, if any, had anything, but the highest praise. She had a unique and unequalled allure, even among the most beautiful women in the artistic world that was unique. The question was, who could not be charmed by this remarkable creature?

As for the women in her life, there were many. She was said to have liaisons with the actress Louise Brooks, Lilyan Tashman and even Marie Dressler. She had a great friend in Mimi Pollack, from her days in Sweden, and it was said, a long, on and off, friendship and possibly an affair with the poet, writer and social butterfly, Mercedes de Acosta, who was introduced to Garbo by her very close friend Salka Viertel in 1931. She had 181 letters from Garbo, but only a portion of them were permitted to be revealed by the Garbo estate, and none, it was said, reflected any romantic content.

De Acosta was also in a long-term arrangement with the dancer Isadora Duncan, along with later arrangements with Alla Nazimova, Eve la Gallienne and Marlene Dietrich. Garbo’s friendship, after the publishing of de Acosta’s book, “Here Lies the Heart,” soured dramatically. But, Cecil Beaton believed that de Acosta was a true friend and devoted to her. Again, Mercedes de Acosta was a strange, demanding and insatiable character. She was certainly smitten by Garbo, her stories of meeting her, or being in the same city with her have been questioned for accuracy. In fact, either these assertions were a matter of confusion or fabrication. She may have been the ultimate groupie or camp follower. Reflective of many accounts, Garbo was often dodging her when she was with others. Garbo’s celebrity was unprecedented for her time or almost any time after. What was real celebrity before the movies? Who knew what anyone looked like? Even some of the stars of the Silent Era were never insanely recognizable. Most of the luminaries of that era were in their own world, their own social colonies and believed in their own press clippings. Many of the foreign stars were divided into three groups. The British, who were mostly well-trained, stage actors, very confident in themselves and obviously well-versed in their own language. In a sense they were almost like distant cousins to most Americans. The second group were refugees, often intellectuals and artists who could never return home to the discrimination, the politics or war. Their earlier lives were gone, often forever. The last group were people like Great Garbo. They were neither refugees, nor were they fluent in the language. They were “discoveries” who were hired until they were no longer useful. They had no special skills, especially those from the Silent Era. The ones who remained rarely became stars, but wound up being bit players, character actors, or just pieces to be moved around. Many foreign stars, as soon as their contracts expired and were not renewed, moved back to their native countries before and after the WWII.

In reality, Garbo was easily bored, never really well read, and was hardly, if at all, interested in Hollywood after she left, or the movies in general. In fact, she knew virtually nothing about Hollywood’s post-war directors. She liked to take long walks, with friends like Cecile de Rothschild, was never inhibited about her body, often swam in the nude, and loved taking long walks on the beach. She did like California, but craved the isolation and anonymity she could only experience in New York. In a sense, she could get lost in the crowd. Rarely did anyone in NYC bother her on the street. She shopped like any normal person, she had her friends and intimates. She liked to collect antiques, and eventually displayed them in her apartment.

She traveled constantly from NYC, to London, Venice and Cannes. Yes, she was around people who were her idolaters. In a sense, she was a combination of Queen Christina, the dancer in Grand Hotel and the tragic Anna Karenina. With the advice and counsel of Gayelord Hauser, she invested in real estate in California and divested herself of property in Sweden. This proved quite fruitful and her economic independence was made quite secure.

In her later years, she outlived all her intimates, remained alone and continued to pick and choose who she wished to see. She was successfully treated for breast cancer and was receiving dialysis in the last years of her life. She had always been affected by gastro-intestinal illnesses, which many speculated had come from dieting. In the 20th Century, no one achieved her fame, notoriety and interest for a longer period of time. From her first film in 1926 until her dying day, people, all over the world were interested in her, what she did and where she went. In the age before film, no one was really recognizable. Almost anyone monarch could almost walk the streets in anonymity. As the movies brought remarkable notoriety and identification to all who were featured, Garbo’s face and fame transcended everyone. Even the greatest stars came and went. In our time, Marilyn Monroe’s fame lasted about 10 years. Who really cared about Liz Taylor and Richard Burton for more than a few years? Certainly Fred Astaire was famous for decades, but who cared where he went, who he ate dinner with or who he slept with? Hardly anyone! Garbo’s film career was relatively short, 28 films, squeezed into 19 years. Most of the films were hardly great, and for sure, without her they would be long forgotten.

Her estate was well handled by George Schlee and others. After her death, she left about $32 million in market securities and art to her niece.

From 1920 through 1940 was probably considered Hollywood’s Golden Age. In the early part of this era, Hollywood had come of age with the change from dominance of the Director, to that of the Star. The early films were dominated by directors from DW Griffith to stage directors from the theater to foreigners, like Erich von Stroheim (in actuality, his name was Erich Oswald Stroheim, and he was Jewish and not a Junker), who’s masterpiece was Greed and others as Joseph von Sternberg to the great comic directors Max Sennett and Charlie Chaplin.

The Hollywood Moguls, who ran the major studios: MGM, Paramount, Columbia, and Warner Brothers, went through a consolidation period and by the mid to late 20’s their ownership was securely in place. People like Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner, Adolph Zuckor, and Harry Cohn, became household names. Other competitors would come into the business like United Artists, as stars Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, the lighting personnel and all the others. Of course, beyond Chaplin, Pickford and Fairbanks there was the concerted effort to import Europeans to Hollywood, The greatest of those, Charlie Chaplin, along with film producer and director, DW Griffith decided to make their own movies. Smaller firms would eventually emerge like RKO, Universal, International along with independent producers; the most notable being Samuel Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer’s son in law, David O. Selznick of Gone With the Wind fame. Eventually the last big player to emerge was 20th Century-Fox.

Thus, the Golden Age went from the dominance of the Director to the rise of the Hollywood Star. The studios decided to make stars of actors, sign them to long-term contracts and use them as they wished. In this way, they had much greater control of their industry. The Director became a hired hand, just like the writers, and all the other components of making films, from the camera operators, to the film editors, was Rudolf Valentino, and others like Vilma Banky, and Ramon Navarro. In the same vein, other American stars of that era were Buster Keaton, John Barrymore, Lon Chaney, and Lilian Gish. Eventually, one star would preempt and eclipse all the others, foreign and native born, Greta Garbo. She would be a major star in both eras of the Golden Age.

As the Silent Era basically ended in 1927 with The Jazz Singer, and its dynamic star Al Jolson. The Sound Era, of Talking Pictures would kill off almost all the great stars of the silent era, including the Gish sisters, Mary Pickford, Fairbanks, Navarro (Valentino had died in 1926 at age 31), John Gilbert, Lon Chaney and many, many others, who were unable to have the proper speaking voice, unable to read lines, or had heavy foreign accents. The ones who remained were mostly stage actors, with great voices like Ronald Colman, John Barrymore, Leslie Howard, and others who were able to speak well and deliver their lines, like Claudette Colbert, Myrna Loy, Mary Astor, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Carol Lombard, William Powell, and Boris Karloff.

Thus, the Golden Era of twenty years could be divided into two distinct eras; 1920 to 1929 and 1930 to 1940, when WWII started to change the whole dynamic of Hollywood. In the latter era scores of Jewish and other European refugees flocked to both America and Hollywood.

The beginning of the New Age and thus the eventual decline of Hollywood and the studio system would probably have begun with Casablanca which featured mostly foreign actors, aside from the main star, Humphrey Bogart, which included; Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Sidney Greenstreet, Conrad Veidt, Peter Lorre, Claude Rains, and European refugees: most notably, Madeleine Lebeau, Leonid Kinsley, Curt Bois, SZ Sakall, Marcel Dalio, Ludwig Stossel, Wolfgang Zilzer and their Director, Michael Curtiz ( a Hungarian Jew, born Mano Kaminer).

Historically, the most profitable era of Hollywood’s Golden Age expanded exponentially as the talking movies emerged in the period from 1928 through 1930. The Hollywood studios also began to build and buy up the existing inventory of movie theaters. This allowed hundreds, if not thousands, of “in-house” outlets for immediate distribution of films. But, in the postwar era that would change dramatically. Eventually United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.,(1948) (also known as the Hollywood Antitrust Case of 1948,) a landmark United States Supreme Court antitrust case decided the fate of film studios owning their own theatres and holding exclusivity rights on which theatres would show their movies. It would also change the way Hollywood movies were produced, distributed, and exhibited. The Supreme Court affirmed (a District Court’s ruling) in this case that the existing distribution scheme was in violation of the United States antitrust law, which prohibit certain exclusive dealing arrangements. In plain language, the studios were force to sell the theaters.

The case is important both in U.S. antitrust law and film history. In the former, it remains a landmark decision in vertical integration cases; in the latter, it is responsible for putting an end to the old Hollywood studio system. Another earlier ruling, emerged from the contractual system used universally in Hollywood. Industry lawyers in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s took the position that an exclusive personal services contract should be treated as suspended during the periods when the artist was not actually working. Since no artist could be working every single day (that is, including holidays and weekends), this interpretation meant that two, or later seven, years of actual service would be spread over a much longer calendar period, thus extending the time during which the studio system had complete control of a young artist’s career.

In response, actress Olivia de Havilland filed a lawsuit on August 23, 1943 against Warner Bros. which was backed by the Screen Actors Guild. The lawsuit resulted in a landmark decision of the California Court of Appeal for the Second District in De Havilland’s favor on December 8, 1944. In a unanimous opinion signed by Justice Clement Lawrence Shinn, the three-justice panel adopted the common sense view that seven years from the commencement of service means seven calendar years. Since De Havilland had started performance under her Warner annual contract on May 5, 1936 (which had been renewed six times pursuant to its terms since then), and seven calendar years had elapsed from that date, the contract was no longer enforceable and she was free to seek projects with other studios.

Another earlier case served to erode the almighty power of the studios. Bette Davis, a major star under contract to Warner Brothers, was unhappy with the type of pictures she was forced to make by the studio. She also felt that to advance in her career meant being offered good scripts with talented directors. However, in the studio era of Hollywood, actors had very little control about what films they were offered. In 1936, she left in protest and went to England on a two film deal. The studio, however, procured an injunction against her for having left the States to do films in England. She fought back by taking them to court. Unfortunately, she lost the battle — yet, all the more remarkably, rather than being blackballed by the studio, from then on she started getting the kind of parts she felt she deserved. The power of the studios wasn’t broken, but the ability of major stars to balk at what they were assigned, go into voluntary retirement, for a time, or create adverse headlines, started the erosion of studio power.

As this Golden Age continues to fade into the past, movies made before WWII are now over 80 years old. The original audiences for those films are mostly gone, and the generation of their children is aging quickly. Most of the Baby Boomers who were born right after WWII and grew up with those movies and the star system, are in their 70s. Their grandchildren will be mature almost 100 years after the start of WWII. With that in mind, will this generation care about these movies?

What then will be the memorable films that this new generation watches? Will they ignore almost all the black and white films? Will they reject the films that showed American Blacks, Italians and other ethnics in deprecating roles? What will their feelings be about the films which ignored the reality of the rise of fascism in Europe? Almost all the studios ignored the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany and the abuse of their Jewish population, except Warner Brothers. Even the mere mention of Jews being victims in Germany were removed from films like, Mr Skeffington. Great films like, Gone With the Wind along with others about the antebellum era like, Jezebel, The Little Foxes, The Little Rebel, Young Abe Lincoln, Showboat seem to have denigrated the incredible abuse and brutality of slavery. In fact, it basically ignored one of the greatest crimes in history. Almost all the roles in Hollywood offered to Black Americans were in subservient roles, as: maids, servants, street cleaners, porters, etc. In truth, those were the jobs that most Blacks were allowed to have. They weren’t the only groups who were stereotyped.

Of course, there were many great films in that era, which culminated in their most memorable year, 1939, with pictures like the afore mentioned Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Dark Victory, Gunga Din, Ninotchka, and Goodbye Mr. Chips. Many of these same films are still quite enjoyable, certainly well made, and to a degree, relevant. As for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, it was an enjoyable film that was hardly realistic, but it certainly sent a message. Let us not forget that in 1938, and other years there were some wonderful films, but are they really relevant to audiences 80 to100 years distant, in the 21st Century? Are they mostly a stylized, unrealistic, and romantic view of life in America, which distorted the world as it really existed? As WWII changed the reality of thinking around the world, one very stark, and realistic Hollywood film, The Grapes of Wrath, released in in 1940, comes to mind. No other film of that period so graphically illustrated the desperation of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl that devastated Oklahoma and the heartland of America.

There have been countless books on that era and the major films from the beginning of the modern era of movies until our entry into WWII. Of course, not long after this Era started to wane, two films came forward that are widely accepted as the best of the best, Citizen Kane (1941) and Casablanca (1942). Both films were quite different from each other. One, Citizen Kane, came from a complete upstart and newcomer to Hollywood, the Boy Genius, Orson Welles. The other, Casablanca, was a pure creature of the studio system from Warner Brothers. No two films of that Era could be so completely different. As for Casablanca, it was dominated by stars with a remarkable cast, bolstered by scores of European refugees. It created a character in Humphrey Bogart, which had been evolving from the Maltese Falcon and High Sierra, both released in 1941. He became the prototype of an anti-hero, the cynical, tough, vulnerable, world-weary, character whose honesty and personal motives were ones to be questioned. After Casablanca, and with over twenty years’ experience as an actor, he would become, at age forty-three, the most enduring star of the postwar era and the 2nd half of the 20th Century. As for the Citizen Kane, its creator and major star, Orson Welles, at age 25, was truly a wunderkind. But, no matter how interesting and brilliant he was, he would never reach that same level of artistic and dramatic achievement and notoriety. By the way, Citizen Kane was made outside the major studios on the lots of RKO Pictures.

As for the stars of the 2nd half of the Golden Era, the ones who come to mind, who I think will be remembered are; Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart and Fred Astaire. There are some other marvelous stars, which include, Paul Muni, Frederic March, Ronald Colman, Leslie Howard, Gary Cooper, Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, William Powell, Carol Lombard, Claudette Colbert, Gary Grant, Jimmy Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Olivia De Havilland, Joan Crawford, and John Barrymore. Interestingly, a star of the later 1940s and the 1950’s, Gene Kelly, has stated, that in the future, only Fred Astaire will be remembered. He may have a point.