Does fear of change cause intolerance?

Does fear of change cause intolerance?

In the early 20th century, the premise of left wing radical Eugene Debs’ ideology rested upon identification of the labor movement with Anglo-Saxon male Protestants intimately familiar both with the prophetic strain in Christianity and with the traditions of American democracy. Immigrants, especially those of non-English or non-German stock, black and female workers did not fit into this conception. (Salvatore, 104) Debs wrote, “The Dago works for small, and lives far more like a savage or wild beast, than the Chinese.” These sentiments did not inspire universal labor solidarity.

Debs was not unique in his outlook. The American Protective Association identified Catholicism as the country’s most dangerous threat. Members took an oath never to vote for a Catholic, patronize Catholic merchants, or strike with Catholic workmen. (Salvatore, 106)

The objects of intolerance change over time, but the shrill voices of intolerance never seem to change.



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Rare Coins: Confederate Coins (1861-1865)

The Confederacy made tentative steps toward coining money. Many United States silver half dollars minted in New Orleans in 1861 ( 1861 O) were struck by Confederates. The 1861 O quantity includes 330,000 coins struck by the U.S. government; 1,240,000 for the state of Louisiana after it seceded from the Union, and 962,633 coins struck after Louisiana joined the Confederacy. Since all of these coins were struck from U.S. dies they cannot be distinguised one from the other.

The Confederacy’s attempt to operate the New Orleans mint also accounts for some of the rarest coins in American history, the so called “Confederate half dollars.” In 1861 the Confederate government coined four silver half dollars at New Orleans using the obverse of the regular U.S. half dollar and an original Confederate design on the reverse side. The first of these Confederate half dollars was not found until 1879. The other three have yet to be found.





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Teddy Roosevelt on Greed

“Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune, and putting his fortune to only the basest uses….”

Page 96: A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America by Michael McGerr. Oxford University Press, 2003

Link to Amazon.com: A Fierce Discontent



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Civil War Court Martials (1861-1865)

There was more to the American Civil War than just battles and generals. Millions of ordinary people were doing ordinary things. Some of these things involved breaking the law, civilian and military. Author Tom Lowry has read over 85,000 court martial transcripts and is one of the foremost authorities on Civil War justice.







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Taxes to Beat the Axis

In 1943 Americans realized that paying their taxes was a patriotic duty to be done in support of the common good.

“There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.”…..Franklin D. Roosevelt

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John Brown at Harpers Ferry

The culminating event of the 1850s was John Brown’s raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. To white Virginians, Brown’s raid was emblematic of an evil outside influence trying to disrupt the harmony enjoyed by Virginia’s white and African American communities.

“ Not a Slave Insurrection!”, proclaimed an editorial in the Alexandria Gazette,

“ The recent outbreak at Harper’s Ferry was, in no sense, an insurrection. The slaves had no part nor lot in the matter, except in so far as some of them were forced to take part ….There were five free negroes engaged in the affair, but not a single slave! And even the free negroes thus engaged were not Virginia free negroes”

Two days later, the editor of the Alexandria Gazette elaborated on his claim that the Brown raid was not an insurrection. The editor asked, “What single feature or circumstance characterized it as an ‘insurrection’?” After pointing out that “abolition invaders” found not “one single abettor or sympathizer in the State”, the editor pointed out that to call John Brown’s raid an insurrection disguised the enormous truth, “that Virginia has been invaded…actually, deliberately, and systematically invaded…by an organized band of miscreants, white and black, from Free States, under the lead of a Kansas desperado, at the instigation and appointment of influential and wealthy Northern Abolitionists!”

Ultimately the psychological tensions produced by the internal contradictions of slavery as it faced both economic modernization and hostile outside forces found catharsis in secession and war.

Runaway Slaves in Virginia available on Kindle

Secrets of American History: available on Kindle



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Review: Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War

Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War
by Penny M. Von Eschen

Penny Von Eschen raises the question as to whether music can be a universal language, transcending national boundaries and communicating with all people regardless of language or social barriers. Can music act as a “tool for global transformation?” She suggests that American jazz was such a universal language acting as a bridge to other cultures. The key ingredient appears to be the individualistic nature of jazz. Jazz carries a subtext of individualism, of personal expression, and of the possibility of freedom. There are serious claims that the Cold War was won largely by American blue jeans and music presenting an alternative societal vision to the Communist bloc.

As appealing as this view is, it appears naïve and romantic. Cultural influence is a form “soft” power as opposed to “hard” power which is economic and military. As Mao Tse Tung once observed, “all power comes from the barrel of a gun.” Countries with more hard power tend to have more soft power (i.e. cultural influence). Thus after the Second World War, British and French cultural hegemony in the Third World declined as American and Soviet cultural influence rose. As much as American culture may have influenced the ultimate demise of the Soviet Union, forty five years of military containment and the collapse of the Soviet economy probably played more decisive roles.

Can the world be changed by song? Problematic. When the artist creates a song the meaning of the song passes to the audience. Thus a jazz listener in Africa during the Cold War might respond to jazz because, “to speak English as an American, put him in the vanguard”. In addition, “to be liberated (from French colonial rule) was to be exposed to R&B….” an alternative source of cultural capital. (Von Eschen, 178). How the audience receives the song and what meaning it fashions from the song may be totally removed from the artist’s original intent.

More problematic yet is that artists are in and of their culture and cannot necessarily transcend it. While an artist may oppose certain aspects of the culture, he/she is also a product of that culture. Thus, the same individualism, personal expression and possibility of freedom that is found appealing within Western culture may be totally anathema, for example, within the context of traditional Islamic culture. American music, as a product of a secular Western consumer society, may be perceived by both the elites and the masses in traditional religious non-consumer societies as part of overall American cultural imperialism, as opposed to something benign.

Since we do not have a universal world culture, and many political scientists posit that we are in an era characterized by the “clash of civilizations”, policy makers will assess the merits of using music as a “tool/weapon” in this struggle of competing civilizations. For example, Western societies embrace notions of gender equality. Islamic culture largely rejects this western value. Thus American policy makers might use American cultural products to target the aspirations of Islamic women for power/political purposes. However unwittingly, the artist becomes an agent of cultural imperialism in its broadest sense.

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