My first active participation in a presidential campaign was in 1964 when I campaigned for Barry Goldwater. I invested a great deal of time and energy in that losing effort. I handed out flyers, put up posters and talked to just about everyone who would listen to me as I extolled the virtues of Goldwater and conservative politics. Most of my circle of friends and acquaintances were Democrats and were perfectly happy with the direction Franklin Roosevelt had taken the country, beginning just about three decades earlier. Most of them were older than me, and most were kind and considerate as they gently tried to explain why they were going to vote for Lyndon Johnson who promised to continue utilizing government programs as much or even more than did FDR. The irony was that by the time of the election, I would have just turned 20 years old, still, at that time, a year too young to be voting in a federal election.
When I look back on my youthful exuberance, I see a young man completely devoted to conservatism, and not just conservatism, but a radical form of those principals of government. I actually bought into the whole concept of libertarian philosophy. I was fond of the phrase, “Build my roads, fight my wars, and leave me the hell alone.” And, at the time, in my very limited life experiences, I was serious in those sentiments.
I come from a family that benefitted from the politics and domestic policies of Roosevelt. He was elected President of the United States during the Great Depression, the same time period as when my parents came of age. They were children of the depression and recalled vividly the suffering of the people in Western Oklahoma while the area was being ravaged by the Dust Bowl and the worst economic depression the country and the modern world had seen. Tom Brokaw later gave this entire group of people the title, “The Greatest Generation.” I sometimes question whether it is wise to call them a greater generation than any other because it appears every generation plays the hand they are dealt. It’s just that they had had a particularly difficult hand laid out for them and they didn’t have any choice except standing up to their responsibilities; in the game of life you aren’t given the luxury of folding and taking your losses. Perhaps in some instances you can, but not when the survival of your nation is at stake and, in fact, the survival of Western Civilization. But, I don’t believe anyone can say that the generations immediately before and after them would not have gallantly faced and survived the Great Depression and World War II, and flourish in their aftermath.
Our loyalty to the Democratic Party was seriously challenged in the campaign of 1960. Events had weakened the hold it had with the common people even before that. In 1948, the Party had adopted a platform that called for an end to segregation and the Jim Crow laws so prevalent throughout the South. It called for integration and even condemned lynching which was still a not uncommon occurrence against African-Americans. The American South was a dark place which had finally had some light shown on it during and after World War II. The nation saw what was going on in that mysterious region and what it saw was not good. The condemnation of segregation and the Jim Crow laws that enabled it, and even lynchings, caused rebellion in the Democratic Party which resulted in a walk-out of the party by members of the South, the Dixiecrats, who ran their own candidate, Strom Thurmond. These Dixiecrats would eventually find a new home in the Republican Party and in less than two decades would move from being its most stalwart members and supporters to a position whereby they could claim ownership of a second national political party. That mass political migration was racially motivated, inspired and sustained.
The elections of 1952 and 1956 weren’t a referendum on anything. There was a movement developing in the country in the 1950s which eventually resulted in the creation of the John Birch Society in 1958, the precursor of the Tea Party movement of today, and the influence of this movement was evident in the presidential elections of that decade. But, their hatred for Democrats was little more than their hatred for Republicans; they seemed to hate everyone.
The turning point in the elections of the 1950s was the popularity of Eisenhower. As a slogan, “I Like IKE” was an altruism which transcended party lines. Everyone liked IKE, Republicans and Democrats alike.
In 1960, the campaign was ugly; the ugliness raised the specter of religious bigotry. John Kennedy had to make a courtesy call to a group of Baptist ministers and pledge that as the President of the United States he would carry out his responsibilities independent of his own church and independent of the Pope. The very idea that a candidate would have to make such a pledge should be offensive to Americans, and those who currently are haranguing for an American Theocracy should be held to the same level of religious independence as they held the then candidate Kennedy.
My own family, steeped in fundamentalist Christianity, was furnished a strong diet of anti-Catholicism. Suddenly, preachers and others became aware of the Catholic Church. The Bible was read with new interest in prophesies of the New Testament which, in the interpretation of the reader, referenced the Catholic Church and the Papacy. Of course, the interpretation just happened to confirm the suspicions and biases already held by the reader. There was one preacher who had spent his life becoming an “expert” on Catholicism; he spoke on little else. During the campaign of 1960, his services were in great demand as a travelling evangelist. He confirmed our greatest fears and ratified our preconceived notions.
With the continual weakening of public support of the Democratic Party, it was alright for me to support Goldwater in 1964 and still claim to be a nominal Democrat. In Oklahoma, at that time, there were few Republicans. Among elected officials, there were hardly any Republicans whatsoever. In most districts, the results of the primary election determined the officeholder as there were no Republican candidates to field a contest in the general election.
It wasn’t just the decline of the Democratic Party that made it alright for me to campaign for Barry Goldwater. I was being heavily influenced by the Libertarian thoughts of the time, probably due to my youth and youthful ignorance. And, the influence of the John Birch Society, and lesser inflammatory propaganda machines, spreading information on the evil of communism, socialism and big government, had an effect on my own thoughts. But, the primary reason for my endorsement of Goldwater was, probably, that Johnson was the candidate of my father and his generation. I was looking for something different.
While racism did not come into significant play in the campaign of 1964, there was a great deal of campaigning against the poor. It was the beginning of railing against the welfare system, as if that alone was bringing about a decline in America and Western Civilization. Cursing the “welfare state” had been a staple of the Birchers and was quickly becoming a staple of the Republican Party. The peculiar thing about all this is that I had no idea at the time what the John Birch Society was, but I was obviously heavily influenced by their doctrines. And, secondly, I was not too far above the poverty line myself, if any at all. I have often reflected on that time and find my conduct somewhat curious. While I am disappointed in myself and my failure to analyze current events and social problems better in those days, I take some comfort in the fact that I eventually became more astute in my observations and better at applying the teachings of Jesus to my daily life.
I came to understand that the government is not my enemy; it is a tool to be used for the benefit of everyone. Problems were simply too big for us to think we could ignore them. And the problems were too big for a single person or a few people to solve. Neither could we address them by expecting responses from organizations occasionally rushing to aid those less advantaged. Sometimes, droughts were too extreme, storms were too severe, national and regional catastrophes were too serious, and economic recessions and depressions were too destructive for the problems to be addressed by anything or anyone short of the entire corporate body of America. There is only one association in which we are all members; we are all citizens of America, and live under the Constitution of the United States and the government created under the auspices of that Constitution.
When campaigning for Barry Goldwater, I was often dismissed with the observation that, in the mind of my hearer, it was a good thing that I wasn’t old enough to vote. I was trying to convince my father, a child of the Great Depression, that he should consider voting for Goldwater, and in the course of the conversation I made some remark which reflected a haughty attitude toward the poor. He listened for a while and finally said, “Son, your problem is that you’ve never seen a man begging for money to pay for burying his little girl who starved to death.” And, with that, I started to think.
When I look back on my youthful exuberance, I see a young man completely devoted to conservatism, and not just conservatism, but a radical form of those principals of government. I actually bought into the whole concept of libertarian philosophy. I was fond of the phrase, “Build my roads, fight my wars, and leave me the hell alone.” And, at the time, in my very limited life experiences, I was serious in those sentiments.
I come from a family that benefitted from the politics and domestic policies of Roosevelt. He was elected President of the United States during the Great Depression, the same time period as when my parents came of age. They were children of the depression and recalled vividly the suffering of the people in Western Oklahoma while the area was being ravaged by the Dust Bowl and the worst economic depression the country and the modern world had seen. Tom Brokaw later gave this entire group of people the title, “The Greatest Generation.” I sometimes question whether it is wise to call them a greater generation than any other because it appears every generation plays the hand they are dealt. It’s just that they had had a particularly difficult hand laid out for them and they didn’t have any choice except standing up to their responsibilities; in the game of life you aren’t given the luxury of folding and taking your losses. Perhaps in some instances you can, but not when the survival of your nation is at stake and, in fact, the survival of Western Civilization. But, I don’t believe anyone can say that the generations immediately before and after them would not have gallantly faced and survived the Great Depression and World War II, and flourish in their aftermath.
Our loyalty to the Democratic Party was seriously challenged in the campaign of 1960. Events had weakened the hold it had with the common people even before that. In 1948, the Party had adopted a platform that called for an end to segregation and the Jim Crow laws so prevalent throughout the South. It called for integration and even condemned lynching which was still a not uncommon occurrence against African-Americans. The American South was a dark place which had finally had some light shown on it during and after World War II. The nation saw what was going on in that mysterious region and what it saw was not good. The condemnation of segregation and the Jim Crow laws that enabled it, and even lynchings, caused rebellion in the Democratic Party which resulted in a walk-out of the party by members of the South, the Dixiecrats, who ran their own candidate, Strom Thurmond. These Dixiecrats would eventually find a new home in the Republican Party and in less than two decades would move from being its most stalwart members and supporters to a position whereby they could claim ownership of a second national political party. That mass political migration was racially motivated, inspired and sustained.
The elections of 1952 and 1956 weren’t a referendum on anything. There was a movement developing in the country in the 1950s which eventually resulted in the creation of the John Birch Society in 1958, the precursor of the Tea Party movement of today, and the influence of this movement was evident in the presidential elections of that decade. But, their hatred for Democrats was little more than their hatred for Republicans; they seemed to hate everyone.
The turning point in the elections of the 1950s was the popularity of Eisenhower. As a slogan, “I Like IKE” was an altruism which transcended party lines. Everyone liked IKE, Republicans and Democrats alike.
In 1960, the campaign was ugly; the ugliness raised the specter of religious bigotry. John Kennedy had to make a courtesy call to a group of Baptist ministers and pledge that as the President of the United States he would carry out his responsibilities independent of his own church and independent of the Pope. The very idea that a candidate would have to make such a pledge should be offensive to Americans, and those who currently are haranguing for an American Theocracy should be held to the same level of religious independence as they held the then candidate Kennedy.
My own family, steeped in fundamentalist Christianity, was furnished a strong diet of anti-Catholicism. Suddenly, preachers and others became aware of the Catholic Church. The Bible was read with new interest in prophesies of the New Testament which, in the interpretation of the reader, referenced the Catholic Church and the Papacy. Of course, the interpretation just happened to confirm the suspicions and biases already held by the reader. There was one preacher who had spent his life becoming an “expert” on Catholicism; he spoke on little else. During the campaign of 1960, his services were in great demand as a travelling evangelist. He confirmed our greatest fears and ratified our preconceived notions.
With the continual weakening of public support of the Democratic Party, it was alright for me to support Goldwater in 1964 and still claim to be a nominal Democrat. In Oklahoma, at that time, there were few Republicans. Among elected officials, there were hardly any Republicans whatsoever. In most districts, the results of the primary election determined the officeholder as there were no Republican candidates to field a contest in the general election.
It wasn’t just the decline of the Democratic Party that made it alright for me to campaign for Barry Goldwater. I was being heavily influenced by the Libertarian thoughts of the time, probably due to my youth and youthful ignorance. And, the influence of the John Birch Society, and lesser inflammatory propaganda machines, spreading information on the evil of communism, socialism and big government, had an effect on my own thoughts. But, the primary reason for my endorsement of Goldwater was, probably, that Johnson was the candidate of my father and his generation. I was looking for something different.
While racism did not come into significant play in the campaign of 1964, there was a great deal of campaigning against the poor. It was the beginning of railing against the welfare system, as if that alone was bringing about a decline in America and Western Civilization. Cursing the “welfare state” had been a staple of the Birchers and was quickly becoming a staple of the Republican Party. The peculiar thing about all this is that I had no idea at the time what the John Birch Society was, but I was obviously heavily influenced by their doctrines. And, secondly, I was not too far above the poverty line myself, if any at all. I have often reflected on that time and find my conduct somewhat curious. While I am disappointed in myself and my failure to analyze current events and social problems better in those days, I take some comfort in the fact that I eventually became more astute in my observations and better at applying the teachings of Jesus to my daily life.
I came to understand that the government is not my enemy; it is a tool to be used for the benefit of everyone. Problems were simply too big for us to think we could ignore them. And the problems were too big for a single person or a few people to solve. Neither could we address them by expecting responses from organizations occasionally rushing to aid those less advantaged. Sometimes, droughts were too extreme, storms were too severe, national and regional catastrophes were too serious, and economic recessions and depressions were too destructive for the problems to be addressed by anything or anyone short of the entire corporate body of America. There is only one association in which we are all members; we are all citizens of America, and live under the Constitution of the United States and the government created under the auspices of that Constitution.
When campaigning for Barry Goldwater, I was often dismissed with the observation that, in the mind of my hearer, it was a good thing that I wasn’t old enough to vote. I was trying to convince my father, a child of the Great Depression, that he should consider voting for Goldwater, and in the course of the conversation I made some remark which reflected a haughty attitude toward the poor. He listened for a while and finally said, “Son, your problem is that you’ve never seen a man begging for money to pay for burying his little girl who starved to death.” And, with that, I started to think.
Never knew grandpa said that. Enjoyed the post. son, ben.
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