Posted on 11/06/2008 11:37:28 PM PST by nickcarraway
SO today’s the day. The day we discover whether a black man can become president of the USA.
But hang on. According to some chroniclers of the times, America has already had a black president.
And it happened in 1920 amidst a form of apartheid as unsavoury as anything coming out of South Africa, a time when lynchings were commonplace, when it was hard enough for a black man or woman to vote, let alone get elected to any kind of office.
And those who claimed he was black nodded knowingly when Warren Gamaliel Harding became the first president since the Civil War to speak out in the Deep South for the rights of African-Americans. Remember, that war had ended only 55 years earlier. In those southern states, blacks were still regarded as subhuman.
The first open accusation came when Harding, then 21, moved to the little town of Marion, Ohio, where he met Florence Kling De Wolfe, divorced daughter of Amos Kling, the richest man in town. When he heard of their burgeoning romance, Kling grabbed Harding in the court house yelling “I’ll blow your head off if you ever come near my house.”
But Florence married him and, working with a supreme fixer named Harry Daugherty, pushed him into local politics. Then, after a few undistinguished years in the Senate, Warren G Harding was, to much amazement, nominated the Republican candidate on the 10th ballot after his party’s power brokers chomped their way through so many cigars that here was the origin of that legendary “smoke-filled room”.
They chose him because “he looked like a president ought to look”. And he was, the king-makers agreed, “the best of the second-raters”. His own joyous reaction summed up this compulsive gambler: “I feel like a man who goes in on a pair of eights, and comes out with aces full.”
By then Harding had a mistress, 20-year-old Nan Britton who gave birth to his child. The scandal was hushed up – but that other “secret” was brought out into the open, a flood of leaflets claiming that “there is Negro blood in the Harding lineage”.
His enemies provided affidavits from acquaintances who knew of his background, and they talked of a full-page of facts backing their claims, due to be published in the local paper but “bought up and suppressed before it could appear”.
Meanwhile, a book that “proved” the president’s Afro-American ancestry was confiscated by the Department of Justice, purchasers forced to hand their copies over until only half a dozen survived.
Proof of a black president would have triggered the greatest crisis since the Civil War, maybe even started another.
But it wasn’t race that would haunt Harding’s presidency, and during his last days in office George W Bush might take some interest in his predecessor.
Harding had talked of coming out with aces full, and there was plenty of poker in the White House as the cronies appointed to his Cabinet joined him for all-night sessions washed down with booze provided by the president’s official bootlegger in this era of Prohibition.
Those cronies were playing for bigger stakes. Daugherty, appointed Attorney General, and the rest made it the most corrupt administration in history. Millions of taxpayers’ dollars were stolen, bribery and outright theft was the norm. When things started to fall apart some of Harding’s placemen fled to Europe, one shot himself and Congressional investigations into abuses of office began.
To find some relief, Harding and his poker-playing pals embarked on a cross-country train trip with a quick visit to Canada included.
In Vancouver, Harding complained of feeling ill and his Surgeon General, one of the poker brigade known as Doc Sawyer, diagnosed acute indigestion. It was coronary thrombosis. Harding died in a San Francisco hospital. The country mourned – until the corruption was exposed. And then, wrote Samuel Hopkins Adams, veteran Harding-watcher: “The public which had held its breath over the dying president now held its nose over the rising stench of scandal.”
Five of Harding’s men were jailed, two killed themselves, and there were claims his wife poisoned him to avoid inevitable impeachment. But today, real proof that America has changed since then: only a few diehards openly give a damn that Barack Obama is black.
I would repeat my question:
How many lynchings are required before you cross the line from rare to common place?
How many of the lynchings over that period of time were racially motivated? It was common for accused criminals (and convicted ones too) to be hauled out by the public and strung up. Vigilantism is always a horror; I never champion any of the calls for vigilante justice I see on FR.
There were also union workers who would lynch scabs and those who broke the picket lines.
It is a falacy to believe that every lynching in America was a white mob lynching some black man, woman, or child.
This website has some details on some research on lynching from 1882-1968. Some details even on individual states (some states had no lynchings and some states have no record of any black people being lynched). And yes there is a racial component (3-1) of black people being lynched to white people. I do question the research that no one was ever lynched in America before 1882. And I do agree with the statement that there are likely lynchings of black people that were not recorded as such.
http://faculty.berea.edu/browners/chesnutt/classroom/lynchingstat.html
In the mid 1960s, it was still legal in Texas to shoot someone caught in bed with your wife. No need to even go to court to proclaim it as being “a crime of passion, heat of the moment”. It was an accepted instance of murder (possibly even premeditated).
Are you stupid, or merely trying to start a stupid argument?
I'm talking NUMBERS--that's all.
Murders are more frequent in the period being discussed, but no one has ever said murders are "commonplace".
What can't you understand about that?
I would repeat my question: How many lynchings are required before you cross the line from rare to common place?
You're not really interested in anything but a stupid grandstand play, so what difference does it make?
The media shielded John Edwards’ affair for over a year. Have to wonder if John Edwards had not been a “third contender” for the presidential nomination in the primary (just Hillary vs. Barack) if the Democrats might have had a different landmark candidacy.
Such as it is when they collude with the Party to effect an outcome.
That rescinded that law............ damn!
Save the insults pal as it does not help either of us or FR.
If you have an issue or question send it to me in private and then we can rip each other a new one in that forum.
You're the one with the issue, "pal", starting with your first post to me. If you can't stand the heat, don't try such retarded grandstanding performances, which are no doubt meant to hide your own feelings on the issue.
“The media shielded John Edwards’ affair for over a year. Have to wonder if John Edwards had not been a “third contender” for the presidential nomination in the primary (just Hillary vs. Barack) if the Democrats might have had a different landmark candidacy.
Such as it is when they collude with the Party to effect an outcome” You are most definately correct. Edwards if nothing else would have probably been Emperor Barry’s VP choice over Biden. I think they will bring Edwards back out after the dirt settles down. I think that’s why he had a press conference on his affair and everyone was doing its not his kid thing. I look for Edwards to go into the annoited one’s cabinet possibly at some later date to even out the carpet baggers who are there since so far everyone is from the Northeast or Chicago and he has to of course reward the Hollywood crowd. But yeah, Carville and that Donna Breazile woman put that inexperienced label on Palin within moments of the annoucement on CNN which I saw myself and no one from the McCain camp or the Republican party got on the defensive to stop that label in its tracks from day one. Instead, they allowed it to linger and linger and linger and it got worse and they are still sticking it to Palin even though the election is over. You can bet that Obama’s people and Dean’s people did ground press control immediately after the Wright thing came out.
There is no wiggle room here—lynching of blacks, whites, or anyone, was wrong on all levels. While there may have been whites lynched—this particular “strange fruit” was directed against blacks. There is no rationalization or belittling of this fact. Only 72 a year? Why its so insignificant! /sarc
You really should review this entire exchange and reevaluate your comments. Otherwise, you really are not one worth the energy of future posts or discussions. good night and good riddance.
What's hilarious is that what I said that was so infuriating to you wasn't some imaginary (on your part) endorsement of lynching, but a WORD CHOICE, and you're trying to turn that into something else.
Why should I reevaluate a comment on the use of a word?
You're trying to make it seem like something else is going on, but you don't have the guts to be open about it.
As for not being worth discussion--who the heck ASKED you to talk to me?
infuriating?
LOL
No anger was ever expressed by me in any of my comments. What led you to that erroneous assumption?
I was questioning your definition of "common place", and you have never answered my questions asked of you previously.
Far from being angry, you are more of a source of befuddled amusment.
Good night.
“Brothers we ought to be struggling together”
“We are, we are”
Sorry couldn’t resist the Monty Python reference.
Mel
Your first response:
"You cannot be serious."
That was about my questioning of a word? When you're just wondering about someone's two-line comment about word choice, you respond "You cannot be serious"?
Suuuuure you do.
Your whole series of posts was an interesting example of someone who can't just come out and say what he wants to say. But your very first, unguarded post exposes you.
If only you had the honesty to simply ask what you really want to ask.
Thanks, it's been VERY interesting watching you duck and dodge. But your posts are there for all to see.
It’s time for the Attila the Hun Show!
take care.
That is funny and I do appreciate your sense of humor, more so in the sense that you are the one that never answered my questions.
I wonder why you are spending so much time on this? Move on to better things.
I answered your questions. The only question I didn't answer was your silly, baiting ones--and instead of just moving on, you kept asking. As for questions unanswered, your "innocent" questions are underlined by your first post--before you started your dance. And yet you keep responding. Hmmmm...
I wonder why you are spending so much time on this?
Unlike you, I've been very open. I explained why I'm "spending so much time on this"--a communication which YOU instigated. It's because you keep posting to me, yet you can't come out and ask what you really want to ask. Why is that?
Move on to better things.
Physician, heal thyself.
Ah, classic cognitive dissonance. You see a fact that runs counter to your pre-existing world view, so you discount it out of hand.
Actually, unlike a moonbat, you actually acknowledged the fact enough to try to discredit it. Ergo, there may be hope.
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