Presidential Assassinations Have Always Aided the Democrats

Frontpagemagazine ^ | July 19, 2024 | Robert Spencer

[SJackson]

The greatest beneficiaries of violence.

There have been four assassinations of presidents in American history, and every one of them has aided the Democrats. This is not to say that the Democrat party engineered the assassinations for its own advantage, but nevertheless, it’s true: each time a president has been killed, the Democrats were the beneficiaries. If Donald Trump had been murdered last Saturday evening, it would not have been the killing of a sitting president, but once again, the left would have reaped the benefits.

When Abraham Lincoln became the first president to be murdered while in office, the Democrat party, which had supported slavery and split over secession, got a new lease on life. In 1864, Lincoln had run for reelection on a national unity ticket. The Republican party even renamed itself the National Union party, and chose as Lincoln’s running mate one of the few pro-union Democrats, Andrew Johnson of the border state of Tennessee.

When the Confederate sympathizer and staunch Democrat John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln on April 14, 1865, the party that was still in the midst of leading a massive and bloody insurrection against the federal authority in Washington was suddenly back in the White House. Lincoln had called for “malice toward none” and “charity for all,” but none of those who followed in his wake could figure out how to deliver that, and most weren’t even interested in trying. As Rating America’s Presidents explains, President Andrew Johnson opposed the enfranchisement and equality of rights of blacks. In this, Johnson departed from Lincoln’s course, as his martyred predecessor had favored civil rights for the freed slaves. In May 1865, Johnson granted amnesty to all ex-Confederates except those who owned property worth $20,000 ($300,000 today), that is, virtually the entire former ruling class, and soon they were back in power in what came to be known as “the Solid South,” a segregationist Democrat voting bloc that lasted a century.

The Democrats benefited again on July 2, 1881, when a deranged man named Charles Guiteau stepped up behind President James A. Garfield and fired his gun twice, hitting him in the back and arm (Garfield died on Sept. 19). Guiteau cried out, “I am a Stalwart and now Arthur is President!” Arthur was Chester A. Arthur, who had been awarded the Republicans’ vice presidential spot in order to balance the ticket. Garfield was a champion of civil service reform, while Arthur and Guiteau were Stalwarts, those who favored the “spoils system.” Under the “spoils system,” the president gave federal jobs to his supporters; proponents of civil service reform wanted such jobs to be given on the basis of merit.

Arthur surprised everyone by abandoning the Stalwarts and enacting Garfield’s program; he felt bound to do so since Garfield, not he, had been elected president. For this, Arthur has been justly praised, but civil service reform has not turned out to be the unalloyed benefit that many assumed it would be. In fact, it allowed for the formation of the unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy that now largely runs things in Washington. Chester Arthur unwittingly paved the way for the creation of the deep state that did so much to destroy the presidency of Donald Trump (and will again if he is reelected). Garfield would have had a hard time getting civil service reform passed; Arthur did so on a wave of sympathy for the martyred president. The road from there leads straight to the far-left dictatorial bureaucrats of our own day.

Leon Czolgosz, the man who shot President William McKinley on Sept. 6, 1901 (McKinley died eight days later), was a man of the left, an anarchist and associate of the renowned activist Emma Goldman. After hearing Goldman (who actually advocated the assassination of rulers she thought unjust) speak about the injustices of American society, Czolgosz determined that “I would have to do something heroic for the cause I loved.” He traveled to Buffalo, where McKinley was appearing at the Pan-American Exposition, to kill the president.

Emma Goldman suggested that the assassination was justified: “Some people have hastily said that Czolgosz’s act was foolish and will check the growth of progress. Those worthy people are wrong in forming hasty conclusions. What results the act of September 6 will have no one can say; one thing, however, is certain: he has wounded government in its most vital spot.” This the-end-justifies-the-means rhetoric would become a staple of leftist discourse, particularly in the twenty-first century, when the left in America grew more violent than it ever had before.

Republican Party bosses, notably McKinley’s chief backer, Ohio Senator and Republican National Committee Chairman Mark Hanna, thought Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was a reckless radical. Hanna once exclaimed to a roomful of party leaders: “Don’t any of you realize there’s only one life between this madman and the presidency?” When Leon Czolgosz showed by killing McKinley how important such concerns really were, one prominent Republican is said to have exclaimed, “Now look, that damned cowboy is president of the United States.”

The “damned cowboy” was a “progressive,” equating progress with the steady expansion of government control over ever more aspects of citizens’ lives. As charming and ebullient as he was, Theodore Roosevelt was also one of the founding figures of today’s gargantuan and out-of-control federal state. Democrat party leader and thrice-failed presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan charged Roosevelt and the “progressives” with stealing ideas from the Democrat program. Roosevelt responded cheerfully: “So I have. That is quite true. I have taken every one of them except those suited for the inmates of lunatic asylums.” And some of those as well.

On November 22, 1963, the Democrats were grim about their prospects for 1964. Although the fact has been forgotten now, John F. Kennedy’s presidency had been rocky. He had faced down the Soviets over their missiles in Cuba, but they wouldn’t have put them there in the first place if they hadn’t perceived JFK as a callow, weak party boy. His disastrous Bay of Pigs effort to overthrow the Communist regime of Fidel Castro only reinforced this view. Kennedy faced a tough challenge from Republican Barry Goldwater, whom many pundits thought could win.

The assassination of Kennedy changed all that. Lyndon B. Johnson rode the revulsion and horror that followed the assassination to a landslide victory, and enacted the far left’s dream agenda for domestic policy. (In matters of foreign policy, the hard left was not as enamored of LBJ.)

Johnson’s War on Poverty was a huge exercise in applying the wrong solution to problems and only making them worse rather than solving them. Yet the Democrat party to this day is full of leaders who refuse to admit that it has been a defeat and a disaster, and keep pushing to repeat its mistakes on an even larger scale. The War on Poverty has cost over $22 trillion since 1964, over three times the cost of all the actual wars that the U.S. has ever fought. All that has resulted from it, however, is urban blight, nagging minority unemployment, and above all, more poverty. Poverty levels were falling sharply before Johnson declared war on poverty; in 1950, 32 percent of Americans were considered to be living below the poverty line. By 1965, when the War on Poverty was just getting started, the poverty level had been cut nearly in half and was down to 17 percent. But by 2014, after trillions had been spent in the War on Poverty, it was at 14 percent, nearly the same as it had been when the War on Poverty began.

The War on Poverty failed because it ignored a basic law of economics: if you pay for something, you’ll get more of it, not less. As the government expanded welfare programs that subsidized food, housing, and health care for the poor, it got more poor people, not fewer: the Johnson administration had created an economic incentive to remain poor. Johnson’s “Great Society” took away incentives to work and created a permanent unemployed underclass in which an ever-larger group of people were essentially wards of the state.

We’re still paying the price, but the advocates of statism and socialism love it. If Donald Trump had been killed last Saturday night, those forces would have virtually assured of getting even more of what they want.

[Pelham]

“For comparisons, Democrat Pres. Wilson added:
The Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Reserve System
The National Park Service
Greatly expanded the IRS to administer the new Income Tax.
During WWI, enacted the Espionage and Sedition Acts to register half a million “enemy aliens” and send over 6,000 to internment camps.”

BroJoe has provided us with a classic example of blaming Wilson for policies originating under Roosevelt and/or Taft. Usually we get this partisan comic book “history” from Dinesh or Beck.

Teddy’s 1907 State of the Union speech included his request for a graduated income tax to replace tariffs. It’s not the only time that he pushed the idea. The Amendent required to make it Constitutional circulated during Taft and was ratified by the States before Wilson took office.

The Federal Reserve System has its roots in the Aldrich–Vreeland Act that created the National Monetary Commission in 1908. Aldrich was GOP Senate Leader, Vreeland a GOP House member.

The 1917 Espionage Act enacted during WWI added to Taft’s 1911 Defense Secrets Act which first criminalized collecting and sharing information about military installations.

Teddy’s 1910 “New Nationalism” speech was a roadmap for creating the Federal Trade Commission.

Conservatives used to learn history from the likes of Burton Folsom at the Foundation for Economic Education. That’s when we had serious people and not entertainers and partisan hacks as “educators”. The Teddy Roosevelt Republican Party was every bit as responsible for Progressive era legislation as were Wilson Democrats.

https://fee.org/articles/teddy-roosevelt-and-the-progressive-vision-of-history/

Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive Vision of History

“Over a hundred years ago, on August 31, 1910, Teddy Roosevelt gave his famous “New Nationalism” speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. In that speech the former president projected his vision for how the federal government could regulate the American economy. He defended the government’s expansion during his presidency and suggested new ways that it could promote “the triumph of a real democracy.”

Roosevelt’s quest for “a real democracy” and for centralizing power was a clear break with the American founders. James Madison, for example, distrusted both democracy and human nature; he believed that separating power was essential to good government. He urged in Federalist No. 51 that “those who administer each department” of government be given “the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist the encroachments of others. . . . Ambition must be made to check ambition.” If power was dispersed, Madison concluded, liberty might prevail and the republic might endure.

Roosevelt argued in this speech that the recent rise of corporations gave businessmen too much economic control. Madison’s constitutional restraints, therefore, allowed too much wealth to be concentrated in too few hands. Redistribution of wealth by government, Roosevelt thought, would achieve “a more substantial equality of opportunity.”

The economic power of railroads triggered Roosevelt’s ire during his presidency. He was frustrated that railroads gave rebates to large customers. In effect, the railroads charged varying rates for carrying the same products the same distance. Roosevelt thought rates should be roughly similar for large shippers and small shippers, especially if the small shippers were far from major cities.

He posed the problem this way: “Combinations in industry are the result of an imperative economic law which cannot be repealed by political legislation. The effort at prohibiting all combination has substantially failed. The way out lies, not in attempting to prevent such combinations, but in completely controlling them in the interest of the public welfare.”

In practical terms, “completely controlling” railroads in the public interest meant that the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) would have power to set rates so that larger shippers would not get such big discounts on their high volume of business. James J. Hill, president of the Great Northern Railroad, argued that large shippers received higher rebates because their massive business created “economies of scale” for the railroads—that is, railroads could reduce their costs best when shipping large amounts of goods over the rails. The bigger shippers contributed more to the reduced costs of shipping, so they got larger rebates.

To Roosevelt and to the smaller shippers, rebates for the bigger shippers were “unfair money-getting” and have “tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power.” The founders may have provided a “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but Roosevelt believed that the pursuit of happiness and private property were not absolute. “We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity,” Roosevelt said—but then added, “when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows.” If railroads were enriching themselves and larger shippers disproportionately to the smaller shippers, then Roosevelt believed such power to set rates needed to be limited: “The Hepburn Act, and the amendment [Mann-Elkins Act] to the act in the shape in which it finally passed Congress at the last session [1910], represent a long step in advance, and we must go further.”

The Hepburn Act gave the ICC the power to reduce railroad rates and placed the burden on railroads to show their rates were reasonable. One intervention led to another. The railroads now had to prove that the rates they set were fair, so Congress created a Bureau of Valuation, which was empowered with a huge staff to value railroad property. According to historian Ari Hoogenboom, the bureau’s “final report, issued after a twenty-year study costing the public and the railroads hundreds of millions of dollars, disproved assumptions by Progressives that railroads were . . . making fabulous returns on their true investment.”

The lesson that Roosevelt learned from passing the Hepburn Act was that federal power was needed to break up those businesses that engaged in price discrimination. “The citizens of the United States,” Roosevelt said, “must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have called into being.”

Once Roosevelt established that the federal government should regulate the prices railroads charged for shipping, the next step was to intervene in other industries as well. “In particular,” Roosevelt argued in his speech, “there are strong reasons why . . . the United States Department of Agriculture and the agricultural colleges and experiment stations should extend their work to cover all phases of farm life. . . .” He added, “The man who wrongly holds that every human right is secondary to his profit must now give way to the advocate of human welfare, who rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.”

The shift from the individual rights of the founders to the community rights of the Progressives was a watershed transition in American thought in the early 1900s. But Roosevelt needed a federal income tax to help him redistribute wealth in the national interest. The title “New Nationalism” reflected his view that he and other leaders could determine the national interest and redistribute wealth and power accordingly.

Of the income tax Roosevelt said, “The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means, Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective—a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.”

Three years after Roosevelt’s speech, the Sixteenth Amendment, authorizing a federal income tax without regard to source, became law. Roosevelt had his wish—the 1913 tax was progressive: Most people paid no income tax, and the top rate was 7 percent. Roosevelt probably envisioned rates not much higher than that, but once Congress established the principle that some people could be taxed more than others, there was no way to calculate or determine what the national interest was.

Within one-third of a century after Roosevelt’s speech, the United States had a top marginal income tax rate of more than 90 percent.

When the individual liberty of the founders was transformed into the national interest of Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressives, we were only one generation away from a major threat to all our personal liberties. That threat still exists today.

[BroJoeK]

Vigilanteman to Red Badger: "Good list, but misses the attempt on FDR when he was president elect and Truman while he was living in the Blair House while the white house was being renovated."

Turns out, when you look into the question, since 1900 there have been 22 US presidents and of them, only four had no major attempts on their lives.

The four with no major attempts on their lives were:

1. Woodrow Wilson -- Democrat
2. Calvin Coolidge -- Republican
3. Dwight Eisenhower -- Republican
4. Lyndon Johnson -- Democrat

Since 1900, two Presidents were assassinated:

1. McKinnley -- Republican
2. Kennedy -- Democrat

Ten were shot, shot-at or an attempted shooting:

1. Teddy Roosevelt -- shot in Buffalo, NY
2. W. Howard Taft -- attempted shooting in Mexico
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt -- shot at by gangster in Miami
4. Harry Truman -- shot at by Puerto Rican at Blair House
5. Richard Nixon -- attempted shooting in Canada
6. Gerald Ford -- attempted shooting (by Charles Manson follower "Squeeky" Fromme) in Sacramento
7. Jimmy Carter -- attempted shooting by John Hinkley, who later shot Ronald Reagan
8. Ronald Reagan -- shot in Washington, DC
9. Bill Clinton -- attempted shootings outside the White House
10. Donald Trump -- shot in Butler, PA

Six others saw attempted attacks by other means:

1. Warren Harding -- natural death or a suspected poisoning by wife in Alaska?
2. Herbert Hoover -- bomb plot in Argentina
3. George Bush Sr. -- bomb plot in Kuwait
4. George Bush Jr. -- hand grenade in the country of Georgia
5. Barak Obama -- several different attempts with knife, pipe bomb, "radiation gun", etc.
6. Joe Biden -- attempted vehicle homicide at the White House

These are only the most noted assassination attempts.

[ProgressingAmerica]

BroJoeK,

You are not buying yourself any sympathy points by being dishonest here. This is Free Republic, virtually every person posting on this message board is well aware of the fact that Theodore Roosevelt is the person who gave us the FBI via executive order. You aren't fooling anybody. You aren't even fooling yourself.

You said:

"Under Republican Teddy Roosevelt there were exactly two:" (FBI was expressly kept out of the list)

Two, LOL

[ProgressingAmerica]

The New Nationalism Theodore Roosevelt (full speech)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrpB-tsUdwo

[Vigilanteman]

Good list, but some are a stretch. Teddy had been out of office nearly four years when he was running against Taft who was seeking re-election in 2012. I think the shooting took place in Chicago, or was it Milwaukee. Obama was not a credible threat. As I recall that incident, it was some poor confused black woman with a baby in the back seat that got gunned down when she got too close to the white house. She was totally unarmed but in their overactive imagination, she might have had explosives in the vehicle (she did not).

Compare and contrast that threat to Mr. Crooks who was on a rooftop with a rifle and could not be taken out until he actually started firing according to secret service sources.

[DiogenesLamp]

+1.

[Chgogal]

Yikes! My American history class never discussed the assassinations from that POV.

[BroJoeK]

ProgressingAmerica: "Theodore Roosevelt is the person who gave us the FBI via executive order."

That's pure nonsense, and if you are interested in the actual origins of the FBI, here is a complete recounting of those events.
The key quote is:

Pres. Teddy Roosevelt and his AG Charles Bonaparte:

"Within days of this deadline [set by Congress as July 1, 1908], Attorney General Bonaparte began a small reorganization of Justice Department to address the impending loss of access to the Secret Service operatives.
With little fanfare, he began to group together the sundry investigators of the department and nine Secret Service agents permanently hired as Justice special agents.
On July 26, 1908, Bonaparte ordered DOJ attorneys to refer most investigative matters to the Chief Examiner, Stanley W. Finch, who would determine if there were special agents under his direction available to investigate the case...17"

"...Roosevelt left office the next day, as did Charles Bonaparte.
Two days later [dated March 16, 1909], the new Attorney General, George Wickersham, issued a formal order creating the Bureau of Investigation.
Within two years, Congress had tripled the size of this force and greatly broadened its investigative authority."

That's it -- there was no executive order -- AG Bonaparte simply moved various investigators, maybe two dozen, already working for the Justice Department into a single office area and put them under authority of his Chief Examiner.
The reason for it was that Congress (i.e., Tawney, Smith & Fitzgerald) objected to Justice Department's ad hoc use of Secret Service investigators, and wanted Justice to hire its own investigators.
So they did.

The name, "Bureau of Investigation" and specific congressional appropriations all began the following year, in 1909, under Pres. Taft.

So, no, Virginia, Teddy Roosevelt did not "start the FBI by executive order".
Instead, Congress forced events by forbidding temporary loaning of Secret Service investigators to the Justice Department, but allowing Justice to hire its own investigators.
That first happened under Roosevelt in 1908, but did not become the Bureau of Investigation until the following year, under Pres. Taft.

There was no FBI under Teddy Roosevelt.
So yes, "Two, LOL"

[BroJoeK]

ProgressingAmerica: "The New Nationalism Theodore Roosevelt (full speech)"

Sure, no doubt, but I don't agree that Republican TR is to be blamed for every bad thing Progressive Democrats did in the 116 years since TR left office in 1908.

For just one example -- under Teddy Roosevelt in 1908, the Federal government (non-military) was less than half the size it became under Pres. Wilson in 1920.

[sauropod]

Good article. TY.

[BroJoeK]

Vigilanteman: "Teddy had been out of office nearly four years when he was running against Taft who was seeking re-election in 2012.
I think the shooting took place in Chicago, or was it Milwaukee."

I stand corrected -- the October 14, 1912 incident was in Milwaukee, not Buffalo, and was very equivalent to the Trump shooting near Butler, PA.

One difference is that Teddy Roosevelt carried that non-fatal bullet in his chest the rest of his life.

As for some of the other presidents, I agree that not all threats were equally serious.
You noted one unserious threat against Obama, and we could add to that the vehicle crash against Biden's White House, which posed no serious danger.

Squeaky Fromme after 1975 assassination attempt:

On the other hand, in Pres. Ford was also unhurt in 1975, but avoided death in Sacramento from a shooting by Charles Manson follower "Squeaky" Fromme, only because her gun failed to fire.
Then again, two weeks later Sara Jane Moore fired and missed at Ford in San Francisco, though wounding a bystander.
I'd call those very serious even though Ford was unhurt.

As for the shooting of Trump and others in Butler, PA, I'm hopeful we'll get an honest investigation, but would not really expect one until after Republicans take over in January 2025.

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "BroJoe has provided us with a classic example of blaming Wilson for policies originating under Roosevelt and/or Taft.
Usually we get this partisan comic book “history” from Dinesh or Beck."

I suspect that you have a soft, tender spot of love in your heart for Southern Progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson, and therefore, like all Democrats, you wish to blame everyone except Wilson for Wilson's wrongdoings.
Sure, I "get" that, but facts remain facts, nonetheless.

As for Teddy Roosevelt, his 1912 election "Bull Moose" party was the Progressive Party and their platform included the following:

1912 election by county -- Green = TR's Bull Moose Progressives:

1. Direct Democracy -- meaning direct primaries for party nominations, direct election of U.S. Senators (17th Amendment, 1913), and the use of initiatives, referendums, and recalls.

2. Womens' Suffrage -- 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920

3. Campaign Finance reform, Sunshine Laws for government events and prohibition on political activities by Federal employees, which eventually became the 1939 Hatch Act.

4. Judicial Reforms to reign in activist courts.

5. Labor and Industrial Reforms -- safety standards, minimum wage laws, eight-hour workday, prohibition of child labor, etc.

6. Social Insurance -- government mandated workers' insurance for unemployment, health care and pensions.

7. Department of Labor -- established in March 1913 under Pres. Taft.

8. Farm Aid -- through adoption of the Country Life Commission recommendations, including ag-education, research and easier credit for farmers.

9. Inflation Reduction through eliminating waste, extravagance and high taxes.

10. United States Public Health Service -- established in 1912

11. Interstate Commerce regulation & Trust Busting law enforcement.

12. Sound Money -- Government, not private control of US currency.

13. Increase US Exports through government cooperation.

14. Conservation -- charge reasonable fees for business uses of public lands.

15. Infrastructure -- Federal support for roads, harbors & waterways, plus protection of the Panama Canal against unscrupulous monopolists.

16. Alaska -- Drill Baby Drill

17. Protective Tariff -- Make American Great, Put Americans First.

18. Income Tax -- 18th Amendment, ratified 1913.

19. National Defense -- Peace Through Strength (two battleships per year) and negotiations for peace.

20. Protections for Legal Immigration.

21. Civil Service Reforms to prevent politicization of government bureaucrats.

22. Stronger laws against swindlers, scammers & other such pirates.

23. Opposition to Democrats' "extreme" States' Rights, though no specifics are mentioned.

So what did Progressive Southern Democrats under Woodrow Wilson offer in opposition?
Pretty much the same kind of language, including direct election of Senators, except for three areas:

1. Democrats wanted lower tariffs and blamed high tariffs for the high cost of living.
   They wanted to replace high tariffs with income taxes, 16th Amendment, ratified under Pres. Wilson.

2. Democrats wanted a central banking system, which they got in December 1913 with the new Federal Reserve System.

3. Democrats wanted "States' Rights" protected, though without mentioning anything specific in this regard.

Pelham: "The Teddy Roosevelt Republican Party was every bit as responsible for Progressive era legislation as were Wilson Democrats."

Fair enough, except in 1912 there were actually four, not just two, parties on the ballot:

1. Woodrow Wilson's Democrats got 6 million popular votes, 435 electoral votes.

2. Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose Progressives got 4 million popular and 88 electoral votes.

3. Howard Taft's Republicans got 3 million popular and 8 electoral votes.

4. Eugene Debbs Socialists got 1 million popular and no electoral votes.

In 1912 all the parties were at least "progressive".
There was no, what we would call, a Conservative Party.

Bottom Line: As you review Teddy Roosevelt's 1912 Progressive Bull Moose Party platform, can you pick out any planks which you think a Pres. Trump Republican would want to abolish, eliminate or drastically modify even today, 112 years later?

[Vigilanteman]

Good summary. FWIW, TR died less than 7 years later. He was born a frail asthmatic, trained his body to be a robust man. took big risks throughout his life and finally had those risks overtake him.

Whatever you think of his policies, Teddy was one badassed tough guy who has served as a source of inspiration for many once sickly asthmatic kids, including me.

[Pelham]

“I suspect that you have a soft, tender spot of love in your heart for Southern Progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson”

Your fantasy world leads to astray once again. I don’t have any soft spot for Woodrow Wilson.

Woodrow Wilson, the progessive president of Princeton University; Wilson the spokesman for progressivism in higher education; Wilson the Governor of the northern State of New Jersey.

Of course that part of Wilson’s biography doesn’t help your usual obsession so it’s understandable why you’d choose to pretend that it doesn’t exist.

Nor do I have a soft head, which is why I don’t blame Wilson for policies that were initiated by Teddy Roosevelt and Republicans in Congress.

Only fools ignore Teddy’s speeches in favor of creating the income tax. Of the income tax Amendment circulating during the Taft presidency. Or of ignoring the Republican Congress writing the bills that created the Fed.

All of this history is easy enough to verify. Well except maybe to clowns like Dinesh and Beck who insist on pretending that progressivism in the Federal government begins with Woodrow Wilson.

[ProgressingAmerica]

TR's Price Controls.

That is what a large portion of what you posted amounts to.(from fee .org) It is true that Theodore Roosevelt instituted the first peacetime regime of price controls in at least modern U.S. history, if not the whole of U.S. history.

Much of what progressive TR did to ruin the Constitution wasn't limited to his creation of the original deep state that we are still saddled with to this day. Your post quoting FEE didn't say it, so I wanted to make sure it was said. Theodore Roosevelt instituted price controls with that Hepburn Act, that's what it was.

Price Controls.

[ProgressingAmerica]

ProgressingAmerica: "Theodore Roosevelt is the person who gave us the FBI via executive order."

That's pure nonsense

In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt requested the U.S. Congress to create a new law enforcement agency in the Justice Department. When Congress opposed, Roosevelt created the Bureau of Investigation by executive order in 1908.

PDF direct download: (paragraph 1) https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mathieu-Deflem-2/publication/331305857_Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation_FBI/links/5c76e5ae92851c6950466409/Federal-Bureau-of-Investigation-FBI.pdf

--

Roosevelt and Bonaparte both were "Progressives." They shared the conviction that efficiency and expertise, not political connections, should determine who could best serve in government. Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States in 1901; four years later, he appointed Bonaparte to be Attorney General. In 1908, Bonaparte applied that Progressive philosophy to the Department of Justice by creating a corps of Special Agents. It had neither a name nor an officially designated leader other than the Attorney General. Yet, these former detectives and Secret Service men were the forerunners of the FBI.

https://irp.fas.org/agency/doj/fbi/fbi_hist.htm

--

......in 1908 President Roosevelt created the Bureau of Investigation by executive order and directed Attorney General Charles Bonaparte to develop the agency within the Department of Justice.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/law/legal-and-political-magazines/federal-bureau-investigation-history

--

Moreover, Theodore Roosevelt and several others in his administration favored the expansion of the Secret Service to meet their desire for a comprehensive federal detective agency.

Soon after Roosevelt issued an executive order creating the Bureau in 1908, however, the agency established a secure niche in the federal bureaucracy.

https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/slps14&div=8&id=&page=

--

Nobody denies that Theodore Roosevelt created the FBI. Some do later specify that he directed Bonaparte to go do this, go do that, go do the other thing, not that Bonaparte really needed all that much. Progressives see eye to eye on matters of taking a leak on the Constitution.

Most cites simply ignore the role of the executive order. Even more cites gloss over the original name of the FBI, because it such an insignificant trivia fact we might as well memorize how tall the building was and how many bricks they used to build the building.

The important part is that the FBI that harasses Donald Trump was created by President Teddy Roosevelt. It's joke that doesn't make anybody laugh that you trust the FBI's own web page without even going and attempting to look if there have been independent research on the matter. Which there have been. You also didn't take the time to scan the FBI's own pages to see if there were any contradictions there.

"There was no FBI under Teddy Roosevelt. So yes"

Even your own link says Theodore Roosevelt. So no, the FBI is #3 to your pitifully omitted list of two. And there's more than 3 BTW, I just wanted to focus here on this singular one. You also said:

"That first happened under Roosevelt in 1908."

A contradiction. You can't have it both ways not in 1908 and in 1908. This is severe Stalinesque hero worshipping cult of personality nonsense. It's embarrassing to watch you do this to yourself.

[ProgressingAmerica]

"That's pure nonsense, and if you are interested in the actual origins of the FBI, here is a complete recounting of those events."

No. That is an incomplete recounting of those events.

The FBI were created by progressives. Progressives are liars. Ergo, the FBI are liars. What else would anybody else expect? Give this FBI page a try. Note the line I underlined, red:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120510194722/http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/brief-history/docs_findlay43

President Theodore Roosevelt Takes Action

President Theodore Roosevelt, in his characteristic dynamic fashion, asserted that the plunderers of the public domain would be prosecuted and brought to justice.

The story has been related, and it is believed to be in substance true and correct, that President Theodore Roosevelt called Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte to the White House and told him that he desired that the land frauds be prosecuted vigorously, and directed that he obtain the necessary investigative personnel to handle the matter in an expeditious and thorough manner. It was reported that Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte applied to the United States Secret Service for trained personnel to make the proper and necessary investigation, and was assigned quite a force of men, who were sent out to conduct investigations. In due course a lengthy report was submitted, which was presented to Mr. Bonaparte, and by Mr. Bonaparte to President Thedore Roosevelt. The report was examined and certain features were discussed at length. President Roosevelt then told Mr. Bonaparte that this report did not contain the true facts as he knew them, and he directed that the Attorney General send the same men or a new crew of men to reopen the investigation and obtain the real facts.

A new investigation was undertaken. Some of the men who were on the first assignment and some new investigators were added. They went into the field and were gone several months, at which time they returned and submitted a lengthy report to Mr. Bonaparte. This report was taken by Mr. Bonaparte to the White House, where it was discussed with President Theodore Roosevelt. It was reported at the time that after the President had fully considered the report, he told Mr. Bonaparte in most emphatic language characteristic of President Roosevelt that the report was a whitewash, that it was covering up the real facts, and that he wanted the facts, all the facts, and the true facts, and if there was any whitewashing done he would do it himself.

It was further asserted that President Roosevelt directed Bonaparte to create an investigative service within the Department of Justice subject to no other department or bureau, which would report to no one except the Attorney General. It is considered thoroughly reliable that this was the incident which resulted in the formation of the Bureau of Investigation of the United States Department of Justice.

It was reported that Bonaparte began immediately to make plans to create such a force. It is also a well known that at least one United States Senator (Senator Mitchell of Oregon) and possible two, and two or more Congressmen and a number of private citizens were convicted in these land fraud cases. The exact date of the convictions are unknown to Agent.

Formation of Investigative Force in the Department

It appears that on July 26, 1908, nine Secret Service employees of the Treasury Department were appointed Special Agents of the Department of Justice. These, together, with thirteen investigators who had been employed on peonage and land fraud, and twelve examiners provided for by statute, constituted the organization of the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice. By an order of the Attorney General they were to be under the Chief Examiner in the Department of Justice.

The FBI is all Theodore Roosevelt's.

He owns it.

The FBI harasses Donald Trump. Teddy owns that too. The FBI simply should not exist, it is blatantly unconstitutional.

[BroJoeK]

Correction: 16th not 18th Amendment for Income Taxes

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "Your fantasy world leads to astray once again.
I don’t have any soft spot for Woodrow Wilson."

Of course not, but still you want to blame Teddy Roosevelt for things Wilson did -- why is that?

Pelham: "Woodrow Wilson, the progessive president of Princeton University; Wilson the spokesman for progressivism in higher education; Wilson the Governor of the northern State of New Jersey.
Of course that part of Wilson’s biography doesn’t help your usual obsession so it’s understandable why you’d choose to pretend that it doesn’t exist."

Of course, I understand all that -- Wilson was the DEI hire of his time, beneficiary of the late 19th century Great Reconciliation whitewash and Lost Cause revisions of real Civil War history.
All brought to us courtesy of the ancient alliance of Northern and Southern Democrats, which had ruled the US for 60 years before 1861 and by 1912 was struggling to reestablish its dominance over American politics.

Woodrow Wilson, of course, was a child of not just the South, but of the Confederacy itself -- he had grown up as a child in the Confederacy during the Civil War, and that outlook shaped his views of not just US politics but also international relations.

Pelham: "Nor do I have a soft head, which is why I don’t blame Wilson for policies that were initiated by Teddy Roosevelt and Republicans in Congress."

But why then would you try to absolve Wilson of blame for policies that his own Democrat party advocated in its 1912 platform?
For starters, we can mention the 16th and 17th Amendments -- Income Tax and Direct Election of Senators.

Wilson's December 1913 Federal Reserve Act was not specifically mentioned in Democrats' 1912 platform, however it passed with almost unanimous Democrat support and majority Republican opposition.

Pelham: "Only fools ignore Teddy’s speeches in favor of creating the income tax.
Of the income tax Amendment circulating during the Taft presidency.
Or of ignoring the Republican Congress writing the bills that created the Fed."

Nobody denies that Teddy Roosevelt's 1912 Bull Moose party was the Progressive Party, and advocated a long list of "progressive" causes.
But only a soft-headed fool ignores the glaring fact that Teddy's Bull Moosers were defeated in 1912 by the even more progressive Southern Democrats under Woodrow Wilson.

In 1913, The Federal Reserve Act was supported almost unanimously by Democrats, while opposed by the majority of Republicans.

I'm only saying here: don't blame Teddy for actions taken by a child of the Confederacy, Woodrow Wilson.
Wilson was a DEI hire of the Great Reconciliation and a scholarly intellectual of Progressivism, on a level that outdoorsman Teddy Roosevelt could never be.