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Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat:
Oh! be swift my soul to answer Him! Be jubilant my feet!
Our God is marching on.
For the benefit of the heathen and unpatriotic among us, that is from the song "Battle Hymn of the Republic." In this case, though, the Lord is Theodore Roosevelt, as this was the song of his impromptu convention. 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft & Debs by James Chace is a nice, slender volume on the presidential election of 1912.
This was the election in which Theodore Roosevelt split off from the Republicans after the conservatives rather cozened the nomination away from him in support of their incumbent, Taft. The conventional wisdom seems to hold that this is when the Republican party veered away from being the party of reform and progressivism as marked by Lincoln and TR, becoming the party as we know it today, the party of Nixon, Reagan, and Dubya.
In reading of this election one is impressed with how the forces of progressivism was flooding the system. This was also the election that the Socialist party under Eugene Debs made its biggest showing. The Democrat, Wilson, was also running on his progressive colors, breaking the political machines and bossism and seeking to curtail the concentration of corporate power (notwithstanding his white supremacism).
We can see the healthful democratic reaction against the excesses of industrial capitalism that flourished since the Civil War. It can seem that America was on that 'European path.' We know that this Progressive Movement didn't culminate until Franklin Roosevelt, and that our greater conservatism only solidified in reaction to the perceived excesses of the welfare state fairly recently, perhaps marked most clearly by the Reagan Administration.
Still, even then, this is the story that includes the arrests and ultimate imprisonment of the socialist Debs, for supposedly interfering with officers checking draft cards during one of his speeches in 1918. The line that got him arrested was this one:
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose - especially their lives."
Doesn't that just take one back to the days when Marxism was still a thriving philosophy? Debs had known troubles with the law and jail before, on account of his labor union activities. Progressivism wasn't an easy and straight march.
And we continue to struggle in trying to strike that elusive balance between idealism and power.
.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat:
Oh! be swift my soul to answer Him! Be jubilant my feet!
Our God is marching on.
For the benefit of the heathen and unpatriotic among us, that is from the song "Battle Hymn of the Republic." In this case, though, the Lord is Theodore Roosevelt, as this was the song of his impromptu convention. 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft & Debs by James Chace is a nice, slender volume on the presidential election of 1912.
This was the election in which Theodore Roosevelt split off from the Republicans after the conservatives rather cozened the nomination away from him in support of their incumbent, Taft. The conventional wisdom seems to hold that this is when the Republican party veered away from being the party of reform and progressivism as marked by Lincoln and TR, becoming the party as we know it today, the party of Nixon, Reagan, and Dubya.
In reading of this election one is impressed with how the forces of progressivism was flooding the system. This was also the election that the Socialist party under Eugene Debs made its biggest showing. The Democrat, Wilson, was also running on his progressive colors, breaking the political machines and bossism and seeking to curtail the concentration of corporate power (notwithstanding his white supremacism).
We can see the healthful democratic reaction against the excesses of industrial capitalism that flourished since the Civil War. It can seem that America was on that 'European path.' We know that this Progressive Movement didn't culminate until Franklin Roosevelt, and that our greater conservatism only solidified in reaction to the perceived excesses of the welfare state fairly recently, perhaps marked most clearly by the Reagan Administration.
Still, even then, this is the story that includes the arrests and ultimate imprisonment of the socialist Debs, for supposedly interfering with officers checking draft cards during one of his speeches in 1918. The line that got him arrested was this one:
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose - especially their lives."
Doesn't that just take one back to the days when Marxism was still a thriving philosophy? Debs had known troubles with the law and jail before, on account of his labor union activities. Progressivism wasn't an easy and straight march.
And we continue to struggle in trying to strike that elusive balance between idealism and power.
.
