Fists of Time

Fact Checking, Presidential Research, and Rick Santorum

This one goes out to reliable reader Laszlo, who asked that I not shy away from the political debates that might already occupy the blogosphere.

I do not have much to add about Rick Santorum's comments about JFK's 1960 speech on religion and government.  Because I have experience conducting research at Presidential Libraries, though, I do have some thoughts to offer on the response to Santorum's remarks.

Joan Walsh - a Catholic liberal and fervent Santorum critic - turned the tables on the former Pennsylvania senator yesterday.  In her Salon.com blog, she posted his remarks back to back with JFK's.  Looking at then-Senator Kennedy's words, you may believe, as I do, that Santorum's reaction was overblown and paranoid.

Holding political pseudo-history accountable should be easy.  That is why, this morning, Walsh expressed both thanks and dismay at the reaction to her own post:

This is one of those rare times when I’d rather not be recognized, because – don’t tell my editors – what I did was easy. It took me exactly 10 seconds to Google JFK’s speech and another few minutes to read it. Then I cut and pasted Santorum’s comments next to JFK’s and voila, kids, I had a story. The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart credited me with a “deep-dive,” and I appreciate the praise, but really, I barely got my feet wet.

The Atlantic did Walsh one better today and posted a YouTube video of Kennedy's speech.

Although I am basing my reaction almost solely on Walsh's critique, I am inclined to believe with her; major media organizations do not appear to have gone straight to the source of Kennedy's words to challenge Santorum's assessment of them.

Researching the public statements of U.S. presidents should not be difficult in this day and age.  The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library has an exhaustive speech file of Kennedy's presidential speeches, and even has a version of the 1960 address in text and audio.  The Atlantic actually posted from a third party, but cspan.org has a full version on its site here.  C-SPAN and the Kennedy Presidential Library are authoritative, trustworthy, and accessible sources.  Contacting them or browsing their online holdings shouldn't be considered 'digging deep.'

The reference librarians at the Presidential Library are amazingly easy to reach; from their main page, click on "Contact Us" and the Research Room phone number is in plain view.  Even the reference desk staff can field questions about detailed events such as the Sept. 12, 1960 Houston speech.

Fact-checking Santorum's other distortions of presidential history might require a couple hours at the library; but when it comes to televised presidential remarks, it can be quite easy.

Beyond "Beyond the Bonus March"

Following Freedom from Fear, I have been digging a little deeper into Depression/New Deal history.  I thank C-SPAN for recording and streaming an excellent series of discussions at the Roosevelt Presidential Library.  The most interesting of these talks was Stephen Ortiz, who has recently written Beyond the Bonus March and the GI Bill (NYU, 2009).  Ortiz's work is not very groundbreaking but offers some interesting questions and thought exercises.  Why, Ortiz asks, is Franklin D. Roosevelt's opposition to Bonus bills not more widely recognized?

(Note: although there were a number of bills in Congress to allow World War I veterans to immediately receive service certificate payment - some of which differed in various details - I am using the term "Bonus Bill" to refer to all of them generally.)

This question has both merits and flaws.  Of course, Herbert Hoover's reaction to the popularly-supported Bonus March (and General Douglas MacArthur's excessive use of force) is still decried to this day.  Because that incident helped deliver the 1932 election to Roosevelt, it is easy to assume that FDR supported the Bonus Army's demand for early benefit payments.

That assumption, of course, would be wrong, but let us not set up a straw man.  Is anyone actually making the assumption?  Any close reading of 1930s political history should at least gloss over FDR's views in favor of balanced budgets and opposition to advanced veterans' payments.  Ortiz is most interesting when he asks, more precisely, why the big news story of 1935-36 (the debate, veto, and passage of the Adjusted Compensation Payment Act) is hardly noted in today's history.  He cites large, front-page newspaper headlines, a Madison Square Garden rally, and a joint session of Congress that was presided over by the president himself (a unique historical event).  There is clearly a disconnect between the public's interest in the Bonus issue at the time and historians' interest in the issue today.

I have shared this experience during my historical research in college.  While studying 1970s Baltimore, I browsed newspaper headlines about rallies, strikes, and lawsuits that were - and are - historically significant but not a part of the big-picture history of the era that has emerged.  There is clearly something to be said about the forgetting of major controversies over the passage of time.

Nonetheless, I have quibbles about Ortiz's question.  I think that the question of FDR's 'forgotten' Bonus Bill veto can be resolved with a simple point: the veto was easily overridden.  It was a moot point.  On top of that, it does not appear to me that FDR's opposition was really that inconsistent with his program.  Early bonus payments - like the Share the Wealth or Townsend programs FDR also opposed - were massive expenditures.  Social Security was ostensibly contributory, and Harold Ickes' budgets were tightly run.  I wonder, too, if his defeat here actually foreshadows the difficult relationship he had with Congress in the late 1930s - a relationship widely acknowledged in New Deal history.

Additionally, I object to the idea that the Bonus March was a watershed in veterans' interest group politics.  Ortiz does acknowledge that the Grand Army of the Republic set a precedent for these politics but inexplicably writes off the political centrality of Civil War veterans.  It does not just suffice to cite Blight's Race and Reunion in this regard; I must point out that Civil War pensions constituted an enormous government expenditure, entitlement program, and political interest.

In spite of all of my objections, Stephen Ortiz's work is genuinely stimulating.  The question of the Bonus Bill ties into several different topics and questions about the Depression and New Deal: Hoover's similarities and differences with FDR; the question of the balanced budget; inflationary policies; silver; FDR's conflicts with Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and, at times, congressional Democrats.  New Deal history can, at times, be an endless list of events, legislation, and programs.  The topic of veterans' benefits bisects so many issues that it is quite unique.  Without reading the book, though, I wonder if it actually runs deeper that Stephen Ortiz even acknowledges.

Disputed Ground

During all of the 9/11 commemoration last weekend, I thought back to a video I produced in graduate school. It documented the rallies, protests, and demonstrations at the World Trade Center and Lower Manhattan in the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps it is appropriate that I waited a week before posting this video. After all, "Disputed Ground" is not really about the terrorist attacks. It is a meditation on public expression. Looking at all of the vintage footage of New York City, you may become sad about the people who died in the Twin Towers, or nostalgic for the lost architectural icon. But I want you instead to focus on the mentality captured in the video: the idea that ordinary people should communicate with each other on the streets of their city.

My initial interest in the World Trade Center began in college while I was researching the anti-war movement of the 1960s. The "hard hat riot" - an attack on anti-war protesters in downtown New York City - was rumored to be instigated by construction workers from the Trade Center site. Even if there was no proof they were the attackers, the allegation was compelling to me; it suggested a battle between two versions of American liberalism: a paternalist, union-friendly corporatism versus a pacifist, revolutionary New Left.

I had also just read Don DeLillo's Underworld, which takes place at the same time as the riot; in one passage, the towers' erection looms:

The World Trade Center was under construction, already towering, twin-towering, with cranes tilted at the summits and work elevators sliding up the flanks. She saw it almost everywhere she went. She ate a meal and drank a glass of wine and walked to the rail or ledge and there it usually was....

Based on these two disparate, vague inspirations, I was intrigued. Clearly the World Trade Center captured the imagination of New York before it was even built. I never had the opportunity to research the topic, so it just sat brewing in my mind for years until I attended Graduate School and took Kelly Shrum's Digital Storytelling course. That class (and a blizzard that allowed me to devour a few books, including the recently re-published Divided We Stand by Eric Darnton) allowed me to indulge my fascination. I did not actually perform any original research but I honed in on a theme in Darnton and others' histories of the World Trade Center. The twin towers, even before their construction began, became a site for mass rallies, gatherings, and stunts.

I should take this opportunity to clarify my thesis. The World Trade Center both provoked and inspired people to protest and perform. However, the buildings themselves were not the sole impetus.  Americans in this era seemed less averse to political action.  The events in the video cover a wide range of issues. One clip I included shows a rally commemorating the first Earth Day; crowds filled the streets of Midtown. That particular event was slightly tangential to my topic, but underscores the point that Americans in 1970 were not afraid to be politically active.

Since 9/11, "Ground Zero" and Lower Manhattan continue to be a hub for protest. (I'm not even going to bother discussing Park51.)  But all of those protests are in the shadow of 9/11; none, to my knowledge, address environmentalism, wages, or urban renewal. The spirit captured in "Disputed Ground" is a feeling that I fear we have lost.

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A few production notes: this video was produced using Windows MovieMaker; all clips and content are either public domain or used within bounds of fair use; guest voice credits courtesy of Rwany Sibaja and Michael Plumb; I claim ownership of this video - redistribution is allowed under condition of authorial attribution and non-commercial use; special thanks for technical support go to Kelly Schrum and Misha Vinokur.

While unearthing this video from my graduate school files, I encountered some problems with file size and compression. Even after a semester-long crash course in multimedia files, I am still learning how to make browser-friendly video. The version below has poor audio and video quality; my apologies.  Someday I will have a smaller, cleaner, higher-resolution version for the web.

Without further ado, please enjoy "Disputed Ground: Protest, Public Space, and the Birth of the World Trade Center."

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