Kenneth C. Davis's Blog, page 86
June 10, 2014
Who Said It? (6/10/2014)
President Ronald Reagan, “Speech at the Brandenburg Gate,” (June 12, 1987)
As I looked out a moment ago from the Reichstag, that embodiment of German unity, I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner, “This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality.” Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.
Earlier in the same speech, Reagan said:
There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
Source and full Text of Reagan’s speech: TeachingAmerican History.org
The New York Times offers an extensive archive on the Berlin Wall. The fall of the Wall, beginning on November 9, 1989, a little more than two years after Reagan’s speech, is considered the beginning of the end of communism in Europe.
Read more about the Cold War and Reagan’s life and presidency in Don’t Know Much About History and Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents.
Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents (Hyperion paperback-April 15, 2014)
Don’t Know Much About® History: Anniversary Edition (Harper Perennial and Random House Audio)
June 4, 2014
Who Said It (6/4/2014)
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “D-Day Prayer” in an announcement to the nation of the invasion of Normandy (June 6, 1944)
Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933
They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.
Franklin Roosevelt’s D-Day Prayer Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum
More D-Day resources can be found at the FDR Library and Museum
Read more about FDR’s life and administration and World War II in Don’t Know Much About® History and Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents
Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents (Hyperion paperback-April 15, 2014)
May 29, 2014
Pop Quiz: Has there been an Atheist President?
Most American Presidents have been Christians and most of them Protestants. Only one to date has been a Roman Catholic– John F. Kennedy. But three American presidents, while nominally Christians, claimed no formal religious affiliation.
Thomas Jefferson’s Grave Marker at Monticello
Which three American Presidents had no formal religious affiliation?
This Pew Survey on Presidential Traits provides the answer.
The American public has never had an atheist president, although three of them have had no formal religious affiliation. The most recent one, Andrew Johnson, left office in 1869. Since then, every president has been affiliated with a Christian church. (Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln are the other two.)
The three presidents with no formal religious affiliation were Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Jefferson was publicly accused of being an atheist by his political opponents such as Alexander Hamilton, who said Jefferson was “an atheist in religion and a fanatic in politics.” (David L. Holmes, The Faiths of the Founding Fathers, p. 81).
Jefferson once famously expressed his views on religious tolerance this way:
“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
I have written about America’s history of religious tolerance –and intolerance– previously in these articles:
“Jefferson, Madison, Newdow?” New York Times March 26, 2004
“America’s True History of Religious Tolerance,” Smithsonian October 2010
“Why US is Not a Christian Nation,” CNN.Com July 4, 2011.
Read more about these men in Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents.
Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents (Hyperion paperback-April 15, 2014)
Who Said It? (5/28/2014)
President John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address (January 20, 1961)
President John F. Kennedy (1961)
John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was born on May 29, 1917.
We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans–born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage–and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Source: Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pi....
Read more about the life, times and administration of John F. Kennedy in Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidentsand Don’t Know Much About® History.
Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents (Hyperion paperback-April 15, 2014)
May 25, 2014
War and Remembrance: Reflections on Museums, Memories and Memorial Day
War and Remembrance
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
–Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
The souvenir is more than fifty years old. It is a wooden toy revolver. The legend stamped on the barrel reads, “JULY 1, 2, 3, 1863 Gettysburg, Pa.”
Toy wooden revolver from Gettysburg Battlefield-1963
(Author Photo)
I keep it nearby, on my desk—a reminder of what it felt like to be a nine-year-old boy standing for the first time in the fields at Gettysburg. I was certainly too young to understand what the war was about then and the details of what had happened in those fields and rock-strewn hills 100 years earlier. But I certainly was old enough to know that something special had happened there. I probably didn’t understand what Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address meant. But I felt in my young soul that I was on the ground he called “hallowed.”
The approach of another Memorial Day, as always, comes with thoughts of duty, honor, courage, sacrifice and loss. The holiday, the most somber date on the American national calendar, was born in the ashes of the Civil War as “Decoration Day,” when General John S. Logan –a-veteran of the Mexican and Civil Wars, a prominent Illinois politician and leader of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Union fraternal organization –called for May 30, 1868 as the day on which the graves of fallen Union soldiers would be decorated with fresh flowers.
“We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the Nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds.”
General John S. Logan’s General Order Number 11 (May 5, 1868)
Pointedly, Logan’s order was seen as a day to honor those who died opposing the “rebellion.”
It was with that sense of war and remembrance of the Union war dead that families of Confederate soldiers were kept out of Arlington National Cemetery –a cemetery built on land confiscated during the war from Confederate General Robert E. Lee of Virginia. In response, Confederate states began to mark their own “Decoration” or Memorial Days.
In other words, marking loss in America has always brought controversy. These Memorial Day memories come as the new 9/11 Memorial and Museum is opened to the public. And again there is controversy in how the nation remembers its fallen.
Families of some victims of the tragedy at the Twin Towers have said they will not visit the site—neither Memorial nor Museum. For some, it is simply too painful. For others the objection is that the site has been transformed into another New York City tourist destination. The admission fees and sales of souvenirs at Museum Gift Shop have brought cries of profiteering from tragedy and commercialism.
I understand the grief and even the anger at the idea that this “hallowed ground” has becomes a place of commerce. But on the other hand, I wonder if some nine-year-old child, born after that terrible day in 2001, might not take home a souvenir from Ground Zero and understand that in that place, something extraordinary and eternal happened. History is more than a recitation of dates and battles. Maybe fifty years from now that child will also treasure that keepsake –as I treasure mine– as a terrible reminder of loss and that, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg, a little more than 150 years ago,
“That these dead shall not have died in vain.”
Here is a review of the newly opened 9/11 Museum in New York City.
I discussed Memorial Day’s history and traditions recently on the CBS This Morning Saturday (video clip.)
May 24, 2014
Memorial Day History and Traditions on CBS This Morning Saturday
Author Kenneth C. Davis discusses Memorial Day on CBS THIS MORNING
May 24, 2014, 8:05 AM|Memorial Day has become the “summer is here” holiday, but of course there’s more to it. Historian Kenneth C. Davis, author of the popular “Don’t Know Much” history series, joins “CBS This Morning: Saturday” with a history lesson on the most solemn of the 11 federal holidays.
May 23, 2014
Don’t Know Much About® Memorial Day
(Video originally posted May 2012. Produced and directed by Colin Davis)
Memorial Day brings thoughts of duty, honor, courage, sacrifice and loss. The holiday, the most somber date on the American national calendar, was born in the ashes of the Civil War as “Decoration Day,” when General John S. Logan –a-veteran of the Mexican and Civil Wars, a prominent Illinois politician and leader of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Union fraternal organization –called for May 30, 1868 as the day on which the graves of fallen Union soldiers would be decorated with fresh flowers.
“We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the Nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds.”
Pointedly, Logan’s order was seen as a day to honor those who died opposing the “rebellion.”
Every year at this time, I spend a lot of time talking about the roots and traditions of Memorial Day.
It’s not about the barbecue or the Mattress Sales. Obscured by the holiday atmosphere around Memorial Day is the fact that it is the most solemn day on the national calendar. This video tells a bit about the history behind the holiday.
One way to mark Memorial Day is by simply reading the Gettysburg Address. Here is a link to the Library of Congress and its page on the Address. I also discussed Memorial Day in a previous post.
One of the most famous symbols of the loss on Memorial Day is the Poppy, inspired by this World War I poem by John McCrae, “In Flanders Fields”
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.Source: The poem is in the public domain courtesy of Poets.org
Soldiers of the 146th Infantry, 37th Division, crossing the Scheldt River at Nederzwalm under fire. Image courtesy of The National Archives.
Have a memorable Memorial Day!
(Images in video:Courtesy of the Library of Congress and Flanders Cemetery image Courtesy of the American Battle Monuments Commission)
May 19, 2014
Who Said It? (5/19/2014)
Lyndon B. Johnson (March 1964)
(Photo: Arnold Newman, WHite House Press Office)
President Lyndon B. Johnson, “The Great Society” Speech (University of Michigan, May 22. 1964)
Each year more than 100,000 high school graduates with proved ability do not enter college because they cannot afford it. And if we cannot educate today’s youth, what will we do in 1970 when elementary school enrollment will be five million greater than 1960? And high school enrollment will rise by five million. And college enrollment will increase by more than three million.
In many places, classrooms are overcrowded and curricula are outdated. Most of our qualified teachers are underpaid, and many of our paid teachers are unqualified. So we must give every child a place to sit and a teacher to learn from. Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty.
But more classrooms and more teachers are not enough. We must seek an educational system which grows in excellence as it grows in size. And this means better training for our teachers. It means preparing youth to enjoy their hours of leisure, as well as their hours of labor. It means exploring new techniques of teaching, to find new ways to stimulate the love of learning and the capacity for creation.
Source: American Experience-PBS: “LBJ”
A few months after declaring a “War on Poverty,” President Lydon B. Johnson outlined his ambitious domestic agenda to end poverty, improve the status of African Americans and create a more equal and just American society. In the speech Johnson said,
The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning.
The range of programs that were introduced fifty years ago included Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Head Start, and the Job Corps.
In April 2014, New York Times reporter Trip Gabriel assessed the War on Poverty half a century later in “Fifty Years Into the War on Poverty, Hardship Hits Back.”
President Johnson was a schoolteacher in a poor, rural district in Texas before entering politics. Read more about his life, administration and legacy in Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents and Don’t Know Much About History,
Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents (Hyperion Paperback-April 15, 2014)
May 12, 2014
Who Said It (5/12/2014)
President James K. Polk, “Special Message to Congress on Mexican Relations” (May 11, 1846)
Instead of this, however, we have been exerting our best efforts to propitiate her good will. Upon the pretext that Texas, a nation as independent as herself, thought proper to unite its destinies with our own she has affected to believe that we have severed her rightful territory, and in official proclamations and manifestoes has repeatedly threatened to make war upon us for the purpose of reconquering Texas. In the meantime we have tried every effort at reconciliation. The cup of forbearance had been exhausted even before the recent information from the frontier of the Del Norte. But now, after reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil. She has proclaimed that hostilities have commenced, and that the two nations are now at war.
As war exists, and, notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself, we are called upon by every consideration of duty and patriotism to vindicate with decision the honor, the rights, and the interests of our country.
On May 13, 1846, Congress declared war on Mexico.
PBS offers a collection of resources on the War With Mexico.
You can read more about Polk, his life and administration, the war with Mexico in Don’t Know Much About History, Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents and Don’t Know Much About the Civil War.
Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents (Hyperion paperback-April 15, 2014)
May 8, 2014
Don’t Know Much About® Harry S. Truman
Harry Truman “Gave’ Em Hell.” I gave him a A. Born on May 8, 1884, the 33rd President of the United States.
President Harry S. Truman
(Photo: Truman Library)
It was on his birthday in 1945 that Truman was able to tell Americans that the war in Europe was over with the surrender of Germany.
THIS IS a solemn but a glorious hour. I only wish that Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day. General Eisenhower informs me that the forces of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations. The flags of freedom fly over all Europe. For this victory, we join in offering our thanks to the Providence which has guided and sustained us through the dark days of adversity.
Described as “a minor national figure with a pedestrian background,” Truman was a World War I veteran and a Senator from Missouri when Franklin D. Roosevelt chose him to become his running mate in the 1944 election. Truman became vice president when FDR won his fourth term and then took office on April 12, 1945 when FDR died.
When he took office, Truman had been largely left “out of the loop” by Roosevelt as World War II entered its final months. Truman did not know of the existence of the “Manhattan Project” and the development of the atomic bomb until he became president. Then he had to make the decision to use it against the Japanese.
Fast Facts
•Truman was a member of the Sons of the Revolution and the Sons of Confederate Veterans
•He wanted to attend West Point but poor eyesight kept him out. He enlisted in the Missouri National Guard and served as the commander of an artillery battery in World War I.
•Before entering politics, he was a farmer, bank clerk, insurance salesman and owner of a failed haberdashery store.
•As president he once threatened to punch the nose of a newspaper critic who had given his daughter a poor review after her debut singing recital. Margaret Truman went on to greater fame as a mystery novelist, beginning with Murder in the White House published in 1980.
•After Grover Cleveland, Truman is the only president who did not attend college. He attended law school briefly but dropped out.
After the end of World War II, Truman had to shift America’s attention to the new “Cold War” with the Soviet Union and his policies of “containment” and the Marshall Plan to rebuild war-torn Europe were hallmarks of his presidency.
Harry S. Truman died on December 26, 1972. This is his New York Times obituary. The Truman Library and Museum is located in Independence, Missouri
Read more about Truman, his life and administration in Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents.
Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents (Hyperion Paperback-April 15, 2014)
