“Here we highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.” Abraham Lincoln said that in honor of American soldiers who died at the hands of Confederates at Gettysburg. Such resolution is something we should renew on Memorial Day. Sacrifices impose a duty upon the recipients of those sacrifices. The living should live so as to ensure  that the deaths of those who died in service to our country continue to be meaningful. We should live so as to ensure that future lives are used judiciously and, if they must be lost, that they are sold dearly.

We are reminded to honor those who died for our freedom. As President Lincoln said, “it is altogether fitting and proper that we should do so.” But, as citizens, we would be failing our dead if we don’t recognize that not all who died in service were being deployed in a cause that promoted freedom. Too often, the deaths of those who served are used cynically as a shield for policies and policymakers who are not nearly as noble as those who died in their service. And this is why, on Memorial Day, I often return to this theme — that we should honor not just those who died for our freedom, but all those who died in service to our country. This is not to disrespect our dead, but to honor them. We honor them by advocating policies and electing policy-makers that use the lives of our soldiers wisely.

Soldiers who die in battle often represent a failing on one level or another — not a failing on the part of the solider, but a failing on the part of the citizenry and the leaders we choose. We failed to avoid the conflict in the first place and there was a failure of imagination to solve the conflict in a way that did not cost the soldier his or her life.

As Isaac Asimov’s fictional Salvor Hardin said, “violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Or, if Sun Tzu is more your style, “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” There are times where the value gained or preserved through war exceeds the costs of war itself. And there are times where the gain or preservation can only be accomplished with the loss of life. But, all too often the gain or preservation does not match the cost. And, all too often, the loss of life could have been eliminated or lessened through better diplomacy or better strategy.

Today is a day to remember and honor the individuals who died serving our country. Let’s do our duty as citizens by honoring them and by taking care not to fail those who currently serve and will serve in the future.

America has joined forces with the Allied Powers, and what we have of blood and treasure are yours. Therefore it is that with loving pride we drape the colors in tribute of respect to this citizen of your great republic. And here and now, in the presence of the illustrious dead, we pledge our hearts and our honor in carrying this war to a successful issue. Lafayette, we are here!
—Col. Charles E. Stanton, July 4, 1917

Stanton’s quote would come some months later, but a century ago, on April 6, 1917, the U.S. formally entered World War I on the side of the Allied Powers against Germany. The reference, of course, is to the Marquis de Lafayette, a General in the Revolutionary War and instrumental in obtaining the aid from France that secured our independence from the British. We were, in a sense, repaying the favor by coming to the aid of France in its hour of need.

World War I has been eclipsed in our public mind by World War II — which had more in the way of dramatic action and a better “good guys versus bad guys narrative.” But I tend to think that World War I is more instructive of how the world and the world at war really works. The mix of justified motives, crass self-interest, and inertial drift into horror is how wars seem to usually work. And it’s hard to overstate the horror of this war. War has always been plenty awful, but in World War I, we truly industrialized it. Human bodies were just fodder for the mechanical grinder. If you want an accessible but in depth historical overview of the War, I highly recommend Dan Carlin’s Blueprint for Armageddon series. His description of the hardships of trench warfare was particularly gripping.

World War I had been ravaging Europe since 1914. The U.S. had stayed out of the conflict. Public opinion was divided on which side it supported and whether to go to war or not. President Wilson campaigned for re-election in 1916 on the basis of having kept us out of war. But, as Germany became more desperate, it took measures that alienated the U.S. The 1915 sinking of the Lusitania, with U.S. passengers aboard, and the January 1917 Zimmerman telegram (promising Mexico its old U.S. territory if it went to war with the U.S. in the event that it broke its neutrality) are usually cited as instrumental in shifting public opinion and drawing the U.S. into the war.  It seems that Wilson also thought entering the war was necessary if the U.S. was to have a role in shaping the eventual peace. Compared to the other countries involved, the U.S. got off relatively lightly in terms of casualties, with 116,000 killed and 200,000  wounded. Entry into the war had a profound impact on the U.S. at home:

The home front saw a systematic mobilization of the entire population and the entire economy to produce the soldiers, food supplies, munitions, and money needed to win the war. Although the United States entered the war in 1917, there had been very little planning, or even recognition of the problems that the British and other Allies had to solve on their home fronts. As a result, the level of confusion was high in the first 12 months, then efficiency took control.^[28]

Propaganda poster in World War I

The war came in the midst of the Progressive Era, when efficiency and expertise were highly valued. Therefore, the federal government set up a multitude of temporary agencies with 500,000 to 1,000,000 new employees to bring together the expertise necessary to redirect the economy into the production of munitions and food necessary for the war, as well as for propaganda purposes

In Indiana, and in the country generally, entry into World War I blunted the Progressive movement. Political interest was turned to campaigns for war support and “let loose a patriotic but intolerant spirit that demanded conformity and unanimity.”

Eugene Debs, the labor leader hailing from Terre Haute, was arrested on June 16, 1918 after he made a speech in Canton, Ohio, urging resistance to the draft. Charged with 10 counts of sedition, Debs was sentenced to 10 years. At his sentencing hearing, he made his famous statement:

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

President Wilson was happy to let him sit in jail, writing, “While the flower of American youth was pouring out its blood to vindicate the cause of civilization, this man, Debs, stood behind the lines sniping, attacking, and denouncing them….This man was a traitor to his country and he will never be pardoned during my administration”

World War I gave a boost to the long active Prohibition movement. Among other things, grain used for brewing was needed for the troops, and a lot of the brewers were German. There was a lot of anti-German sentiment in the nation, generally, and in Indiana. (For example,Germany, Indiana in Fulton County was renamed “Pershing.”) Former governor Frank Hanly was active on the lecture circuit, advocating prohibition. In 1918, he railed against the brewers, saying Hoosier Brewers had “the arrogance of the Hun.”

In 1918, the State passed state-wide prohibition. And, in 1919, it ratified the Eighteenth Amendment.  Said Billy Sunday, famous evangelist and former baseball player at that time based in Winona Lake, Indiana:

The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon only be a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and  our jails into storehouses and corn-cribs. Men will walk upright now; women will smile, and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent.

The jails did not close down, but many of the brewers did, among them Thieme and Wagner in Lafayette, Terre Haute Brewing Company, Madison Brewing Company, Peru Brewery and Tell City Brewing. There was a lot of corruption in Indiana, as elsewhere. As Prohibition wore on, the prohibitionists would make common cause with the Ku Klux Klan who shared their conservative politics and would use the machinery of the old White Cap organization, the Horse Thief Detective Association to enforce the prohibition laws.

Following the war which, itself, was hot on the heels of the Progressive movement and the Industrial Revolution, Americans generally and Hoosiers in particular would be bone weary of change raising the appeal of a return to “normalcy” and giving rise to the Klan who promised a return to the good old days.

But I suppose I digress. A century ago today, we were gearing up for war. Many of the most significant  consequences would be unintended.

It’s difficult to talk to someone about how things are if you don’t share, or at least recognize, their understanding of how things have been. Anyone who has been reading this blog for very long will probably have stumbled across me ranting about the “kids these days” genre of social aggrievement. (I happen to think kids these days are pretty good and that, in any event, every generation seems predisposed to belly ache about the younger generations. Get off my lawn!)

I have similar feelings with respect to lamentations about “how things are nowadays.” Things are generally good nowadays. (Though it’s tough to escape the fear that things could rapidly become much worse, particularly given the current crop of lawmakers.) But, my opinions about relative merits of today versus yesterday aside, it’s tough to even discuss the subject if you don’t know what version of “yesterday” a person is using as a benchmark.

I like to read Tipsy’s blog because: a) he’s a friend; and b) he posts stuff I would never come across on my own. Today’s offering includes some quotes from David Gelertner. His benchmark of the history of journalism is maybe somewhere in the 50s or 60s, and he is unhappy with the liberal trajectory of journalists caused by journalism schools:

[On the Cultural Revolution of the past 50 years] the growing importance of education schools and of journalism schools were three of the most important aspects of this big change. The transformation of journalism from a battered-hat group of rough-speaking, hard-drinking, widely-admired “ordinary guys” who were thought to be mostly conservatives to penetrating, opinionated intellectuals who are mainly liberal is a major story in itself.

This caught me off guard, not because of the “liberal media” accusation but because, when thinking of the historical progression of journalism, I wouldn’t have started with the 50s guy. In my mind (and I’m not saying this is at all accurate), I have dim thoughts of publications associated with 16th century London coffee houses, the political essays of the Founders (and libelous muck by the likes of James Callender),  and then to what’s probably my real historical benchmark for journalism — the yellow journalism of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst.

With that as a benchmark, in my mind, the import of journalism schools is a progression from Hearst’s “you furnish me the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war” brand of yellow journalism to a more serious profession, grounded in the importance of objective facts. This is something I regard as generally positive, though I do have my opinions on the shortcomings of “objectivity.” It creates a blind spot by ignoring that every narrative has a bias, and it leads to a “both-sides” style of reporting that has trouble grappling with the situation where one side has a great deal more substance behind its arguments. On my own, thinking about that history, I barely would have registered the icon of the grizzled, alcoholic “common sense” noir journalist of the 50s and 60s. Without recognizing that as a point of departure, a hypothetical conversation between myself and Mr. Gelertner on the merits of modern versus historical journalism probably wouldn’t be very productive.

I have similar issues when he talks about the history of citizens, religion, and government:

[W]e all know that faith in the Judeo-Christian religions is dramatically weaker than it used to be. But human beings are religious animals, and most will find an alternative if the conventional choices are gone.

The readiest replacement nowadays for lost traditional religion is political ideology. But a citizen with faith in a political position, instead of rational belief, is a potential disaster for democracy.

I’m not sure what his historical benchmark is here, 1950s America again? But my thoughts on the subject are a mashup of places and times. You have a lot of societies where government and religion were the same: Egypt, Mesopotamia, Rome, and China come to mind. Right now, I’m reading about the period where political tensions between the (Constantinople-centered) Christians of the Roman Empire and the Zoroastrians of the Persian Empire led to greater religious fervor in both places (coupled with persecution of minority religions). The battle between those political powers weakened both and opened the door to the rise and spread of Islam which prevailed, in part, by practicing religious tolerance — particularly with respect to Christianity and Judaism. Christian American — and especially Judeo-Christian America — is a blip on the historical landscape.

I would not be surprised if Mr. Gelertner is smarter than me, knows more about history than I do, and/or knows more about religion than I do. But I think it’s safe to say neither of  us is dumb or ignorant in these areas. Yet, we probably come to radically different conclusions about how today compares to yesterday, simply because yesterday is so vast in terms of its potential scope of places and times.

I think this is a common problem for political discussions generally. So, find out what your counterpart’s vision of “yesterday” might be.

 

A couple of days ago, Amy and I were talking about the internment of Japanese Americans in the U.S. during the 1940s. One of the things we discussed was how little we learned about this monumental event when we were in high school. She didn’t remember hearing about it. I remembered a little, but no one made a big deal of it. Almost as if to underscore the idea that this is an under-remembered event in U.S history, the 75th anniversary of the signing of EO 9066 — the executive order that kicked off the undertaking — came and went without me realizing it. I don’t think it received much coverage. I know a lot of people complain about America bashing / blame-America-first, but this is one that we should legitimately feel bad about. It was clearly the wrong thing to do, and it happened within living memory.

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed the executive order that led to the forced relocation and incarceration of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry. About 2/3 of them were citizens. It happened in the wake of Pearl Harbor, so security was the ostensible reason for the action. But fear and racism appear to be the real reasons. There was little or no evidence of a threat based on race, and we did not treat the Italians or Germans in nearly the same way. The majority of mainland Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from their West Coast homes during the spring of 1942.

These citizens were forcibly housed in internment (or concentration if you prefer) camps in remote locations, often, featuring “tar paper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind. The spartan facilities met international laws, but left much to be desired. Many camps were built quickly by civilian contractors during the summer of 1942 based on designs for military barracks, making the buildings poorly equipped for cramped family living.” These citizens, who had done nothing wrong, were guarded and often surrounded by barbed-wire.

The citizens who were forced into incarceration often suffered substantial financial losses. They were prevented from taking more than they could carry and forced to leave a great deal behind. The non-Japanese who were allowed to stay on the West Coast were able to profit at their expense. A 1948 act purported to make compensation for these losses available to those who had suffered them, but the paperwork required was unreasonable under the circumstances and did not come close to making the individuals whole.

We should remember this, not just as an occasion of the majority population treating a minority population badly; but also as a time when fear and unreason caused us to do horrible things to our fellow citizens. And we should remind ourselves of what we did so that we don’t do it again.

Various news sources, including the Journal & Courier, are reporting the passing of Stan Jones. He was a Purdue graduate and state Representative from the Lafayette area in the 70s and 80s. He then went to work for the Bayh administration as the Commissioner for Higher Education.

During his time as commissioner, Jones oversaw the development of the 21st Century Scholars program, Indiana’s Education Roundtable and the implementation of Core 40, the state’s required high school curriculum, according to the statement.

He went on to found Complete College America, a nonprofit with a goal to ” increase the number of Americans with quality career certificates or college degrees and to close attainment gaps for traditionally underrepresented populations.” Governor Holcomb released a statement saying, “Stan Jones was a leader in every sense, continuously striving to enhance the lives of Hoosiers and bettering the institutions that serve them.  He transformed the state of Higher Education in Indiana and helped countless students here and across the nation complete their dream of going to college. He will be sorely missed.”

I don’t believe I ever had direct interactions with Stan. But he was active enough in state policy that his name would come to my attention pretty frequently over the 20 years I’ve been paying attention to state politics. Obviously, his efforts extend longer than that — going back more than 40 of his 67 years. That’s an impressive record of public service. My condolences to his family.

The New York Times has an article on planned litigation to seek injunctive relief against the Trump administration over the Emoluments Clause. (h/t Indiana Law Blog). The Emoluments Clause in the U.S. Constitution says:

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.

An emolument is a profit or gain. The argument is that foreign powers are going to funnel money through Trump’s business holdings in order to curry favor with him. The Founders were aware that foreign powers would try to buy influence with office holders and this provision is an attempt to stop that.

One argument that caught my eye is that, because Trump’s businesses are corporate entities, profits received by them aren’t attributable to him:

Andy Grewal, a University of Iowa law school professor, argued in an academic paper published last week that a payment to a hotel owned by the Trump family, like the Trump International Hotel in Washington, would not violate the Emoluments Clause because the money is paid to a corporate entity and not to Mr. Trump directly.

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a case on the Emoluments Clause, so I’m nowhere close to an expert. My guess is that the toughest challenge, and the one it would likely fail, has to do with standing. Who has the right to enforce the clause. The judiciary is likely to try to avoid a head-on collision with the executive and might well say that this is up to Congress to enforce. But, like I said, I could be wrong.

On the other hand, I’d vigorously challenge the notion that the corporate form insulates the President from receiving gifts by proxy through his corporations. Hobby Lobby said that the owners of closely held corporations can assert religious objections to laws that impact the corporations — despite the fact that corporations can’t have religious beliefs. I would argue that, if the corporate form does not prevent religious beliefs from passing through to the corporation, then foreign influence via gifts to a closely held corporation can pass through to an office holder such as Trump.

If the plaintiffs passed the motion to dismiss stage and were found to have standing, they could presumably have a lot of fun with discovery, trying to dig up the various ways in which Trump has wide-ranging conflicts of interest that previous office-holders did not.