Uncategorized – Sharing History

Income Tax: Whose Idea Was It?

July 9, 2024July 8, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

In 2024, Americans will pay a federal income tax that ranges from 10%-37% of one’s income. This is a continuation of a federal income tax tradition that started about 160 years ago at the beginning of the Civil War.

The Revenue Act of 1961 was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on August 5, 1861. At the outset of the Civil War, Lincoln knew that the Union needed money to finance the war. The United States Treasurer at the time, Salmon Chase, told President Lincoln that they would need $320 million (about $11.5 billion today) to win the war against the Confederacy. The Union was able to borrow or sell public land to obtain $300 million of it. President Lincoln had to figure out how to raise the remining $20 million. Thus, the idea for an income tax was born.

The resulting revenue bill, drawn up by the House Ways and Means Committee, imposed an import and land tax as well as a 3% tax on those making at least $800 annually (about $18,000 today). In the end, this was not an extremely effective means of raising money. The Union didn’t have a great way to track and collect taxes, and most people living in the Union weren’t making enough money to fall into the taxable bracket. The next year, in 1862, the law was changed and the first graduated income tax was passed. This tax was 3% for those making between $600 and $10,000 and 5% on anything greater. This bill also established the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a means of enforcing the tax law.

In 1872, ten years later, the income tax bill was repealed. Over the next 40 years, Congress tried several times to pass something similar to the original revenue bills but had no luck. In 1913, Congress proposed the 16^th Amendment, which reads that “Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

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“What Hath God Wrought?”

May 23, 2024June 15, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On May 24, 1844, the United States took a major step forward in modernizing its system of communication. That day, the first electric telegraph was sent from Washington D.C. to Baltimore. It read, “What Hath God Wrought?” Within 15 years, telegraph cables not only traversed the entire United States but also crossed oceans.

In the 1830s, Samuel Morse was a professor of painting and sculpture at the University of the City of New York. He heard about the recent invention of the electromagnet, and the idea of using a cable to send a message intrigued him. Through his academic contacts in New York, Morse teamed up with Leonard Gale, professor of chemistry and Alfred Vail, a mechanic. The three studied recent advances in electromagnetic induction and refined the idea, figuring out how to pass the messages through wires across long distances. It was in this time that Morse developed Morse code, a series of dots and dashes to represent letters. Messages passed through the telegraph system were embossed in this code and interpreted by the receiver.

In 1837, Morse finally had a working model with which he conducted demonstrations. He applied for a government grant worth $30,000 (approximately $1.2 million today) in order to build a telegraph line between Washington D.C. and Baltimore. Unfortunately, due to an economic downturn in the U.S., it was not until 1843 that Morse received the funding for his project. Morse immediately hired engineer Ezra Cornell to lay the telegraph wire over the 40 miles between the two cities. On May 24, 1844, Morse sent the first electric telegraph from the Capitol Building to a railroad station in Baltimore where Alfred Vail was waiting to receive it. The telegraph was the main means of communication in the U.S. for almost 100 years until Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone replaced it.

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The Truman Doctrine

May 21, 2024June 15, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On May 22, 1947, the United States Congress approved a bill appropriating $400 million to the countries of Greece and Turkey. This massive show of financial support, called the Truman Doctrine, was a milestone in U.S. foreign relations. It set the precedent for the U.S. providing financial and military aid to democratic countries believed to be at risk of authoritarian takeover.

Truman speaks to Congress on March 12, 1947

The Truman Doctrine stemmed from an announcement made by the British government in February 1947. Since the end of WWII, the British had been providing economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey in their fight against communist factions. The Greek government was fighting a civil war against the Greek Communist Party, and the Soviet Union was actively trying to gain control of land and waterways in Turkey. Due to their own financial difficulties, the British government no longer felt able to provide support to these two countries.

In March 1947, President Harry Truman appeared before Congress to deliver an impassioned address beseeching them to approve aid for Greece and Turkey. He said:

“To ensure the peaceful development of nations, free from coercion, the United States has taken a leading part in establishing the United Nations. The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members. We shall not realize our objectives, however, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes. This is no more than a frank recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States.”

He went on to declare, “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” He asked Congress to approve $400 million for economic aid to the two countries as well as a contingent of military personnel to supervise the appropriation of those funds. Two months later, the Truman Doctrine was passed by Congress and aid provided to Greece and Turkey. The Truman Doctrine has since been used as precedent for economic and military involvement in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, among others.

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“The Lesson of Kent State”

May 3, 2024May 2, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On May 4, 1970, four Kent State University students were shot and killed by members of the Ohio National Guard during an anti-war protest. Enraged by U.S. involvement in Vietnam, thousands of students in Kent, Ohio, took to the grassy spaces of their university to voice their discontent. Today, similar protests are occurring the country over. Students at 35+ universities have been arrested for their involvement in pro-Palestinian rallies. Some politicians are calling for National Guard deployment to quell these protests. The events at Kent State 54 years ago are an example of why such a move might end in tragedy.

In the spring of 1970, Nixon sat in the Oval Office. He had run his campaign promising to withdraw U.S. troops from the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War. Instead, on April 30, 1970, he took to the airwaves to announce that the U.S. would be invading Cambodia in an attempt to undermine the Viet Kong. The next day, May 1, protests and anti-war rallies cropped up at universities all over the country. At Kent State University, about 500 students gathered. That night, as students gathered at the downtown bars, the anti-war sentiment turned into rioting, with students lighting trashcans on fire and breaking store windows. At this, the mayor, Leroy Satrom, became nervous about further violence and contacted Ohio Governor James Rhodes looking for help.

The next day, May 2, protestors on Kent State campus set fire to the ROTC building, which burned to the ground. At this, Rhodes, who was, at the time, seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, deployed the Ohio National Guard. He said, in a press conference on the subject: “We’ve seen here at the city of Kent, especially, probably the most vicious form of campus-oriented violence yet perpetrated by dissident groups and their allies in the state of Ohio . . . we’re going to use every part of the law enforcement of Ohio to drive them out of Kent.” Nixon referred to the protestors as, “these bums, you know, blowing up the campuses.” The National Guard arrived in Kent on May 3 where protestors blocking roads were met with tear gas.

On May 4, around 3,000 students gathered on Kent State campus to protest. The National Guard members there launched tear gas and then advanced on the group with bayoneted rifles. As they pushed the students away, some students began throwing rocks at the guardsmen. It was said then that a small group of guardsmen appeared to huddle and discuss something. This was later referred to by those who believed the guardsmen had conspired to fire on the protestors. The guardsmen began to retreat back the way they came, when at 12:24 p.m., 28 of them turned and fired toward the protestors. Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause, both protestors, were shot and killed. William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer, who were walking by on their way to class, were also shot and killed. Nine other students were shot and injured, including Dean Kahler, who was paralyzed by his injuries. The aftermath of the shooting was memorialized in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo taken by John Filo, a student photographer. Faculty marshals were able to diffuse the situation and prevent further bloodshed after the initial shooting.

In the years that followed, the details of the shooting were litigated at length. Three students were convicted for their parts in the burning of the ROTC building. A federal court found that the guardsmen were not at fault for the shooting, though that decision was overturned in an appeals court, and a settlement awarded about 650,000 to the victims and their families. Nixon created a Commission on Campus Unrest to investigate the situation. Their report recognized that some student protestors committed criminal acts, however; “The indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable . . . The Kent State tragedy must mark the last time, that, as a matter of course, loaded rifles are issued to guardsmen confronting student demonstrators.”

In an editorial in the Washington Post, Brian VanDeMark, author of Kent State: An American Tragedy, writes of today’s university protests: “University officials, not state authorities and armed troops, possess the knowledge and insight best suited to dealing with these constitutionally protected expressions of dissent. The goal of university and college administrators should be to guarantee the safety of all students while fostering civil engagement over passionately held views. This is the lesson of Kent State University.”

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Smith-Connally and Montgomery Ward

April 26, 2024April 25, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On April 25, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9438. The order directed the Secretary of Commerce to seize control of one of the nation’s most prosperous retail businesses: Montgomery Ward. This controversial step was a prime example of the federal government’s use of the Smith-Connally Act during World War II.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States’ subsequent entry to the war, President Roosevelt called for a “no-strike pledge” to ensure manufacturing efforts essential to the war effort would continue running. Despite the pledge, instances of strikes increased as the war demanded more production, which meant longer hours and price increases for working-class Americans. In 1943, the United Mines Workers of America went on strike, posing an immediate threat to war production. Roosevelt responded by issuing an executive order allowing the government to seize production themselves. Roosevelt also signed legislation making it illegal to interrupt essential war production through strikes. Moving one step further, two Congress members, Senator Connally and Representative Smith passed a bill (the Smith-Connally Act) giving the president power to seize production of any company that was seen as important to the war effort in any way. This was not a popular bill, even with the president. Roosevelt vetoed it when it came across his desk, arguing that the bill would increase tensions between management and workers. The veto was overturned by Congress.

In 1944, trouble started with Montgomery Ward, a retail company second only to Sears Roebuck in mail-order sales. The company’s CEO, Sewell L. Avery, who was no great fan of the president, refused to comply with agreements made with the United Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union. Avery was reprimanded and ordered to comply by the National War Labor Board, as Montgomery Ward supplied parts used in military aircraft and agricultural machinery. Avery refused, claiming that Montgomery Ward’s business was mostly not war related, though the company had certainly taken advantage of grants of priority status from the War Production Board, giving them access to materials that were difficult to source during wartime. Finally, in April 1944, Roosevelt issued an executive order to seize Montgomery Ward’s Chicago facilities. Sewell refused to stand down and had to be carried from the building by members of the National Guard, resulting in an iconic photo (be sure to look it up; it doesn’t disappoint). The move was not popular. A Gallup poll showed that 60% of Americans thought the seizure was a mistake and an instance of government overreach. The government yielded control two weeks later.

In December that year, Montgomery Ward was seized by the federal government for a second time for the same reason. In a statement given by Roosevelt about the seizure, he said, “The Government of the United States cannot and will not tolerate any interference with war production in this critical hour . . . Strikes in wartime cannot be condoned, whether they are strikes by workers against their employers or strikes by employers against their Government.” The government held control of the company until the war ended the next year.

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The House Select Committee on Assassinations

March 29, 2024April 2, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On March 29, 1979 the House Select Committee on Assassinations released a report that compounded years of research on the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The committee, which performed its research from 1976-1979, released a report of their findings, which included their belief that federal intelligence agencies did not perform adequate investigations into the possibility of conspiracy in the assassination plots of the two American leaders.

In September 1976, the U.S. House of Representatives formed a committee to investigate the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy (Dallas, 1963) and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Memphis, 1968). The House of Representatives believed they had cause to open such an investigation given their responsibility to respond to their constituents’ concerns about how government intelligence agencies performed during the investigations. According to a Gallup Poll taken at the time, 80% of Americans believed that President Kennedy’s assassination had been a conspiracy, and 60% believed that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination had been a conspiracy despite reports from the government indicating otherwise. Conspiracy theories had begun to take root among the American public, and the nation’s representatives felt it was wise to put the issue to rest.

As the committee began their research, they identified four issues to be investigated in particular: “First, who was or were the assassin(s) of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.? Second, did the assassin(s) have any aid or assistance either before or after the assassination(s). Third, did the agencies and departments of the U.S. Government adequately perform their duties and functions in (a) collecting and sharing information prior to the assassination; (b) protecting John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. and (c) conducting investigations into each assassination and coordinating the results of those investigations? Fourth, given the evidence the committee uncovered, are the amendment of existing legislation or the enactment of new legislation appropriate?”

The report, released in March 1979, found that, in the case of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, there was acoustic evidence that there was a second shooter (this evidence has since been debunked). The committee felt that this evidence pointed to the possibility of a conspiracy that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) failed to adequately look into. The report also said that the committee did not believe that the Soviet or Cuban governments, the anti-Castro Cuban groups, the organized crime syndicate, or the various U.S. intelligence groups were involved in the assassination plot. In the case of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the committee reported that they believed there was a possibility of conspiracy. They believed that the FBI, in the process of their own investigation of King, “grossly abused and exceeded its legal authority and failed to consider the possibility that actions threatening bodily harm to Dr. King might be encouraged by the program.” They also reported that they felt the FBI failed to adequately investigate the possibility of a conspiracy. The report ended by recommending that the Department of Justice review the committee’s findings and decide whether to further investigate the claims. Both cases have been reopened and investigated at various times over the ensuing 45 years; however, no concrete evidence of larger conspiracies have surfaced.

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The Almost Amendment: Constitutional Rights for Women

March 22, 2024April 2, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On March 22, 1972, the U.S. Senate passed the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. The Equal Rights Amendment banned discrimination on the basis of gender. As is law, once the amendment passed in the Senate, it was sent to the states to be ratified. 35 of the required 38 states ratified, but the amendment failed to be added in the end.

The proposed amendment was first written in 1923 by Alice Paul. Though the language has changed slightly, the idea remains the same: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” It wasn’t until March 1972 that the amendment was brought before the Senate and the House and passed. Upon its passage in Congress, a seven-year deadline was set for its ratification by ¾ of U.S. states. By the deadline, 35 of the 38 states had ratified. The deadline was extended to 1982 by a congressional bill; however, in the ensuing years, conservative and religious right Americans took up arms against the amendment, claiming that it would open the door to gender-neutral bathrooms and same-sex marriage. The deadline passed, and the amendment was three states short of being ratified.

In 1992, the 27^th Amendment, often called the Madison Amendment after its author, was added to the Constitution. This Amendment, which prohibits members of Congress from giving themselves pay raises during the current session, had been passed by Congress in 1789 but was not ratified until 1992. While this amendment did not have a time limit attached, its passage still opened up legal precedent for old ratifications to continue to hold power. In 2017, the state of Nevada ratified the amendment. Illinois followed the next year. In 2020, Virginia became the 38^th and final state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Constitutional scholars argue that upon this ratification, the Equal Rights Amendment became an official part of the Constitution, however, the final step, which requires the U.S. Archivist to publish the amendment along with the ratification documents has never been done. Unfortunately, the entire matter is embroiled in legal conflict, and no decisions have been made.

A 2022 survey done by the Data for Progress organization showed that 85% of Americans, including 93% of Democrats, 79% of Independents, and 79% of Republicans support Congress in passing the Equal Rights Amendment. However, efforts in Congress have been blocked by Republican leadership, leaving women in 2024 with no guaranteed Constitutional rights other than that of the vote. May they use it wisely.

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Happy Birthday, Barbie!

March 8, 2024May 7, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On March 9, 1959, Barbara Millicent Roberts was introduced to the world. Arguably the most iconic children’s toy in history, Barbie was an instant success from the day of her release. To date, over one billion Barbie dolls have been sold worldwide, and Barbie has been featured in art, film, magazines, and television.

Barbie was invented by Ruth Handler, who owned the Mattel toy company with her husband, Elliott and friend, Harold Matson. Ruth’s own daughter, Barbara, enjoyed playing with baby dolls, but as Ruth observed Barbara playing intently with paper dolls featuring adult women, Ruth felt that little girls needed a three-dimensional doll with which they could act out their future dreams. Thus, Barbie was born and named after Ruth’s daughter.

Barbie’s form has been criticized throughout the years for being an unrealistic and inappropriate representation of the female form. Mattel has addressed those concerns over the years; however, Barbie was, from the beginning, a symbol of female empowerment. Barbie broke the mold created by doll manufacturers; she was a career woman. In fact, she has had over 250 careers, including doctor, teacher, ballerina, astronaut, pilot, architect, renewable energy engineer, presidential candidate, and Olympic athlete. Barbie does not have a husband (though since 1961, she’s had boyfriend Ken, except during their breakup from 2004-2011), nor does she have children. She allowed young girls to imagine their lives outside of the traditional role in the family.

Barbie has never left the zeitgeist in the 60 plus years she’s been around, but she was pushed into the global spotlight yet again in 2023 when the movie Barbie directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie was released. Barbie was the top grossing movie of 2023, making over $600 million.

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The Boston Massacre: A Step Toward Revolution

March 5, 2024March 5, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On March 5, 1770, in Boston, Massachusetts, a group of British soldiers fired into a rowdy crowd of colonists. Five men ended up dead, and rage and indignation filled the streets of Boston as rumors abounded and varied accounts of the event were swapped. To this day, historians are unsure of the exact order of events. No one ever did find out who ordered the British soldiers to fire. Despite the uncertainty surrounding the Boston massacre, it is universally agreed upon that this event was a critical step on the road to the American Revolution.

By 1770, tensions were already high in the city of Boston. In 1767, the British Parliament had passed the Townshend Acts, which meant that American colonists had to pay considerable taxes on British goods, such as tea, glass, paint, and paper. The people of Boston chose to protest the purchasing of British goods. Those stores that sold British imports were marked and their owners harassed. On February 22, 1770, during a confrontation with a customs informer, an 11-year-old boy, Christopher Snider, was killed. After his funeral, there were multiple reports of skirmishes between British soldiers and American colonists. These culminated in the Boston Massacre on the night of March 5.

That Monday night, in light of a rumor circulating that British soldiers intended to cut down the Liberty Tree, a Bostonian symbol of rebellion, a group of colonists took to the streets to defend themselves and their town. The group began harassing a soldier posted outside of the customs house. The soldier, Hugh White, struck a colonist with his bayonet, and the colonists responded by throwing rocks and ice at White. White called for reinforcements, and when they arrived, things escalated. British soldiers report having heard a command to “Fire!” though no one ever admitted to have given such an order. Five men were killed as a result: Crispus Attucks, James Caldwell, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, and Patrick Carr.

In the aftermath, both sides hurried to pin the blame on the other. Revolutionaries took the opportunity to paint the British soldiers as bloodthirsty oppressors. Paul Revere himself engraved a scene that is now printed alongside the story in most history books (and in this post). The scene shows British soldiers instigating the fight and murdering the colonists. The event certainly curried plenty of anti-British sentiment in the city and was key in the organization of the American Revolution.

The British soldiers involved were arrested and stood trial for their part in the deaths of five men. Interestingly enough, the soldiers were represented in court by John Adams, who would go on to become the second president of the United States of America. While Adams didn’t support the British, he felt it important that the soldiers receive a fair trial so that the British government would have no further reason to shed blood in their cities. In the end, seven of the soldiers tried were acquitted and two were convicted of manslaughter, receiving a brand on their thumbs as punishment. One of the soldiers involved, Captain Thomas Preston, wrote of the event, “None of them was a hero. The victims were troublemakers who got more than they deserved. The soldiers were professionals . . . who shouldn’t have panicked. The whole thing shouldn’t have happened.”

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The Vaccine that Eradicated Polio

February 23, 2024February 22, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On February 23, 1954, the first injections of the polio vaccine were given to a group of children at Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh. The vaccine, created by Dr. Jonas Salk, has virtually eradicated polio worldwide over the last 70 years. In 1952, two years before the vaccine was introduced, the U.S. alone had an outbreak of over 58,000 polio cases, which killed 3,000 and paralyzed 21,000 Americans, mostly children. In 2021, only two cases of polio were recorded worldwide.

Polio, or poliomyelitis, is an extremely contagious virus that causes muscle deterioration and paralysis. In the early 20^th century, polio ran rampant around the world, posing great risk to school-age children, especially. Many who survived the disease were paralyzed, some even saw paralysis of the muscles needed to breathe, leaving them to live inside a large metal tube called an iron lung. In 1921, future U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt contracted polio, which left him paralyzed. While president in the 1940s, President Roosevelt founded an organization called March of Dimes that aimed to raise money to research a cure for polio. It was this organization that hired Dr. Jonas Salk to do research on the disease.

Salk’s research led him to a vaccine that built immunity to polio without actually infecting the patient with the disease. He tested it first on his own family before it was used to inoculate millions of children in the U.S. and Canada. In 1957, annual polio cases in the U.S. had dropped from 58,000 to 5,600. By 1961, there were 161 cases. The polio vaccine had about 90% efficacity against the poliomyelitis virus. Salk knew that with universal vaccination, polio could be completely eliminated from the world. In order to ensure that the vaccine would be available to everyone, Salk did not patent the vaccine nor did he collect money from the production. When asked about who owned the patent, he famously said, “Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”

Polio is one of many diseases that has been virtually eradicated thanks to the science of vaccines, including smallpox, measles, and diptheria. Unfortunately, we are seeing a resurgence of many of these diseases in the U.S. as anti-intellectualism rises, misinformation abounds, and parents refuse to vaccinate their children.

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