Iron Mike Magazine Issue 1

Knights of the Air 26th Legion: Billy WaugH Walther PPQ .45ACP

Getting Back Your Fighting Weight

ISSUE 1

National Museum Of the Pacific War

Editor and Owner Bryan Dolch

Contributors Scott Casey Bryan Dolch Jeff Harris Chris Hernandez Robert H. Johnson Robert Patrick Lewis Mark Logullo John Pinnix

Copy Editor Robert H. Johnson Advertising Sales and Design Bryan Dolch

Iron Mike Magazine is a Publication of Red Oak Marketing P.O. Box 310584 New Braunfels, Texas 78130 Contact us at info@romtx.com

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR The New Year is here and we all have in the back of our minds that we need to make improvements in our lives. Whether this is a faint try to make ourselves feel better or really a thrust to be better in some regard, its resolution time.

So I would say this. If this is a half hearted attempt don’t bother. If deep in your heart you are ready to make improvements, go all out. Commit. Set a plan and execute that plan.

That was always my biggest battle within when I tried to make positive changes in my life.

I was great at setting up the plan but following through every day was the challenge. Use that phone you love so much to mark your calendar. Appointment one, if you haven’t done it the night before, should be first thing in the morning while you’re drinking your morning coffee. Plan your day and put specific items on your calendar with reminders. You should already have a list of items you need to accomplish on a list. Set priorities for those tasks and plan to knock out as many as possible for the day. If your goal only revolves around one thing like fitness, set the time you will do it and do not skip it. After several weeks of scheduling and executing your daily plan, you will find that it becomes second nature. Your mind will begin to subconsciously encourage you to stay on track and you will be well on your way to making that improvement you want.

Be brave, be tough, and inspire, Bryan

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

FEATURES 10

Legend Among Legends 26th Legion This month we introduce you to an American Warrior that fought and served for 7 decades.

26

Duty Chris Hernandez discusses the responsibility of carrying a firearm in public and harming the cause for responsible citizens.

36

KOTA Longboards Rober Johnson has a conversation with founder and CEO of an amazing custom longboard company.

62

The National Museum Of the Pacific War

Check out this amazing museum tucked into the Texas Hill Country.

70

Getting Back My Fighting Weight

A practical plan to get back in shape while keeping a busy schedule.

79

The Forgotten Man

A timeless essay that talks about freedom and the everyday man.

EXTRAS 5

Letter From The Editor

21

Beef Stew In The Slow Cooker

22

Know The Anvil

24

The 2nd Amendment

32

I Found My Polymer .45 ACP

76

Recommended Reading

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KRIS PARONTO EVENT SCHEDULE

Sunday, November 06, 2016 at 02:00 PM

Penn's Peak in Jim Thorpe, PA Kris "Tanto" Paronto - Keynote Speaker-Lehighton 9/12 Project, Inc

Monday, November 07, 2016 at 06:30 PM Mohegan Sun Pocono in Wilkes-Barre, PA Leading From The Front Battleground Tour Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania

Tuesday, November 08, 2016 at 03:15 PM

Talking Stick Resort in Scottsdale, AZ Kris Paronto Guest Speaker At Financial Conference (Private) PRIVATE EVENT - NO GENERAL ADMISSION

Wednesday, November 09, 2016 at 06:00 PM Carmel Country Club in Charlotte, NC Kris "Tanto" Paronto Keynote Speaker - Charlotte, NC PRIVATE EVENT

Saturday, December 10, 2016 at 10:00 AM

Hoover Tactical Firearms in Hoover, AL Meet Kris Paronto At Hoover Tactical Firearms - Appearance & Book Signing More Information, including time, coming soon!

Saturday, February 11, 2017 at 06:00 PM

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Thursday, February 16, 2017 at 08:30 AM

Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista in Lake Buena Vista, FL Kris "Tanto" Paronto - Keynote Speaker - Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association PRIVATE EVENT

Friday, February 24, 2017 at 06:00 PM

Air Force Academy in Usaf Academy, CO Kris "Tanto" Paronto - Keynote Speaker At National Character and Leadership Symposium USAFA

Saturday, February 25, 2017 at 06:00 PM

Thursday, November 10, 2016 at 08:30 AM

Hershey Lodge and Convention Center in Hershey, PA Kris "Tanto" Paronto - Keynote Speaker- Pennsylvania National Guard Association Annual Conference PRIVATE CONFERENCE

Friday, November 11, 2016 at 09:30 AM

Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles in Lexington, NE Kris "Tanto" Paronto - Keynote Speaker for Veterans' Day Celebration Hosted By Heartland Museum Of Military Vehicles

Hilton Garden Inn Manhattan Conference Center in Manhattan, KS Kris "Tanto" Paronto Keynote Speaker - Kansas Ag Bankers Conference PRIVATE EVENT

Saturday, November 12, 2016 at 06:00 PM

Friday, March 10, 2017 at 09:00 AM

Carmel Country Club in Charlotte, NC Kris "Tanto" Paronto Guest Speaker Business Networking Breakfast Carmel Country Club Charlotte, NC PRIVATE NETWORKING EVENT

Wednesday, March 08, 2017 at 04:00 PM

Valley of Chicago Cathedral in Bloomingdale, IL Kris "Tanto" Paronto Keynote Speaker Scottish Rite Bodies Valley of Chicago Annual Dinner Event

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Monday, November 14, 2016 at 05:30 PM

Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 09:00 AM

The Venetian in Garfield, NJ Kris "Tanto" Paronto - Keynote Speaker- Guardian of the Family Awards Banquet PRIVATE EVENT

TBA Kris "Tanto" Paronto Keynote Speaker Memorial Day Event California More Details Coming Soon!

Thursday, November 17, 2016 at 04:30 PM

Monday, September 18, 2017 at 09:00 AM

Kearney Holiday Inn in Kearney, NE Kris Paronto To Be Keynote Speaker For Nebraska Cooperative Council Private Conference

PRIVATE EVENT in St. George, UT Kris "Tanto" Paronto - Keynote Speaker - Utah Sheriff Asscociation PRIVATE EVENT

Friday, November 18, 2016 at 06:00 PM

For more information about Kris 'Tanto' Paronto and his schedule visit:

PRIVATE EVENT in Grovetown, GA Boy Scouts of America, Georgia-Carolina Council Private Event Only

Friday, November 18, 2016 at 06:00 PM PRIVATE EVENT in Grovetown, GA Boy Scouts of America, Georgia-Carolina Council

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kristantoparonto.com

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LEGEND

AMONG LEGENDS William “Billy� Waugh

Texan Billy Waugh is a legend among legends. His career spanned more than 50 years from Korea to Operation Enduring Freedom.

As a young man Billy heard his calling to be a warrior. While on leave from the Pacific Campaigns of World War, two Marines spun tales of their exploits to young William. Born in 1929 he was still too young to enlist but he tried anyway. He decided he would head to California and enlist there believing that he would have a better chance of getting in. On his way he was stopped in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Without papers to identify him he was arrested and jailed. He managed to get released and was sent back to Bastrop. At this point he decided to put his efforts into his studies and graduated high school.

In 1948 he enlisted in the United States Army and went to Fort Ord, California for training.

He was highly disappointed in missing service in World War 2. He would be equally disappointed with his time stateside with the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg. With the Korean War starting he reenlisted and he would get his chance to fight on the Korean peninsula. His unit, the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team, was attached to the 1st Marine Division to help relieve the 2nd Battalion 7th Marines who had been fighting since the Inchon landings a week earlier. He returned to the states in 1952 and went to Officers Candidate School at Fort Benning Georgia.

While at OCS he contracted malaria and was out of training. Once he recuperated he had a decision to make. If he was going to stay he would lose time and back to the 8th week of training. He declined and was assigned to the 5th Infantry Division in Germany.

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SOG team in Southeast Asia.

In Germany Waugh first learned about Special Forces which was sending a unit to Bad Tolz.

He immediately began working to get assigned to this team. In 1958, he joined Special Forces and was assigned to the 10th Special Forces Group stationed in Germany. At this point he knew he had found his life’s work. By the late 50’s communists in Indochina had begun to be a concern for the American government. The concern was such that Special Forces advisors were sent to South Vietnam to help train government forces. In 1961 Billy Waugh would head into some of the most daring times of his life.

By 1965 his A-Team, A331 was camped near Bong Son. Bong Son was in the northeastern corner of II Corps near the coast. From here the team would recruit local men as mercenaries to assist them in fighting the Viet Cong. On a recon patrol to an area set for a future raid his team was discovered. They fought their way out and prepared to raid the same area in the coming week. On June 18th 1965, Billy found himself in the fight of his life. With 90 men they moved out to attack the enemy stronghold a few kilometers east. Alon the way they found an NVA sentry fast asleep. Capturing the soldier they realized they were not going to be hitting their normal Viet Cong force. This was a much more imposing force. It was going to be a serious fight. Farther along the path the team approached a man and woman cooking for the enIRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM |11

emy camp. They were neutralized quickly and quietly and the team moved on. The men began to spread out among hooches where NVA soldiers, unaware of the threat upon them, lay sleeping. The attack was started with grenades and immediately followed by bullets.

A few escaped out the back of the huts. They took the enemy weapons that were spread out in the kill zone and gave them to the team’s Billy Waugh before a combat HALO jump in 1971. mercenaries. While celebrating a well executed attack Waugh froze. Out of the jungle the sounds of bugle calls filled the air. The huts which they attacked were just a small component of a much larger encampment. In 1965 American forces rarely had seen NVA units. This was a unexpected change of enemy strength. Waugh would later learn that over 4,000 NVA soldiers had been sent to the camp a few days prior to the attack.

Waugh continued the attack before the enemy could group and prepare a counter attack. He threw grenades into every hut he approached and unloaded his rifle in every direction. It was time to get out. He signaled with a red flare for his men to move back to a cemetery where they had predetermined as an exfil rallying point. Out of ammunition and grenades Waugh made his way sprinting across a dry rice paddy to the cemetery. He was immediately hit by a Russian RPK in the right knee. He crawled to an irrigation levee. He then made his way to a pit in the middle of the paddy. He found himself face to face with a water buffalo. He made his way out of the pit and continued to crawl to rallying point where they could call for airstrikes on enemy positions. He was hit again, this time in right foot and ankle. He continued to crawl in excruciating pain. He was able to get to his medical bag and gave himself morphine with little effect. His teammate Paris Davis attempted to rescue him but was wounded when he reached Waugh. Davis returned back to the cemetery to plan their next move. Through ground panels and mirrors they signaled a U.S. pilot monitoring the battle. The pilot, an Air Force Forward Air Controller, guided strike aircraft into the battle to drop ordinance on the NVA positions. The air strikes provide some protection and prevented the NVA from advancing closer to the team still trying to gather at the rallying point for extraction.

Billy Waugh was struck again in the forehead by a bullet that had ricocheted off some nearby bamboo. The wound was enough to cut him good and the blood poured down his face. He was knocked unconscious and this possibly saved his life. He laid there most of the day unaware of the activity around him. He had been stripped naked and left for dead by the NVA. Ten hours had passed and the battle was still raging. Helicopters made attempts to bring new communications gear and some reinforcements to the team. Hearing the helos Waugh again tried to crawl to safety. It was no use his injuries had been too much. Sgt. First Class John ReIRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

inburg, one of the men brought in by the helicopters made his way to help Billy. Reinburg grabbed him and began to drag him up the hill to the rally point on the hill where they could get on the HU-1D waiting for them. Davis eventually was able to get them and assist in carrying him up the hill. As they crested the hill Reinburg was standing above Waugh trying to catch his breath. At that moment a bullet struck him right above his heart. As he fell another struck below his heart piercing his lungs. While Davis loaded Billy onto helo the door gunner took a round in the arm. The shot almost severed his arm at the elbow. The Huey took off and Waugh finally felt that he had a chance.

He was off the battlefield but he was not out of the battle. Even though he suffered so many serious wounds his mind was still in the fight.

He contacted his radio operator, monitoring the fight from camp, telling him to send machine guns out on the next chopper. The team on the ground needed them to hold off the NVA who were close to overrunning the team still on the ground. After giving this order the helicopter headed to the MASH unit where Waugh would begin his long recovery from the battle.

Bong Son was an unexpected epic battle early in the Vietnam War. A surprise movement by the NVA into the area had turned a quick raid into a fierce battle that almost wiped out the Special Forces Team and their mercenaries.

One team member was killed and only fifteen of the eight six mercs survived. Almost every man on the raid was wounded in the battle of Bong Son. In the end a Ranger unit was sent into the area to finish off the fight.

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SOG Kit with a CAR15.

Billy Waugh was not done with Vietnam. He was sent to Walter Reed hospital in Washington DC. There he would take time to repair his wounds and find his way back into the fight. He was in Vietnam for the duration.

While at Walter Reed he began to plot his return to the war in Vietnam. He requested leave to go home to Texas so he could recuperate. Typical of a warrior he used this pass to book a flight to Saigon. Arriving in Saigon he went to a local hangout frequented by men in the Special Forces community. There he met friends that worked for the Studies and Observation Group (SOG). SOG was a top secret CIA unit that fought in “undisclosed� places all over Southeast Asia, including North Vietnam. Meeting with these men would set the stage for his next deployment. With his leave coming to an end he made his way back to Walter Reed with a few stops along the way. He was now determined more than ever to get back in the fight and to be a part of the SOG teams in Vietnam.

Dodging the amputation of his foot his wounds finally healed enough to have him assigned to 7th Special Forces Group stationed at Fort Bragg. He arrived at Bragg in December of 1965. In a short time after his arrival new orders arrived. He was going back to Vietnam. This time he would be assigned to SOG Command and Control North (CCN) at Khe Sahn. He joined the team in May of 1966.

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Unfortunately for Waugh his injuries were too apparent to the commander and he was sent south to Saigon to work a less action oriented assignment. This set back was not well received

by Billy and he continied to try to get back north and into the fight. After two months he was face to face with his commander pleading his case. Reluctantly, Colonel Bull Simons sent him back to Khe Sahn.

This would be a continued story line for Billy Waugh. He always wanted to be in the fight. He spent the rest of his war time service in SOG. He was a member of a team that completed the first combat Halo jump in 1970. The high altitude jumps were still being formulated and new to the military. Billy Waugh helped write the book on procedures for future operations using this insertion technique.

All good things come to an end and they did for Sergeant Major Billy Waugh in 1971. After seven and a half years fighting in Vietnam he returned home to the United States. Upon his return Sgt. Major Waugh found out there was no room for him with 5th Group at Bragg. He was to be reassigned to 10th Group and sent to Massachusetts. He was not happy. He declared to stop the reassignment or he would retire from the Army. After a meeting with Army Chief of Staff General Westmoreland, it was clear, he would be retiring.

After his retirement he moved back to Texas and went to work for the US Postal Service.

After years of fighting he was withering away. In 1977 Billy received a call that would change his life’s path and get him back into the world he missed dearly. A meeting was arranged in Virginia where he was told to pack for a year stay in Africa. He was not told who he would be working for only that it would be in Libya. He started putting pieces together and concluded that the CIA was working on a project in North Africa. As they were preparing to leave he asked more questions about the coming work. He was told not to worry about it and that he was the right man for the job. Eventually one last meeting was scheduled for the “team” of four Ex-Special Forces men. At this meeting it became clear to Waugh that this was not a sanctioned CIA operation. The plans were put in motion by an EX-CIA operative named Edwin Wilson. The team would be working for him, not the U.S. Government. Waugh was still convinced the operation was “sponsored” out by the CIA to a private firm. Black Operations were a common practice at that time for the CIA. The mission was to train Libyan Special Forces in infantry tactics. In retrospect Waugh says his desire to get out of postal work and back in the fight numbed his intuition. He stayed on board. Unexpectedly Billy was contacted by an unknown man to set a meeting. The man presented himself as an active agency man. The man asked him to take pictures of people, places, and anything of value while he was working in Libya. Waugh felt that this was something he may need if things went bad. Insurance. Things were being thrown at him fast and he did have some uncertainty about his new job.

The team stopped in Switzerland then on to Libya. After a meeting with high level governIRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM |15

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ment officials the team moved on to set up shop in Benghazi. During training he slowly built trust with his students and began to take photos for the CIA including surface to air missile sites. In Janurary 1978 he made a trip home and delivered his first set of film to his CIA contact. After a short stay in the States he returned to Benghazi. After his first year he decided to stay behind as the remainder of the team went back home. Later that same year he returned to Texas for a break.

During this trip home Billy Waugh met a woman that would become his wife in a very short time. They hit it off immediately and decided not to wait. They moved to Hawaii for a short period of time but Billy was contacted again to work in Libya. He and his wife moved to Germany where she would wait for him while he worked in North Africa. On his Billy Waugh in Lybia in 1979. return he was propositioned by the Libyans to spy on Egypt. He flatly refused to their surprise. Things began to get worse for him staying in Libya. The resentment of Americans in the Arab world was growing and on November 4, 1979 a trainee that he befriended came to him.

The man told him to leave the country immediately. The American Embassy in Iran had been overrun and hostages were taken. Billy could be jailed as an American or worse. With the help of his friend he got a ticket to Frankfurt, Germany. He later found out that the man saved him had been executed for attempting a coup on Qaddafi.

After leaving Libya, Billy and his wife moved back to Hawaii. Later he discovered that Edwin Wilson was convicted for selling explosives, attempted murder and the illegal export of arms.

He was sentenced to 53 years in prison. During parole hearings he was able to overturn some of the convictions by proving the CIA knew his operations.

After his work in Libya, Billy found that men like him were not welcomed by in the CIA of the Carter administration. He decided to work on his education and he took a position as a police officer at Pearl Harbor. By 1987 he was offered a position to be the Deputy Chief of Police at the U.S. Army Kwajalein Missile Range in the Marshall Islands. He took the position and worked there for a couple of years.

In 1989 he was offered a contract with the CIA to work on a special team. The team was never implemented due to conflict from Congressional disagreement on the mission. This offer led IRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM |17

to new opportunities and Waugh found himself on new missions in the early 1990s.

By 1992 he found himself in Khartoum, Sudan. Waugh was sent to Africa to keep an eye on several people that were of interest to the CIA. Khartoum was a big destination for criminals and terrorists to disappear. It was here in 1992 that he came face to face with Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden was a low threat target at the time so no action was taken against him. He had just surfaced on the CIA radar and they didn’t really know much about him.

Billy’s task was to watch and report. Over the next year and a half he would come within a few feet of him. He was able to photograph him and report developments of what would become known as Al-Qaeda.

In 1993 Waugh received a new assignment. He would lead a four man team of men that he Osama Bin Laden in Sudan. knew well. They would set up in Khartoum to hunt down, locate, and report on a new target. This one was a top priority. The target was Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the infamous Carlos the Jackal. The mission would not be easy. The Jackal had not been photographed for more than ten years. Carlos had begun his acts of terror in the 1970s. He was from Venezuela and considered himself a Marxist. He latched on to the plight of the Palestinians by joining terrorist groups in the Middle East. His first act of terror was to murder a leading fundraiser for a group that supported Israel. The attempt failed. In 1975 he succeeded in Vienna. He along with several others broke into an OPEC meeting and kidnapped eleven oil ministers and killing three. The group then hijacked a plane that took them to Algiers. The hostages were released after receiving a ransom of 20 million dollars.

Carlos moved on from kidnapping to bombing and made attempts on a French nuclear reactor that failed. He attacked the French again bombing a facility in Beirut, Lebanon and then a French train headed to Toulouse from Paris. He included assassination of diplomats and increased havoc on French citizens abroad.

Over the years the Jackal moved into Middle Eastern countries like Jordan and then moved on after overstaying his welcome. This is how he ended up in Sudan.

After learning as much as possible about the Jackal, Waugh and his team began the tough work of locating him. They had a break when they received word that a well known body guard was IRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

on his way to work for and protect Carlos. Waugh’s team was able to locate the man and tailed him until they found the Jackal in Khartoum. The team was under strict orders not to interdict but to survey and report. Billy set up shop in a rundown building across from the home of Carlos.

They watched him and photographed him extensively.

Once they felt they had enough information they passed the intelligence on to French authorities who then took him into custody.

Time moved on and so did Billy. He had semi retired and had been consulting with the agencies and military that he had worked with for decades. On September 11, 2001 he knew he needed to be back in the fight first hand.

Having firsthand knowledge of who Bin Laden was and how he operated he knew he could help. At seventy one Carlos the Jackal. years old he knew this would be his last mission. He had worked with both the CIA and Special Forces and the two would be working together in the mountains of Afghanistan. That was his way in. He knew both organizations and could help them with their efforts to track down and destroy Al-Qaeda. He deployed with Special Forces ODA 594 and went to work.

Billy Waugh began his military service in 1948. By 1972 he had become a Sgt Major in the United States Army Special Forces. His military decorations included the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, four Bronze Stars, eight Purple Hearts, the Air Medal, and four Army Commendation Medals. Due to the nature of his work the full history of what he has done will never be completely known. After his time on active duty he found himself back to work as a contractor working for the CIA in which he pursued some of the most notorious enemies of our country.

Even past his “prime” he could not stay out of a fight he knew was important to our nation.

He is a legend among legends.

The XXVI Legion segment of Iron Mike Magazine was created to highlight Americans that have done extraordinary things in service to our country. Men like Billy Waugh, Carlos Hathcock, Kit Carson, and Richard Winters will be highlighted in every issue so we do not forget their selfless efforts to protect the ideals of our great nation. They are members of the XXVI Legion.

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BEEF STEW IN THE SLOW COOKER Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 12h hours (if your slow cooker doesn't have an option for 12 hours set it for the maximum time low heat and check it at its end. Add Additional minutes if needed.)

Ingredients • 2 pounds of beef stew meat cut into 1 inch cubes.

• 1 chopped onion • 3 potatoes diced • 4 carrots sliced • 1 celery • 1.5 cups of beef broth • 1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce • .25 cups of flour • .5 teaspoon of salt • .5 teaspoon of ground black pepper • 1 bay leaf • 1 teaspoon of paprika • 1 clove of garlic minced Get a small mixing bowl mix the flour, salt, and pepper. Place the meat in the slow cooker and pour the mixed seasonings over the meat. Stir the meat in the bowl to spread the mixture.

Next take the reamaining ingredients and stir them into the slow cooker with the meat.

Place the cover on the cooker and place the setting to low heat for 10-12 hours.

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The common modern design of the anvil is known as the “London Pattern” which was developed in the 1800’s. Although size and some components vary the overall design remains the same. There are several common features such as the horn, the step, the face, a hardy hole, and the pritchel hole.

The horn is the curved pointed in of the anvil. This end is used for hammering rounded shapes. Some anvils have more than one horn.

The flat area known as the step is next to the horn and under the face.

This part of the anvil is used for a cutting area by hammering the material but should not be used to much because it can cause damage to the anvil.

The face of the anvil is the large flat top where most of the work is done. The edges of the face are rounded to prevent the hammered material from being cut during the hammering process.

Though not all anvils have them there are two holes often found on top of the face. The pritchel and hardy holes are used to secure devices to the face of the anvil. The hardy hole is square and is used to secure items like chisels, swages, bickerns (smaller “horns”) and more. It can also be used for punching material.

The pritchel hole is round and is used for punching holes as well as securing various tools.

Anvils today are typically made of steel but there are a few wrought iron types on the market. The wrought iron tends to be more brittle and is considered a less durable anvil.

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AMENDMENT II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

A well regulated Militia,: the whole body of able-bodied male citizens declared by law as being subject to call to military service

being necessary: absolutely needed : required to the security: something that secures : protection of a free State,: not bound, confined, or detained by force the right: something to which one has a just claim: as the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled

of the people to keep: preserve, maintain: as to watch over and defend and bear: to be equipped or furnished with Arms,: a means (as a weapon) of offense or defense; especially: firearm shall not be infringed.: to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another

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The Bill of Rights was created after several states felt the need to protect individual liberties.

James Madison constructed a draft of 12 amendments and submitted it to Congress. After voting in the House and the Senate these rights were then sent to State Legislatures for approval. Ten of the original items were approved on December 15, 1791.

The first two amendments are perhaps the most important rights we are “guaranteed�. The first protects our ability to speak our mind, practice our chosen religion, produce media, or assemble to petition the government. I believe the second amendment is more important than the first. If the government is not fearful of its citizenry, unchecked power will only grow in strength and remove the rights provided in the first.

Combine the 14th Amendment with the second and the right to keep and bear arms should be untouchable. That, unfortunately, is not the case. Although the 14th states: SECTION 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The 14th Amendment was passed after the Civil War in order to protect the rights of citizens and those previously held in bondage by slavery. Today this should supersede all state and local restrictions on firearms and other weapons. Unfortunately, the powers of government and the erroneous decisions of an unelected court have allowed this right to wither. We need to be reminded that there is only one law for arms in the United States of America and it is guaranteed in twenty seven words.

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By Chris Hernandez

Doctors have a guiding principle: “First, do no harm.” Their most important job is to not cause more damage. “Given an existing problem, it may be better not to do something, or even to do nothing, than to risk causing more harm than good.”

This is a good life principle. If I don’t know how to change a timing belt, I probably shouldn’t take my engine apart and just hope I can figure it out. If I don’t know electrical wiring, it’s probably a bad idea to rewire my house on my own. Because if I do those things, I’ll cause more harm than good.

Simple enough, right? Apparently not. Far too many of my fellow gun rights supporters don’t understand this principle. One particular type likes to dress in garish clothing, grab a weapon and run toward the nearest camera whenever they see an opportunity to “support gun rights”. These gun owners don’t help the situation; instead, they only manage to show the entire world they’re nothing more than poorly or completely untrained attention whores.

The gun rights version of “First, do no harm” is “Don’t make shit worse.” These particular gun rights supporters are making shit worse.

Recently several “Oath Keepers” decided to make shit worse in Ferguson, Missouri. Their arrival generated a flood of negative publicity, reinforced the widespread perception that we gun owners are unstable lunatics looking for a fight, and heightened already sky-high tensions between police and protestors. According to the Washington Post, the Oath Keepers said they were in Ferguson to “protect someone who worked for the Web site Infowars.com.” Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that adding heavily-armed conspiracy theorists into a volatile near-riot doesn’t exactly help.

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The Oath Keepers, fortunately, did nothing more than attract tons of negative media attention and anger protestors (although some of them apparently told protestors they were there to protect protestors from police). But their presence dramatically escalated the likelihood of violence, in a town already racked by it. The police didn’t want them there. The protestors didn’t want them there. They showed up anyway, and made shit worse.

After the Chattanooga terrorist attacks, dozens of armed citizens arrived at recruiting centers to stand guard. The desire to defend our military from attack is laudable. The way in which some of those armed citizens defended our military was laughable. Many armed citizens, especially those who seemed to want nothing more than attention, simply made shit worse.

At least one man claimed online that he parked outside a recruiting center with a weapon concealed in the vehicle, watched from a distance and didn’t make his presence known. That makes sense, and I admire him for doing that. I also believe some armed citizens who stood guard displayed proper weapon-handling skills and didn’t dress like Call of Duty characters. That’s admirable as well.

Unfortunately, there were many others who were not only inept, but dangerous.

Their presence didn’t make our military safer. Those armed citizens saw a problem, grabbed their guns, headed to recruiting centers and made shit worse.

Don’t get me wrong; armed citizens can do great things. When a hurricane hit Texas several years ago, my neighborhood lost power for weeks. Local police were over-

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whelmed and couldn’t respond to many crimes. A neighbor handed out rifles to people he trusted, and they set a roadblock at the neighborhood’s only entrance to keep looters out. The entire time they operated the roadblock, they saw one police officer, one time; he drove up, said “looks like you guys got this under control”, and drove away. Those neighbors took up arms for the right reasons, and did the right things with those arms. They didn’t make shit worse.

The Oath Keepers in Ferguson made shit worse. Many of the armed citizens who stood in front of recruiting centers made shit worse. Ridiculous open carry activists who dress like fools and do stupid things designed to piss off the public make shit worse. Dumbasses who carry AR-15s into airports, just because they can, make shit worse. The lunatic who opened carried a shotgun into Wal-Mart, bought ammo and loaded the shotgun inside the store made shit worse.

The gun owners making shit worse aren’t fighting terror or tyranny, and they aren’t advancing the cause of gun rights.

They’re just making themselves look stupid, and helping the anti-gun side paint us all as moronic extremists. The rest of us 2nd Amendment advocates are letting the crazies drive the gun rights bus. And we need to stop letting them represent us.

Gun rights extremists like those I just described will now scream, rant and have a seizure while invoking their holy mantra: “But I’m legally exercising my rights IRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

so you can’t criticize me!”

No, dumbass. There are lots of things you have the right to do, but if you do them you’re just stupid. You have the right to nail your penis to your bedroom wall.

If you do it, you’re stupid. You have the right to cover your face in gang tattoos.

If you do it, you’re stupid. You have the right to carry a confederate flag through Watts at 3 a.m. while yelling “Bring back slavery!” If you do it, you’re stupid. And you have a right to put on your best goth clothes or favorite gas mask, grab the nearest antique rifle and beg for attention… I mean, “rally for freedom” at a state capitol. But if you do it, you’re just stupid.

Engaging in the above actions doesn’t make you a patriotic hero of the Constitution. It just makes you non-criminally stupid.

I believe in the 2nd Amendment. It is a necessary tool to prevent this nation from falling to the tyranny so common throughout human history. Our founding fathers understood human nature and knew governments always seek more power for themselves, at the expense of the governed. The architects of our Constitution forever granted us the power to prevent our government from stripping inalienable rights. But it’s safe to say they didn’t write the 2nd Amendment because they wanted us to dress like clowns, inject ourselves into tense situations, display gross incompetence with our weapons, and make shit worse. If some fool had wrapped himself in the first U.S. flag IRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM |29

and accidentally pointed his musket at Thomas Jefferson’s head during the Constitutional Convention, I’m sure even George Washington would have told him, “Please take leave of this hall, sir. For ye be worsening the defecation.”

A critical incident of any type requires dedicated, trained, intelligent people to successfully resolve it. Medical emergencies are resolved by people who perform lifesaving tasks when required. Fires are brought under control by people who conduct necessary tasks to both fight the fire and prevent its spread. Resolution of a crisis relies upon people not just showing up, but doing the right thing when they show up.

But gun rights extremists keep showing up and doing the wrong thing. Oath Keepers in Ferguson injected themselves into a highly volatile situation that required only a spark to spiral out of control. Had they engaged in a shootout with cops, protestors or criminals, the glut of media and protestors surrounding them would have virtually ensured unintended casualties. Some armed citizens showed up at recruiting centers and put more people in danger because of their ridiculously poor weapon-handling skills. We’re lucky only one accidentally fired his weapon while showing it off. Open carry extremists keep doing stupid things like walking into buildings with weapons in combat-ready holds. They’ve gotten weapons banned from several places.

None of these actions help. They just make shit worse.

We on the pro-2nd Amendment side have enough problems to deal with already. If you’re a gun rights supporter, and feel you must carry your weapon into the public eye, do it for the right reasons. Do it the right way. A firearm is a tremendously powerful tool and its use demands the utmost respect; don’t treat it as a theatrical prop.

Show the world that there are good people with guns, who have proper training, and aren’t looking for opportunities to scare their fellow citizens.

But don’t do stupid things that make shit worse.

Chris Hernandez is a 20 year police officer, former Marine and currently serving National Guard soldier with over 25 years of military service. He is a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and also served 18 months as a United Nations police officer in Kosovo. He writes for BreachBangClear.com and Iron Mike Magazine and has published two military fiction novels, Proof of Our Resolve, Line in the Valley and Safe From the War through Tactical16 Publishing. He can be reached at chris_hernandez_author@yahoo.com or on his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ProofofOurResolve).

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Yes Please!

I found my polymer .45ACP

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The next pistol on my list is a .45ACP and I have been looking at a bunch of them. I decided to go with a 1911 last year because I found that it was the most comfortable frame for me to shoot.

The price tag was always a little more than I wanted to spend for a pistol so I have stalled on the purchase. I worked at the 2015 Texas Firearms Festival in Liberty Hill and had the chance to try out several pistols offered up for shooting at the event. One of my friends asked if I had fired the Walther PPQ .45ACP yet. To be honest I had not heard of the PPQ. Apparently, Walther had a 9mm in this model that had been already released but they now had a .45. I worked my way to one of the very last stalls at the back of the range.

When I walked up to the table I saw a few black polymer pistols. I didn’t see anything too impressive from first glance. They looked like several other pistols on the market. I was welcomed in to the stall and the Walther rep asked what I’d like to shoot. “Do you have something in .45ACP”, I asked.

He handed me the PPQ with a smile and walked me through a few of the features of the pistol. I immediately liked the grip of the PPQ. It didn’t feel like other polymers. I had shot the FNX Tactical .45 earlier that day and it was boxy. My hand didn’t feel right. It shot great but I just didn’t “feel” it with the FNX. The PPQ in contrast felt like it was made for my hand.

We walked up to the firing line and he gave me a magazine with a few rounds in it. I loaded and prepared to shoot. I fired off the few rounds he gave me and kept a very tight group. I was amazed by the trigger. The Walther rep began to rattle off specs and numbers which I didn’t hear. I was thinking about how amazing the trigger pull was. I liked this pistol.

Since that day I have fired the PPQ .45 on several occasions and each time my experience was the same. This is a comfortable polymer with an amazing trigger that gave me a really good group on target.

I would highly recommend anyone interested in a polymer .45ACP to find one and shoot it. You will not be disappointed.

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A few years ago I came across Kota Longboards on Twitter. Their board designs were amazing and I knew I had to reach out to them. After a couple of weeks I was able to get a chance to talk with Mike Maloney the President and CEO. The first call lasted a couple hours as I talked with Mike about his vision for his company and how he started this incredible custom longboard company. Mike has had his share of ups and downs as any business owner can attest too but he has never lost sight of what his company stands for and the products it makes. He’s now in a new facility and business is growing. Kota Longboards is company that is committed to honor, integrity, and superb craftsmanship. A while back I had Robert Johnson interview Mike to talk about Kota Longboards. Here’s the transcript: As per the usual, I was woken up all too early by Bryan. He sent me a text message at some ungodly hour.The text said, ”I have your next interview, KOTA Longboards.” My first thought was, “Coffee...I need coffee.” then, “What the heck do I know about longboards? What is a longboard? Some kind of surfboard?” I was wrong on all guesses. I researched, became excited and gave KOTA Longboards CEO Mike Maloney a call...

IRON MIKE: Mike, How’s it going?

Maloney: Great!

IRON MIKE: First question Mike, I see longboards, and I immediately think, “What’s the difference between a longboard and a skateboard?”

Maloney: Well, I’ll give you a somewhat longer answer for a relatively simple question. Long boarding was invented not by skateboarders, but by surfers in IRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM |37

Hawaii. They were trying to get the experience of surfing in the off season and to do it on a road. The concept was originally about carving and traversing. If you look at a downhill skier, and I am a lifelong skier, not a surfer, that said, a skier’s weight and balance is almost identical to a surfer’s weight and balance.

So when you look at what these surfers were doing with long boarding, you can see how it became all about carving and traversing, transferring your weight and balance from one edge and then rapidly switching it to the other edge, just like a surfer or a skier would do to reverse your turn. It’s a very fluid and athletic motion. Eventually long boarding got its way to Southern California and at least my impression is that the skateboard industry said, “Oh it’s a long piece of wood with wheels on it, let’s take it over.”

IRON MIKE: So is there a totally different culture between skateboarders and long boarders?

Maloney: Oh yes. Skateboarding culture is perhaps more narrow in what the purpose is, it’s very intense in its culture, that is, short boarding. Again, long boarding culture really came out through these off season trainers in Hawaii.

IRON MIKE: So, what happened?

Maloney: Well, these short board companies really kind of went after that market. They said, and I’m speculating, “Hey let’s just make a longboard, stretch out the skateboards and that’s that.” And that is what they did. The problem is that as they elongated these boards, you had a huge issue with these boards sagging in the middle. They then either increased the boards bend to compensate or just said “It’s a long board, that’s what it’s supposed to do.” Which is ridiculous… Then to increase exposure of these things, and again, no one really knew any better in the market place, they [the US long board market] said we need a sport for long boarders. Skateboarders have half pipes and other extreme venues. So they chose downhill riding, which in my opinion, was not a great choice.

IRON MIKE: Why not?

Maloney: The analogy I give people is this, if skiing only had speed skiing, who would ski? No one... Only a tiny amount of people can relate to that. The reason skiing is so popular is all the facets of skiing, slalom, etc. And so what this led to was people leaving the sport [long boarding] in their twenties because as we get older no one can relate to screaming down a hill, making a blind turn on a road and hoping to God there isn’t a car on the other side. It’s just not someIRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

thing people want to do. We looked at the numbers for long boarding and we found that ninety-three percent of the market for long boarders is male. Other than jock-straps, I’m not sure there is another venue so skewed to males in the market place. (laughing ensues).

IRON MIKE: So how are you going to get the ladies involved?

Maloney: By offering them a product and brand they can get behind. We can produce a high performance and high style product and brand that will capture the imagination of women and men and in all ages. But I think the key is control. We need to offer a product that offers control like no other board out there. The ability to carve and traverse and that listens to the rider. The last thing you want to happen is to be on the board and realize “Oh no, I’m going to fast, what do I do?” That’s not what we want.

IRON MIKE: So what happened to your 24 year-old who used to skateboard?

Where did they go?

Maloney: They just can’t relate to the culture anymore. It’s marketed toward and focused mainly on only a younger generation.

IRON MIKE: Mike, I used to skateboard all over Naples, Italy. I down-hilled, I dodged cars. I stopped skateboarding, because I hit a car.

Maloney: How old are you Robert?

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IRON MIKE: I’m thirty-two.

Maloney: In ten years, you’re going to start thinking that your getting older, but your going to also think that you don’t feel older. You’re going to start thinking about all the stuff you did, the activities that you used to do. You’re going to ask yourself, “Why am I not doing this stuff anymore?” Those are the things that will happen. It isn’t mid-life crisis, it’s just a part of life.

IRON MIKE: You’re right on the money with that.

Maloney: You can mountain bike, road bike, run, all well into your sixties, sometimes seventies and beyond. Why not long board? Culturally, we’re far more active in our later years than ever before. When you get into that age range thirty-eight to say fifty-two, you say “Look, I’m not ready to just sit on the couch and get fat. I’m still out there, I’m still active.” This is a good thing.

IRON MIKE: What about the look?

Maloney: Well, they have to be aesthetically pleasing. If you look at ninety-nine percent of the boards our there, they are covered in black grip tape.

You can’t see anything, the design is covered. That style, having only a graphic on the bottom, won’t appeal and doesn’t appeal to anyone. We found a way to put the primary art surface of the board to the top, where you can see it.

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IRON MIKE: What about grip, Mike?

Maloney: We worked on this for a while, and we developed a clear gloss surface which we call KOTA-Grip. This completely precludes the need for grip tape on top of the board. It’s awesome.

IRON MIKE: You guys really tackled big problems with boards.

Maloney: We went after two main things, the look and performance. We talked about the look, but performance was the other area we went after.

IRON MIKE: I take it your boards don’t sag?

Maloney: Far from it. We engineered a combination of camber and concave into the longboard itself, specifically like a down hill ski so that you could have that control, set the edge, and roll rapidly side to side.

IRON MIKE: The camber is intense on your boards. There is no sag.

Maloney: Exactly. You know, I used to live by a college and I watched these guys riding long boards and they were almost hitting the ground. It drove me nuts. We had to fix it. It’s like an eighteen-wheeler. Its bowed on purpose to help with the load and increase energy and spring. Again, critical to KOTA is that control and additionally the style and the ability for the rider to express themselves through the art work. Not having the grip tape and using our KOTA-Grip is the answer.

IRON MIKE: You guys are like the Apple of longboards. You have a unique brand which speaks to the consumer who is in the market that seems to say, “This is quality, I like the Brand, it’s American Made, they support Vets and it lets me have something totally unique.”

Maloney: (laughs) Well, I hope our site conveys just that.

IRON MIKE: As someone gets older, we expect a better quality of work. Additionally we are okay with actually paying a little more for something that we know is the “real McCoy”. This is important because again, this is what I am seeing here.

Maloney: I’m glad you pick up on that. Not a lot of people in your age group see this yet. But they eventually will.

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IRON MIKE: Your prices to be honest, are not bad at all. In fact, for being the best board on the market, you could say they are just right in terms of “you get what you pay for”.

Maloney: Right. Even at $349.99 for a great board is outstanding. Some people will point to our competitors and say, “Isn’t this a competitive market?” And the answer is, not really. We’re looking at not just the twenty-year-old male.

We’re looking at everyone. So our competitors aren’t even looking at the demographics. Loaded for example is a great company, and they sell a board for $389.99. Again, I like them, but I think we have a better board all together, from the design to the engineering.

IRON MIKE: Mike, talking about the quality and vision you guys at KOTA have, I have to ask, where did this come from? I mean, you’re a military pilot and an engineer who ran some big companies. Why start a company now?

Maloney: You know, it’s kind of interesting. I look at our economy and see these phases. This is my amateur opinion I think, but in any case there seems to be this pattern we follow which is; we lose our jobs or have insecurity in our jobs, we go into risk aversion mode and take zero risks and then finally, and I never understood this one, we start asking Washington to fix our problems.

And right now, we’re just coming out of this mode. We are taking risks again.

No other nation on the planet has engrained into the psyche of its people, that

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we can take a risk for a reward. We are a nation of entrepreneurs.

IRON MIKE: So as we’re coming out of this slump, you decided to strike while the iron was hot.

Maloney: Exactly. To go back to something you mentioned earlier, (Mike was referring to a comment I made before the interview began) when people have less disposable income, and 99% of America now has less disposable income, it is important that they get a higher value for every dollar they spend. Whether perceived or physical, they do still appreciate something like this. They want a high quality, high performance product from a company with a real culture and brand. Something they can get behind and feel amazing about. In fact it usually becomes more than just something they buy, it is something they tell their friends about, strangers about. It becomes something they identify with. The culture is important and thats included with the value.

IRON MIKE: KOTA has certainly achieved that. People are loyal and have stories about your boards. It’s really cool. What is the next thing for KOTA? Maloney: We are looking to start a new product line of high end sports apparel. Not just logo wear, which we already have, but real top quality apparel which is just a natural extension of what we do. KOTA Longboards will always be our signature item but right now, the market has responded to our product and now it’s time for the next big step. This will be a great line of action sports apparel.

IRON MIKE: I’m sure our readers are thinking “Why long boards?”.

Maloney: I was in a position to start a company, like I said. I took a casual interest in getting a longboard. I was in a bike shop and saw one, it was a beautiful. Five years later I was looking for a business to start and it hit me at a playground.

IRON MIKE: A playground?

Maloney: Yeah, believe it or not. There I was on a playground and I was talking to our amazing photographer Rob Campbell. I asked him “Hey Rob, what did you do this weekend?”. He said, “Oh…I just finished making a couple long boards for the kids.” It’s going to sound crazy and cliche, but it really did, it hit me like a bolt of lightning. I immediately saw the name, the mark, the logo, everything in my head. All in about 1/3rd of a second. I thought I was IRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM |43

crazy, but the image kept coming back to me over the next few weeks.

I researched the market and saw this tremendous opportunity. We went for it. My passion for what this company is able to do, in terms of building a product of value and unlocking the fun of long boarding to a demographic that hasn’t even thought about riding is just increasing like crazy. I started the company out of my garage. We started in 2012 and we moved into our factory in 2013.

IRON MIKE: We talked a bit about these folks who are buying KOTA long boards and how they seem to breaking these demographic molds, tell me about some of your best customers.

Maloney: Look, everyone of our customers is our best customer, they tell their friends, they have stories and its just incredible. The passion transfers from us to them. But there is this one guy, we talk quite a bit. I don’t want to name drop but he bought a long board and he is in his fifties. He liked it so much he called me up and said “Mike, my wife’s birthday is coming up and I want to buy her a long board.” So there it was, two people in their early fifties who just bought two KOTA long boards.

IRON MIKE: You guys keep fairly regular contact with many of your customers, right?

Maloney: Definitely.

We talk on a fairly regular basis, it’s like an extended family. In fact I got a call just the other day from a man who got one of our long boards IRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

and he asked me about it. He was having trouble because back in the day he was an avid short boarder. And he said riding the long boards just didn’t “click” with him. I sat there and explained to him how to pronate your body and the motions you go through in riding a board like this. It’s twisting and moving forward. So it immediately “clicks” with the guy and he is even planning a trip for him and his wife to come out to one of our long boarding clinics we hold in Colorado.

IRON MIKE: That’s amazing. And that’s what I mean when I say people are buying you, the company and the brand. How incredible is that?

Maloney: It’s tremendous. That is the joy in this company. When we can unlock that kind of community in our product and brand. That’s where the soft line comes in as well. Our customers want a line of apparel because of the dedication to the company and the sport.

IRON MIKE: Where is KOTA in five years?

Maloney: I think the company will grow based on the innovations were making. Appealing to these other demographics that our “competitors” aren’t even looking at. Our vision, no kidding, if we can establish KOTA Brand Sports apparel line, we think we have what it takes even though we’re young to be a Padagonia, a Lands End, North Face, a Columbia. Those companies all started out as hard good products. And all those companies had community and a brand.

IRON MIKE: So Mike, here’s a question, what is KOTA? Maloney: Knights of the Air. A few things about it, World War one started 100 years ago this July 28th. July 28th, 1914 the first shots of that war were fired.

We’re going through four years of constant commemoration of significant events from WW1, which frankly is one of the defining moments of the 20th century. What many people do not understand, is that when WW1 started in 1914, the airplane was only 11 years old. When the war broke out the Europeans are looking at these airplanes and saying “Who in the world are we going to get to fly these things?” So they pulled officers from the cavalry corps and taught them how to fly. They became the world’s first fighter pilots.

IRON MIKE: Talk about trial by fire.

Maloney: The Cavalry Corps at that time in Europe could actually trace their IRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM |45

lineage all the way back to medieval knights. So these guys literally lived by the chivalric code of medieval times, which was a code of honor, integrity and truth, even amongst adversaries. This not only defined how they acted on the ground but how they engaged in combat in the air. I flew F-14s right out of college when I was in the Navy and that is still the defining culture among fighter pilots today.

IRON MIKE: The chivalric code is something that is largely lost today.

Maloney: You’re right and that’s where “Forging the New Man” comes in.

When I thought about where I was when I was thinking about starting KOTA, I thought about wanting and determined to restore those qualities of honor, integrity and truth back into society and making them mainstream. We operate with honor. The name just makes sense. Aviation “themeology” has been around my life for a long time. We knew we would field a high performance product. When you see high performance on the market, anywhere…What is it related to?

IRON MIKE: They compare them to fighter jets.

Maloney: That’s right. It’s kinda hokey. But everything that wants to be associated with performance gets likened to a jet or a formula one race car.

So the association with Knights of the Air, being fighter pilots brings with it not only the code of honor but gives people the association of performance within our brand.

IRON MIKE: That’s wild. It’s like buying not only a long board, but a piece of history. That is something that adds to the value.

Maloney: When that person is now riding through the neighborhood, and IRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

someone asks them about their board, because they can actually see the top and the artwork, that person gets to then say, “Yeah, so let me tell you the story about the logo, or the story about the brand, or the code…” It’s truly remarkable.

IRON MIKE: So Mike, if I buy a long board, how long does it take to learn how to ride one? I’m part of the “Now” generation. (we laugh).

Maloney: I can teach you how to ride in twenty minutes.

IRON MIKE: No B.S. 20 minutes?

Maloney: 20 minutes, Robert.

Just then I wrapped up my phone call with Mike Maloney, my credit card burning a hole in my pocket to just buy one of these boards. I talked to Mike for an hour and 10 minutes, not knowing anything at all about long boards, and there I was ready to buy one. When it comes to quality, they have it, no doubt. Something I didn’t touch on in the interview was Mike’s (and KOTA’s) dedication to Veterans. KOTA Longboards employs Veterans who love their job. It feels good to want a product that stands for a code, is fun to use, is unique, and has a story. I urge you to check them out, and if you talk to Mike Maloney or anyone else out in Colorado from KOTA, tell ‘em’ IRON MIKE MAGAZINE sent ya.

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One of the best museums in the countr IRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

Photo By Norm Hatch Courtesy of the National Museum of the Pacific War

ry tucked into the Texas Hill Country IRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM | 63

In the late 1970’s my parents to our family to the Texas Hill Country for our summer vacation.

We would always stay at a little private campground that was tucked away near Kerrville, Texas. From there my parents would take us out on little excursions to various different towns throughout the region. Mostly they would take us to places that had small shops and antiques. There was one town I found exciting. Fredericksburg was the home of the Admiral Nimitz museum. I was an avid backyard soldier at an early age and loved learning anything about the military. I have vague memories of my first visit but it stuck in my head as a place that I wanted to return to.

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In 1991 I went back to Fredericksburg with a friend to camp and hike at nearby Enchanted Rock State Park. We made a stop at the museum and you could see that they had begun to collect larger pieces such as airplanes and a Japanese mini-sub. They need serious restoration but you could tell they were working on putting together a serious exhibit program in the coming years.

Skip forward to today. They museum has expanded and become a state of the art display and recognition of one of the fiercest wars in history. The “Nimitz Museum� is only a piece of the grounds which have been set aside for the artifacts and exhibits they have collected and put together for the public.

It is now the National Museum of the Pacific War and boasts more than 50,000 square feet of indoor exhibit area in the George HW. Bush exhibit hall. This incredible exhibit walks you through the entire war and begins with the buildup of hostilities between Japan and the United Sates prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. On display is a B-25 Mitchell ready to take off of the deck of the USS Hornet in the famous Doolittle raid. They have restored the Japanese mini-sub and moved inside the exhibit hall. There are displays for every major engagement including the Battle of the Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Every inch of the building is full of history and worth taking your time to see every piece on display.

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The old “Nimitz Museum� is still there but now focuses on the Nimitz family and the history of the hotel they operated. The building also offers and ball room that can be rented out for events.

As a gift to the American people the Japanese donated the construction of the Japanese Garden of Peace. The garden was there on my original trip as it was dedicated in 1976. In 2015 the garden was restored and is a great place to sit and relax after your walk through the rest of the exhibits.

The Pacific Combat Zone is an outdoor exhibit offered through guided tours only. Here there are scheduled living history events where re-enactors bring to life the Pacific War. The check the events calendar to see when the shows are scheduled and plan ahead if this is something you would like to see.

Memorial Courtyard has a wall with plaques of individuals that fought in the Pacific. You can honor your hero by contacting the museum and placing a donation for the plaque. One of memorial that caught my eye sits just outside of the Bush exhibit hall. The Plaza of Presidents recognizes the service of ten American Presidents that served during World War 2.

The museum has a solid volunteer program that boasts many opportunities for you to get involved with the operations and growth of the museum. They are looking for speakers, tour guides, and even audio visual talents to continue the success of the museum. Check out IRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

the website for more details and find the application on the volunteer page. There are several ways to donate to the museum as well. You can purchase memberships that very in price from $35.00 and up. If you’re into researching about the War in the Pacific you can also become a member of the Nimitz Education and Research Center which houses thousands of documents and artifacts. The NERC has also constructed a digital archive that can be accessed through the website at anytime.

If you’re planning to do onsite research make sure you contact them in advance to pull items you will need on visit.

If you’re in the Texas Hill Country or you want to make a trip to see the museum there a few things to think about in planning your trip. The cost of admission is free for any World War 2 veteran. General admission is $14.00 per person with discounts available for senior citizens and children. They do offer bus tour discounts as well if you plan to go with a large group.

Contact them in advance to make arrangements.

Fredericksburg, Texas is located an hour and a half west of Austin on US 290 and an hour and fifteen minutes north of San Antonio. The address is 340 East Main St., Fredericksburg, TX 78624.

For more information about the museum visit their website at pacificwarmuseum.org

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GETTING BACK MY FIGHTING WEIGHT

Party time is over!

Many people use this time of year to get back into shape. I am no exception. My ‘day’ job keeps me lean”er” but the winter months slow me down. I still build a few patios and do some smaller landscape projects but I spend more time in front of the computer. I am making a career move this year and will find myself in front of the computer more often. At 44 my body isn’t as resilient as it once was and construction, in particular masonry, has taken its toll. On top of that I had a minor back injury 17 years ago. I find when I slow down the physical labor my body begins to seize up. I find that the more I exercise the more I feel better. Not just in energy increase and muscle strength. My flexibility increases and my bones hurt less.

MY PLAN So I have constructed a plan with four steps that will get me back on track and feeling great. I want to be back down to my fighting weight of 160 lbs. Here is how I’m going to do it.

Step 1: REMOVE AS MUCH FAST FOOD AS POSSIBLE FROM MY DIET Diet is of course a big factor into any exercise regiment and like the majority of Americans it is a battle for me. I move from project to project everyday and spend a lot of time traveling around central Texas in my work truck. The ‘quick’ meal is too easy. I won’t say I’ll remove it all because I know that not a realistic goal. Once a week is realistic. I do however limit myself to what I buy from fast food places. I started to buy only the sandwich and not the “meal”. I also started carrying a gallon of water with me last fall. I keep it in my truck. I drink the water instead of the soda. That IRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

alone has made a big difference in how I feel. I haven’t been a big soda drinker for a while but I found myself buying sodas with the meals because it was easy to order.

Step 2: SET ASIDE SPECIFIC TIMES FOR EXERCISE This has always been a huge challenge for me. As a contractor and father of younger kids my time is not my own. I started using my google calendar more this last year and I find it a challenge to stick to the personal appointments I set on it. They always seem to end up as reminders and nothing more. So setting and sticking to an appointed time for exercise is key for me to stay on track.

Step 3: FLEXIBILITY IS KEY As mentioned before I hurt my back 17 years ago. I helped a friend that was moving and herniated my L5. The VA wanted to do surgery and I found going to the gym and exercising was a much better option than being cut open (that experience is a story in itself). I lifted weights, slowly, and actually was stronger than I ever had been. The gym was the solution for that time.

Today I have a gym membership with Planet Fitness ( the cheapest deal I have ever found at $10 a month) but getting there isn’t always easy for me. So goes the stoIRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM |71

ry..... I can’t get there. I’ll do it tomorrow..... then the next day etc...etc. I’ve done the home workout system as well. P90x is great but at an hour long per workout it wasn’t always easy to fit in at home. Office-ing from home has its challenges.

Getting pulled from a workout to take care of a customer or the family seems to always take precedent. If you go by the set schedule for the home workout systems you will need to be extra dedicated to complete it in the scheduled period. I did P90x about 8 years ago. It was an awesome workout system. I did miss days and I found myself ready to finish and be done with it. Not because I didn’t like the workouts. It was the schedule. I couldn’t do it with all my commitments.

Step 4: THE WORKOUTS My schedule demands that I have flexibility so I will use a combination of options that are available to me. Over time I have built a library of home system workout programs. This gives me a wide variety of choices at home. The combination of the home videos and the gym membership should allow me to be active everyday. Here are the videos that we have:

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Power 90: Is the most basic of the series and is a great step into the P90 system. The workout has been updated and re-released. Im not sure what the new system has but the original that we own has workouts that range from 20 to 50 minutes.

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P90x: P90x is the “Mother of All Workouts” and there is reason behind it.

The workouts are all around an hour long with a yoga workout that is about an hour and half. Its a comprehensive system and includes upper body, cardio, and yoga videos.

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P90x+: This was an ‘add-on’ to the orignal P90x. I beleive this was there test series to see where to go after the original. The workouts average about 40 minutes and are similar to the P90x videos with minor changes (It looks like this was discontinued).

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P90x3: This is what I was waiting for from the P90x series. The videos are all based around a 30 minute time frame. Its a full body workout, cardio, and yoga program.

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Insanity: The name pretty much sums this system up. Its simple but it will kick your butt. The main focus of this is cardio, cardio, cardio!

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10 Minute Trainer: Very simple workout. I use this in the morning for its yoga video. Its quick and hits all major parts including my back.

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•

Turbo Fire: For the ladies. I tried this... hated it (except for the eye candy). I am too uncoordinated to follow along.

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Rodney Yee: This guy is boring as hell but the yoga is good. He has a wide variety of videos that can be purchased at places like Amazon and Walmart.

So with all of these options I plan to hit one of them everyday. I’m not going to create a specific schedule as to which one I will do. The time that I have will dictate that. Once my schedule for the day is planned I will insert the workout that best fits. The only ‘scheduling’ that I will do is to set what type of workout I will do each day.

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Monday: Cardio | Running, gym cardio machine, or video.

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Tuesday: Upper Body | Weight training at the gym or video that includes pull ups.

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Wednesday: Legs | Weight training at the gym or video.

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Thursday: Yoga | Video

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Friday: Cardio | Running, gym cardio machine, or video.

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Saturday: Full Body | Weight training at the gym or video that includes pull ups.

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Sunday: Yoga | Video

That’s my plan. Eat less crap, set aside specific time each day by looking at the daily schedule, be flexible with the workouts so you do not skip them, complete the workouts and get to 160 lbs. Let me know if you try something similar.

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The Forgotten Man I first read the Forgotten Man a few years ago.

It's a little lengthy but it is an important read to understand the dynamics of the ideals of the middle class and the working man. Today we find ouselves as Americans trying to hold on to the idea of making a better life for ourselves and our families. The political left in America has waged war on the middle class and the working man for a hundred years. The fruits of their labors are paying off and we must continue the fight. Read this essay that was written and given as a lecture in 1883. It still rings true today.

by William Graham Sumner I propose in this lecture to discuss one of the most subtile and widespread social fallacies.

It consists in the impression made on the mind for the time being by a particular fact, or by the interests of a particular group of persons, to which attention is directed while other facts or the interests of other persons are entirely left out of account. I shall give a number of instances and illustrations of this in a moment, and I cannot expect you to understand what is meant from an abstract statement until these illustrations are before you, but just by way of a general illustration I will put one or two cases.

Whenever a pestilence like yellow fever breaks out in any city, our attention is especially attracted towards it, and our sympathies are excited for the sufferers. If contributions are called for, we readily respond. Yet the number of persons who die prematurely from consumption every year greatly exceeds the deaths from yellow fever or any similar disease when it occurs, and the suffering entailed by consumption is very muchgreater. The suflering from consumption, however, never constitutes a public question or a subject of social discussion. If an inundation takes place anywhere, constituting a public calamity (and an inundation takes place somewhere in the civilized world nearly every year), public attention is attracted and public appeals are made, but the losses by great inundations must be insignificant compared with the losses by runaway horses, which, taken separately, scarcely obtain mention in a local newspaper. In hard times insolvent debtors are a large class. They constitute an interest and are able to attract public attention, so that social philosophers discuss their troubles and legislatures plan measures of relief.

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Insolvent debtors, however, are an insignificant body compared with the victims of commonplace misfortune, or accident, who are isolated, scattered, ungrouped and ungeneralized, and so are never made the object of discussion or relief. In seasons of ordinary prosperity, persons who become insolvent have to get out of their troubles as they can. They have no hope of relief from the legislature. The number of insolvents during a series of years of general prosperity, and their losses, greatly exceed the number and losses during a special period of distress.

These illustrations bring out only one side of my subject, and that only partially. It is when we come to the proposed measures of relief for the evils which have caught public attention that we reach the real subject which deserves our attention. As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X or, in the better case, what A, B and C shall do for X. As for A and B, who get a law to make themselves do for X what they are willing to do for him, we have nothing to say except that they might better have done it without any law, but what I want to do is to look up C. I want to show you what manner of man he is. I call him the Forgotten Man. Perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man who never is thought of. He is the victim of the reformer, social speculator and philanthropist, and I hope to show you before I get through that he deserves your notice both for his character and for the many burdens which are laid upon him.

No doubt one great reason for the phenomenon which I bring to your attention is the passion for reflection and generalization which marks our period. Since the printing press has come into such wide use, we have all been encouraged to philosophize about things in a way which was unknown to our ancestors. They lived their lives out in positive contact with actual cases as they arose. They had little of this analysis, introspection, reflection and speculation which have passed into a habit and almost into a disease with us. Of all things which tempt to generalization and to philosophizing, social topics stand foremost. Each one of us gets some experience of social forces. Each one has some chance for observation of social phenomena. There is certainly no domain in which generalization is easier. There is nothing about which people dogmatize more freely. Even men of scientific training in some department in which they would not tolerate dogmatism at all will not hesitate to dogmatize in the most reckless manner about social topics. The truth is, however, that science, as yet, has won less control of social phenomena than of any other class of phenomena. The most complex and difficult subject which we now have to study is the constitution of human society, the forces which operate in it, and the laws by which they act. and we know less about these things than about any others which demand our attention. In such a state of things, overhasty generalization is sure to be extremely mischievous. You cannot take up a magazine or newspaper without being struck by the feverish interest with which social topics and problems are discussed, and if you were a student of social science, you would find in almost all IRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

these discussions evidence,not only that the essential preparation for the discussion is wanting, but that the disputants do not even know that there is any preparation to be gained.

Consequently we are bewildered by contradictory dogmatizing. We find in all these discussions only the application of pet notions and the clashing of contradictory “views.” Remedies are confidently proposed for which there is no guarantee offered except that the person who prescribes the remedy says that he is sure it will work. We hear constantly of “reform,” and the reformers turn out to be people who do not like things as they are and wish that they could be made nicer. We hear a great many exhortations to make progress from people who do not know in what direction they want to go. Consequently social reform is the most barren and tiresome subject of discussion amongst us, except aesthetics.

I suppose that the first chemists seemed to be very hard-hearted and unpoetical persons when they scouted the glorious dream of the alchemists that there must be some process for turning base metals into gold. I suppose that the men who first said, in plain, cold assertion, there is no fountain of eternal youth, seemed to be the most cruel and coldhearted adversaries of human happiness. I know that the economists who say that if we could transmute lead into gold, it would certainly do us no good and might do great harm, are still regarded as unworthy of belief. Do not the money articles of the newspapers yet ring with the doctrine that we are getting rich when we give cotton and wheat for gold rather than when we give cotton and wheat for iron?

Let us put down now the cold, hard fact and look at it just as it is. There is no device whatever to be invented for securing happiness without industry, economy. and virtue. We are yet in the empirical stage as regards all our social devices. We have done something in science and art in the domain of production, transportation and exchange. But when you come to the laws of the social order, we know very little about them.

Our laws and institutions by which we attempt to regulate our lives under the laws of nature which control society are merely a series of haphazard experiments. We come into collision with the laws and are not intelligent enough to understand wherein we are mistaken and how to correct our errors. We persist in our experiments instead of patiently setting about the study of the laws and facts in order to see where we are wrong. Traditions and formulae have a dominion over us in legislation and social customs which we seem unable to break or even to modify.

For my present purpose I ask your attention for a few moments to the notion of liberty, because the Forgotten Man would no longer be forgotten where there was true liberty. You will say that you know what liberty is. There is no term of more common or prouder use.

None is more current, as if it were quite beyond the need of definition. Even as I write, however, I find in a leading review a new definition of civil liberty. Civil liberty the writer declares to be “the result of the restraint exercised by the sovereign people on the more powerful individuals and classes of the community, preventing them from availing themselves IRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM | 81

of the excess of their power to the detriment of the other classes.” You notice here the use of the words “sovereign people” to designate a class of the population, not the nation as a political and civil whole. Wherever “people” is used in such a sense, there is always fallacy.

Furthermore, you will recognize in this definition a very superficial and fallacious construction of English constitutional history. The writer goes on to elaborate that construction and he comes out at last with the conclusion that “a government by the people can, in no case, become a paternal government, since its law-makers are its mandataries and servants carrying out its will, and not its fathers or its masters.” This, then, is the point at which he desires to arrive, and he has followed a familiar device in setting up a definition to start with which would produce the desired deduction at the end.

In the definition the word “people” was used for a class or section of the population. It is now asserted that if that section rules, there can be no paternal, that is. undue, government.

That doctrine, however, is the very opposite of liberty and contains the most vicious error possible in politics. The truth is that cupidity, selfishness, envy, malice, lust, vindictiveness, are constant vices of human nature. They are not confined to classes or to nations or particular ages of the world. They present themselves in the palace, in the parliament, in the academy, in the church, in the workshop, and in the hovel. They appear in autocracies, theocracies, aristocracies, democracies, and ochlocracies all alike. They change their masks somewhat from age to age and from one form of society to another. All history is only one long story to this effect: men have struggled for power over their fellow-men in order that they might win the joys of earth at the expense of others and might shift the burdens of life from their own shoulders upon those of others. It is true that, until this time, the proletariat, the mass of mankind, have rarely had the power and they have not made such a record as kings and nobles and priests have made of the abuses they would perpetrate against their fellow-men when they could and dared. But what folly it is to think that vice and passion are limited by classes, that liberty consists only in taking power away from nobles and priests and giving it to artisans and peasants and that these latter will never abuse it! They will abuse it just as all others have done unless they are put under checks and guarantees,and there can be no civil liberty anywhere unless rights are guaranteed against all abuses, as well from proletarians as from generals, aristocrats,and ecclesiastics.

Now what has been amiss in all the old arrangements? The evil of the old military and aristocratic governments was that some men enjoyed the fruits of other men’s labor; that some other persons’ lives, rights, interests and happiness were sacrificed to other persons’ cupidity and lust. What have our ancestors been striving for, under the name of civil liberty, for the last five hundred years? They have been striving to bring it about that each man and woman might live out his or her life according to his or her own notions of happiness and up to the measure of his or her own virtue and wisdom. How have they sought to accomplish this?

They have sought to accomplish it by setting aside all arbitrary personal or class elements and introducing the reign of law and the supremacy of constitutional institutions like the IRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

jury, the habeas corpus, the independent judiciary, the separation of church and state, and the ballot. Note right here one point which will be important and valuable when I come more especially to the case of the Forgotten Man: whenever you talk of liberty, you must have two men in mind. The sphere of rights of one of these men trenches upon that of the other, and whenever you establish liberty for the one, you repress the other. Whenever absolute sovereigns are subjected to constitutional restraints, you always hear them remonstrate that their liberty is curtailed. So it is, in the sense that their power of determining what shall be done in the state is limited below what it was before and the similar power of other organs in the state is widened. Whenever the privileges of an aristocracy are curtailed, there is heard a similar complaint. The truth is that the line of limit or demarcation between classes as regards civil power has been moved and what has been taken from one class is given to another.

We may now, then, advance a step in our conception of civil liberty. It is the status in which we find the true adjustment of rights between classes and individuals. Historically, the conception of civil liberty has been constantly changing. The notion of rights changes from one generation to another and the conception of civil liberty changes with it. If we try to formulate a true definition of civil liberty as an ideal thing towards which the development of political institutions is all the time tending, it would be this: Civil liberty is the status of the man who is guaranteed by law and civil institutions the exclusive employment of all his own powers for his own welfare.

This definition of liberty or civil liberty, you see, deals only with concrete and actual relations of the civil order. There is some sort of a poetical and metaphysical notion of liberty afloat in men’s minds which some people dream about which nobody can define. In popular language it means that a man may do as he has a mind to. When people get this notion of liberty into their heads and combine with it the notion that they live in a free country and ought to have liberty, they sometimes make strange demands upon the state. If liberty means to be able to do as you have a mind to, there is no such thing in this world. Can the Czar of Russia do as he has a mind to? Can the Pope do as he has a mind to? Can the President of the United States do as he has a mind to? Can Rothschild do as he has a mind to?

Could a Humboldt or a Faraday do as he had a mind to? Could a Shakespeare or a Raphael do as he had a mind to? Can a tramp do as he has a mind to? Where is the man, whatever his station, possessions, or talents, who can get any such liberty? There is none. There is a doctrine floating about in our literature that we are born to the inheritance of certain rights. That is another glorious dream, for it would mean that there was something in this world which we got for nothing. But what is the truth? We are born into no right whatever but what has an equivalent and corresponding duty right alongside of it. There is no such thing on this earth as something for nothing. Whatever we inherit of wealth, knowledge, or institutions from the past has been paid for by the labor and sacrifice of preceding generations; and the fact that these gains are carried on, that the race lives and that the race can, at IRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM IRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM||83 83

least within some cycle, accumulate its gains, is one of the facts on which civilization rests.

The law of the conservation of energy is not simply a law of physics; it is a law of the whole moral universe, and the order and truth of all things conceivable by man depends upon it. If there were any such liberty as that of doing as you have a mind to, the human race would be condemned to everlasting anarchy and wars these erratic wills crossed and clashed against each other. True liberty lies in the equilibrium of rights and duties, producing peace, order, and harmony. As I have defined it, it means that a man’s right to take power and wealth out of the social product is measured by the energy and wisdom which he has contributed to the social effort.

Now if I have set this idea before you with any distinctness and success, you see that civil liberty consists of a set of civil institutions and laws which are arranged to act as impersonally as possible. It does not consist in majority rule or in universal suffrage or in elective systems at all. These are devices which are good or better just in the degree in which they secure liberty. The institutions of civil liberty leave each man to run his career in life in his own way, only guaranteeing to him that whatever he does in the way of industry, economy, prudence, sound judgment, etc., shall redound to his own welfare and shall not be diverted to some one else’s benefit. Of course it is a necessary corollary that each man shall also bear the penalty of his own vices and his own mistakes. If I want to be free from any other man’s dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control.

Now with these definitions and general conceptions in mind, let us turn to the special class of facts to which, as I said at the outset, I invite your attention. We see that under a regime of liberty and equality before that law, we get the highest possible development of independence, self-reliance, individual energy, and enterprise, but we get these high social virtues at the expense of old sentimental ties which used to unite baron and retainer. master and servant, sage and disciple, comrade and comrade. We are agreed that the son shall not be disgraced even by the crime of the father, much less by the crime of a more distant relative.

It is a humane and rational view of things that each life shall stand for itself alone and not be weighted by the faults of another, but it is useless to deny that this view of things is possible only in a society where the ties of kinship have lost nearly all the intensity of poetry and romance which once characterized them. The ties of sentiment and sympathy also have faded out. We have come, under the regime of liberty and equality before the law, to a form of society which is based not on status, but on free contract. Now a society based on status is one in which classes, ranks,interests, industries, guilds, associations, etc., hold men in permanent relations to each other. Custom and prescription create, under status, ties, the strength of which lies in sentiment. Feeble remains of this may be seen in some of our academical societies to-day, and it is unquestionably a great privilege and advantage for any man in our society to will an experience of the sentiments which belong to a strong and close association, just because the chances for such experience are nowadays very rare. In a society based on free contract, men come together as free and independent parties to an agreement which IRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

is of mutual advantage. The relation is rational, even rationalistic. It is not poetical. It does not exist from use and custom, but for reasons given, and it does not endure by prescription but ceases when the reason for it ceases. There is no sentiment in it at all. The fact is that, under the regime of liberty and equality before the law, there is no place for sentiment in trade or politics as public interests. Sentiment is thrown back into private life, into personal relations, and if ever it comes into a public discussion of an impersonal and general public question it always produces mischief.

Now you know that “the poor and the weak” are continually put forward as objects of public interest and public obligation. In the appeals which are made, the terms “the poor” and “the weak” are used as if they were terms of exact definition. Except the pauper, that is to say, the man who cannot earn his living or pay his way, there is no possible definition of a poor man.

Except a man who is incapacitated by vice or by physical infirmity, there is no definition of a weak man. The paupers and the physically incapacitated are an inevitable charge on society. About them no more need be said. But the weak who constantly arouse the pity of humanitarians and philanthropists are the shiftless, the imprudent, the negligent, the impractical, and the inefficient, or they are the idle, the intemperate, the extravagant, and the vicious. Now the troubles of these persons are constantly forced upon public attention, as if they and their interests deserved especial consideration, and a great portion of all organized and unorganized effort for the common welfare consists in attempts to relieve these classes of people. I do not wish to be understood now as saying that nothing ought to be done for these people by those who are stronger and wiser. That is not my point. What I want to do is to point out the thing which is overlooked and the error which is made ill all these charitable efforts. The notion is accepted as if it were not open to any question that if you help the inefficient and vicious you may gain something for society or you may not, but that you lose nothing. This is a complete mistake. Whatever capital you divert to the support of a shiftless and good-for-nothing person is so much diverted from some other employment, and that means from somebody else. I would spend any conceivable amount of zeal and eloquence if I possessed it to try to make people grasp this idea. Capital is force. If it goes one way it cannot go another. If you give a loaf to a pauper you cannot give the same loaf to a laborer. Now this other man who would have got it but for the charitable sentiment which bestowed it on a worthless member of society is the Forgotten Man. The philanthropists and humanitarians have their minds all full of the wretched and miserable whose case appeals to compassion, attacks the sympathies, takes possession of the imagination, and excites the emotions.

They push on towards the quickest and easiest remedies and they forget the real victim.

Now who is the Forgotten Man? He is the simple, honest laborer, ready to earn his living by productive work. We pass him by because he is independent, self-supporting, and asks no favors. He does not appeal to the emotions or excite the sentiments. He only wants to make a contract and fulfill it, with respect on both sides and favor on neither side. He must get his living out of the capital of the country. The larger the capital is, the better living he can get.

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Every particle of capital which is wasted on the vicious, the idle, and the shiftless is so much taken from the capital available to reward the independent and productive laborer. But we stand with our backs to the independent and productive laborer all the time. We do not remember him because he makes no clamor; but I appeal to you whether he is not the man who ought to be remembered first of all, and whether, on any sound social theory, we ought not to protect him against the burdens of the goodfornothing. In these last years I have read hundreds of articles and heard scores of sermons ands peeches which were really glorifications of the good-for-nothing, as if these were the charge of society, recommended by right reason to it scare and protection, We are addressed all the time as if those who are respectable were to blame because some are not so, and as if there were an obligation on the part of those who have done their duty towards those who have not done their duty. Every man is bound to take care of himself and his family and to do his share in the work of society. It is totally false that one who has done so is bound to bear the care and charge of those who are wretched because they have not done so. The silly popular notion is that the beggars live at the expense of the rich, but the truth is that those who eat and produce not, live at the expense of those who labor and produce. The next time that you are tempted to subscribe a dollar to a charity, I do not tell you not to do it, because after you have fairly considered the matter, you may think it right to do it, but I do ask you to stop and remember the Forgotten Man and understand that if you put your dollar in the savings bank it will go to swell the capital of the country which is available for division amongst those who, while they earn it, will reproduce it with increase.

Let us now go on to another class of cases. There are a great many schemes brought forward for “improving the condition of the working classes.� I have shown already that a free man cannot take a favor. One who takes a favor or submits to patronage demeans himself.

He falls under obligation. He cannot be free and he cannot assert a station of equality with the man who confers the favor on him. The only exception is where there are exceptional bonds of affection or friendship, that is, where the sentimental relation supersedes the free relation. Therefore, in a country which is a free democracy, all propositions to do something for the working classes have an air of patronage and superiority which is impertinent and out of place. No one can do anything for anybody else unless he has a surplus of energy to dispose of after taking care of himself. In the United States, the working classes, technically so called, are the strongest classes. It is they who have a surplus to dispose of if anybody has.

Why should anybody else offer to take care of them or to serve them? They can get whatever they think worth having and, at any rate, if they are free men in a free state, it is ignominious and unbecoming to introduce fashions of patronage and favoritism here. A man who, by superior education and experience of business, is in a position to advise a struggling man of the wages class, is certainly held to do so and will, I believe, always be willing and glad to do so; but this sort of activity lies in the range of private and personal relations.

I now, however, desire to direct attention to the public, general, and impersonal schemes, IRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

and I point out the fact that, if you undertake to lift anybody, you must have a fulcrum or point of resistance. All the elevation you give to one must be gained by an equivalent depression on some one else. The question of gain to society depends upon the balance of the account, as regards the position of the persons who undergo the respective operations. But nearly all the schemes for “improving the condition of the working man” involve an elevation of some working men at the expense of other working men. When you expend capital or labor to elevate some persons who come within the sphere of your influence, you interfere in the conditions of the competition. The advantage of some is won by an equivalent loss of others. The difference is not brought about by the energy and effort of the persons themselves. If it were, there would be nothing to be said about it, for we constantly see people surpass others in the rivalry of life and carry off the prizes which the others must do without. In the cases I am discussing, the difference is brought about by an interference which must be partial, arbitrary, accidental, controlled by favortism and personal preference.

I do not say, in this case, either, that we ought to do no work of this kind. On the contrary, I believe that the arguments for it quite outweigh, in many cases, the arguments against it.

What I desire, again, is to bring out the forgotten element which we always need to remember in order to make a wise decision as to any scheme of this kind. I want to call to mind the Forgotten Man, because, in this case also, if we recall him and go to look for him, we shall find him patiently and perseveringly, manfully and independently struggling against adverse circumstances without complaining or begging. If, then, we are led to heed the groaning and complaining of others and to take measures for helping these others,we shall, before we know it, push down this man who is trying to help himself.

Let us take another class of cases. So far we have said nothing about the abuse of legislation.

We all seem to be under the delusion that the rich pay the taxes. Taxes are not thrown upon the consumers with any such directness and completeness as is sometimes assumed; but that, in ordinary states of the market, taxes on houses fall, for the most part, on the tenants and that taxes on commodities fall, for the most part, on the consumers, is beyond question.

Now the state and municipality go to great expense to support policemen and sheriffs and judicial officers, to protect people against themselves, that is, against the results of their own folly, vice, and recklessness. Who pays for it? Undoubtedly the people who have not been guilty of folly, vice, or recklessness. Out of nothing conies nothing. We cannot collect taxes from people who produce nothing and save nothing. The people who have something to tax must be those who have produced and saved.

When you see a drunkard in the gutter, you are disgusted, but you pity him. When a policeman comes and picks him up you are satisfied.v You say that “society” has interfered to save the drunkard from perishing. Society is a fine word, and it saves us the trouble of thinking to say that society acts. The truth is that the policeman is paid by somebody,and when we talk about society we forget who it is that pays. It is the Forgotten Man again. It is the industrious workman going home from a hard day’s work, whom you pass without noticing, who is IRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM |87

mulcted of a percentage of his day’s earnings to hire a policeman to save the drunkard from himself. All the public expenditure to prevent vice has the same effect. Vice is its own curse.

If we let nature alone, she cures vice by the most frightful penalties. It may shock you to hear me say it, but when you get over the shock, it will do you good to think of it: a drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be. Nature is working away at him to get him out of the way, just as she sets up her processes of dissolution to remove whatever is a failure in its line. Gambling and less mentionable vices all cure themselves by the ruin and dissolution of their victims. Nine-tenths of our measures for preventing vice are really protective towards it, because they ward off the penalty. “Ward off,” I say, and that is the usual way of looking at it; but is the penalty really annihilated? By no means. It is turned into police and court expenses and spread over those who have resisted vice. It is the Forgotten Man again who has been subjected to the penalty while our minds were full of the drunkards, spendthrifts, gamblers, and other victims of dissipation. Who is, then, the Forgotten Man? He is the clean, quiet, virtuous, domestic citizen, who pays his debts and his taxes and is never heard of out of his little circle. Yet who is there in the society of a civilized state who deserves to be remembered and considered by the legislator and statesman before this man?

Another class of cases is closely connected with this last. There is an apparently invincible prejudice in people’s minds in favor of state regulation. All experience is against state regulation and in favor of liberty. The freer the civil institutions are, the more weak or mischievous state regulation is. The Prussian bureaucracy can do a score of things for the citizen which no governmental organ in the United States can do; and, conversely, if we want to be taken care of as Prussians and Frenchmen are, we must give up something of our personal liberty.

Now we have a great many well-intentioned people among us who believe that they are serving their country when they discuss plans for regulating the relations of employer and employee, or the sanitary regulations of dwellings, or the construction of factories, or the way to behave on Sunday, or what people ought not to eat or drink or smoke. All this is harmless enough and well enough as a basis of mutual encouragement and missionary enterprise, but it is almost always made a basis of legislation. The reformers want to get a majority, that is, to get the power of the state and so to make other people do what the reformers think it right and wise to do. A and B agree to spend Sunday in a certain way. They get a law passed to make C pass it in their way. They determine to be teetotallers and they get a law passed to make C be a teetotaller for the sake of D who is likely to drink too much.

Factory acts for women and children are right because women and children are not on an equal footing with men and cannot, therefore, make contracts properly. Adult men, in a free state, must be left to make their own contracts and defend themselves. It will not do to say that some men are weak and unable to make contracts any better than women. Our civil institutions assume that all men are equal in political capacity and all are given equal measure of political power and right, which is not the case with women and children. If, then, IRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

we measure political rights by one theory and social responsibilities by another, we produce an immoral and vicious relation. A and B, however, get factory acts and other acts passed regulating the relation of employers and employee and set armies of commissioners and inspectors traveling about to see to things, instead of using their efforts, if any are needed, to lead the free men to make their own conditions as to what kind of factory buildings they will work in, how many hours they will work, what they will do on Sunday and so on. The consequence is that men lose the true education in freedom which is needed to support free institutions. They are taught to rely on government officers and inspectors. The whole system of government inspectors is corrupting to free institutions. In England, the liberals used always to regard state regulation with suspicion, but since they have come to power, they plainly believe that state regulation is a good thing if they regulate because, of course, they want to bring about good things. In this country each party takes turns, according as it is in or out, iii supporting or denouncing the non-interference theory.

Now, if we have state regulation, what is always forgotten is this: Who pays for it? Who is the victim of it? There always is a victim. The work-men who do not defend themselves have to pay for the inspectors who defend them. The whole system of social regulation by boards, commissioners, and inspectors consists in relieving negligent people of the consequences of their negligence and so leaving them to continue negligent without correction. That system also turns away from the agencies which are close, direct, and germane to the purpose, and seeks others. Now, if you relieve negligent people of the consequences of their negligence, you can only throw those consequences on the people who have not been negligent. If you turn away from the agencies which are direct and cognate to the purpose, you can only employ other agencies. Here, then, you have your Forgotten Man again. The man who has been careful and prudent and who wants to go on and reap his advantages for himself and his children is arrested just at that point, and he is told that he must go and take care of some negligent employees in a factory or on a railroad who have not provided precautions for themselves or have not forced their employers to provide precautions, or negligent tenants who have not taken care of their own sanitary arrangements, or negligent householders who have not provided against fire, or negligent parents who have not sent their children to school. If the Forgotten Man does not go, he must hire an inspector to go. No doubt it is often worth his while to go or send, rather than leave the thing undone, on account of his remoter interest; but what I want to show is that all this is unjust to the Forgotten Man, and that the reformers and philosophers miss the point entirely when they preach that it is his duty to do all this work. Let them preach to the negligent to learn to take care of themselves.

Whenever A and B put their heads together and decide what A, B and C must do for D, there is never any pressure on A and B. They consent to it and like it. There is rarely any pressure on D because he does not like it and contrives to evade it. The pressure all comes on C. Now, who is C? He is always the man who, if let alone, would make a reasonable use of his liberty without abusing it. He would not constitute any social problem at all and would not need IRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM |89

any regulation. He is the Forgotten Man again, and as soon as he is brought from his obscurity you see that he is just that one amongst us who is what we all ought to be.

Let us look at another case. I read again and again arguments to prove that criminals have claims and rights against society. Not long ago, I read an account of an expensive establishment for the reformation of criminals, and I am told that we ought to reform criminals, not merely punish them vindictively. When I was a young man, I read a great many novels by Eugene Sue, Victor Hugo, and other Frenchmen of the school of ‘48, in which the badness of a bad man is represented, not as his fault, but as the fault of society. Now, as society consists of the bad men plus the good men, and as the object of this declaration was to show that the badness of the bad men was not the fault of the bad men, it remains that the badness of the bad men must be the fault of the good men. No doubt,it is far more consoling to the bad men than even to their friends to reach the point of this demonstration.

Let us ask, now, for a moment, what is the sense of punishment, since a good many people seem to be quite in a muddle about it. Every man in society is bound in nature and reason to contribute to the strength and welfare of society. He ought to work, to be peaceful, honest, just, and virtuous. A criminal is a man who, instead of working with and for society, turns his efforts against the common welfare in some way or other. He disturbs order, violates harmony, invades the security and happiness of others, wastes and destroys capital. If he is put to death, it is on the ground that he has forfeited all right to existence in society by the magnitude of his offenses against its welfare. If he is imprisoned, it is simply a judgment of society upon him that he is so mischievous to the society that he must be segregated from it.

His punishment is a warning to him to reform himself, just exactly like the penalties inflicted by God and nature on vice. A man who has committed crime is, therefore, a burden on society and an injury to it. He is a destructive and not a productive force and everybody is worse off for his existence than if he did not exist. Whence, then, does he obtain a right to be taught or reformed at the public expense? The whole question of what to do with him is one of expediency, and it embraces the whole range of possible policies from that of execution to that of education and reformation, but when the expediency of reformatory attempts is discussed we always forget the labor and expense and who must pay. All that the state does for the criminal, beyond forcing him to earn his living, is done at the expense of the industrious member of society who never costs the state anything for correction and discipline. If a man who has gone astray can be reclaimed in any way, no one would hinder such a work, but people whose minds are full of sympathy and interest for criminals and who desire to adopt some systematic plans of reformatory efforts are only,once more, trampling on the Forgotten Man. Let us look at another case. If there is a public office to be filled, of course a great number of persons come forward as candidates for it. Many of these persons are urged as candidates on the ground that they are badly off, or that they cannot support themselves, or that they want IRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

to earn a living while educating themselves, or that they have female relatives dependent on them, or for some other reason of a similar kind. In other cases, candidates are presented and urged on the ground of their kinship to somebody, or on account of service, it may be meritorious service, in some other line than that of the duty to be performed. Men are proposed for clerkships on the ground of service in the army twenty years ago, or for customhouse inspectors on the ground of public services in the organization of political parties. If public positions are granted on these grounds of sentiment or favoritism, the abuse is to be condemned on the ground of the harm done to the public interest; but I now desire to point out another thing which is constantly forgotten. If you give a position to A, you cannot give it to B. If A is an object of sentiment or favoritism and not a person fit and competent to fulfill the duty, who is B? He is somebody who has nothing but merit on his side, somebody who has no powerful friends, no political influence, some quiet, unobtrusive individual who has known no other way to secure the chances of life than simply to deserve them. Here we have the Forgotten Man again, and once again we find him worthy of all respect and consideration, but passed by in favor of the noisy, pushing, and incompetent. Who ever remembers that if you give a place to a man who is unfit for it you are keeping out of it somebody, somewhere, who is fit for it?

Let us take another case. A trades-union is an association of journeymen in a certain trade which has for one of its chief objects to raise wages in that trade. This object can be accomplished only by drawing more capital into the trade, or by lessening the supply of labor in it.

To do the latter, the trades-unions limit the number of apprentices who may be admitted to the trade. In discussing this device, people generally fix their minds on the beneficiaries of this arrangement. It is desired by everybody that wages should be as high as they can be under the conditions of industry. Our minds are directed by the facts of the case to the men who are in the trade already and are seeking their own advantage. Sometimes people go on to notice the effects of trades-unionism on the employers, but although employers are constantly vexed by it, it is seen that they soon count it into the risks of their business and settle down to it philosophically. Sometimes people go further then and see that, if the employer adds the trades-union and strike risk to the other risks, he submits to it because he has passed it along upon the public and that the public wealth is diminished by trades-unionism, which is undoubtedly the case. I do not remember, however, that I have ever seen in print any analysis and observation of trades-unionism which takes into account its effect in another direction. The effect on employers or on the public would not raise wages. The public pays more for houses and goods, but that does not raise wages. The surplus paid by the public is pure loss, because it is only paid to cover an extra business risk of the employer.

If their trades-unions raise wages, how do they do it? They do it by lessening the supply of labor in the trade, and this they do by limiting the number of apprentices. All that is won, therefore, for those in the trade, is won at the expense of those persons in the same class in life who want to get into the trade but are forbidden. Like every other monopoly, this one IRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM |91

secures advantages for those who are in only at a greater loss to those who are kept out.

Who, then, are those who are kept out and who are always forgotten in all the discussions?

They are the Forgotten Men again; and what kind of men are they? They are those young men who want to earn their living by the trade in question. Since they select it, it is fair to suppose that they are fit for it, would succeed at it, and would benefit society by practicing it; but they are arbitrarily excluded from it and are perhaps pushed down into the class of unskilled laborers. When people talk of the success of a trades-union in raising wages, they forget these persons who have really, in a sense, paid the increase.

Let me now turn your attention to another class of cases. I have shown how, in times past, the history of states has been a history of selfishness, cupidity, and robbery, and I have affirmed that now and always the problems of government are how to deal with these same vices of human nature. People are always prone to believe that there is something metaphysical and sentimental about civil affairs, but there is not. Civil institutions are constructed to protect, either directly or indirectly, the property of men and the honor of women against the vices and passions of human nature. In our day and country, the problem presents new phases, but it is there just the same as it ever was, and the problem is only the more difficult for us because of its new phase which prevents us from recognizing it. In fact, our people are raving and struggling against it in a kind of blind way, not yet having come to recognize it. More than half of their blows, at present, are misdirected and fail of their object, but they will be aimed better by and by. There is a great deal of clamor about watering stocks and the power of combined capital, which is not very intelligent or well-directed. The evil and abuse which people are groping after in all these denunciations is jobbery.

By jobbery I mean the constantly apparent effort to win wealth, not by honest and independent production, but by some sort of a scheme for extorting other people’s product from them. A large part of our legislation consists in making a job for somebody. Public buildings are jobs,not always, but in most cases. The buildings are not needed at all or are costly far beyond what is useful or even decently luxurious. Internal improvements are jobs. They are carried out, not because they are needed in themselves, but because they will serve the turn of some private interest, often incidentally that of the very legislators who pass the appropriations for them. A man who wants a farm, instead of going out where there is plenty of land available for it, goes down under the Mississippi River to make a farm, and then wants his fellow-citizens to be taxed to dyke the river so as to keep it off his farm. The Californian hydraulic miners have washed the gold out of the hillsides and have washed the dirt down into the valleys to the ruin of the rivers and the farms. They want the federal government to remove this dirt at the national expense. The silver miners, finding that their product is losing value in the market, get the government to go into the market as a great buyer in the hope of sustaining the price. The national government is called upon to buy or hire unsailable ships; to dig canals which will not pay; to educate illiterates in the states which have not done their duty at the expense of the states which have done their duty as to education; IRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

to buy up telegraphs which no longer pay; and to provide the capital for enterprises of which private individuals are to win the profits. We are called upon to squander twenty millions on swamps and creeks; from twenty to sixty-six millions on the Mississippi River; one hundred millions in pensions--and there is now a demand for another hundred million beyond that.

This is the great plan of all living on each other. The pensions in England used to be given to aristocrats who had political power, in order to corrupt them. Here the pensions are given to the great democratic mass who have the political power, in order to corrupt them. We have one hundred thousand federal office-holders and I do not know how many state and municipal office-holders. Of course public officers are necessary and it is an economical organization of society to set apart some of its members for civil functions, but if the number of persons drawn from production and supported by the producers while engaged in civil functions is in undue proportion to the total population, there is economic loss. If public offices are treated as spoils or benefices or sinecures, then they are jobs and only constitute part of the pillage.

The biggest job of all is a protective tariff. This device consists in delivering every man over to be plundered by his neighbor and in teaching him to believe that it is a good thing for him and his country because he may take his turn at plundering the rest. Mr. Kelley said that if the internal revenue taxes on whisky and tobacco, which are paid to the United States government, were not taken off, there would be a rebellion. Just then it was discovered that Sumatra tobacco was being imported, and the Connecticut tobacco men hastened to Congress to get a tax laid on it for their advantage. So it appears that if a tax is laid on tobacco, to be paid to the United States, there will be a rebellion, but if a tax is laid on it to be paid to the farmers of the Connecticut Valley, there will be no rebellion at all. The tobacco farmers having been taxed for protected manufacturers are now to be taken into the system, and the workmen in the factories are to be taxed on their tobacco to protect the farmers.So the system is rendered more complete and comprehensive.

On every hand you find this jobbery. The government is to give every man a pension, and every man an office, and every man a tax to raise the price of his product, and to clean out every man’s creek for him, and to buy all his unsalable property, and to provide him with plenty of currency to pay his debts, and to educate his children, and to give him the use of a library and a park and a museum and a gallery of pictures. On every side the doors of waste and extravagance stand open; and spend, squander, plunder, and grab are the watchwords.

We grumble some about it and talk about the greed of corporations and the power of capital and the wickedness of stock gambling. Yet we elect the legislators who do all this work. Of course, we should never think of blaming ourselves for electing men to represent and govern us, who, if I may use a slang expression, give us away. What man ever blamed himself for his misfortune? We groan about monopolies and talk about more laws to prevent the wrongs done by chartered corporations. Who made the charters? Our representatives. Who elected such representatives? We did. How can we get bad law-makers to make a law which IRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM |93

shall prevent bad law-makers from making a bad law? That is, really, what we are trying to do. If we are a free, self-governing people, all our misfortunes come right home to ourselves and we can blame nobody else. Is any one astonished to find that men are greedy, whether they are incorporated or not? Is it a revelation to find that we need, in our civil affairs, to devise guarantees against selfishness, rapacity, and fraud? I have ventured to affirm that government has never had to deal with anything else.

Now, I have said that this jobbery means waste, plunder, and loss, and I define it at the outset as the system of making a chance to extort part of his product from somebody else. Now comes the question: Who pays for it all? The system of plundering each other soon destroys all that it deals with. It produces nothing. Wealth comes only from production, and all that the wrangling grabbers, loafers, and jobbers get to deal with comes from somebody’s toil and sacrifice. Who, then, is he who provides it all? Go and find him and you will have once more before you the Forgotten Man. You will find him hard at work because he has a great many to support. Nature has done a great deal for him in giving him a fertile soil and an excellent climate and he wonders why it is that, after all, his scale of comfort is so moderate. He has to get out of the soil enough to pay all his taxes, and that means the cost of all the jobs and the fund for all the plunder. The Forgotten Man is delving away in patient industry, supporting his family, paying his taxes, casting his vote, supporting the church and the school, reading his newspaper, and cheering for the politician of his admiration, but he is the only one for whom there is no provision in the great scramble and the big divide.

Such is the Forgotten Man. He works, he votes, generally he prays-- but he always pays-yes, above all, he pays. He does not want an office; his name never gets into the newspaper except when he gets married or dies. He keeps production going on. He contributes to the strength of parties. He is flattered before election. He is strongly patriotic. He is wanted, whenever, in his little circle, there is work to be done or counsel to be given. He may grumble some occasionally to his wife and family, but he does not frequent the grocery or talk politics at the tavern. Consequently, he is forgotten. He is a commonplace man. He gives no trouble. He excites no admiration. He is not in any way a hero (like a popular orator); or a problem (like tramps and outcasts); nor notorious (like criminals); nor an object of sentiment (like the poor and weak); nor a burden (like paupers and loafers); nor an object out of which social capital may be made (like the beneficiaries of church and state charities); nor an object for charitable aid and protection (like animals treated with cruelty); nor the object of a job (like the ignorant and illiterate); nor one over whom sentimental economists and statesmen can parade their fine sentiments (like inefficient workmen and shiftless artisans).

Therefore, he is forgotten. All the burdens fall on him, or on her, for it is time to remember that the Forgotten Man is not seldom a woman.

When you go to Willimantic, they will show you with great pride the splendid thread mills there. I am told that there are sewing-women who can earn only fifty cents in twelve hours, IRON MIKE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1

and provide the thread. In the cost of every spool of thread more than one cent is tax. It is paid not to get the thread, for you could get the thread without it. It is paid to get the Willimantic linen company which is not worth having and which is, in fact, a nuisance, because it makes thread harder to get than it would be if there were no such concern. If a woman earns fifty cents in twelve hours, she earns a spool of thread as nearly as may be in an hour, and if she uses a spool of thread per day, she works a quarter of an hour per day to support the Willimantic linen company, which in 1882 paid 95 per cent dividend to its stockholders. If you go and look at the mill, it will captivate your imagination until you remember all the women in all the garrets, and all the artisans’ and laborers’ wives and children who are spending their hours of labor, not to get goods which they need, but to pay for the industrial system which only stands in their way and makes it harder for them to get the goods.

It is plain enough that the Forgotten Man and the Forgotten Woman are the very life and substance of society. They are the ones who ought to be first and always remembered. They are always forgotten by sentimentalists, philanthropists, reformers, enthusiasts, and every description of speculator in sociology, political economy, or political science. If a student of any of these sciences ever comes to understand the position of the Forgotten Man and to appreciate his true value, you will find such student an uncompromising advocate of the strictest scientific thinking on all social topics, and a cold and hard-hearted skeptic towards all artificial schemes of social amelioration. If it is desired to bring about social improvements bring us a scheme for relieving the Forgotten Man of some of his burdens. He is our productive force which we are wasting. Let us stop wasting his force. Then we shall have a clean and simple gain for the whole society. The Forgotten Man is weighted down with the cost and burden of the schemes for making everybody happy, with the cost of public beneficence, with the support of all the loafers, with the loss of all the economic quackery, with the cost of all the jobs. Let us remember him a little while. Let us take some of the burdens off him. Let us tun our pity on him instead of on the goodfornothing. It will be only justice to him, and society will greatly gain by it. Why should we not also have the satisfaction of thinking and caring for a little about the clean, honest, industrious, independent, self-supporting men and women who have not inherited much to make life luxurious for them, but who are doing what they can to get on in the world without begging from anybody, especially since all they want is to be let alone, with good friendship and honest respect, Certainly the philanthropists and Sentimentalists have kept our attention for a longtime on the nasty, shiftless, criminal, whining, crawling, and good for nothing people, as if they alone deserved our attention.

The Forgotten Man is never a pauper. He almost always has a little capital because it belongs to the character of the man to save something. He never has more than a little. He is, therefore, poor in the popular sense, although in the correct sense he is not so. I have said already that if you learn to look for the Forgotten Man and to care for him, you will be very skeptical toward all philanthropic and humanitarian schemes. It is clear now that the interest of the IRONMIKEMAGAZINE.COM |95

Forgotten Man and the interest of “the poor,” “the weak,” and the other petted classes are in antagonism, In fact, the warning to you to look for the Forgotten Man comes the minute that the orator or writer begins to talk about the poor man. That minute the Forgotten Man is in danger of a new assault, and if you intend to meddle in the matter at all, then is the minute for you to look about for him and to give him your aid. Hence, if you care for the Forgotten Man, you will be sure to be charged with not caring for the poor. Whatever you do for any of the petted classes wastes capital. If you do anything for the Forgotten Man, you must secure him his earnings and savings, that is, you legislate for the security of capital and for its free employment; you must oppose paper money, wildcat banking and usury laws and you must maintain the inviolability of contracts. Hence you must be prepared to be told that you favor the capitalist class, the enemy of the poor man.

What the Forgotten Man really wants is true liberty. Most of his wrongs and woes come from the fact that there are yet mixed together in our institutions the old mediaeval theories of protection and personal dependence and the modern theories of independence and individual liberty. The consequence is that the people who are clever enough to get into positions of control, measure their own rights by the paternal theory and their own duties by the theory of independent liberty. It follows that the Forgotten Man, who is hard at work at home, has to pay both ways. His rights are measured by the theory of liberty, that is, he has only such as he can conquer. His duties are measured by the paternal theory, that is, he must discharge all which are laid upon him, as is always the fortune of parents. People talk about the paternal theory of government as if it were a very simple thing. Analyze it, however, and you see that in every paternal relation there must be two parties, a parent and a child, and when you speak metaphorically, it makes all the difference in the world who is parent and who is child. Now, since we, the people, are the state, whenever there is any work to be done or expense to be paid, and since the petted classes and the criminals and the jobbers cost and do not pay, it is they who are in the position of the child, and it is the Forgotten Man who is the parent. What the Forgotten Man needs, therefore, is that we come to a clearer understanding of liberty and to a more complete realization of it. Every step which we win in liberty will set the Forgotten Man free from some of his burdens and allow him to use his powers for himself and for the commonwealth.

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