A BIT OF HISTORY | ©SARAH BECKER
One 1/6/21 Year
Later 8
| January 2022
“A nation’s character, like that of an individual, is elusive,” World War II Navy and Marine Medal recipient John F. Kennedy professed in 1946. “It is produced partly by the things we have done and partly by what has been done to us. It is the result of physical factors, intellectual factors, and spiritual factors. It is well for us to consider our American character, for in peace, as in war, we will survive or fail according to the measure.” So the 2022 New Year begins. “Acquiring the qualities of virtue requires consistent effort,” Benjamin Franklin observed. “Pleasure, position, popularity, wealth and appearance are among the whistles in life… for which many people pay too much.” Franklin considered character and integrity to be one. And so the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th [2021] Attack on the United States Capitol continues. “Almost all the literature in the first 150 years or so focused on what could be called the Character Ethic…things like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty, and the Golden Rule,” Stephen Covey author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People wrote. Matthew 7:9-12, NIV Archaeological Study Bible: “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” “Shortly after WWI the basic view shifted from the Character Ethic to…the Personality Ethic,” Covey continued. “Success became more a function of personality; of public image, of attitudes and
behaviors, skills and techniques, that lubricate the processes of human interaction.” “Some of this [later] literature… compartmentalized character rather than recognize it as foundational,” Covey concluded. “The Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln, the rail-splitter, has just held its national convention,” Representative John F. Kennedy [D-MA] told the East Boston Knights of Columbus in 1947. “But in this solemn hour I would remind you that it also… has been the Grand Old Party of General Grant [1869-1877] full of graft and insufficiency; the Grand Old Party of Harding [1921 -1923] and the Forty Thieves; of do-nothing Coolidge [1923-1929] and impotent Hoover [1929-1933]...And who was more responsible than anyone else for the huge campaign funds which elected Harding, Coolidge and Hoover? It is the man who maneuvered the nomination of the present Republican candidate [Thomas E. Dewey] for President…old Joe Grundy of Pennsylvania; Old High Tariff Joe, the man who pulled the strings.” The Gilded Age, a term coined by Mark Twain, refers to the time period dating from the late 1860s to 1900. It was an Age of rapid industrial growth, robber barons, and increasing racial and economic inequality. Joe Grundy [1863-1961], an Andrew Mellon ally, was involved in the textile and banking industries; a conservative Republican appointed to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy in 1929. “They had old Joe up on the witness stand when the 1929 Depression started,” Kennedy continued. “They asked him how much he had raised from among his friends in the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association for the Coolidge campaign. Why, about $700,000, he said. Then they asked him how much he raised for the Hoover campaign. About the same—$700,000, he figured. Is it any wonder that Old Joe Grundy’s man was Old Town Crier
