Lost Presidents Series: Why William McKinley Is Just So Damn Sexy....

Since we are quickly coming up on the 2014 mid term elections, the point at which preparing for the upcoming presidential election really starts to heat up presidential politics, I have decided to run a small mini-series on forgotten presidents.  Just because you are the most powerful person in the free world, doesn't necessarily mean that you are destined to go down in history, or even, really, be remembered by it.  Presidents such as William McKinley, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Rutherford B Hayes, Chester A Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, Warren G Harding, Calvin Coolidge and even Jimmy Carter have all seen their legacies overlooked by the cool kids of presidential politics.  These guys tend to see themselves falling in the middle of presidential rankings.  But their actions were no less important in fulfilling that most fantastic part of history:  determing who we are and shaping the world as we know it.  So The Unemployed Historian has decided to pay them homage.  I am doing this in no particular order, so if anyone has anything they'd like me to cover sooner rather than later just hit me up on Facebook at facebook.com/unemployedinhistory and I'll get right on it!

Of all the lost presidents in history, William McKinley is undoubtedly my favorite.  He was a distinguished Civil War veteran, kept the US on the gold standard, won the Spanish American War within a few months (literally), and presided over one of the greatest economic booms in American history.  His presidency was marked by striking economic growth, territorial expansion, and decisive wins in international politics.  And he paved the way for America in the twentieth century.  Not too shabby for a melancholy, former postal clerk from Ohio.  

1870s America was a pretty dismal place.  Yes, the Civil War was finally over, but Reconstruction was taxing and stressful for all involved.  Figuring out how a previously hostile enemy was going to become a functional, economically strong part of American democracy was a tall order, not to mention what we were now going to do with the former slaves that were now clamoring for silly little things like fundamental rights.  Further, the country was plunged into a deep depression due to the closure of multiple banks, the shut down of the New York Stock Exchange and a railroad strike.  Amid all of this turmoil, McKinley was elected to Congress in 1876.  He was a staunch Republican and, as such, focused heavily on the rights of former slaves, protectionism (an economic thing), upholding the gold standard, and expanding US territory and influence throughout the Western hemisphere specifically.  During his Congressional term, McKinley's cornerstone legislation was the 1890 McKinley Tariff (no shit, right?).  Highly controversial, at the time, as it raised the average duty on imports to nearly 50%, it was designed to protect (hence the term "protectionism") American manufacturers from foreign competition.  And, for the most part, it worked the way it was intended to.  

Regardless of his Congressional success, McKinley was voted out of office shortly after the McKinley Tariff was passed, and left Congress for his fall back job:  Governor of Ohio.  By all accounts McKinley was, well, governor.  At the time, the governor had relatively little power in Ohio so there's really not much to say except "Yep.  He was totally governor".  (Yes I know I could expand upon this and talk about how the governor impacts presidential politics, especially in a swing state, but I'm not going to.  It's boring.  And would take up a lot of space with its boring-ness.  Don't email me regarding this.  Just don't do it.)
 
After this less than exciting governorship, McKinley was elected president in 1896.  In today's world of increasing imports, decreasing exports, long drawn out wars and philandering politicians, it's serioulsy hard not to get a little turned on by McKinley's presidency.  The protection of the gold standard (keeping the American dollar tied to the value of gold) was a huge victory at the time, as was his protectionist policies that spurred some seriously rapid economic growth. He won his campaign against William Jennings Bryan (America's biggest loser) without ever leaving his front porch.  That's not a turn of phrase, he actually called it his "front porch campaign" and gave speeches about the gold standard and the necessity of high tariffs from his porch since his wife was too sick to accompany him on a nation-wide campaign.  And that's just the beginning.  
 
The crowning achievment of McKinley's presidency was the decisive American victory in the Spanish American War.  I'm aware that many of you are now thinking "what the hell is the Spanish American War?", so let me explain.....
 
Between 1895 and 1898 the Spanish were deeply embroiled in conflict with one of their territories-- Cuba.  American's always get very deeply nervous when shit starts to hit the fan in Cuba due to its proximity to the Sunshine State (Florida.  Honestly guys, I really hope that didn't need to be stated).  For a variety of reasons, including American business interests, the US sided with Cuba and began calling on Spain to grant Cuba independence and stop hostilities in the Western hemisphere (because this is our hemisphere, dammit!).  The Spanish found this request to be adorable and blatantly ignored it.  We continued our vocal opposition to Spanish rule in Cuba, but did not directly engage the Spanish. 
 
Until February 1898, with the sinking of the USS Maine.
 
The USS Maine was stationed off of Havana, Cuba to "protect American interests" during the revolt.  Yes, even in 1898 we were involving ourselves militarily under the guise of "protecting American interests", which usually meant then, as it often does now, protecting things in other countries with which Americans make money.  Regardless, on February 15, 1898 the USS Maine exploded and sank, killing nearly three-quarters of the 355 man crew.  The reason for the explosion has never been definitively determined, but at the time American's blamed the Spanish and called for vengeance. 
Things moved rapidly after the sinking of the Maine, but McKinley, in all his awesome presidential glory, remained pretty level-headed, considering the circumstances.  He conferred with his staff and in April recognized the sovereign state of Cuba.  One of the many lessons that history can teach us is that there really is no better way to piss another country off than by acknowledging the independence of territory they consider part of their empire.  Think about the last time Texas tried seceding from the US (I think it was last week sometime), now imagine that Mexico recognized Texas independence.  Wouldn't that piss you off?  Of course it would!  Screw you, Mexico!  Texas is ours!  Well, maybe Texas was a bad example.... But you get the idea. Anyway, two days later the Spanish did something that only a handful of nations have ever even seriously considered, they declared war on the US. 
 
Historically, declaring war on the United States tends to unleash a shitstorm of astronomical proportions (just ask that Japanese guy), and this was no different in the case of the Spanish.  It took us only four months to kick the Spanish back to the Iberian Peninsula (the cease-fire was signed in August 1898).  McKinley proved to be an able commander in chief, but an even better negotiator.  When the US and Spanish signed the Treaty of Paris in December of that same year, Cuba was granted its independence, which had drawn us into the conflict to begin with, which is cool and all, but what McKinley did next was pretty kick ass.  At this time in history, Spain as a world power was on the decline, however, they still controlled a serious amount of territory and somehow, probably through the sheer force of his sexiness and fantastic politics, McKinley also won us control of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Phillippines.  Though that last one cost us around twenty million dollars. 
 
Oh yeah, and we also somehow annexed Hawaii, which was never under Spanish control to begin with.  Ladies and gentlemen: William McKinley. 
 
But McKinley wasn't just a pretty face that kicked a lot of ass.  He was deeper than that.  He had a sensitive side. Case in point:  his Open Door Policy regarding China.  China had isolated itself for most of history, but in 1895, after the First Sino Japanese War, China was weak and staring down the barrel of partition by world powers.  This was still the age of empire, it would not have been really that unusual of a story at the time: a China weakened by war, but rich in resources, is partitioned and colonized by strong Western powers until a military coup wins independence somewhere between 1940 and 1970.  Substitute the term "China" for the term "Africa" or "literally almost any nation in the Middle East", and that is actually a pretty accurate history right there.  But McKinley believed in an inherent equality between all nations, and by that I mean American commercial interests allowed to do as they please without having to take shit from the Russians or Brits.  Regardless, the McKinley administration, John Hay specifically, pushed for an agreement between all western powers that none would partition China and that each would have equal access to the country.  It worked.  Which is surprising considering he literally sent a series of notes asking these nations very nicely to please not partition China.  Not that any of this really turned out all that great for the Chinese, but it's one of the few times in history where a bunch of countries agreed on something without killing each others' citizens.
 
Considering all of this magical McKinley sexiness, in 1900 he easily defeated William Jennings Bryan yet again (WJB was kind of the Buffalo Bills of presidential politics).  McKinley was expected to continue his legacy of economic growth and prosperity through his second term.  His policies were working, he had won a war, the people loved him.  It was good to be McKinley in 1901.  Until he made a decision that, as many college students know, often proves disastrous:  he decided to go to Buffalo. 
 
Just six months into his second term, the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY was all anyone could talk about.  The building boasted electric lighting (gasp!) and some of the most innovative ideas of the time were on display.  McKinley made a visit in September, where he was shot on September 6, 1901 by a child of Polish immigrants named Leon Czolgosz (please don't ask me how to pronounce that) after a speech at the Temple of Music.  Apparently no one told Czolgosz that Buffalonians have a long history of nearly killing people they like over hockey games, so he was broadsided when a mob mauled him shortly after shooting the president.  He was reportedly injured so badly that his survival was seriously in question.  Because Buffalonians don't half ass anything.  Except football.   
 
Initially, it seemed as though the president would make a full recovery.  He was shot in the abdomen and was tended to by some of the best doctors available, such as Dr Roswell Park.  He took the shots like a champ (phrasing!), insisting that he was fine, and imploring everyone around him not to worry his wife.  But eight days later the president succumbed to infection and gangrene and the nation was plunged into mourning. 
 
Czolgosz was kept under the tightest security, since the good people of Buffalo were intent on killing him, until his trial on September 23.  He testified on his own behalf, though his statements are a little incoherent he did confess to the assassination.  He also stressed that he had committed the crime alone, due to his deeply held belief in anarchism.  Czolgosz was convicted and sentenced to death.  The entire trial lasted eight hours, twenty-six minutes.  He was executed at Auburn State Prison in NY on October 29, 1901. 
 
*Conspiracy Theory Break* Supposedly, though there are no contemporary reports confirming this, Czolgosz was found to have, in his personal effects, a coin stamped with the number 2218 and bearing the face of an unknown man.  Of course the only possible explanation for this is that Leon Czolgosz was a time traveling, anarchist, assassin.  Czolgosz was Polish-American, as am I; my people can barely walk without bumping into things, let alone fucking time travel, but if you want to believe a website called "creepypasta.com", be my guest.  I'll throw a link at the bottom if anyone would like to explore this more. 
 
McKinley's assassination was only the third in the nation at the time and led to Theodore Roosevelt being sworn in as president.  Roosevelt is widely considered a hard headed progressive that wrenched the United States into the twentieth century with sweeping policies and ambitious initiatives.  Thus, Czolgosz's "frenzied" actions left not only a beloved and respected president dead, but a century in the past and paved the way for America in the twentieth century world. 
         
That we, as a nation, have largely forgotten McKinley is a serious insult to his leadership and undeniable sexiness.  The man accomplished things that presidents centuries later would strive for throughout entire terms in office.  Think of how badly presidents Bush and Obama (and probably whoever comes after Obama, let's be realistic here) would have loved to be able to end the Iraq War in four months?  Thirty some years later, FDR would take four terms as president to accomplish for the American economy what McKinley accomplished in one.  McKinley was a powerhouse!  And he died while serving his country in the highest capacity possible.  

And he kept us from having to talk about President William Jennings Bryan. 
 
Long live the memory of McKinley!

 



For some super intersting info on the McKinley assassination, including a shit ton of primary sources (like newspaper articles), check out buffalohistoryworks.com. 

If murder and carnage are more your thing, murderpedia.org is a super cool website for all things bloody and gross.
 
For people in the Buffalo area, the Buffalo History Museum has really kick ass McKinley stuff, and also, a fantastic research library.
 
For those that are serious gluttons for punishment and want to dig deeper into the gold standard, here's a good place to start:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/markets/story/2012-04-23/return-to-the-gold-standard/54493710/1
 
The aftermath of McKinley's assassination and how it shaped America is explained in fantastic detail at http://www.edwindearborn.com/the-mckinley-assassination-the-death-of-americas-social-contract/
 
Oddly, there isn't a wealth of information regarding Leon Czolgosz's suspected time travel.  But here's a few websites I found that made mention of it:
http://www.creepypasta.com/leon-czolgosz/
https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/time-travel-hoax-leon-czolgosz.536274/
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=22608202
http://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/czolgosz-leon-frank.htm

That Time We Invaded Canada..... No, No..... That OTHER Time.....

Few immigrant groups in the US give such colorful history as the Irish.  From voting riots, to drunken riots, to invasions the Irish proved themselves a subjugated group of Americans that take just about zero shit when pushed.  So it was surprising, yet not surprising when, just one year after the Civil War ended a group of US citizens once again became a pain in Canada's ass-- due to tensions between the Irish and the British, a relatively small group of Irish immigrants, many of them Civil War vets, invaded Canada from the shores of the Niagara River at Buffalo.  Let's put this into context.  What the hell, it's not like I have to go to work or something.  


Late 1860's America was a chaotic place.  The Civil War was over, former black slaves were agitating for silly things like enfranchisement and property ownership, women were convinced that they deserved these things also, and America was now forced to figure out how to live with the immigrant communities that had found their way across the oceans to this beacon of freedom we had created and successfully defended.  Of the subjugated groups in this newly emerging nation, none were as disenfranchised as former slaves, but right there with them was another non-white (at the time) group:  The Irish.  And here some background information is required, so get ready for The Unemployed Historian's brief gloss of Anglo-Irish relations.  Here we go:

In 1845 what would become known in America as the Potato Famine hit Ireland like it owed it money.  Natural disaster combined with seriously shitty public policy to starve and kill nearly one million Irish.  If you ever needed proof that god hates the Irish, the Potato Famine is pretty much it.  Either because they were forced to leave, or because they were fleeing starvation, the Irish had come to the United States in droves.  We proved seriously hostile to this motley crew of, mostly, young unskilled men.  Most American businesses refused to employ the Irish due to an impressive name they had made for themselves as disease ridden, alcoholic, unskilled, unteachable and violent.  In northern cities the Irish took up refuge in the lowliest of ghettos, and eeked out a meager existence on wages that I'm going to describe here as "starvation", but, for real, I'm being generous.  So by the time the Civil War ended (a conflict in which many Irish fought), all most Irish immigrants had to sustain them was whiskey and anger.  Think of the world's biggest earthquake hitting California and US policy refusing them clean water on principle, or inhibiting rebuilding efforts because it would make them dependent on state aid, while children starved to death in the streets.  That kind of anger.  The reason for this policy has its roots in how Ireland became part of the UK, religious differences and deeply entrenched stereotypes and racism which I will not be going into here as that could and probably will be a blog in and of itself.  But I'll throw some links at the bottom if you're interested.  

In 1848 a small group of these Irish immigrants formed the American arm of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) under the leadership of John O'Mahony and Michael Doheny.  This group became known as the Fenian Brotherhood (Fenian is a term taken from an ancient class of Irish warriors called the Fianna).  Many of those involved with the Fenians joined the Union forces during the Civil War, thus ending their agitation for Irish independence at least for a time.  When, in 1865, the Civil War ended, many of these immigrants returned to their ghettos and starvation wages.  But their anger was renewed and once again redirected at the British that had caused either themsevles, directly, or their families in general, to leave the land that they had loved and come to this place where most of them worked back breaking jobs for very little money. 
 
To weaken the British Empire and draw attention to the cause of Irish independence, the Fenians organized attacks on British outposts in Canada (still a British colony at this point).  Exactly how aggressive action in Canada would win Irish independence is a murky concept, rooted in the United States' very complicated relationship with not only Canada, but Britain throughout the nineteenth century.  These actions are considered raids by some and invasions by others.  Here, I will refer to them as raids, as this seems to be the most commonly used term due to semantics details that I have no reason to go into here. 
 
There were five Fenian raids in all.  The first in 1866 when a small island off the coast of New Brunswick was raided, the second was a raid on Fort Erie from Buffalo in June, 1866.  About a week after the Fort Erie raid Pigeon Hill was attacked.  These are the three primary raids that garnered the most attention, in 1870 and 1871, respectively, Mississquoi County and Pembina saw the final of the Fenian raids.  The concept behind the raids may not make a ton of sense to a modern reader (or, probably, a contemporary reader, for that matter), but the raids themselves were actually very well planned and meticulously carried out (mostly).  The reason for this probably lay in the leadership of John O'Mahony who was a colonel in the Union Army's Irish Brigade during the Civil War.  For those that are unaware, as I'm sure many are (I'm sure because I was unaware until this writing), it is argued that only two other brigades suffered more casualties than the Irish Brigade in the Civil War.   
***Note from The Unemployed Historian***  I cannot overstate the importance of this.  While nothing can really compare to the horrors former slaves faced in the American south, it is important to see the parallels here to a more known narrative of an America defended by the very people she was to continue to subjugate in peacetime:  a subjugated group, enlisting in droves, marching to war, dying for a nation that barely recognized their personhood.  As the Boston Globe put it in 1860, "Again, many of the promoters of the war, many of those who now 'feel good' towards the Irish are the very men with whom 'no Irish need apply' was a canon of faith." 
 
Arguably, the most important of the five raids was the second-- the raid on Fort Erie/The Battle of Ridgeway in June 1866.  This raid was intended to annex land along the St Lawrence River to then be used as a base of operations for "privateers" to attack and destroy British shipping.  This would then, as the Fenians surmised, cause the British to acquiesce to Irish demands to stop the raids and allow commerce to continue in Canada.  So with this plan in mind, the Fenians constructed an army of between 1000-1300 Irish born Americans stationed out of Black Rock, NY and mobilized from Buffalo.  In the early morning hours of June 1, 1866 this rag-tag group proceeded across the Niagara River and into Canada. 
 
So where was the American government during the train rides from Cleveland, the amassing of people and materiel in Black Rock, and the commandeering of and boarding of ships in Buffalo, you may ask?  Interesting question.  The American goverment remained relatively tacit during this odd turn of American history.  Most maintain that goverment was at least somewhat aware of the pending invasion/raid, and they were certainly aware of the previous raid on Campo Bello Island, as they had had to send a warship to maintain peace.  For a quick second here, picture that.  Picture the captain of the ship jumping ashore on this miniscule little shit of an island, looking at these angry, poor, raggedy Irishmen that had just fucking invaded an island in the middle of the Passamaquoddy Bay.  What the hell do you even say to these people?  I like to picture something like, "Guys.  Seriously.  Really?  You took an island?  What the actual fuck guys?  60,000 soldiers just died and I have to come here to tell you assholes that it is not fucking acceptable to take over islands with your own 
private army?"  I picture a lot of eye twitching.
 
But I digress. 
 
At any rate, this was still during a point in time where we were highly suspect of literally everything the British did, and (no offense to the British) rightly so (okay, that was meant to be a little offensive.  You guys were total assholes through that entire century).  The British was literally one major battle away from backing the Confederacy in the Civil War a move that, most historians agree, would have spelled the end of the United States as we know it.  Further, Americans weren't  completely ready to give up on the idea of annexing Canada yet.  We had tried to win the territory from the British just 50 some years previous (the War of 1812, which I blogged about already #shamelessplug) and many over here were still pretty well convinced that annexation of Canada was just a matter of time.  So the US government was pretty quiet during the Fenian raids, stepping in only when it was completely necessary. 
 
To the credit of the Fenians, the raid on Fort Erie was more successful than one would suspect a 1000-ish person army invading one of the largest British colonies on the planet would have been.  After crossing the Niagara River, scouts brought decent intelligence to Colonel John O'Neill (the leader of the Fenian invasion force).  Within a few hours the Fenians had taken up residence in Fort Erie and things were looking up.  Intelligence brought word, however, of a force of Canadian militia and British Regulars numbering up to three-thousand mobilized and moving to meet the Fenian force.  But O'Neill, from most accounts, actually knew his shit (quick note:  I suck at military history.  I really do.  So for qualitative statements like "O'Neill knew his shit" or "That other guy would be better suited to playing cricket in a skirt than military involvement" I tend to trust the judgement of others.  FYI).  Instead of attacking along the route that made the most strategic sense, he took what could be described as the back road and began moving toward the opposition.  Acutely aware of the Fenian raid, the USS Michigan was patrolling the Lake now, meaning that mobilizing more Fenian troops or supplies over the river was impossible, so O'Neill would have to work with what he had.  That being said, he used his forces to the best possible advantage, burning major bridges and intimidating the opposition with his lack of fear and strong presence.  Consequently, the Fenian force ambushed the Canadian/British troops early on June 2, 1866 and defeated them in what is now known as the Battle of Ridgeway.  The Canadian militia was pushed back and the Fenian victory was pretty decisive. 
 
But now what? 
 
The odds of a few hundred Irish immigrants, well trained and well led as they were even, holding onto the progress made into Canada was slim, to say the least.  The lake and river were being heavily patrolled now, meaning no reinforcements would be coming from Buffalo and O'Neill and what was left of his army were on their own.  And the British were pissed.  Not only were they pissed, they were regrouping and moving toward the Fenians.  Futile doesn't even begin to describe the situation. 
 
On June 3, 1866 O'Neill released his prisoners and surrendered to the US Navy. 
I'm sure there is at least one reader here that is curious about what the penalty is for raising an army and invading Canada.  As was I, dear reader, as was I.  And I have the time and resources to find out.  The penalty (in 1866, anyway) was apparently being arrested, marched through the streets of Toronto while Canadians pelt you with garbage, and then being released one week later as long as you promise to appear for your trial (no word on whether or not a pinky swear was involved).  O'Neill would go on to become the president of the Fenian organization and would be involved in two additional raids on Canada.  Yeah, for real he invaded Canada and was pretty much left free to roam the country-side and terrorize the locals.  A large part of his army, however, was put on trial and convicted of illegally invading Canada (how bad ass is that?), most of these men were sentenced to death, though none of the death sentences were carried out and, to my knowledge, all of those convicted were eventually exonerated and let free.  Oddly, the person punished the most for the Fenian raids was the Canadian militia leader J Stoughton Dennis.  It was widely believed that his dereliction of duty is what allowed the Fenians to seriously kick the shit out of the Canadians (he disappeared as the battle began and showed up like two days later at a different camp posing as a civilian.  Yeah.  You just can't trust people named Dennis.) and he was relieved of his duty. 
 
So what's the moral in all of this?  What is the lasting legacy of the Fenians?  Fucked if I know.  The Canadians realized that they sucked at defending their border.  But, they're Canadians, so no one was really surprised.  The Fenians succeeded in garnering some attention for themselves and the plight of the Irish, but everyone really already knew that the British were kind of assholes and that the Irish were getting severely fucked in this relationship.  So, nothing was really all that shaken up, except for the one chick that accidentally walked in front of a Canadian firing line.  She was shaken up for the couple minutes before she died.  After the final raid in 1871, and, arguably, even after the Fort Erie raid, the Fenians sort of faded into obscurity and people kind of forgot about the Fenian raids.  Need proof of this?  Seriously none of you even knew this was a thing until I posted this.  Proof. 
 
But the Fenians were important, as is all of history.  They show not only the dedication of people to a cause and what is possible when that dedication is held so strongly (they did actually invade Canada, after all), but perhaps more importantly, they show the American immigrant experience in all of its (more often than not) shit covered glory.  The Fenians are the anti-thesis to everything we have ever been "taught" about how this country was founded and sustained. 
Now listen to me carefully here, dear readers, because this shit is important for all of us to know, and it's something that many, MANY of us forget:    
    America was built-- from sea to shining sea-- on the backs of impoverished immigrants that really had no choice but to come here and become the butt of our jokes and cheap labor.  And the Fenians specifically, and Irish in general, weren't shy in showing what most immigrants felt-- raw, seething anger.  Anger at their position, their circumstance, and what and who led them to this existence. 
 
And they showed what this anger can do-- apparently it can galvanize a few hundred to international conflict and invasion. 
 
Who knew?

 
My absolute most favorite book about an American immigrant group as well as the social constructs of race in America is Noel Ignatiev's How the Irish Became White, published by Routeledge.  It's fantastic.  I've read it twice and I'm still looking forward to reading it again.  Read it.  Love it.  Bask in it.  Feel the racism. 
Pick on your Irish friends for not being white. 
Then make them read it.
 
For further information on the Fenian invasions/raids, I would point literally anyone to the University of Buffalo's write up, which one can find at http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~dbertuca/155/FenianRaid.html.   In the interest of full disclosure, this is where I found most of the military history that I needed here dumbed down to a level that even I can understand. 
 
For some pretty well written Irish history, Irish History Online is a great resource and can be found at http://www.irishhistoryonline.ie/.  
 
If anyone is interested in a brief, but engaging over-view of the Potato Famine and just cannot wait until I get my lazy ass around to actually writing it, I highly, HIGHLY suggest the Potato Famine podcast by Stuff You Missed in History Class, from How Stuff Works.  I listen to this podcast way too much.  It is super, super cool. 
 
If you're interested in how the Civil War would have turned out if the British had backed the Confederacy, the thought experiment turned documentary The Confederate States of America is very, very cool.  And available on Netflix. 
 
For those intrigued by the fact that this is not the first time the US had invaded Canada, I point anyone and everyone to my August blog "Bitch Slaps and Bad Assery: The War of 1812".  #secondshamelessplug



Image credit goes to somethingawful.com. 

Are Your Parents Cousins or Just Undesirables?

–

I managed to catch an episode of The Kardashians the other night and I was instantly consumed by a single thought:  Why are stupid people allowed to breed?  It’s an intriguing thought, not letting stupidity beget yet more stupidity, and I know many that jokingly (most of the time) often suggest things like IQ tests, or basic reasoning skills test that should be given to prospective parents.  What most people don’t realize is that, just about a century ago, that was a thing.  It was seriously more involved, and focused on things other than simple stupidity, but it was definitely a thing, and it was called Eugenics.  

 

On paper Eugenics really doesn’t sound all that bad:  the promotion of more favorable genetic traits over less favorable genetic traits in an effort to elevate the human race.  So where did it get all screwy and shitty and Nazi–y? Good question!  Lucky for you, I’m an unemployed history major that has the answer!  Here we go: 

Eugenics can, arguably, be described as starting with Charles Darwin.  Contained within Darwin’s On The Origin Of Species, published in 1859, was the idea of natural selection.  This theory, that things evolve to, preferably, a higher quality form through the breeding out of weak traits and proliferation of strong traits (seriously, if you didn’t know that, put the lap top DOWN and read a goddamn book), has since been extrapolated to everything from finches, to middle management assholes that need an excuse for being assholes (they often say things like, “only the strong survive” before rechecking their email and pounding a five hour energy shot).  So it isn’t completely surprising that Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, would take this theory one logical leap further:  That natural selection does not, necessarily, have to be “natural”.  He first expressed this view in the 1880s, most agree in 1883 to be exact. 

Galton’s theory melded the theory of natural selection with the work of Gregor Mendel, who is considered the father of modern genetics.  Galton maintained that humans were not physically prepared for the civilization they had created and that, if we were to breed out undesirable characteristics, we could push evolution along at a quicker pace for the human race.  This new science Galton had established could then be broken down into two separate forms:  positive eugenics (encouraging those with desirable characteristics to breed more), and negative eugenics (the impeding, or, more accurately, all out prohibition, of the breeding of undesirables).  It’s not necessarily a heart–warming thought, but at this point didn’t necessarily conjure up pictures of Nazi’s killing babies, either.  But, as with most new theories, there’s always an asshole ready to take it too far.  In this case, that asshole was Charles Davenport. 

Charles Davenport is the father of American eugenics (Galton was English).  Davenport was a prominent biologist who’s most prominent works would include Race Crossing in Jamaica (1929), as well as the establishment of the Evolution Research Institute and the Eugenics Record Office (the records of which can still be found at eugenicsarchives.org.  If you really need to be creeped out).  Davenport’s science was flimsy at best and outright lies at worst, however, he told an American public deeply entrenched in the anti–immigration ideas of the post WWI era and the “you can be black but please stay over there” atmosphere of the Jim Crow south exactly what every backwoods, rebel flag waving degenerate hillbilly wanted to hear– some races were superior to others because science.  And, shockingly, the white European races were the most superior of all of them while those races with darker skin tones were low on intelligence but evolutionarily streamlined for hard work and manual labor.  Are we all shocked that this caught on yet?  Eugenics societies started to spring up nearly everywhere and compulsory sterilization laws were enacted in over 20 states. The movement pulled some serious proponents including Teddy Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and H.G.Wells, among others.  And the Supreme Court even decided, in Buck v. Bell, that states had every right to draft, institute and enforce forced sterilization laws at their discretion (good jobs, guys).  Across the country doctors performed forced sterilizations on men and women, sometimes without their knowledge, for being not white, poor, mentally ill, less than smart, lazy, mildly alcoholic (those fuckers!), and any reason some white, middle class, presumably male, doctor could come up with.  Scary, scary shit, my friends. 

Around the world eugenics was catching on predominantly in Russia, Sweden and Germany.  Sweden was the first to jump on the “sterilize everyone that is icky” boat and in 1922 they established the first government run race biology lab.  However, they were small fish compared to those wily Russians and Germans.  After the death of Lenin, Russians at the Moscow Institute became obsessed with finding the biological foundations of intelligence and they found in eugenics a blueprint for creating a nation of geniuses.  Germans, for their part, were more focused on the body and aesthetics– they saw eugenics as the answer to creating an aesthetically pleasing, strong, hard working, compliant master race (sound familiar?).  In Russia, prominent geneticist Alexander Serebrovsky emerged with a five year plan that can only be described as….. far reaching…. Serebrovsky stated that Russia could realize their eugenics dream nation by abolishing the family, instituting infanticide for weak or undesirable infants and having women employed as breeders by artificial insemination.  All of this Aldous Huxley–esque planning garnered cries of “dude, too far” by the average Russians and eugenics began to fall out of favor by the mid–thirties.

Germany, however, was another story.  As most know (again, if you don’t, put DOWN the laptop and Read. A. Fucking. Book.), Hitler’s final solution (the Shoah, or Holocaust) included the extermination of Jews.  However, that’s really only the biggest part of the Shoah; in reality many people were put to death– Jews, Poles, gays, the physically and mentally handicapped and anyone who really didn’t fit the picture of the white, beautiful, strong, chiseled German.  Hitler, along with Goebbels and Mengele, et al were huge supporters of eugenics early on and when Hitler came to power as chancellor in 1933 his eugenics based views of racial superiority came with him.  These views took hold in Germany and persisted into the forties until the Allies kicked their racist, genocidal asses back to Munich and took all their fucking tanks.  (For real, we outlawed their military and took their fucking tanks)

Not surprisingly, after some 400,000 Americans died fighting against fascists espousing eugenicist principles (which is only slightly true, but that’s a different blog for a different day), the movement began to fall out of favor in the US.  But not before some 70,000 (the most commonly cited estimate) people were sterilized in the name of race hygiene before 1970.  By 1945 eugenics was basically a relic of the past (the final sterilization laws weren’t repealed until the 1970s, however), though you can still see it rearing its ugly head here and there, though it’s now called “scientific racism”, which is seriously more accurate. 

I humbly make my case for a name change for The Kardashian’s TV show: “The Kardashians: The Case For Eugenics”.   

**Disclaimer:  I do NOT actually support Eugenics, however, do they really need six kids and nine friggin’ seasons?  Seriously?**

For further information there are some seriously fantastic websites, including the above mentioned eugenicsarchive.org.   Also, PBS did a great, albeit very brief, write up on the basics, which can be found at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dh23eu.html. 

A great source of info is Kevin Nisson’s University of Dayton paper found here: http://campus.udayton.edu/~hume/Eugenics/eugenics.htm. 

If you really want to go in depth, Homo Sapiens 1900  is a very boring, horrifically creepy documentary on Netflix that focuses primarily on the Swedish, Russian and German eugenics movements and has been nominated for the “Creepiest Sounds You Can Make With Bells and Put In A Movie” award.   That’s not true.  But it should be.