Grand Old Partisan

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I honor Evan Kemp, born in New York City, May 5th 1937. At age twelve began the symptoms of muscular atrophy. Despite this misfortune, he graduated from Washington and Lee University and University of Virginia School of Law. Kemp worked at the Internal Revenue Service and then the Securities and Exchange Commission. He won a lawsuit against the SEC for being refused a promotion on account of using a wheelchair. Leaving government employ in 1980, he became executive director of the Disability Rights Center. Ronald Reagan named him to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and George H. Bush elevated him to chairman.  Kemp was instrumental in passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, signed into law by President Bush. He died in 1997, "satisfied that he had helped to make the world a bit more accepting of people like him." B...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I denounce Democrat devilry. In a fascinating C-SPAN program recorded March 4th 2011, historian Michael Holt discussed his book,  By One Vote: The Disputed Presidential Election of 1876 . As he explained, the Republican presidential nominee, Rutherford Hayes, really did defeat the Democrat, Samuel Tilden, by one vote in the Electoral College. It was Democrat vote fraud to blame for the result being so uncertain. Holt recounted, for example, an African-American woman testifying about a Democrat atrocity in Louisiana: "A gang of whites came to our house two days before the election. They asked my husband who he was going to vote for. I was standing there with a baby in my arms. He said he was going to vote Republican, and they shot and killed him on the spot. They shot and killed the baby in my arms, and they stabbed me and gang-raped me." Professor Holt s...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I honor John Quincy Adams, born to free blacks in Kentucky, May 4th 1848. After graduating from Oberlin College, he moved to Arkansas, where his Republican uncle was superintendent of public instruction. He worked for the GOP-controlled state senate, then for the department of public works. Returning home after six years, "JQ" held a position at the U.S. Revenue Service and was delegate to the 1880 Republican National Convention. Next, he published the  Louisville Bulletin  newspaper. Noteworthy of his tenure there was a fanciful 1883 edition dated "1983" – describing wonders of that time such as inter-planetary communication. In 1886, Adams began publishing a Minnesota newspaper,  The Appeal . He made it a national player, with Minneapolis, Chicago, Dallas, St. Louis and Washington offices. It was a steadfast opponent of racial dis...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I denounce Democrat devilry. May 3rd 1963, police in Birmingham, Alabama – commanded by Democrat sheriff Eugene "Bull" Connor – attacked several thousand African-American schoolchildren who were demonstrating peacefully for their civil rights. At the time, it should be noted, Connor was Democratic National Committeeman for Alabama. He had been elected, as a Democrat, president of the state Public Service Commission.  Member of the Ku Klux Klan, Connor had been a Democrat state legislator. He was delegate for the 1948, 1956, 1964 and 1968 Democratic National Conventions. Pages 192-93 of  Back to Basics for the Republican Party  describe how Connor's men used police dogs and high-pressure hoses and clubs in their assault, then jailed nearly a thousand children. Back to Basics for the Republica...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I highlight White House Conferences on Children and Youth. The first was hosted by Theodore Roosevelt on January 25th and 26th 1909. Interior Department official James West, who originated it, later became the first Executive Secretary of the Boy Scouts. Said the President, "When you take care of the children you are taking care of the Nation of tomorrow; and it is incumbent upon every one of us to do all in his or her power to provide for the interests of those children whom cruel misfortune has handicapped at the very outset of their lives." At first called Conference on the Care of Dependent Children, this was the first-ever White House Conference. More than two hundred social workers, teachers, juvenile court judges and othe reformers attended. They raised awareness nationwide and persuaded Republicans to establish a Children’s Bu...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I praise Nannie Helen Burroughs, born to former slaves near Charlottesville, May 2nd 1879. Age six, she settled in Washington, DC. Age twenty-one, an inspiring speech at a national baptist convention brought her to prominence. In 1909, she established the National Training School for Women and Girls, in order to "uplift the race." Burroughs condemned the racist policies of Democrat President Woodrow Wilson. In 1924, this civil rights activist co-founded the National League of Republican Colored Women. She was a popular speaker on behalf of the GOP. President Herbert Hoover appointed her to the White House Conference on Home Building and Ownership. Burroughs remained active with Baptist missionary work. Her signature presentation was "How White and Colored Women Can Cooperate in Building a Christian Civilization." In 1975, the Mayor ...