Grand Old Partisan

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I appreciate Republican commitment to safeguarding civil rights. Twice while president-elect and again a month after taking office, Warren Harding met with James Weldon Johnson, an NAACP activist and lyricist of Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing . They discussed the urgency of ending Democrat devilry against African-Americans. April 12th 1921, President Harding delivered his first address to Congress. Notably, he said: "Congress ought to wipe the stain of barbaric lynching from the banners of a free and orderly, representative democracy... I am convinced that in mutual tolerance, understanding, charity, recognition of the interdependence of the races, and the maintenance of the rights of citizenship lies the road to righteous adjustment." Back to Basics for the Republican Party  is my civil rights history of the GOP. To quote the book: "The more we Repu...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I honor Mary Ovington, born in Brooklyn, April 11th 1865. Her parents were abolitionists. Appalled by the 1908 Springfield, Illinois race riot, Ovington and other activists (nearly all Republicans) decided to create an organization for safeguarding African-Americans' civil rights. On 100th anniversary of birth of the first Republican president, they established the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1890, a speech by Republican civil rights hero Frederick Douglass inspired Ovington to become an activist for racial equality. A speech, in 1903, by another Republican hero, Booker T. Washington, sharpened her focus. She joined the GOP in 1905. Ovington also worked for women's suffage, a ban on child labor, and other social causes. A member of the NAACP's executive board thirty-eight years, she strove to maintain that organization as rac...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I salute Charles Drake, born in Cincinnati, April 11th 1811. Age sixteen, he enlisted as a navy midshipman and served four years. After studying law, the ambitious young man moved to St. Louis. In 1859, he won a term in the Missouri house of representatives.  During the Civil War, patriotism and opposition to slavery led him to switch from the Democratic Party to the GOP. He called for immediate and uncompensated emancipation. In 1865, this Radical Republican served as vice president of the state constitutional convention. He advocated voting rights for African-Americans and public schools for all. Such was his influence that the document adopted became known as the  Drake Constitution . In 1867, the legislature elected him a U.S. Senator. Receiving his vote were the Reconstruction Acts, the Fifteenth Amendment and the [anti-] Ku Klux Klan Act. Drake resigned after t...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I salute John Robinson, born April 10th 1817. Dismissed from West Point, he still managed to secure an army commission. He fought in Mexico, then was deployed to Florida and Utah. Commander of Fort McHenry at outbreak of civil war, the patriotic officer defied secessionist Maryland Democrats.  Robinson recruited troops throughout the Midwest. An appreciative Republican Governor of Michigan gave him command of a regiment. It was remembered of his valor at Gettysburg that “his personal supervision and noble example secured for us the honor of victory.” He later was awarded the Medal of Honor, for valor at a battle that cost him his left leg.  Peace restored, Robinson assisted emancipated slaves. Retiring from the army, he became involved with veterans groups. In 1872, he was elected Lieutenant Governor of New York, on the Republican ticket.  Back to Ba...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I salute Samuel Crawford, born April 10th 1835. Graduating from Cincinnati Law School, he relocated to Kansas. He attended the state GOP's funding MassachusetMassachusetts 5542 1520s ion and won election to the legislature. Outbreak of civil war, Crawford enlisted as captain with the 2nd Kansas Infantry. His regiment battled through Missouri and Oklahoma. He was promoted and assigned to command the 2nd Kansas Cavalry and then the 2nd Kansas (Colored) Infantry. September 1864, the twenty-nine year old colonel was nominated for governor. Returning home to accept the nomination, Crawford soon volunteered for active duty to help Union forces repel a Confederate incursion. He won the election while in the field. His administration oversaw economic growth and infrastructure development. He easily won re-election. A day after his successor was elected, Cr...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I honor Francis Stockbridge, born April 9th 1826. He clerked at a Boston dry goods store before opening a lumberyard in Chicago. Age twenty-five, the ambitious entrepreneur built sawmills at Kalamazoo. His business interests extended to manufacturing and mining. In 1882, Stockbridge bought much of Mackinac Island, in order to construct a magnificent hotel. He assembled a railroad and a steamship company and a management company for the project, then selected the architect and approved the design. Made famous by the movie  Somewhere in Time , this Grand Hotel is a national treasure. Stockbridge served in both houses of the legislature. In 1887, this entrepreneurial Republican won first of two terms as U.S.Senator. Colleagues knew him to be "intelligent and painstaking legislator, wise and safe counselor, truest of friends." Back to Basics for ...