Grand Old Partisan

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I appreciate Republican reverence for religion. May 6th 1955, Dwight Eisenhower addressed the Washington Hebrew Congregation, in the nation’s capital. The occasion was dedication of a new 2200-seat synagogue. said the President: "God gave rights to you and your neighbor. It is well to remember this also: you may not protect those rights only for yourself; you must protect them for all, or your own will be lost. "A few moments ago, before this service began. I was privileged to meet some of the distinguished members of this congregation in the library. Several of them voiced a word of amazement that the President of the United States should attend a service of a faith not his own and in spite of other preoccupations come both to the religious service and to the dedication of this great temple. I personally think that this is natura...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I salute William Parker, born in New Hampshire, May 5th 1847. Age fourteen, he enlisted in the Union army. Battlefield courage merited promotion to lieutenant. Peace restored, he studied at George Washington University and practiced law in the nation’s capital.  President Ulysses Grant named him federal tax collector for Colorado, and later, U.S. Attorney for the territory. In 1877, Parker moved to Deadwood, South Dakota. This adventurous Republican was delegate to the territorial constitutional convention. He also served in the legislature. Statehood achieved in 1889, Parker won election to the state house. He was elected to Congress in 1906, serving a year before death. It was observed of him: "In the performance of duty none can stand higher." 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 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...