Grand Old Partisan

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I admire Theodore Roosevelt. Spring of 1903, the energetic Republican President toured twenty-five midwestern and western states.  Highlights included visits to Chicago and Yellowstone National Park. He made speaking appearances at dozens of cities and towns. Some were formal events, while others were brief whistle-stops at train stations. April 28th was a typical day. Visiting the Des Moines Opera House, the President said "no state in the Union surpasses Iowa in the average of happiness of her citizens." At the state Capitol, he saluted Civil War veterans, both for their valor in battle and their accomplishments in peacetime. Dedicating a YMCA building at Oskaloosa, Roosevelt praised "the combination of qualities which we call character, at the root of which must lie decency, honesty, the spirit that make...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I highlight the origin of Cornell University. It was founded as "an institution where any person can find instruction in any study." This principle was innovative at the time.  April 27th 1865, the charter was passed by a GOP-controlled New York legislature and signed into law by a Republican governor. Its legal framework, the Land-Grant College Act, had been enacted by the GOP-controlled 37th Congress. For a campus, Republican state legislator Ezra Cornell donated his farm at Ithaca. The first president, Andrew Dickson White, went on to be ambassador for three Republican administrations. Back to Basics for the Republican Party  is my civil rights history of the GOP. To quote the book: "The more we Republicans know about the history of our party, the more Democrats will worry about the future of theirs. For more i...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I denounce Democrat devilry. April 27th 1874, Louisiana Democrats created a terrorist organization called the White League, also called the White Man's League. Their first leader, Christopher Nash, was a county sheriff and Confederate veteran.  Red Shirts, Knights of the White Camellia, Klansmen – they shared its white supremacist ideology. In contrast to the Ku Klux Klan, the White League operated openly. They held rallies and publicly vowed to "teach the blacks to beware of further insolence...in an earnest effort to re-establish a white man's government in the city and the State." White League thugs targeted white Republicans as well as African-Americans. Murder victims included six GOP officials and a teenage African-American teacher. September 1874, a White League mob defeated the New Orleans police in a bloody battle. President Grant deploy...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I admire Farragut Square, a downtown park in the nation's capital. It features a statue of Civil War hero David Farragut. The courageous admiral is best remembered for "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" Bronze for the statue and four accompanying mortars came from the propellers of his flagship, USS Hartford. The statue had been authorized by the GOP-controlled 42nd Congress. It was cast at the Washington Naval Yard. April 25th 1881, President James Garfield keynoted the magnificent dedication ceremony: "This Capital is silently being filled up with the heroes of other times. Men of three wars have taken their place in silent eloquence as guardians and guards of the Nation they love so well. And as the years pass on these squares and public places will be rendered more and more populous, more and more eloquent by the presence of the heroes ...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I commemorate the first convention of the Maryland Republican Party. April 26th 1860, thirty delegates gathered at an auditorium in Baltimore. Presiding was state chairman William Coale, a prominent physician. Montgomery Blair, a GOP co-founder, delivered the keynote address. He observed what "a great and holy cause the Republicans have undertaken to sustain." Democrat thugs surrounded the building and shut down the meeting before a platform could be adopted. Nonetheless, delegates were able to accomplish their most important task – selecting delegates for the upcoming Republican National Convention. During the Lincoln administration, Coale supervised a military hospital and Blair served as Postmaster General. Republicans held their 1864 national convention in Baltimore. Back to Basics for the Republican Party  is my c...