 On May 8, 2022, Americans will honor their moms by bringing them flowers, taking them out to eat, and spending time visiting either by phone or in person. Thankfully, the pandemic and lockdowns have subsided and Mother's Day will be filled with smiles and hugs. When did this idea of celebrating mothers begin and how did it come to America?
Thousands of years ago, in ancient Greece and Rome, pagans held spring festivals honoring their mother goddesses. Rhea is the Greek mythological mother of the Olympian gods and goddesses and was worshipped as the goddess of fertility and the mountain wilds. In statues, Rhea is depicted as a matronly woman, seated on a throne flanked by lions. In ancient Rome, Romans celebrated “Magna Mater” (Great Mother), however, these celebrations became so wild and notorious that the Roman government banned Magna Mater’s followers from Rome. What do mothers and wild parties have in common? Ask the ancient, pagan Romans. They had a way with parties. Immediately after the crucifixion of Christ, Christians celebrated Mary as the mother of God, “Theotokos” in Greek and “Mater Dei” in Latin. By the 7th century, Christians around the world set aside January 1st as a special day to honor Mary. Throughout the month of May, Mary is celebrated in many churches as a role model of a perfect mother. In America, Mother’s Day was the brainstorm of Anna Jarvis in 1868. Jarvis wanted to establish a day where Americans would unite for peace and friendship. In 1868, she created a committee to establish “Mother’s Friendship Day,” a day set aside for former Civil War combatants and their families to reunite and form friendships. When Jarvis died, her daughter, also Anne Jarvis, took up the call. Anne Jarvis wanted a day to honor all moms and was upset that America’s holidays were too male dominated. Jarvis sponsored the first U.S. celebration of Mother’s Day at St. Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia, in the early 1900s. Anne Jarvis was so successful in promoting the holiday that in 1914, the U.S. Congress passed a law designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day. President Wilson issued a proclamation that on the first Mother’s Day, Americans should show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war. Mother’s Day has become a major American and commercial holiday. It is the third largest holiday for sending cards. Americans take their mothers out for brunches or lunch on Mother’s Day, and it has become a source of great wealth for the card, restaurant, and flower industries. The founder of Mother’s Day, Anne Jarvis, decried the commercialization of the holiday she championed. In fact, in 1948, Jarvis was arrested for disturbing the peace during a protest against Mother’s Day! The Classical Historian family expresses great admiration and gratitude to all mothers. Mothers are responsible for passing on culture, manners, standards, education, and morality. The author of this article is the 10th of 11 children. He’s glad his mom sacrificed so much to give life and love to so many. Thanks Mom! And we wish all moms this Sunday a Happy Mother’s Day!
0 Comments
Much disinformation has been reported and spread about Covid 19. Worse, facts have been underreported. Here is a great quiz with answers you can use with your students and children to help them understand Covid 19 and to begin conversations about this virus, the vaccines, and our government's response. Answers are below.
COVID-19 Facts from the CDC, assembled by The Unity Project, www.unityprojectonline.com *According to CDC, the death rate for children under 19 from COVID-19 is statistically 0%. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographics *According to CDC, not one healthy child has died of COVID-19 in the U.S. All children who have died with COVID-19 as of June 2021, had underlying comorbidities. https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/marty-makary/93029 *According to CDC, the COVID vaccines will not prevent infection or transmission of COVID-19, https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/health/us-coronavirus-thursday/index.html ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKFWGvvlVLI ; https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019- ncov/science/science-briefs/fully-vaccinated-people.html *According to CDC, vaccinated people are not less infectious than unvaccinated people. Vaccinated people acquire and transmit COVID-19 just as easily and as often as unvaccinated people. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/fully-vaccinated-people.html *According to CDC & FDA, COVID vaccines pose risks of myocarditis, blood clotting, neurological damage and death, to name a few, predominantly in adolescents. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019- ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html file:///C:/Users/pfish/Downloads/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience%20(1).pdf *According to VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System), there have been at least 19,532 deaths within two months of taking the COVID vaccines in America. https://openvaers.com /; https://vaers.hhs.gov/ *According to the WHO, there have been at least 2,457,386 adverse events world-wide. This is over 1,000,000 more cases than all adverse events reported over the last 53 years of all vaccines administered since 1968 combined (www.vigiaccess.org ). *According to the American Heart Association, the mRNA vaccines dramatically increase inflammation of the heart. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.144.suppl_1.10712 *According to historical medical data, 50% of people who get myocarditis will die of a heart attack or require a heart transplant within 5 years, especially children. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC2519249/ Thank you to all those who wrote comments. I've updated one of the questions based on a comment from one of our very thoughtful readers. John De Gree  On September 11, 2001, 19 Al-Qaida terrorists from various countries in the Middle East and Asia hijacked four airplanes and purposefully crashed them. Two airplanes hit the “Twin Towers” in New York City, one hit the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and one did not reach its target of the White House because the passengers stopped the terrorist pilots. This plane crash-landed in a field in Pennsylvania. Because of the 9/11 attacks, approximately 3,000 civilians were murdered and America fully entered into the War on Terror.
The terrorists who committed these attacks were part of an international organization called Al-Qaida, a radical Islamic organization. Al-Qaida does not control a country, but its members live in many parts of the world, including the United States of America. These terrorists hate America because the United States supports Israel’s right to exist, and because America represents freedom. Israel is a Jewish country, and the Al-Qaida organization hates Jews. Osama bin Laden was the head of Al-Qaida. He demanded that the U.S.A. stop supporting Israel, and that we remove all of our soldiers from the Arabian Peninsula. In 2001, Al-Qaida had most of its bases in Afghanistan, a country of Asia. Afghanistan was ruled by a political party called the Taliban. Like Al-Qaida, the Taliban was very extreme in its Islamic beliefs. The Taliban did not allow girls to study or women to have a job. Women had to wear a black robe called a burqa that covered their entire body. When a girl under Taliban control becomes a woman, the Taliban may agree to mutilate her body to permanently mark her as less than a man. If you had a book or a newspaper that the Taliban didn’t like, the Taliban soldiers might torture or kill you. If it was thought you were an Afghani Christian, the Taliban would execute you. If you belonged to a minority group, you could be tortured. Punishment for homosexuality or for infidelity for a married woman was execution. The Taliban and Al-Qaida worked together. After the attacks on 9/11, President Bush demanded from the Taliban that it hand over Osama bin Laden to the United States of America. The Taliban refused, and the U.S. launched a war. The Taliban lost the war initially and the U.S. helped the Afghans establish a republic. However, after 20 years, the Taliban are back in charge of Afghanistan, and the U.S. has withdrawn all soldiers. In 2001, Saddam Hussein was the dictator of Iraq, and the world believed that he was supporting terrorists and that he had dangerous weapons. It was feared he would give terrorists a nuclear bomb or poison gas or some other weapons that the terrorists would then use against Americans. Saddam Hussein threatened the U.S., attempted to kill President George H.W. Bush in a visit to Kuwait, and had defied 16 United Nations resolutions to come clean on his making dangerous weapons. The United States Senate gave President George W. Bush authority to use force to remove Hussein, and he used it. The U.S. launched a war against Hussein, removed him, and established a republic. The Iraqi people tried and executed Hussein as a mass murderer. President Obama became the leader of the U.S. in 2009 and continued the fight against terrorists in a different way than President Bush. He stated that he wanted the U.S.A. to lead from behind and to disengage in the war in Afghanistan and in Iraq. However, he continued ordering the killing of terrorists. In 2011, he gave the order for Navy Seals to kill the leader of Al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden. In 2014, Obama announced the end of active military operations in Afghanistan. From that point on, America performed more of a backup role in support of Afghan soldiers. President Obama ordered American soldiers out of Iraq. After the American retreat from Iraq, another terrorist organization, called Daesha (or also ISIS) conquered much of Iraq and Syria. ISIS instituted Sharia Law, the same law that the Taliban ruled with in Afghanistan. Over 1 million refugees fled ISIS and immigrated, mainly to Europe. Some of these refugees are terrorists and have killed Europeans. Once it became clear that ISIS was a threat to Iraq and American interests, President Obama sent American soldiers back into Iraq. President Trump continued the fight against terrorists in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Different from President Obama, Trump allowed the American military to fully engage the terrorists and be more aggressive. In early 2018, the United States and its allies defeated ISIS in Iraq and Syria. In 2018, ISIS held no territory, could not collect any taxes, and did not control any oil fields. When President Trump left office in January 2021, the Taliban controlled 20% of Afghanistan. Trump made a deal with the Taliban that the United States would withdraw its soldiers by May 1, 2021, if the Taliban would not take conquer Afghanistan or harm Americans. Trump’s plan was to maintain an American presence at the military airport at Bagram Air Base, a massive military airport the Americans had built in Afghanistan, to ensure that terrorists would not threaten America from Afghanistan. In January, 2021, President Joe Biden took office. Biden extended the American presence in Afghanistan four months. Beginning in May, the Taliban attacked and captured key military posts and territory throughout Afghanistan. Biden did not order American troops to fight the Taliban as they took control of more of the country. Biden's decision to leave on August 31st did not involve American allies and NATO, even though they had supported the U.S. during the war. While the Afghani President in July and August warned Biden that the Taliban could take over the country quickly, Biden told him to not speak of this in public, but to give the perception that the Taliban were not threatening the Afghani government. Biden announced to reporters at this time that the Taliban could not take over the country so quickly. Biden then gave the order to abandon Bagram Air Base. American forces left at midnight, without telling the Afghani commander. The Taliban, before taking over Kabul, asked the Biden administration if he wanted to secure the city while the Americans evacuated. Biden told the Taliban they could take over the city and be in charge. On August 15, the Taliban captured Kabul. Only the airport in Kabul was controlled by the Americans. For the last two weeks of August, the Biden Administration attempted to evacuate all Americans and its Afghani allies from the country. Biden reported there were around 11,000 Americans in the country. Throughout these two weeks, Americans and its Afghan allies had to make their way through Taliban guards to the airport. Many Americans and Afghani allies reported that the Taliban beat them and denied them to get to the airport. On August 26, a suicide attack killed 13 U.S. Marines and up to 200 Afghanis at the airport. By the end of August, all U.S. soldiers were evacuated along with 6,000 Americans, but anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand Americans were left stranded along with tens of thousands of Afghani allies in Afghanistan. As of September 11, 2021, the Taliban controls Afghanistan and there are no more U.S. soldiers in the country. There are still an untold number of Americans and Afghan allies trying to get out. Twenty years after the worst terrorist attack on American soil, those who harbored and supported the terrorists claim victory over America in Afghanistan. Questions 1. Who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.A? 2. Who are the Taliban? 3. How did the U.S. respond to these attacks in Afghanistan? 4. Why did the U.S. attack Iraq? 5. What happened after President Obama took U.S. soldiers out of Iraq? 6. What has happened to ISIS since President Trump began his presidency? 7. What did the Taliban do from May through August, 2021? 8. How did President Biden respond? 9. How many Americans and its Afghani allies were left behind once the American military evacuated Afghanistan? 10. Bonus Question Requiring Research: What is the Pineapple Express in Afghanistan? Last week, I received an email from a friend who pays a considerable amount of money to send her child to a reputable Christian school. She and a few other parents at the school were worried that the high school’s American history book was anti-Western Civilization, anti-Christian, and Socialist. Sadly, they were correct. The school leaders, like many in the United States of America, have chosen an anti-American American history book. It is unknown if the school leaders realized this when they chose the book, or if the teacher had the authority to use the text. To assist in trying to make the school leaders stop using this book, I reviewed the first few pages. Included below are my initial notes on the book.
Eric Foner’s American history book Give Me Liberty, An American History, in its first few pages, attempts to show that the European discovery, exploration, and colonization of the New World was a travesty and that Western society in North and South America was built on slavery, misogyny, a Christian religion that was a tool to use to justify mistreatment, and the subjugation of the great majority of people. Foner oversimplifies, generalizes, and cherry-picks anecdotes to fit his narrative while at the same time ignoring historical truths that contradict his story. To put it simply, in the first 13 pages, Foner shows Europeans as bad and Indians of North and South America as good. Europeans are portrayed as greedy, women-dominating males eager to exploit the social-minded, family-loving, and gentle American Indians. Foner’s book is less history than a tract promoting a Socialist interpretation of Western society. Foner portrays European actions and thoughts as aimed only at subjugation and dominance over others, and, he shows European society as one based on class, privilege, and gender. He writes about Christianity only as if it existed to support the political, economic, and social goals of Europeans and distinct from any real religious or spiritual meaning. Foner attempts to downplay any positive role Europeans had in North and South America and tries to show that Europeans did not enjoy any freedoms or liberties that were better than what Indians experienced at the time the two cultures met. At all times, Foner ignores any negative aspects of Native American societies, twists the meaning of private property, falsely portrays the history of slavery, belittles the development of individual liberty in western societies, and ignores the gender inequalities in Native societies. Examples:
 James Monroe was the country’s fifth president and the last of the American Founding Fathers. A man of great integrity, he had very little party feeling and was extremely popular. He called himself a Republican. He dressed traditionally and was the last president to wear his hair in a ponytail. (When was the last time you thought a man in a ponytail was sporting a traditional, conservative style?!) Monroe favored a weak presidency and was a strict constructionist. This meant he thought the federal government had power to do only what was explicitly written in the Constitution. One of the last men who had fought against Great Britain in the American Revolution, Monroe worked to keep government small. In 1820, he was reelected without any opposing candidate.
James Monroe was born on April 28, 1758 and lived until the age of 73, passing in 1831. Monroe was home schooled by his mother until the age of 11. After this he attended college for four years. A Virginian, just like four of the first five presidents, Monroe dropped out of college to fight the British in the American Revolution as an officer. He was severely wounded at the Battle of Trenton (Washington’s crossing of the Delaware), later trained soldiers at Valley Forge, and fought at the Battle of Monmouth. During and after the war, Monroe trained to be an attorney under Thomas Jefferson. Monroe married Elizabeth Kortright when he was 28 and they lived 44 years together as husband and wife. They had three children, though one died at the age of sixteen months. Their daughter Maria was the first child of a President to be married in the White House. Like other founding fathers, James Monroe’s relationship with slavery was complicated. He owned slaves and a plantation and slaves served him in Virginia and later in the White House. But he was morally opposed to slavery, tried making the international slave trade illegal, and worked to establish a country in Africa, later called Liberia with Monrovia as its capital, to resettle all African-Americans. As Governor of Virginia in 1800, he helped crush a slave rebellion and participated in the arrest of over 70 and execution of 10. As President, he resided over the Compromise of 1820, which added new states to the Union and maintained an equal number of slave states to free states. Monroe and the Founding Fathers feared that slavery would one day end the American republic, but they never resolved this issue and left it as a cancerous sore. James Monroe served as a representative, a senator, the governor of Virginia, a minister to France where he negotiated the Louisiana Purchase under President Jefferson, and was Secretary of State and then Secretary of War under James Madison during the War of 1812. His long political history and major accomplishments earned him the trust of the Presidential electors who voted him in two terms as President, from 1817-1825. Throughout his tenure, there was no opposing political party, and historians have called this time the “Era of Good Feelings.” Monroe’s actions as President exemplify the founder’s ideal of a republic with a limited government. Monroe favored public works, but only if they were related to national defense. The federal government created and improved coastal forts. However, Monroe opposed the government spending money on roads, canals or other projects if they were not strictly related to defense, because the Constitution does not give the federal government this power. In 1822, Monroe vetoed a bill that would have authorized federal funds to improve the Cumberland Road. Monroe claimed, “it is with deep regret, approving as I do the policy, that I am compelled to object to its passage and to return the bill to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, under a conviction that Congress does not possess the power under the Constitution to pass such a law.” James Monroe achieved great success in the area of foreign policy. He settled the U.S.-Canadian border dispute through a treaty with Great Britain. In Georgia, his administration ordered General Andrew Jackson to defeat the Seminole Indians, who had been raiding settlers and then escaping into Spanish Florida. Jackson illegally invaded Florida, conquered the Indians, and found two British agents, then tried, convicted, and hung them as spies. Spain was thus forced to sell Florida to the U.S. for $5 million in the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819. However, Monroe is best known for the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine of 1820 forbids any European power from meddling in the affairs of North and South American countries in return for America staying out of European affairs. In the early 1800s, Spanish colonial power in the Americas was weakening, and France appeared to want to take Spain’s possessions. The United States wanted to make sure no European power would ever again colonize the Americas, and Great Britain was eager to create a “special relationship” with their former colonies. Great Britain secretly assured America it would use its navy to defend the Americas. James Monroe was the last American Founding Father to serve as President, and as such he continued the great fortune and blessings that were bestowed on the first republic of modern times. Though imperfect and unable to resolve slavery, Monroe helped establish the United States of America as one of the strongest and freest countries on earth. His sacrifice in the American Revolution, his service in various offices in Virginia, and his Presidency were all in the aim of building a country founded in individual liberty and constitutionalism.  Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680) is the first Native American to be canonized a Catholic saint. She was born in 1656 in what is today the state of New York. Her tribe was the mighty Mohawk, her father was Chief Kenneronka, and her mother was an Algonquian who had been assimilated into the Mohawks. Her Mohawks name “Tekakwitha” means “one who bumps into things.” Kateri had a tough childhood and was faced with many moral challenges throughout her life. Immediately after her death at the age of 24, witnesses claim a miracle occurred. As a young girl of four, she survived smallpox but for the rest of her life bore ugly facial scars. Witnesses claim that after her death all of her scars completely disappeared. A church was built in her honor, and numerous miracles have been attributed to her.
From a young age, Kateri suffered hardship. At the age of four, her parents and her younger brother died of smallpox. She survived but her face was badly scarred, she suffered poor eyesight and poor health the rest of her life. Her aunt adopted her. At the age of 10, Kateri’s village was attacked by the French, and to end the fighting her Mohawk tribe agreed to live in French territory with the Jesuit missionaries, who wanted to convert the Indians. Kateri’s uncle forbade her to speak to the missionaries, but she disobeyed him. A Mohawk girl in the 1600s was supposed to grow up within the tribe, marry one of the Mohawk men, have babies, cook, weave mats and baskets, and work on the farm. Kateri chose at an early age to do something completely opposite. While with the Jesuits, her tribe was attacked by the Mahican, and she helped the missionaries care for the sick and wounded. After this experience, she told her aunt she never wanted to marry. In 1674, at the age of 18, Kateri decided to become a Catholic Christian and receive training form the French priests. Most in her tribe were disappointed and angry. She was ridiculed, called a witch, and ostracized. Two years later, she was baptized and moved to the Jesuit settlement of Kahnawake. It was then she took the Christian name of Kateri, after Saint Catherine of Sienna. At Kahnawake were other Indian converts to Christianity. Kateri was no longer bullied but instead was encouraged to follow her heart’s wishes. There, she met her mother’s best friend who had also converted and other Christian women. Kateri attempted to strive to live a Christian life in how she treated others, in fasting, and even in acts of self-mortification. Throughout the medieval Christian world, many believed that if you harmed yourself physically in honor of God you gained blessings for yourself and others. Kateri wanted to tie her physical pain to the sufferings of Christ. In 1680, Kateri Tekakwitha died at the Jesuit community of Kahnawake. Witnesses swore that within minutes of her death her facial scars healed and she became radiantly beautiful. Christians built a church in her honor, and pilgrims arrived to pray at her burial site. Some reported miracles that occurred because of Kateri’s intercessions. The Catholic Church proclaimed her a saint in 2012, the first Native American saint. Some believe Kateri’s story is joyful while others see it as a terrible tale of colonization. Catholics and other Christians point to her to show that Christianity gave Indian women the freedom to do what they want to do and to live in a loving community. Others say that her story shows how European colonization destroyed the Native American way of life and that the missionaries were wrong to convert her. Questions
 Geronimo (1829-1909) is one of the most-recognizable of American Indians who resisted the American government in the 1800s and 1900s. A leader of the Chiricahua tribe of the Apache, Geronimo fought Mexico, the United States of America, and other Native American Indians until he surrendered to the United States in 1886 and died a prisoner of war. Married nine times and father to many children, Geronimo brought fear into the hearts and minds of Mexicans and Americans.
Geronimo was born in Mexico in 1829, in present-day Arizona, and he was raised in the Apache war culture. The Apaches raided Mexican and other Indian villages as a way of life. During these raids, Apache would steal cattle and horses, kill men, and steal women as slaves. In response, Mexico tried to kill all Apache, offering $25 for every Apache scalp. As a young man, Geronimo married and had three children with his wife, Alope. On one outing while he was away on a trading trip, Mexican soldiers came into his camp and murdered women and children, including his mom, his young wife, and his three boys. He vowed to seek revenge the rest of his life against the Mexicans. In 1848, the land Geronimo’s Apaches lived on changed hands from the Mexicans to the Americans, and the Apaches were now enemies of not only the Mexicans but the Americans, as well. For the next 38 years, Geronimo and the Apaches successfully waged war against Mexico and the United States of America. His band of soldiers, and women and children, would travel as far as 70 miles a day to avert capture. At the same time, they waged guerilla war against settlers. 5,000 United States soldiers, 3,000 Mexicans, and hundreds of Indian scouts hounded Geronimo’s Apaches throughout the Southwest. Finally, Geronimo surrendered and he and his Apache tribe were taken prisoner to Oklahoma. Three years before Geronimo died, he converted to Christianity. In his autobiography, he said, “Since my life as a prisoner has begun I have heard the teachings of the white man's religion, and in many respects believe it to be better than the religion of my fathers. However, I have always prayed, and I believe that the Almighty has always protected me. Believing that in a wise way it is good to go to church, and that associating with Christians would improve my character, I have adopted the Christian religion. I believe that the church has helped me much during the short time I have been a member.” However, on his deathbed, it has been reported that he said he was no longer a Christian. This truth of this incident is uncertain, though, and he was buried in a Christian cemetery. Many Americans did not believe his conversion was real. Stories of his brutal tactics and successes would not allow them to think this Indian leader had accepted Christ. The New York Times noted when he died that Geronimo “was the worst type of aboriginal American savage. Even his so-called religious conversion was not without cunning.” The Times journalists believed he had converted in order to persuade President Roosevelt to give the Apaches back their land in Arizona. Geronimo was very fond of marriage. He married nine times and it appears he had many children. Some of his wives, like his first one, Alope, were murdered by soldiers. One witness claims he killed one of his wives when she would not escape from soldiers with him. He did have multiple wives at the same time, which was keeping in tradition with the Apache custom. Toward the end of his life, Geronimo appeared in Wild West shows, at world’s fairs, and rode in President Roosevelt’s Inaugural Parade. On the reservation, he sold bows and arrows and posed for pictures. As there was little work available for Indians, it is a sign of resourcefulness that Geronimo stayed active through the age of 90. The night before he died, he went into town and got drunk. Riding home, he fell off his horse. Injured and unable to get back on, he stayed out all night long. He caught pneumonia and eventually died.
Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) was one of the most influential American women of the 20th century. As a progressive and eugenicist, she believed that some humans were, by nature, inferior to others. Sanger was primarily driven to provide women complete control over their reproductive life and to make it impossible for the “unfit” to have children. Sanger wanted to create a master race. To achieve her ends, she sought to legalize and spread contraception and sterilization. Sanger was not a fan of abortion, but she wanted it legal and her work paved the way for the modern abortion industry. In 1921, she established The American Birth Control League, later to be named Planned Parenthood.
Eugenics, according to the online Merriam Webster Dictionary, is “the practice or advocacy of controlled selective breeding of human populations (as by sterilization) to improve the population's genetic composition.” Margaret Sanger believed in eugenics. Sanger wrote at the top of her birth control magazine publications, “More children from the fit and less from the unfit. That is the chief aim of birth control.” In a New York Times interview in 1922, she stated, “Superman is the aim of birth control.” In her book, The Pivot of Civilization, Sanger wrote, “Every feeble-minded girl or woman of the hereditary type, especially of the moron class should be segregated during the reproductive period.” Sanger supported infanticide of disabled babies and wanted the legalization of abortion to achieve her eugenic goals. Was Sanger a racist and did she want the elimination of ethnic minorities in America because of their race? That is hard to answer. But there is no doubt she believed she was able to decide who should live and who should not. Writing in 1931 “My Way to Peace, Sanger states she wants the government to : . . . keep the doors of Immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race, such as feeble-minded, idiots, morons, insane, syphiletic, epileptic, criminal, professional prostitutes, and others in this class . . . apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization, and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring. For Sanger, birth control was the primary method to promote a superior race, although she also wrote in favor of legalizing abortion. During the first half of her lifetime, birth control was illegal in the United States of America. Sanger worked to change society about contraception. In 1921, she formed the American Birth Control League to promote contraception. In 1929, she formed lobby group to push legislators to make contraception legal. In a 1936 court case, Sanger challenged and won the right for physicians to obtain contraceptives. That next year, the American Medical Association adopted contraception as a normal medical service. The majority of Americans in the early 1900s believed that God should be in charge of determining when life begins, and that people should not use artificial means to influence pregnancy. Every major Christian religion opposed artificial contraception until 1930, when the Anglican Church approved it for married couples. Shortly after, other Protestant Christian Churches approved it. The Roman Catholic Church still teaches that artificial contraception is inherently evil. Margaret Sanger sought to control the population, especially in low income, immigrant, and African-American communities. She wrote, “A License for Mothers to Have Babies” with the subtitle, “A code to stop the overproduction of children.” In this publication, she asserted that parenthood was not a right but a privilege that only the state could give. She championed the 1939 initiative “The Negro Project,” which sought to get rid of too many births among African Americans. She declared, “The mass of Negroes, particularly in the South, still breed carelessly and disastrously, with the result that the increase among Negroes, even more than among whites, is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit, and least able to rear children properly.” Sanger visited the totalitarian countries of Nazi Germany and Communist Soviet Union in the 1930s. Her main reason was to investigate how these two totalitarian governments handled women’s rights, eugenics, and human reproductive matters. While not a NAZI, Sanger shared the stage with other NAZI eugenicists and did not denounce them. Sanger did not approve of Hitler’s barbarism, but she also did not change her views on forced sterilizations of the unfit or legalizing abortion. After visiting the Soviet Union in 1935, she wrote for the Birth Control Review, "Russia today is the country of the liberated woman. The attitude of Soviet Russia toward its women...would delight the heart of the staunchest feminist." She liked that the Soviets gave out free contraceptive devices to women, but she disliked the Soviet use of abortion as a means of mass population control. She didn’t object to legalizing abortion, but thought that Russians used abortion too frequently and women needed more access to contraceptives. Margaret Sanger died in 1966. Her work changed American society and perhaps the world. For Progressive who think the government and certain “fit” women should decide who should live and who has the right to procreate, she is their hero. When Sanger was born, in 1879, birth control and abortion were illegal throughout the United States of America, and both were viewed as sinful by the great majority of Americans who were Christian. She worked to make every means of birth control and eugenics a reality in America. At her death, birth control was legal in most states, and, seven years after her death, abortion became legal, as well. The organization that she founded, Planned Parenthood, became the nation’s largest provider of abortion and today, promotes abortion and sterilization around the world. In 2020, Planned Parenthood accounted for 345,672 abortions and 2.6 million contraceptive services in the United States. Annually, there are over 1 million abortions in America, averaging 3,000 a day. Sanger’s views on population control, eugenics, and birth control and abortion have had a major influence in the country and in the world. Questions
 One of America’s greatest doctors and activists for the least protected in society was Mildred Fay Jefferson (1927-2010). Jefferson was the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, the first woman to graduate in surgery from Harvard, and the first woman to become a member of the Boston Surgical Society. She influenced a President of the United States of America to change his mind on abortion, and throughout her life, she was a voice for powerless in American society.
Mildred Jefferson was born in raised in segregated Texas and experienced first-hand racism and sexism. She grew up in a time where legally, black Americans experienced injustices because of their color. Her father was a Methodist minister and her mother a school teacher. Even though blacks had less opportunities than whites in the 1930s and 1940s, Jefferson never let her circumstances hold her back. As a young girl, she accompanied the town doctor on his house calls and told him that she would one day become a doctor. This was during a time that nearly all doctors were men and white. She succeeded in her dream. Jefferson was an outstanding student and throughout her career she broke new ground for black Americans and for women. At the age of 15, she entered Texas College and earned her bachelor’s degree in three years. Normally it takes four years. She went on to earn a master’s degree in biology and then to Harvard and became a medical doctor in 1951. She was Harvard’s first black woman ever to graduate from medical school. She was the first female doctor at the Boston University Medical Center and the first woman to become a member of the Boston Surgical Society. Jefferson worked all her life to defend the innocent and society’s most vulnerable. She strongly believed in the preservation of life, and fought tirelessly to protect the unborn. Around 1970, she was one of the founders of Massachusetts Citizens for Life. She later was one of the founders of the National Right to Life Committee. She was President of this committee from 1975-1978. “Millie” was a persuasive speaker, and after one time listening to her speech, the future President Ronald Reagan became pro-life. He wrote to her, "You have made it irrefutably clear that an abortion is the taking of a human life, I am grateful to you. " In a 1978 video, Jefferson explained: “I became a physician in order to help save lives. I am at once a physician, a citizen, and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow the concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged, and the planned have the right to live.” And, in another interview that same year, ““I would guess that the abortionists have done more to get rid of generations and cripple others than all of the years of slavery and lynchings.” On October 15, 2020, at the age of 84, Mildred Fay Jefferson passed away in her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was a pioneer in medicine for American women and for black Americans and she tirelessly fought for the lives of those who could not speak for themselves. Questions
 One of America’s greatest authors of all time was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name Mark Twain (1835-1910). He was born in Missouri when it was considered the west, and continued moving west until he decided it was time to jump continents and live in Europe. Known for his wit, his analysis of human behavior, and at the end of his life his love for young people, Twain’s writings exemplify what it meant to be an American living in the 1800s. Change, moving west, honesty, independent-minded, funny, self-critical and struggle was the story of Mark Twain.
Twain is famous for his literature. His one-liners tell us a great deal about him. “Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often” “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” “I once fell into a California river and got all dusty.” “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.” “The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.” “Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.” “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” Throughout Twain’s writing life, he made Americans, and others around the world, laugh at themselves, laugh at others, and question if what they were doing was the right thing. Called the greatest American author that ever lived, Mark Twain’s life was all about moving, change, honesty and integrity. Samuel Clemens was born in Missouri and raised in Hannibal, right next to the Mississippi River. He became Mark Twain when his writing career took off. That river became the focus point of two of his most famous novels about a boy growing up in 1800s America, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. At various times throughout America’s history, these books have been forbidden by libraries because of their use of the “N Word,” even though Twain wrote in the vernacular and even though these books do not support racism. Three of Twain’s siblings died young, and his dad died when the boy was only 11. After his father’s death, Twain left school and became a printer’s apprentice, then a typesetter, then a printer, writing various humorous stories while working in New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. He came back to the Mississippi River and trained for two years for his dream job, a steamboat pilot. He worked as a pilot until 1861, when the Civil War broke out. He joined the war as a Confederate soldier, and after two weeks, he quit and “lit out for the West.” In the west, Clemens tried and failed as a miner and went back to writing. While writing articles for various newspapers, in Nevada and then in California, he also wrote short stories, such as “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” He was hired to travel to Europe and the Middle East and write about it. On this trip, fellow passenger Charles Langdon showed him a picture of his sister. Mark Twain described the moment as falling in love with the woman at first sight. This girl in the picture later became his wife! She wasn’t even on the boat. Samuel Clemens married Olivia Langdon in 1870 in New York and had three daughters and one son (who passed away at 19 months). Samuel and his wife were married for 34 years until Olivia’s death in 1904. Through his wife’s family, Samuel Clemens met Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and other important figures of the day. In the 1870s and 1880s the Clemens family lived in Connecticut, where Mark Twain wrote many of his famous novels. While Mark Twain was a famous author, he made poor investments that caused his bankruptcy. Trying his hand with inventions and technology, Twain lost nearly all his financial worth. For much of the 1890s, the Clemens family lived in various countries of Europe, seeking help from their poor health, searching for less expensive places to live, and in between, Twain would come back to the states to try to resolve his financial problems. Even though Twain had declared bankruptcy and did not need to pay back his debtors, he went on a year-long arduous world lecture tour to make enough money to pay back all those who had ever loaned him money. Mark Twain was a sought-after speaker, performing humorous solo talks, similar to modern stand-up-comedy. Mark Twain had believed America should spread the American way of life around the world. However, after supporting the Spanish-American War of 1898, he had a change of heart and became an anti-Imperialist. He saw how the USA fought the Philippines instead of allowing this people their independence immediately. Twain said, “I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.” In the later years of Twain’s life, he lived in Manhattan. After his daughter died in 1896, his wife in 1904, and then another daughter in 1909, he understandably was depressed, at times. He still wrote, however, and, he even formed a club for girls who were interested in writing. Called the “Angel Fish and Aquarium Club” for a dozen girls between the ages of 10 and 16, Twain exchanged letters, took them to concerts and the theatre and played games with the kids. In 1908, Twain wrote that the club was his “life’s chief delight.” Mark Twain predicted that he would die when Halley’s Comet came closest to Earth in 1910. He believed this because he was born two weeks after the Comet was closest to Earth in 1835. Twain said, “I came with Hally’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almight has said, no doubt: Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.” Mark Twain died on April 21, 1910, one day after Halley’s Comet was closest to Earth. He lived a life of integrity, humor, and devotion, as well as being one of America’s greatest authors of all time. His writings continue to cause laughter and controversy today. He could have chosen to not pay back his debts, but he left his family for one year to pay his creditors. Towards the end of his life, when those closest to him had died, he supported and encouraged young girls in their writing and enjoyment of life. Ernest Hemingway wrote of Mark Twain, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” Questions
|
John De GreeJohn De Gree writes the current events with a look at the history of each topic. Articles are written for the young person, aged 10-18, and Mr. De Gree carefully writes so that all readers can understand the event. The perspective the current events are written in is Judeo-Christian. Receive Articles and Coupons in Your EmailArchives
May 2022
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
CLASSICAL HISTORIAN MISSION
Classical Historian educates and inspires youth to seek the truth in history and to champion individual liberty and virtue. ...more
Classical Historian educates and inspires youth to seek the truth in history and to champion individual liberty and virtue. ...more
|
SUPPORT
|
RESOURCES
|
|
|
|
|
|