President Woodrow Wilson is our brightest star in Our Sky of Presidents. However, it was another bright star, who established the principles of the modern Democratic Party.
We need a new Mount Rushmore, a Democratic Mount Rushmore. Dominated by our sun, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and our second brightest light in the sky, Bill Clinton. When there is a new moon, the stars shine the brightest and the brightest of our presidential stars is Woodrow Wilson. However, it was another bright star, who established the principles of our modern Democratic Party, Grover Cleveland.
I believe in the Democratic Party, because she represents effective and efficient government; government that works and acts for the people.
Once upon a time, there was an idiot with brains one degree less than a moron. That idiot shot and killed President Garfield. Vice President Arthur took over the presidency. According to the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, the President Pro Temp of the Senate stands next in line of succession. If the Senate fails to elect a president, then the presidency goes to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. While President Arthur was suffering from Bright's Disease, a fatal kidney disease, a divided Congress could not agree on a President Pro Temp or a Speaker of a House. If President Arthur had died, we would have faced a Constitutional crisis of an unprecedented nature. There was nobody to succeed him. The Republicans did nothing about the problem. President Arthur failed to win the Republican presidential nomination and the Republicans failed to win the presidential election. Under President Grover Cleveland, Vice President Thomas Hendricks suffered a massive stroke and passed away. Once again, there was no Senate President nor a Speaker of the House. After twelve days, the Senate finally elected John Sherman as their president. If President Cleveland would have died, then our country would have been in the same awkward position as the Soviet Union found itself after the deaths of Lenin and Stalin. The British have suffered through the War of the Roses and even Israel had a succession war after the death of King Saul. The continent of Europe suffered through the War of the Spanish Succession and the War of the Austrian Succession, to name a few. Our Democratic President encouraged Congress to pass the Presidential Succession Act of 1886, making the Secretary of State the president, on the death of a president and in the absence of a vice president. Other Cabinet members were in the succession line behind the Secretary of State. We never had a period in our history without a presidential Cabinet. President Cleveland was pro-active in fixing a problem, before it became a problem.
Today, with a two-thirds majority needed to pass a budget in California and term limits for the state legislatures, the Republicans created a problem. They have caused paralysis in government. While Democrat Grover Cleveland made the government more effective and efficient, the Republicans have created stagnation in government.
I believe in the Democratic Party as the instrument of the people to fight fraud and greed. Now the veterans of the War Between the States made fraudulent claims against the government of the United States and against her taxpayers. For example, a parent would retrieve his child's kite out of a tree, then fall out of the tree, himself. This injury was not war related. Nor was it war related, if the veteran got drunk inside a saloon and suffered a fight-related injury. Yet the veterans were claiming these pensions causing our government to go into bankruptcy, until they received the Cleveland presidential veto. VETO, VETO, VETO! Our Democratic president vetoed hundreds of these false pension claims against the Treasury of the United States.
Now I do not want the reader to believe that the veterans were the only members of our society suffering from the virus of greed. The railroad barons not only charged excessively high rates, they favored the larger corporations and big business. Also, it would cost me more to ship my fright from Boston to Washington, then to ship from Cleveland to Los Angeles. They practiced price fixing and gouging. So our Democratic president urged Congress to establish the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate and supervise the railroads.
I believe in the Democratic Party as the party of inclusion, not exclusion. For example, while Republican President Hayes restricted the immigration of the Chinese and one of the first presidential acts of Republican President Arthur was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, our Democratic President signed the Daws Act into law. For the first time in the History of the United States, American citizenship was made available to our native tribes. After all these years, the Indians were offered membership into our American Union.
I believe in the Democratic Party, because the Democratic Party supports public education. President Cleveland signed the Hatch Act into law, which provided federal funding for the establishment of agricultural and mechanical colleges in each state of the Union. Today, while the Republicans favor vouchers, the Democrats support aid to public education. Incidentally, in that connection, no governor did more to advance public education, then our former governor, Gray Davis.
I believe in the Democratic Party, because I believe in free trade. President Cleveland worked hard for tariff reduction, before the expiration of his term of office. I salute President Clinton for NAFTA and all of his efforts to promote free trade.
One thing that the Republicans are good at is stealing elections. Before they stole one from Al Gore, they stole one from Grover Cleveland. I'm not going to go through the Harrison Administration; however, people wanted Grover Cleveland back in the White House. (Incidentally, today, the American people want Bill Clinton back in the White House.)
I believe in the Democratic Party, because the Democratic Party stands against imperialism and so do I. One of the first actions of the second Cleveland Administration was the withdrawal from the Senate, the consideration for the annexation of Hawaii. The Kingdom of Hawaii was the sad victim of the Age of Imperialism and our conquest of the Hawaiian Islands was one of shame. It was immoral and unethical, to say the least. Today, we are fighting two wars, while under President Clinton our country enjoyed Peace and Prosperity.
The Legacy of the Republican Harrison Administration was the Panic of 1893. Unlike Republican Presidents Hoover and Bush, Democratic Presidents like Cleveland, Roosevelt, and Clinton provided effective and efficient government action to relieve public suffering. President Cleveland encouraged Congress to repeal the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, which was the principle cause of the economic depression. Another cause of the panic, was the exorbitant tariff rates. President Harrison signed the McKinley Tariff Act into law, which raised the rates to an exorbitant 48%. President Cleveland worked hard with West Virginia Representative William Wilson to lower the rates. Alas, we do have some bad Democrats and Maine Senator Gorman sabotaged the bill, which became the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act. The rates were only reduced to 41% and on some goods, the rates were actually increased. President Cleveland stated that the Democratic Party became "the party of perfidy and dishonor."
Incidentally, in that connection, once I went to the meeting of the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley and I received such an icy reception, that ice cubes formed in my hot cup of coffee. The room temperature fell to absolute zero centigrade and I felt that I was inside a refrigerator. After the meeting, I checked into the emergency room at my local hospital, where my doctor treated me for hypothermia and frostbite.
One of the significant differences between Democrats and Republicans is that the Democratic Party is pro-labor, while the Republican Party is pro-business. Another difference is that while the Republican Party allows business to destroy our environment, defraud our consumers, be unfair to labor, curtail competition, and violate government codes, the Democrats punish labor, whenever the unions need chastisement. For example, the Kennedy Administration's prosecution of Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters. Allow me to give you another example. Socialist Eugene V. Debs called an illegal strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company. The strike was in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890. The American Railway Union was ordered to go back to work by a court injunction. The workers refused, began to damage private property, and the strike erupted into violence. Debs was arrested and the President called out the troops to break the strike. At this point, our federal mail could not be delivered and nobody has the right to impede the mail. Our president was committed to "liberty and justice for all." Just because the Democratic Party is supported by the labor unions, when they call for an illegal strike and violate a court injunction, then our Democratic President will take them by the hand, to the back of the barn, discipline them properly, and then restore labor to a place of dignity at our dinner table. There is no place for socialism in our labor movement and incidentally, in this connection, Grover Cleveland put Socialist Eugene V. Debs into jail and Woodrow Wilson made sure that he stayed there.
Finally, our Democratic Party is committed to the protection and defense of those sovereign nations, who are not capable to stand up to the imperialism of the Great Powers. Before Islam, Communism, Fascism, and Nazism, the imperialism of the Great Powers ran rampant over the smaller nations. In our own hemisphere, British Imperialism threatened the little Latin American country of Venezuela in South American. There was a boundary dispute between British Guiana and Venezuela and the British wanted to take territory from Venezuela and add it to their colony in Guiana. President Cleveland intervened and forced the British into international arbitration. When the situation get out of control in Bosnia, President Clinton intervened to help the victims of that war-torn region.
So I believe in the Democratic Party of Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton. I believe in effective and efficient government, a government that acts and works for the people, because she belongs to the people. I believe in fighting greed and corruption. I believe in diversity. As a public school teacher, I believe in public education. I believe in free trade. I stand against imperialism and I stand for "Peace without Surrender." I believe that our government must and should be an economic partner to business, labor, and the consumer. I believe that taxes should be fair and objective. As a member of the United Teachers of Los Angeles, I'm pro-labor. Finally, I hope our President achieves "Peace with Honor" in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I thank you for reading this, I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting, and I ask for your vote for Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee.
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