Hmmm, so Larry would have preferred that Germany won World War I.
Interesting.
On Apr 21, 12:52=A0am, "parrthe...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
" <parrthe...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> WARREN HARDING
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0Arthur Link, an apologist for Woodrow Wilson's
> decision to enter WWI and the author of the definitive
> biography of the man, wrote a slender volume about
> Wilson's foreign policy.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0The legal issue of the British blockade (yes,
> the Brits would have sank our merchant vessels had we
> tried to run their blockade) and the German U-boat
> sinking of our UNARMED merchant vessels concerned
> whether the blockade was effective. =A0Effective
> blockades were legal, ineffective ones were illegal.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0Wilson militarized our economy (which Harding
> proceeded very largely to dismantle, much to his
> enduring credit) and dispatched an expeditionary force
> based on the idea that the flag followed commerce.
> There was also the issue of something called "national
> honor," which no European politician since WWI has
> dared to invoke as a reason for going to war. =A0(Our
> presidents occasionally talk about "national honor"
> when we are facing mismatched opponents, but to be
> sure, keep their oral cavities resolutely zipped, as
> does even Bush, when an issue of possible force
> involves Russia or China.)
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0So, then, after the French in the name of honor
> marched men against German machine-guns at the
> Battle of the Frontiers during the first days of WWI
> (possible casualties, still not fully revealed even
> today, are about 250,000 dead in a single week) the
> first taste of fighting for "national honor" began to
> sour. =A0In the case of England, the casualties coming
> back after the first two days of the Somme (60,000
> dead or wounded on the first day) resulted in ... the
> first military draft in England's history. =A0That was
> the true moment when WWI lost the sup****t of
> English society.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 Harding would never have involved us in WWI. =A0My
> evocation of "millions" of corpses was obviously not
> exhausted by the American dead of about 120,000.
> Wilson's policy for two years before our entry in
> April 1917 had propped up the British and the French.
> One ought to mention that Wilson's pro-British policy
> also encouraged sup****t within the royal family for
> Douglas Haig, the murderous general who could famously
> "take losses." =A0Wilson was complicit to some degree in
> those losses, when even British PM Lloyd George was
> trying to keep British tommies out of Haig's hands.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 If the Great War had ended in German victory in
> 1917, there would never have been the ac***ulated mass
> horrors of Stalinism, Maoism and Hitlerism. =A0Stalin
> would have ended up as a zookeeper in the Central
> Caucasus, Trotsky a radical editor in NYC and Lenin a
> fairly well-off, if frustrated, French tutor for advantaged
> children in Zurich. =A0Hitler might have become a decent
> architect, since his movement would have been unimaginable
> =A0under the Hohenzollerns.
>
> Madame Chiang's radiant New Life movement in China
> would have had a chance to succeed, and China would
> today be free and considerably wealthier than it isnder
> a Communist Party that has largely abandoned communism.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0All of the above is separate from the issue of
> war guilt. =A0The Kaiser blundered (his infamous "Blank
> check" to the Austrians at Potsdam) into a war that no
> one wanted except for some fanatical Serbs, though the
> guilt of the sinister Sazonov, the Russian foreign
> minister, in bullying the Tsar into declaring war
> mobilization, was the decisive event that led to the
> German invasion of France and Belgium.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0(Years back I read Sazonov's memoirs, which he
> wrote during his final years as an exile in France.
> The man defended virtually every disastrous policy
> initiative that he undertook. =A0Sigh. =A0It is a relatively
> rare volume that Sam Sloan might consider exhuming
> and publi****ng, if there is not a new edition out as yet.)
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0For those interested in the subject of WWI, the
> best memoir is probably Robert Graves' "Goodbye to All
> That" the best history on the origins of the war, a
> balanced work that rightly criticizes the Kaiser, is
> undoubtedly Luigi Albertini's three volumes =A0"Origins
> of the War of 1914" (I spent four days reading those
> books, non-stop, I was transfixed, great history); and
> the best case to be made by one of Taylor Kingston's
> court historians would be Barbara Tuchman's very
> readable, anti-German, "The Guns of August."
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 Did readers notice Taylor Kingston's evocation
> of the German Zimmerman Telegram inciting mighty,
> =A0feudal Mexico to war with the United States?
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0You have to decide for yourselves whether a
> silly attempt by the Germans to stir up hopeless
> people meets the bar for entering a major, sanguinary,
> freedom-destroying European war?
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0Would any of you favor entering a war in what
> Halford Mackinder called the Heartland if Russia sent
> a Zimmerman or Zimmertov Telegram to Mexico? =A0 (Alas,
> some dunderheads would -- the ones who still
> sup****t pouring trillions into Iraq and destroying the
> U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. =A0But I am
> talking to sane readers here.)
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0I figure that few of you would have the stomach
> for trying to send an American army -- in the name of
> national honor and a Zimmertov Telegram -- to the
> Eurasian Heartland, and there to do battle on Russian
> soil. =A0Most of you figure that you would be wearing
> burlap for ****rts and wrapped rags for shoes in a
> couple of years. =A0A lot of you would lose your
> enthusiasm after losing, say, 15 million dead men
> between the ages, mainly, of 18 and 29. =A0Perhaps
> some among you, though chances are increasingly dim
> in aliterate America, will pen the equivalent of Vera
> Brittain's "Testament of Youth" which if one must sum
> up its rich contents in a single phrase, was about,
> "Where have all the young men gone?"
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0Harding and his type of men -- the ones who
> knew a poker deck and believed in America as a
> commercial republic -- scoffed at the concept of
> national honor as a reason to fight a war on the
> mainland of Europe. =A0(Even during WWI itself, which
> was a time of virulent anti-Germanism in the United
> States and raids on radicals, Harding kept a low
> profile in sup****t of the War. =A0To oppose WWI at the
> BEGINNING =A0of the war, was politically suicidal.)
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0One should further mention that after taking
> office, Harding, though conservative and capitalist to
> the core, released radicals, amnestied deserters and
> freed socialist leader Eugene Debs in his General
> Amnesty on Christmas Day 1921. This amnesty was
> possibly Harding's finest moment.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0If you oppose the warfare-welfare regime of
> mass government, seeking to kill people abroad and
> destroy initiative at home with welfarism, then
> Harding was one of our better presidents.
>
> Yours, Larry Parr
>
>
>
> Sam Sloan wrote:
> > I sent the book to the printers last night. It should be out in a week
> > to ten days.
>
> > This book will be available at the following address:
> >http://www.amazon.com/dp/0923891234
>
> > You cannot imagine how difficult this was. Pages of the original book
> > were off center. Printing was irregular. Some pages bold. Other pages
> > light.
>
> > I have discovered some interesting new things.
>
> > Although Nan Britton mentions numerous relatives, she never gives the
> > names of her mother and father. I have learned from the book "Florence
> > Harding" by Carl Sferrazza Anthony that her father was Dr. Sam Britton
> > and he died in June 1913. This was about the time that Nan Britton
> > started fooling around with the future president. I believe that Dr.
> > Sam Britton was probably the same person as Samuel Herbert Britton
> > (1859-1913) who is buried in nearby Knox County Ohio and was the son
> > of Mary Critchfield.
>
> > Nan's mother was Mary Williams Britton. She was a school teacher but I
> > have found nothing much on her.
>
> > Nan's middle name was Popham, so her full name Nana Popham Britton. My
> > great-great-grandmother was Jane Popham (1809-1893) so it seems likely
> > that Nan Britton was my very distant cousin. The grandfather of Jane
> > Popham was Job Popham (1709-1781). He and his son Humphrey Popham (b.
> > 1763) had many children and were possibly polygamists. This is the
> > likely source of the Popham name in Nana Popham Britton, but so far I
> > have not been able to find anything more on this.
>
> > The daughter of Nan Britton and President Warren G. Harding was
> > Elizabeth Ann who died on 17 November 2005 at age 96 in Oregon,
> > outliving her mother who only lived to age 94.
>
> > In her book, Nan Britton says that after the death of President
> > Harding she married a man named "Captain Neilsen" because she believed
> > that he had a lot of money and could sup****t her daughter, Elizabeth
> > Ann. However, when Captain Neilsen turned out not to have any money at
> > all, she either got a divorce or an annulment.
>
> > An Internet website in Oregon gives the name of that man as Magnus
> > Cricken.
>
> > Does this mean that he was a complete fraud, that his name was not
> > Captain Neilsen at all, or did she just give him a fake name in the
> > book?
>
> > She gives the name of the man who often brought her money from
> > President Harding as Tim Slade, but says that this is a fake name. I
> > am trying to find out what his real name was. He must have been a
> > close associate of Harding.
>
> > I have found a newspaper article published in Toledo, Ohio on November
> > 3, 1931 that shows a picture of Elizabeth Ann at age 12. Elizabeth Ann
> > looks exactly like Warren G. Harding. This picture erases any possible
> > doubt that Elizabeth Ann really was the daughter of President Harding.
>
> > Sam Sloan- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
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