Category Archives: history

Us vs. It—part IX, prayer and politics.

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Last Sunday was Ascension Sunday in our faith tradition. Our minister remarked that he had seen a joke circulating on Facebook that when Jesus ascended into Heaven, he became the first person to work from home.

President Trump, just before the holiday weekend, ordered churches to open “right now” for face-to-face worship. As he has done in the past, he claimed exclusive power to override local and state orders for worship-in-place limits. The president who has proclaimed that it’s up to states and their governors to fight the Coronavirus, with his administration only as a backup, seemed to think on the issue of opening churches that governors and states (and mayors and cities) have no business standing in his way when it comes to letting congregations, uh, congregate.

As is often the case with this president, he was claiming a power he does not have and the motive behind a statement, a bluster, a tweet, a fabrication, a rant—whatever—is a matter of what benefits him.

It isn’t all that hard to see who President Trump really tried to please with his sudden “order.” Politico reported his bolt-from-the-blue announcement Friday was the result of “a sudden shift in support…among religious conservatives is triggering alarm bells inside his reelection campaign.” A couple of reputable religious polling organizations show a “staggering decline in the president’s favorability among white evangelicals and white Catholics.” Both groups strongly supported Trump in 2016. The Public Religion Research Institute last month showed double-digit drops in favorability among mainline Protestants (down 18%), white Catholics (down 12%) and white evangelicals (down 11%).

Once again, it appears the president responded to his advisors who said, “You’ve got to do something!”

The PRRI cited above is run by Dr. Robert P. Jones, who has Baptist roots, a Master of Divinity degree from Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar and who once was an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Missouri State University in Springfield. His 2016 book, The End of White Christian America is a thoughtful study of cultural changes underway in our country, the fears of some that are motivating some political considerations and actions, and an analysis of how the white Christian culture that has dominated the course of this nation can maintain significance in the face of ongoing and inevitable cultural change.

The President last Friday didn’t answer any questions that inevitably would have been asked about his ongoing claim that he has absolute power over such things as this.

One indisputable thing he did say in his Friday announcement is, “In America, we need more prayer, not less.” He’s correct, of course, although he might not like many of the prayers that are being offered. Plus, prayers don’t have to be said inside a religious building to be heard. This observer has heard prayers on street corners. In fact, he and his wife were once stopped on a street in Philadelphia—near the cemetery where Benjamin Franklin is buried—but a great big fella who grabbed my right hand and her left and offered up a mighty prayer for our well-being. Scared the living bejeezus out of us for a second or two. But on reflection, it was kind of nice.

We know the President will be deeply disappointed and maybe angry that our church is ignoring his pronouncement. We don’t plan to gather in our sanctuary at First Christian in Jefferson City until June 7. We hope he doesn’t become upset that Governor Parson did not force us to gather there last Sunday.

It often has been observed that a church is not a building. When a pastor says, “Good morning, church,” the pastor is not talking to a structure but to a flock.

Someone, we tuned in too late to hear who it was on the radio Sunday morning, suggested the President probably hasn’t read the Bible very much, particularly the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus suggests (as we in these times might interpret it) that it is not necessary to gather in groups under a roof to pray. In fact, it seemed to suggest just the opposite:

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven…And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you..

Baptist minister Rod Kennedy, who is doing an interim ministry at the First Baptist Church in Ottawa, Kansas, responded to the President’s demand that churches open “right now” on his Facebook page:

President Trump,

On behalf of my Baptist congregation, I want to thank you for your concern for houses of worship. We respectfully decline your suggestion that we reopen. The Frist Amendment, religious freedom, separation of church and state,—all that constitutes our right to ignore you.

I’m not drinking bleach, taking suspected drugs, or buying your demagoguery. We will let you know when our church decides to reopen. After all, we are a free, independent Baptist congregation and government interference iirritates our Baptist gumption.

When churches do re-open we would be happy to see you in church every Sunday. It might help you find some divine wisdom.

If you want to help, wear a mask, stop being divisive, make sure voting will be easy in November, and stop mocking, threatening, and demeaning others. It’s not a religious practice.

Kennedy, who describes himself as a “Catholic Baptist,” retired after twelve years at the First Baptist Church of Dayton, Ohio. He has no trouble pointing out the differences he has with the more fundamentalist members of the diverse denomination. He posted a couple of longer additional messages to the President and the responses illustrate the wide differences among Baptists—and among those of other denominations who call themselves Christian. See https://baptistnews.com/article/self-described-catholic-baptist-leaves-ohio-church-embarks-on-writing-career/#.Xsrq8mhKiUk if you want to know more about him and if you’re a Facebooker, you can go to his page or if you want to hear what he sounds like in the pulpit, go to the First Baptist Church webpage in Ottawa, Kansas.

Last Sunday morning, we went to the presidential webpage to check on President Trump’s schedule for Sunday, May 24:

President Donald Trump has no public events on his schedule today and is expected to remain in the White House with the first family. With the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and current recovery efforts, the president is likely to meet with national leaders and public officials regarding the needs of the coming week.

Mmmmm-hmm. Churches are essential but not so essential that he would do what he urged millions of Americans, particularly his faithful followers (read that any way you would prefer) to do—go to church even “with the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and current recovery efforts.” Wonder why he didn’t tell Melania and Baron Sunday morning, “We’re going to church—right now!”  Instead he went out and he worshipped the putter and the driver.

Sometime when the man gets all worked up like this, we wish somebody would say, “Oh, go take a pill!” But—– hasn’t he already been doing that?

Us vs. It—part VII, Thoughts from a Quiet Street, Pandemic edition

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A lot more thinking happens on the quiet street when you can’t mingle with your usual social groups and when you have to stand in the middle of the street to talk to your neighbor. It is amazing how profound one can be if the only one you can talk to up close is yourself.

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We’ve been keeping a journal of our thoughts about the pandemic year since March 28. No idea when we’ll stop because there’s no idea when the virus will stop. It’s not too late for you to start one, too. And you should. The State Historical Society has suggested it as a worthwhile time-filler for you and as a valuable historical resource in the future for those who want to see what life was like during this event. The society has some journals from the Spanish Influenza years and they give us some insight behind the newspaper headlines we have in our microfilmed newspaper files (about 60-million pages worth). Personally, a lot of mental wandering goes on as we reflect on each day’s events. Hopes and fears. Anger and frustration. Funny occurrences. Next-door sorrow. The disappearance of our children’s inheritances. Struggles to pay the rent, the mortgage, and the grocery and pharmacy bills. The sound of birds as we take our daily walks. The real story of this era will be found in the daily journals we keep and put into historical societies and other archives. And what we are experiencing can be instructive decades from now (we hope) when another pandemic sweeps the world.

As long as you are cooped up, write about it. It can be therapeutic.

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Today, tomorrow, and Friday are all that’s left of this legislative session, a historic one because of the circumstances facing it. The legislative session of 1820 when lawmakers created state government, the sessions leading up to the Civil War and the turbulent governance years during the war, and the longest session in history after adoption of the 1945 Constitution might be considered equally unique. The 1945 session that started on January 3 lasted 240 days for the House, which adjourned on December 12, 1946, about three weeks before the 1947 session began. The Senate met for 251 days and adjourned on November 25. The legislature met every other year back then but the 1945 session ran through ‘46 because the legislature had to change so many laws to make them conform to the new Constitution.

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This session will be remembered because of the virus that extended spring break, caused a re-write of the state budget, and rewrote the rules for floor debate, not to mention the images of masked people in committee hearings and on the chamber floors. Depending on how irrational the omnibus bills that have materialized in the closing weeks because so many different issues were combined in one bill because of lack of time for regular processes, we might see an unusual number of vetoes or court cases challenging the legality of the bills passed.

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This business of quarantining might not seem as difficult to retired people as those with jobs. Retired people have been working from home for years.

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We do wish our state and national leaders would don masks when they go out in crowds or to check on how well businesses are reopening. This is not a time for, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Please, folks, be the example of what you promote.

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We suppose a lot of you have binge-watched a lot of television in the last several weeks. Your vigilant observer and his faithful companion are going to have to make a list of all the shows we’ve been binge-watching, just to keep track of which ones we’ve exhausted, which ones we’ve tried and didn’t think merited continuing, and which ones are still active. The other night we accidentally watched a third episode of something we gave up on after two shows several weeks ago. If we don’t keep a list we’re probably going to waste another 46 minutes on the fourth episode sometime in the future.

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Nancy has the sewing machine humming today making masks. She made a mask for informal occasions last week and she’s working on a “tuxedo” mask for me now that I can wear for a formal occasion or when I want to look as dignified as I can look with hair that hasn’t been this long since the high school senior play when I was a cousin in “Hillbilly Wedding.” You probably haven’t heard of it. For good reason.

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Cole County kicks off its bicentennial year with an event at Marion on June 5th. Maybe I can wear my formal mask for that. Marion was the first county seat of Cole County, back before Moniteau County was split away from us. Our first courthouse and county jail were built on Howard’s Bluff, just down Highway 179 from the Marion Access to the Missouri River. For most of the county’s history, we’ve been told it was named for Stephen Cole, “pioneer settler and Indian fighter.” But that’s about all we’ve known about him. We’ve spent the last couple of months or more trying to learn more about him. And we’ve come up with some surprising stuff. If you want to know about it, come out to Marion on June 5th. We’re going to be joined by some Cole ancestors.

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As far as we have been able to determine, Stephen Cole was never in Cole County unless he stopped here while canoeing back and forth from Boonville to St. Charles.

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Something we’ve noticed when we go on our almost-daily two mile walks through the neighborhood. Men drivers who go past us are more likely to wave than the women. And all drivers have a tendency to swerve into the other lane of the street even though we’re hugging the curb when they go by.   We always walk toward oncoming traffic, which we were taught long ago is the proper way to do it.

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A few nights ago we were on YouTube and came across Johnny Carson’s 17th anniversary Tonight Show. It occurred to us that we enjoyed Carson because he was funny. Today’s late-night hosts seem to have lost that spirit. Of course, Johnny Carson didn’t have Donald Trump to kick around.

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Therefore, we’re thinking of using this space next week for some Coronavirus humor.

Us vs It—Part VI, This better work

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This is the third day that Missouri is open for business and our lives haven’t changed here on our quiet street. The people at our house haven’t been tested yet and we don’t know anyone who has been. Our two hospitals offer testing. Maybe we’ll go see one of them soon. Columbia has five locations. Osage Beach has one. We mention those places because a lot of Jefferson City people work in Columbia, or will when the University reopens. And a lot of Columbia people work in Jefferson City now that state government is getting back to the new abnormal. A lot of these folks never quit working, of course. They just haven’t been in their offices. But we’ll be watching case numbers in Boone and Cole Counties, in particular, because of the numbers of people who pass each other going in opposite directions twice every day on Highway 63. And we’ll be watching case numbers in Camden County and Osage Beach because the reopening means tourism season has begun.

Governor Parson, the state health director, and various other state and private entities have assured us in the daily briefings that Missouri’s most critical numbers have been declining for the last two weeks, one of the main measurements needed to reopen. We’ve been assured the state is ready to quickly respond to hot spots such as meat packing plants in California and St. Joseph (St. Joseph had only one testing station when we checked the list last Sunday and California has none) and Marshall (which has one).

We have welcomed the Governor’s daily briefings. They have been examples of the kinds of Coronavirus briefings adults should conduct and we appreciate the recent change that allows reporters to be present instead of submitting questions. That’s important because answers often lead to other questions and the old system didn’t provide that opportunity very well.

We understand the growing pressure on states to reopen for business but the lack of a vaccine and the admission that the virus has not and will not go away leaves us nervous. The YMCA reopened on Monday with a lot of precautionary policies put into place to keep us safe. We haven’t resumed our three-times-a-week morning workouts yet although we miss our friends a great deal. We’ll go back soon, just not right now.

Our church isn’t going to go back to in-person worship services until the first Sunday in June. I don’t know that we’ll go to a restaurant or to a movie theatre anytime soon. We both plan to wear our masks for awhile any time we go someplace where a lot of people are visiting or shopping.

We are going to tiptoe into the world, not dash into it.

We want things to be okay. We want to be able to be with friends. We want our working friends to get their jobs back.

Your faithful observer has kept a journal since March 28th and it is unlikely that journal will stop anytime soon. Our wish is that there be little to add to it but we’re keeping it going into autumn, into the next flu season and, if the scientists are correct, into the second wave of this virus.

To be candid, we suspect reopening the state and the nation is as much a political decision as it is anything else. But reopening has to occur, or had to occur, sooner or later and most of the people in positions to decide when reopening is appropriate and safe (enough) recognize the responsibility they are assuming by giving the go-ahead. It seems to us from having watched the daily briefings from our capitol that the reopening order has not been hastily or easily given.

We do hope there are thresholds in place that will determine when stay-at-home orders will be put back in place.

If you’ve read these entries this year you know we spent a lot of time looking at what happened with the last great pandemic, the Spanish Flu of 1918-19, and while our abilities to fight a pandemic are better than they were, the shortcomings in response that we have seen leave us nervous.

We don’t think our governor would unlock the doors if he didn’t think it was safe to go out and responsibly conduct ourselves and our business.

But this is bad stuff and more Americans died from it in April than died in the entire Vietnam War and it is still on the loose.

This reopening better work.

 

Dr. Crane on: The impossible

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(There are people who do not believe good or great things are unattainable, even in the face of great opposing power or circumstance. Where would we be as a society or a nation or an economy if there only such people? Dr. Crane has the same questions. And some answers. Although his list of accomplished impossibilities is a century old, our lifetime’s experiences validate what he wrote.)

IT CAN’T BE DONE

If you’re looking about for something to do, something big, something that will bring you fame and money, find something that can’t be done, and do it.

Whoever is at work that can be done is not indispensable. If he quits, seven others are in line to take his job.

But the man who can do what can’t be done is not to be dispensed with. The business cannot get along without him.

Advertise for applicants for a job in your store…a job any industrious person can hold, and next morning the street will be black with the crowd of seekers.

Advertise for a man who will tell you in a day how to increase your net profits or decrease your expenses ten percent, and all you will need at your door is a policeman to handle the cranks.

Particularly in the higher realm of endeavor, in the domain of thought and of morals, it is the impossible that is essential, dominant, needed.

Conscience always points to what is beyond our capacity.

Reason invariably demonstrates that what should be done is the impractical.

The world progresses only as mankind does what can’t be done.

The eight-hour day, says Mr. Forbes, was socialistic, anarchistic, and absurd when first advocated. Nothing could be more impossible. Still, it lay on the conscience of the humane employer as well as upon the desire of the worker; and it was realized, and without any tremendous upheaval of the industries concerned.

It was once said that seven-day work could not be done away with in the steel industry. The nature of the business demanded continuous labor. Give steel workers a Sabbath rest? It can’t be done. Yet it was done…

Against every demand of humanity it has been objected, “It can’t be done.”

You can’t treat prisoners like human beings, they said, and for centuries the vile birds of horror and cruelty befouled every penitentiary. Today militant reformers are doing the impossible, and the cursed ramparts of humanity are crumbling.

Men could not spread religion without quarrelings, torture, force. But is being done.

Plagues could not be prevented, the ignorant common people could not be educated, little children could not be spared from stunting labor, sweatshops could not be abolished, corporal punishment and trial by torture could not be brought to pass, slavery, dueling, and gladiatorial games could not be abated. At some time or another practical men held all these things impossible.

And now they sagely tell us that war cannot be evaded; nations must have war; to expect to abolish war is ideal, fanatical, theoretical, impossible.

Very well. If it’s impossible, let’s do it.

Us vs. It—part V, Remembering

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I enjoy Scott Simon’s thoughtful brief commentaries on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition Saturday and last Saturday he had one that caught my interest at the beginning—because I disagreed with the opening concept. I understood his point at the end, however, and agreed with that. Here’s what he said about the world we live in today.

Our oldest daughter turned 17 yesterday. It’s quite a time for a young person to have a birthday.

I’ve covered wars where I got to know families with teenagers, and I’d ask parents, “What do you want your children to remember of these times?” The answer was almost always, “Nothing. I want my children to remember nothing of all this.”

This coronavirus is not a war. Yet as in war, there are long spells of tedium, interrupted by episodes of anxiety, and sometimes danger, loss, and grief. No parent wants their children to carry that load through their lives.

But, any parent learns how children rarely remember what we hope. You may want your child to remember when they saw the Eiffel Tower or met an athlete. What they really recall is the ice cream they had at the end of the day, or a man with the lizard tattoo they saw on the subway.

I hope that when both our daughters think back on this time, they’ll remember how many good people worked so hard to keep the world running, often at risk to themselves. They’re often people we can take for granted, and identify just by a job title, a nurse, a driver, a cop, a sanitation worker, or a clerk. I hope our daughters will know their names and remember how much we owe them.

I hope our daughters will remember, too, how they found their own ways to help people now: to walk the dogs of neighbors who can’t venture out, play with children whose parents have to work, and to write cards and make calls to make people smile.

I hope they’ll appreciate the ingenuity of their teachers, who’ve tried to devise new ways to fire their young minds. And I know they’ll remember how their mother has held, nourished, and cared for all of us in all ways.

In a way, these times may help our children appreciate the fortitude of their grandmothers, who are now gone. They lived through world wars and many hard times, but carried themselves with lightness, grace, and humor.

A few days ago, I came upon our daughters as they shared a joke. I asked, “What’s so funny?” and they said nothing—and traded smiles as I turned away. I imagine the joke was on me; and I was delighted. I hope they remember that joke, and their closeness. I hope they remember that when the world may seem cold or dark, they can turn to each other and feel the sun.

The part I disagreed with was, “What do you want your children to remember of these times?” The answer was almost always, ‘Nothing. I want my children to remember nothing of all this.’

“This coronavirus is not a war. Yet as in war, there are long spells of tedium, interrupted by episodes of anxiety, and sometimes danger, loss, and grief. No parent wants their children to carry that load through their lives.”

I WANT my children, or more appropriately my grandchildren, to remember everything: the danger, the tedium, the anxiety. I hope they don’t directly experience loss and grief. But I want them to remember because we might not have to wait another century for a pandemic such as this one to hit again. In fact, a lot of scientists and healthcare people already are saying chances are good this virus will come back with the cooler weather in the Fall.

It’s important for them to remember that one way this version of the coronavirus was limited in the danger, loss, and grief was the tedium of shelter-in-place, the anxiety of wondering if somehow the virus might find you, the feeling of loss with each day’s new death count even if no one we know is among those terrible numbers. In an impatient world of increasing self-centeredness, disciplined patience and respect for the harm we might cause others by flaunting our perceived independence when it is increasingly obvious we are INTERdendent in so many ways is what has, to use the phrase of the day, “flattened the curve” in many places.

I want my grandchildren to remember the good things Scott Simon mentions. But I do not want them to forget the things many people want their children to forget—because memory could be part of their salvation.

Dr. Crane on hate and science

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(A combination of two issues that seem to be part of today’s national dialogue—plus a recent comment from the Texas Lieutenant Governor suggesting old people should be prepared to die so the economy could be reopened—attracted us to this reflection by Dr. Frank Crane, who wrote these thoughts during World War I and just before Adolf Hitler emerged to lift Aryan perfection as a prelude to a greater war and a holocaust. Keep in mind, however, when this was written. Some attitudes that seem prescient in that time might not be fair today. On the other hand, his basic point at the end remains valid.)

HALF SCIENCE

There is a kind of bastard science which is very dangerous.

It gets a glimpse of the great law of “The Survival of the Fittest.” It explains many things. And the apprentice mind in its enthusiasm imagines it explains everything.

It does not. The Survival of the Fittest, the Struggle for Existence, and the whole law that the physically weak are exterminated and the physically strong survive, all this is true only up to a certain point.

It is true of tigers and tomcats; it is not true of human beings.

When Man first appeared in the history of evolution, he brought another element into the arena, the Moral element.

Not to reckon with this Moral power is not to be a scientist, but a half-scientist.

The German mind is half-scientific. That is what ails it. It conceives that the final triumph will rest with “the big blond beast.” With the men of muscle and ferocity, with those who thrust aside all motives of pity and gentleness and concentrate on material force.

The saying that “God is on the side of the strongest battalions,” is a sample of this half-reasoning.

God is on the side of truth, honor, humaneness, and love; and in the end these gentle powers shall overcome. That is what Jesus meant when He said that “the meek shall inherit the earth.” And that is what the half-baked mind sneers at, neither indeed can believe.

But just the same, Civilization means the superiority of the Moral forces and the eventual subjugation of all Brute force.

…Civilization is not a working out of materialistic laws; it is the mastery and direction of those laws by a spiritual, non-material something called Man.

Us vs It—part IV, Best guess

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(Before we get to the main point of today’s missive, your constant observer must confess that he feels a slight fever and has trouble breathing every time he hears the phrase “new normal.” He would quickly recover if the political and media leaders more accurately referred to the next positive step as the “new ABnormal.”   Likewise, he would be interested to see if President Trump could communicate without using the word “beautiful,” including the usual hand gestures.)

Legislative leaders, last we heard, are still thinking of reconvening the session on the 27th despite concerns by some members that the recall will be happening just about the time some analysts say Missouri will hit its Coronavirus peak.

Several issues could be before the House and Senate but the biggest one is the state budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. The Missouri Constitution says the legislature must adopt a budget by the next-to-last Friday of the session, in this case, May 8.

Our lawmakers face complicated and sad choices. Today we are going to try to explain how our state government has no good alternatives and why. Please stay with us because this will be a long class.

Here’s some history of why the Missouri Constitution requires passage of a budget a week before legislative adjournment and what that means in today’s circumstances.

Last nights of legislative sessions were usually quite wild until 1988. We recall when the legislature adjourned at midnight and the last budget bills, “Midnight Specials,” some called them, hit the floor minutes before the deadline. Chaos might not be an adequate word to describe those minutes when the legislature rushed to pass last minute budget bills. The fact that everybody was exhausted and not a few were feeling the effects of early celebration of the session’s end added to the disorder.

But in 1988, Article 3, Section 25 of the Missouri Constitution was changed to say, “No appropriation bill shall be taken up for consideration after 6:00 p.m. on the first Friday following the first Monday in May of each year.” That left the session’s final week for consideration of regular legislation, created a less chaotic ending, let members get home to their families before midnight and let the reporters file their stories before sunrise the next morning. Your faithful correspondent thinks it was one of wisest laws ever enacted in the state of Missouri. Until then, members of the General Assembly had a tendency NOT to go home after midnight adjournment but to go out to the Ramada Inn after midnight and get really serious about celebrating. And it often was sunrise or later before he could go home from his Missourinet newsroom.

If the General Assembly fails to enact a budget by the deadline, what happens? If economic uncertainty makes it unrealistic to adopt a reasonably realistic budget during the regular session, the Constitution allows the governor to call a special session to get a budget done for the fiscal year starting July 1. The General Assembly also could call itself back. But it will be easier for the governor to do it, and he would. The legislature has never operated a budget on the basis of a continuing resolution, as Congress too often has done, so it is unlikely to take that strategy—-which (to a non-lawyer) seems to be unconstitutional in Missouri anyway.

A special session in June is not unprecedented.

The legislature in 1997 failed to appropriate money for Health and Mental Health, nor did they appropriate money for their own salaries as well as those of judges and statewide officials. That last problem arose when legislators argued they could not appropriate money for themselves and others until they have approved funding for everybody else. Governor Carnahan called a special session that, we recall, started right after the regular session adjourned so the last two budget bills could be approved. It took six days to do it because the legislative process of introducing and passing bills takes a little time.

In 2003, Governor Holden and the legislature got into a big snit and he vetoed appropriations bills for education and social services. He called a special session in June that was unproductive. With time running short, he called another one. The legislature told him to take it or leave it. He finally signed appropriations bills for elementary, secondary, and higher education on the last day of the fiscal year.

Special sessions usually cost more than six figures a week, mostly for legislative travel expenses and per diem payments. However, the expenses of one this year would be significantly reduced by savings realized by the shutdown of the legislature from mid-March until late April—except for the couple of days lawmakers returned this month to pass the important supplemental appropriations bill.

After the legislature approves a budget and the governor signs it, he will have to make sure the state does not fall into constitutionally-forbidden deficit spending. Given what is likely to be an indefinite period of economic uncertainty, it would not be surprising for the governor to sign a budget but withhold funds from various services and programs to make sure the budget remains in balance for the entire fiscal year. He can announce spending restrictions when he signs the budget and he can make adjustments throughout the year, although the later in the year he makes them, the harder it is for agencies and their employees to deal with them.

Under the circumstances any budget the legislature approves is likely to be only a best guess.

Governor Parson will have to adjust it downward, if necessary, to keep it in balance. We have seen examples of that within the last few days when the governor withheld $228 million in the current budget because the diving economy makes the amount of money available for the fourth quarter uncertain.

Education has a tendency to absorb the biggest share of cuts and withholds. Here is why.

Joe and Josephine Missouri might have trouble understanding why it’s so painful to make cuts in the state budget of almost $30.1 BILLION dollars proposed by Governor Parson in the flush days of January. If you are a Joe or a Josephine, we hope we can help you understand some important things about that thirty-BILLION dollars.

The legislature can decide how to spend only about one third of that money and even then it is limited in what it can do.

More than ten billion of those dollars come from the federal government for state-run federally-financed programs.

Another ten billion dollars is considered “other” funds. Those are funds that are dedicated to specific purposes. Gas tax money that goes for our road and bridge system is one example. The Conservation Sales tax money that funds our wildlife areas and Conservation Department programs is another. The special sales taxes that help fund our state parks system and help limit soil erosion is another one. Gambling proceeds that fund a tiny part of education. The legislature can’t fiddle with those because the Missouri Constitution sets them outside of legislative control.

That leaves $10,431,666,579 that the governor’s budget proposal said was under control of the state. But even that is not fully in play because other state mandates require funding for some things. One-third of that ten-Billion goes to Elementary and Secondary Education under the statutory formula for funding K-12 education. Other mandated spending eats up another $5.108-Billion.

So out of that thirty-billion dollars-plus, the legislature actually only has $1.881,921,936 to play with, if you will. But remember, that’s the figure the governor recommended back in January when the restaurants and malls and theatres and bars were open and we could go wherever we wanted to go.

When big budget withholdings have to be made or when cuts have to be made—as they have been and will be—that $1.9 billion dollars is the place to cut. That’s only six percent of the entire proposed budget.

Of that $1.9 Billion dollars, two state departments consume $1.102 Billion—Higher Education and Social Services. The next two are Elementary and Secondary Education ($136 million), and Corrections ($107 million). That chews up about $1.345 Billion of that $1.9 Billion dollars. But there are five other state agencies. The governor proposed $365 million to fund them. There’s another $166 million that falls into the “other” category. A good chunk of those “other” funds go to Elementary and Secondary Education and Social Services with relative pocket change scattered through several other agencies.

In his COVID-19 daily briefing on April 9, Governor Parson was pretty direct. “We’re gonna have to rebuild the budget,” he said. His January proposal is junk because of the pandemic.

It is likely the best-guess budget for the programs and services all of us use will take some really painful reductions for the fiscal year starting July 1. Everybody is going to be hurt to some degree. Programs already dealing with serious problems are going to be dealing with even bigger ones.   The biggest programs are going to take the biggest hits because that’s where the money is. People are going to lose jobs. People relying on those programs will struggle even more than they struggle now.

The people we elect to work for us are facing the possibility that they will have to hurt many of us. Do not think that when they show up at the Capitol on the 27th, or whenever the decision is made to reconvene the legislature, that they will not anguish about what they have to do.

If you were in their place, which of YOUR neighbors would you choose to hurt even more than they already are hurting?

Most of us can rage against our circumstances. These folks are the ones we have chosen to get beyond rage and do something about the circumstances facing us. They will have no easy choices.

Us vs. It—part II, Waist deep

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At the height of the Vietnam War one of the nation’s greatest folk singers began performing an allegorical song called “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.”

When Pete Seeger performed it on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour more than fifty years ago, the song became part of a national controversy because many people, apparently including the CBS censors, thought that the next-to-last verse criticized President Johnson’s increasing investment of American lives in what some already thought was an unwinnable war.

It didn’t help that Seeger was among those blacklisted during the McCarthy Era (he was part of The Weavers, the group that brought folk singing to early popularity. But the group was too liberal for McCarthyites) and he was still considered somewhat “leftist,” therefore, “subversive.”

The CBS censors cut the song out of the show but when Seeger performed it on a later program—one of the last in the show’s brief run—it was allowed to stay in, perhaps because of the public reaction to its deletion the first time.

We keep hearing President Trump talk about the need to re-open the country or to get big-time sports going again even as he also says we’re headed for the deadliest part of the Coronavirus assault. The shutdown of a part of the economy—the hospitality industry—is a big blow to his personal interests and reopening the country, as he likes to put it, would certainly be to his benefit. We make the observation without implying that he is driven only by his personal economic concerns but his insistence that reopening business in the wake of the ongoing pandemic brings Pete Seeger’s song from another era to mind. It was the next-to-last verse that got Seeger and the Smothers Brothers in trouble then and it might get this observer in trouble today, at least with some people. Have at it in the comment area at the end if you wish—either way. Just remember our civility guidelines.

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

It was back in nineteen forty-two,
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Louisiana,
One night by the light of the moon.
The captain told us to ford a river,
That’s how it all begun.
We were — knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.

 

The Sergeant said, “Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?”
“Sergeant, go on! I forded this river
‘Bout a mile above this place.
It’ll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We’ll soon be on dry ground.”
We were, waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

 

The Sergeant said, “Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim.”
“Sergeant, don’t be a Nervous Nellie, ”
The Captain said to him.
“All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I’ll lead on.”
We were, neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

 

All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain’s helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, “Turn around men!
I’m in charge from now on.”
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.

 

We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn’t know that the water was deeper
Than the place he’d once before been.
Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
‘Bout a half mile from where we’d gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.

 

Well, I’m not going to point any moral,
I’ll leave that for yourself
Maybe you’re still walking, you’re still talking
You’d like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;

We’re, waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.

Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.


Waist deep! Neck deep! Soon even a
Tall man’ll be over his head, we’re
Waist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXnJVkEX8O4

We are not implying in this entry that President Trump is “the big fool” of today’s “war.” That would be name-calling and we do not believe name-calling either solves problems or ennobles the person who has nothing of intrinsic value to otherwise add to a conversation.

A blogger, Chimesfreedom*, has a nice piece about Seeger’s performance of the song on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Tom and Dick Smothers were constantly at war with the CBS censors and Seeger’s performance of the song on their season-opening show in 1967 led to a loud public fight about censorship.

http://www.chimesfreedom.com/2014/01/28/the-censored-pete-seeger-performance-on-the-smothers-brothers-comedy-hour/

The brothers’ constant fight with CBS about the content of their show led the network to abruptly cancel it, despite good ratings, after just two years. It was replaced by Hee-Haw.

Chimesfreedom is a blog with an unnamed “editor-in-chief” who describes himself as “a writer and professor in New York.”

Dr. Crane on TR

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(A little more than five years ago, I landed on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. This week’s news of the firing of the ship’s commander because he sought help he felt he wasn’t getting to combat an outbreak of the Coronavirus on his ship brought back memories of a mammoth ship with a crew half-again as large as the Illinois town in which I grew up, and visions of what could happen to the population of a city-ship whose people had nowhere to flee and nowhere to seek medical help except in the small part of the ship that is its hospital. The commander left the ship in Guam to rousing cheers of the large crew he sought to protect. The San Francisco Chronicle called it a “hero’s sendoff.” He was removed because he violated the chain of command and in the process showed a negative light on the Navy. He was a man who cared about his people. Dr. Frank Crane wrote about the man for whom the ship was named when Theodore Roosevelt died in 1919. What he wrote leads me to think he and Captain Brett Crozier have some things in common. It also leads me to wonder what will be written of today’s leaders sometime in their futures.)

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Theodore Roosevelt is dead.

He has stepped from the midst of controversy and taken his place among the immortals, against whom no man can speak.

For the moment, the conflict ceases, friend and foe stand with bared heads to do homage to a great and valiant soul.

There is a sudden and loyal silence throughout all the hosts. For no man has ever been more a part of every man in the United States than Theodore Roosevelt.

His friends will rush no more quickly to speak his praise than his enemies.

For he was a man’s man, and it was a joy to fight him, as well as to agree with him.

His spirit was a fierce and beautiful flame.

His opinions were simple, and always avowed with the wholeness and self-abandon of a true believer.

He would have made a wonderful knight in the days of Charlemagne, a fair and worthy companion to Roland.

He conceived of life, of duty, and even of love in terms of conflict. His make-up was militant. But his conceptions were always sincere.

His chief characteristic was courage. Whatever may have been charged against him in the extravagances of dispute, his bitterest foe must concede that he was to the last a warrior unafraid.

And that quality of fearlessness, that indomitable bravery, when lodged in this weak humanity, is always a thing of beauty, a little spark of God. We love it. We respect it just for itself. It is the great worthwhile thing in an immortal soul.

So he was a friend, conceived of as a friend, in a passionate and personal way, as no other statesman of American history, except Lincoln.

He was very near to the American heart. And even in the stormy days of these vast issues that have beyond him, the tribute of respect that this people pays to him will be honest and profound.

He had a public mind and gave himself to the service of the people with a singleness of purpose that will be an inspiration to American youth.

He was thoroughly human. He was frank, overfrank sometimes, but we love the man whose heart outruns him.

Kings may pass and be followed to their graves with “the boast of heraldry, the pomp of power.” Presidents and premiers may die and their statues be set up in halls of fame; but none will go from the midst of the living and leave a sense of deep personal loss than this splendid man, this impetuous companion, who has been snatched by death from the intimate affection of a great people.

The Bull Moose has made his last charge.

The Rough Rider has led his last assault.

Bwana Tumbo, the mighty hunter, is back from this perilous expedition we call Life, and is gone home.

Friends and opponents, with equal earnestness, cry out, “God rest his soul!”

Upon his tomb there can be inscribed an epitaph, than which there can be no nobler, no prouder, no truer tribute:

“Here lies a real American.”

 

Jefferson City vs. the Pandemic, 1918—II

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A look back at the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918 might help us understand how the Coronavirus could run its course in 2020. There are some important things to remember, however. First, Jefferson City, a town of about 14,500 people, had one hospital, St. Mary’s, which was adequate under normal circumstances but faced the same issues today’s hospitals are facing. The other thing to remember is that in 1918 there were no vaccines available or on the horizon. Quinine, which gained popularity in the 1830s thanks largely to Arrow Rock Dr. John Sappington, was tried as a medicine in 1918 but showed no indication that it helped.

In many cases, what happened then is happening now. But in many other ways, today’s conditions, cures, and treatments are a far cry from what our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents faced.

In recounting these sad and tragic days in 2020’s nervous and uncertain days, we hope we are not leaving the impression that the Coronavirus will have the same course or the same deadly results. Although health officials are struggling to find a cure, medical care is more than a century advanced from the days of the Spanish influenza. It is obvious now that it is likely to be with us for a while and we are likely to lose some people. But we are better prepared today because we know what happened long ago.

It was a bittersweet time. The Great War was ending about the time the Spanish Influenza was at its peak.

A new concern entered Jefferson City discussions in mid-November, 1918 when the National Tuberculosis Association voiced fears the flu epidemic could lead to substantial increases in tuberculosis, perhaps as much as ten percent for the next two years. The NTA said the influenza “weakens a person’s physical vitality and lowers a person’s resistance to the disease.”

The first case of the flu in the penitentiary led to an immediate quarantine reported by the local press on November 17. The first inmate death was reported.

When Mrs. Will Ruprecht died November 20th, the funeral at her home was private “on account of influenza restrictions.”   Home funerals were common in those days before Jefferson City had its first funeral home.

Thirty-nine new cases in two days in the city was considered a “slight falling off” from the previous week but there had been four deaths in the last four days.

The State Board of Health sent around word on November 21 that it would be okay for cities to remove the “more or less drastic measures” intended to limit the disease’s spread. The next day the city had 25 new cases of the influenza.

The day the controls were lifted in Jefferson City, a two year old boy died. The next day, “a beautiful young life went out” when a popular 24-year old woman “just budding into sweet womanhood” died at her home. Robert F. Mueller, “an excellent harness maker,” died the next day and police posted ten more placards on the doors of home signifying they were quarantined. The week ending November 22 saw 173 new cases. The next week the total dropped to 109. People were dying daily and the Federal Public Health Service reported the number of cases nationally was approaching 350,000. The Missouri Capitol was fumigated a second time.

It was December now, likely the longest six weeks in city history.

Community Nurse Ruth Porter, now recovered from her bout with the flu, said her case load had was double what it was in October. Fortunately, the Council of Clubs had bought a car for her to use in her home visits. She had 34 people under her care as of December 13.

The State Prison Board reluctantly admitted more than 100 flu cases behind the walls. State Health Board Secretary George H. Jones reported the state’s October death total of 3,145 represented half of all deaths in Missouri.

The Red Cross was looking for a building that could accommodate patients when St. Mary’s Hospital couldn’t handle any more. The hospital’s own annex became the spill-over building, capable of holding 25 additional patients.

“I am astounded at the death rate of this epidemic,” said the former Assistant State Highway Engineer J. P. Davis, an experienced sanitary engineer who believed in disinfectants. He suggested all of the back yards in town be cleaned up and disinfected. He also suggested the city use a flushing tank filled with a germicide “rather than men with brooms” to clean the streets.

The penitentiary got a gallon of pneumonia serum from the Mayo Sanitarium in Rochester, Minnesota, and quickly inoculated all of the convicts. It was too late for seven of them. Three days later the total was 13 inmate deaths.

But there seemed to be a glimmer of good news when the city’s doctors reported new cases were down fifty percent although the death of Oscar Walther at St. Mary’s Hospital put the city death total into the thirties.

The Daily Capital News asked, “Isn’t it time the state of Missouri was giving some attention to the health of its citizens? It is a sad commentary upon our humanity that we give more thought and spend more money on the health of hogs and cattle than we do upon men and women. The Board of Health has no power to do anything and no money to do anything with.” It was a valid point, but a state health department was not created until a new constitution was adopted almost thirty years later.

Four days before Christmas, the prison announced the deaths of three more inmates raised the total dead there to 22. A study of the fatalities showed 17 of those inmates had been in the prison for less than a year. The penitentiary blamed local jails because, “Many of the prisoners come to the penitentiary run-down physically and are in no condition to have the influenza.” The seriousness of the situation in the prison became apparent with the prison doctor’s end-of-the year report. The prison hospital usually had 20-30 admissions a month and a total of only 32 in October and November. In December it was 459. The final death toll was 26 inmates from pneumonia resulting from the flu.

An important sign that the flu was abating came when the school board decided to reopen schools on December 31. They’d been closed since October 10 and the school days would be lengthened by 45 minutes in an effort to catch up the students on their learning before graduation in late May.

St. Mary’s Hospital reported at the end of the year it had handled 154 flu cases. Forty-one patients had died during the year, “25 were brought in in a dying condition,” most likely influenza victims, many with flu-caused pneumonia.

By the end of January the city death toll was at least 34, fifteen of them people who died at home, plus the 26 prison inmates. Many other deaths were reported throughout the county.

On February 20, 1919, St. Mary’s Hospital caught fire. All 35 patients were removed safely, some taken to the top floor of the Governor’s Mansion and the rest housed in the 14-room vacant mansion of the late Jacob F. Moerschel a Jefferson City brewer who donated the land on which the hospital was built. The fourth floor of the hospital was destroyed, as was the roof, and the rest of the building was heavily damaged by water. A $75,000 fund-raising effort was started to rebuild the hospital, which served the city until 2014 when a new St. Mary’s opened.

The flu made a small comeback in March but by early June, Community Nurse Ruth Porter was reporting “General health conditions have never been half as good as they are now.”

Except—-

Tuberculosis cases resulting from the influenza epidemic were increasing in “staggering” proportions.

The city, the state, the nation survived the worst epidemic in American history up to that time in 1918-19. Most of the great-great-grandchildren of those who were victims of and survivors of the great Spanish flu epidemic will survive the Coronavirus epidemic in 2020. But we know from history that we might be facing a weeks-long struggle. Many will be sick. Some will die.

And then life will go on—as it did after the great pandemic of 1918-1919.