[Alumni-chat] Antioch Republicans!

[Sistersara at aol.com]

glad to see Alumni Chat back after all these years.  In the meantime I  have 
seriously studied the fine points of politically progressive blogging, and  
consider it a fine occupation for the overly educated, perhaps too well read,  
and while the joints don't work quite as well -- the short and long term memory 
 does seem in good shape.  There are, by the way, Antiochians other than me  
who blog on big and little sites.  I do Kos, Josh Marshall, Firedoglake and  
guest blog at The Next Hurrah.  I am Sara.  (Sally Todd, Class of  1962.)  -- 
and yea, I am on other progressive sites too once in a  while.  
 
Got to disagree with David Allen on some of this stuff... 
 
 
Anti-Morgan propaganda leveled by New Dealers who had  to explain the TVA 
blowup and firing of Morgan (and his replacement by crooked  David Lillianthal, a 
political appointee whose family was a big contributor  to Roosevelt and his 
party) cast Arthur Morgan as an "unrealistic  utopean" to justify the 
"practical need" for electrical appliances  Lillianthal and his family and business 
contacts sold to Tennesseans using  TVA Federal Govt. money....pork barrel stuff 
for sure,  but styled by  Roosevelt anti-Morgan propagandists as justified 
because no-shoes  Tennesseans needed "the more abundant life" Roosevelt promised 
 voters.
 
David -- do you know anything about the Tennessee Valley  during the 20's and 
1930's -- I mean for instance do you know that much of it  was not a cash 
economy, but a barter  one.  Much of the valley was  about digging out tree 
stumps for the turpentine mills for less than a dollar a  day,  and then along came 
Mr. Roosevelt's projects that paid 22 dollars a  week for 35 hours work.  God 
yes the objective was to make the folk in the  valley consumers of things 
like electric washing machines and electric lights,  radio, and a few other 
mod-con's.  FDR was about kicking into life both a  consumer economy and a cash 
wage system -- because if both these were healthy,  more Jobs would follow.  
 
The immediate cause of the FDR-Morgan alienation was the  matter of packing 
the court as FDR proposed in 1937.  Morgan wrote a Wall  Street Journal op/ed 
in opposition to the FDR notion, and you know, if you are a  presidential 
appointee, that is not so smart.  
 
And damn yes, as TVA Produced power, FDR wanted it  consumed in ways that 
would produce the greatest economic activity that produced  product and cash 
jobs.  He was not only trying to jump start the whole  economy, he was trying to 
get the Tennessee Valley out of the barter system and  into the cash system.  
And one must never forget that the true Father of  TVA was Republican Senator 
George Norris from Nebraska, one of the Progressive  Republicans brought into 
Government by Teddy Roosevelt, (and who stayed till  1944).  
 
The "ROOSEVELT'S UTOPEAN" book  was one of  several inaccurate defamatory 
biographies of Arthur E. Morgan which was  intended to defend the illegal 
appropriation by David Lillianthal (later  rewarded with the post as first head of 
the Atomic Energy Commission!) of govt.  money used to sell refrigerators, fans, 
etc. his family business supplied  and profited from.
 
Yes, today it would be a conflict of interest.  But  fans and fridges in se
mi-tropical climate such as the Tennessee Valley, are  hardly out of line.  
Since some of my family came from SW Virginia, I do  have lots of stories about 
people eating food that went bad and dying, and "not  getting it to the spring 
house in time" was cause of death... all I can say is  consider what you are 
talking about.  
 
Morgan's case against Roosevelt and Lillianthal was  hushed up and ignored.  
Most people don't know the facts...anti-Morgan  propaganda flooded the public 
in tidal waves.  Roosevelt partisans played  rough with enemies, and they 
considered Morgan an enemy when he objected to  the Lillianthal pork barrel 
appliance sales program while he (Morgan) was head  of the TVA and Lillianthal was a 
junior member of the three man TVA  commission.
 
My own belief is that if the people who could have best  dealt with Morgan -- 
specifically Louis Howe, had still been alive and active in  early 1937, the 
dispute with FDR 
would have been totally mitigated.  Morgan had 19th  Century Socialist ideas 
-- perhaps somewhat enlightened by Minnesota Farmer  Laborites and the like, 
but it was more ideology laid on top of his hydrology  reputation -- and it 
really was not drawn from the then contemporary political  process.  Morgan could 
never account for Labor Rights or the whole matter  of Civil Rights and the 
obligations of affirmative action based on the failure  to economically play 
fair with both minorities and  working-for-wages folk.  
 
But through it all, Arthur Morgan was  traditionally and historically a 
middle American, Mid-West American not at all a  Socialist or a utopean.  His 
reputation for that was the result of politics  and inaccurate media descriptions.  
 
Look, we Mid-Western types have produced more interesting  politics than most 
other regions of the country.  (Unless you think Machine  or Klan Politics of 
interest.)  
 
Morgan was a 19th Century Socialist.  He thought  Edward Bellamy an advanced 
thinker -- and he really never advanced beyond that  position.  He had 
excellent instincts as a community organizer, but I did a  tutorial with him in 57, 
and his progressive instincts were pretty  limited.  What he did in the 20's is 
what matters.  
 
Sally Todd, Class of 62, Former member of Alumni board for  6 years.
aka Sistersara at aol.com
 
 
 
 
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