How Lincoln’s Republicans became Franklin Roosevelt’s Democrats
History truly does repeat itself. Sometimes in frighteningly similar ways.
We all know how the Republican Party started out as the Party of Lincoln, the Great Emancipator who took a political ‘states-rights’ issue and raised the ante to set America on the moral high ground with a bloody civil war that ended legalized slavery of African-Americans. Blacks were forever indebted to Mr. Lincoln and his Republican Party for its commitment to their freedom.
But, that all changed with another Republican, Herbert Hoover. In the 1920s, Hoover was the Secretary of Commerce under Republican Calvin Coolidge. Hoover was to Coolidge as “Brownie” was to George W. Bush. And just like the Bush Administration, Coolidge’s Admin had to handle a natural catastrophe similar in scope to Katrina. Fortunately, Hoover was a smarter administrator than Brownie and managed the relief work admirably. Unfortunately he was a lying, manipulative, power-hungry Republican that would have made Dick Cheney proud.
Here’s the story:
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 broke the banks and levees of the lower Mississippi River in early 1927, resulting in flooding of millions of acres and leaving one and a half million people displaced from their homes. Although such a disaster did not fall under the duties of the Commerce Department, the governors of six states along the Mississippi specifically asked for Herbert Hoover in the emergency. President Calvin Coolidge sent Hoover to mobilize state and local authorities, militia, army engineers, the Coast Guard, and the American Red Cross.
Read more: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/01/04/how-lincolns-republicans-became-franklin-roosevelts-democrats/
