The Press-Dispatch
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The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, September 27, 2017 D-7 OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg It was late fall of 1864, and the war was going badly; the Confed- erates needed a miracle, or their cause was lost. Union General William Sherman was Marching to the Sea in Georgia, and General U.S. Grant had Confederate Gen- eral Robert E. Lee's Army of Vir- ginia defending Richmond. The Confederates under Gener- al John Hood decided that the best chance at rallying the South was an attack on Nashville with the Ar- my of Tennessee. [The city had been held by Union Forces since late February 1862.] This was not to be. Union Gener- al John Schofield had maneuvered the Army of Ohio between Hood's forces and the city of Nashville at Franklin, Tennessee. What ensued was one of the worst disasters of the war. The Confederates charged the Union lines six times taking horrendous casualties. When the battle was over around midnight November 30th, the Union forces had mauled the Confederates. The Confederates counted about 1,750 men killed, 3,800 wounded, and another 2,000 had minor wounds. Union forces suf- fered 189 killed, 1,033 wounded, and 1,104 missing The worst part of the defeat was the loss of six Confederate gener- als who were some of the best still commanding in the west. Gen- eral Hood would not be able to muster the leadership or the men needed when he at- tacked Nashville. The citizens of Franklin were left to bury the dead, both Confederate and Union. But it is what oc- curred at the Carn- ton Plantation [House] that is still commemorated today. The war had seemed to bypass Franklin after the taking of Nash- ville, and few held out hope of a Confederate victory. John and Carrie McGavock because of their support of the South had seen their plantation ravaged of livestock and grain by Union forces earlier in the war. However, on the evening of No- vember 30, 1864, they were told by Confederate officers that their home was to be used for a field hos- pital for wounded soldiers. They had little time to prepare them- selves for what they were to be- come a part of. John and Carrie did what they could as men were brought in bad- ly wounded, and surgeons wrapped wounds or amputated limbs. Blood stains on the floor still bear testi- mony to the carnage that they wit- nessed. Also, as the Confed- erate forces moved out toward Nashville, the wounded and dead were left behind to be tended by the people of Franklin. The McGavocks gave of their food and provisions to the wounded [for months], and just as important- ly tried to identify as many of the dead as possible. John set aside two acres for a burial ground for the fallen men, and over the next two years, the community in- terned the Confederate dead and recorded their names and place of burial in a book that Carrie kept. Over the years, mothers and wives whose menfolk did not come home from the battle wrote to Car- rie or traveled to Franklin to find their dead; they would ask her if she had any record of mentioning of a name. She became known lat- er as The Widow of the South. What is compelling about this story is that the human trage- dy that unfolded around the Mc- Gavocks became their story and seized them for the rest of their Continued on page 8 Continued on page 8 Minority View by Walter E. Williams The Weekly by Alden Heuring The Welfare State's legacy Points to Ponder by Rev. Ford Bond Compassion in the midst of hate Maybe we're just tired of defending America Lucid Moments by Bart Stinson Antietam, Civil War sites need upkeep Heritage Viewpoint by Edwin J. Feulner Let's face it. When it comes to historical markers and monu- ments, especially ones related to the Civil War, we hear more about destruction than dedication these days. So it was refreshing to note, as we marked the 155th anniversary of the battle of Antietam on Sep- tember 17, that some key restora- tion projects will soon take place there. Antietam remains the single bloodiest day of fighting in Amer- ican history. The need to preserve this hallowed ground for all Amer- icans is obvious. And where did the restoration funds come from? It all started with a $78,333.33 donation from the president of the United States. That's right. Donald Trump said on the campaign trail that he would donate his presidential salary if he were elected, and the National Park Service (NPS) was the first recipient of funds from the chief executive. "The president's donation will allow generations of Americans to learn about our history and heritage on this sa- cred site," said Interi- or Department Secre- tary Ryan Zinke dur- ing a recent tour of Antietam. By law, the presi- dent must accept the $400,000 annual sala- ry that comes with the office. But it's up to him how to spend it, and President Trump – who clearly doesn't need the money – decided that he would instead give it away. That doesn't mean he'll be do- nating every paycheck to the NPS. His second-quarter one, in fact, is going to the Department of Edu- cation. According to the White House, the funds – earmarked for "America's heroes of tomorrow" – will be used to host a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) camp for students. Mr. Trump's gen- erosity, moreover, goes beyond donating his salary. Late last month, he pledged $1 million of his own money toward hurri- cane relief in Texas and Louisiana. Recipi- ents include the Amer- ican Red Cross, the Salvation Army, Cath- olic Charities, Habitat for Human- ity and Samaritan's Purse. You would think that even the most ardent opponent of Mr. Trump would find something pos- itive to say about all this largesse. But no. Politics apparently must taint ev- ery word spoken and action taken by a president. Suspicion abounds, and dark motives are taken for granted. That the problems of today's black Americans are a result of a legacy of slavery, racial discrimi- nation and poverty has achieved an axiomatic status, thought to be self-evident and beyond ques- tion. This is what academics and the civil rights establishment have taught. But as with so much of what's claimed by leftists, there is little evidence to support it. The No. 1 problem among blacks is the effects stemming from a very weak family structure. Children from fatherless homes are likelier to drop out of high school, die by suicide, have behavioral disorders, join gangs, commit crimes and end up in prison. They are also likeli- er to live in poverty-stricken house- holds. But is the weak black fami- ly a legacy of slavery? In 1960, just 22 percent of black children were raised in single-parent families. Fif- ty years later, more than 70 percent of black children were raised in sin- gle-parent families. Here's my ques- tion: Was the increase in single-par- ent black families after 1960 a leg- acy of slavery, or might it be a leg- acy of the welfare state ushered in by the War on Poverty? According to the 1938 Encyclo- paedia of the Social Sciences, that year 11 percent of black children were born to unwed mothers. To- day about 75 percent of black chil- dren are born to unwed mothers. Is that supposed to be a delayed re- sponse to the legacy of slavery? The bottom line is that the black fami- ly was stronger the first 100 years after slavery than during what will be the second 100 years. At one time, almost all black fam- ilies were poor, regardless of wheth- er one or both parents were present. Today roughly 30 percent of blacks are poor. However, two-parent black families are rarely poor. Only 8 per- cent of black married-couple fam- ilies live in poverty. Among black families in which both the husband and wife work full time, the pover- ty rate is under 5 percent. Poverty in black families headed by single women is 37 percent. The undeni- able truth is that neither slavery nor Jim Crow nor the harshest racism has decimated the black family the way the welfare state has. The black family structure is not the only retrogression suffered by blacks in the age of racial enlighten- ment. In every census from 1890 to 1954, blacks were either just as ac- tive as or more so than whites in the labor market. During that earlier period, black teen unemployment was roughly equal to or less than white teen unemployment. As ear- ly as 1900, the duration of black un- employment was 15 percent shorter than that of whites; today it's about 30 percent longer. Would anyone suggest that during earlier peri- ods, there was less racial discrim- ination? What goes a long way to- ward an explanation of yesteryear and today are the various labor laws and regulations promoted by liber- als and their union allies that cut off the bottom rungs of the econom- ic ladder and encourage racial dis- crimination. Labor unions have a long histo- ry of discrimination against blacks. Frederick Douglass wrote about this in his 1874 essay titled "The Folly, Tyranny, and Wickedness of Labor Unions," and Booker T. Washington did so in his 1913 es- say titled "The Negro and the Labor Unions." To the detriment of their constituents, most of today's black politicians give unquestioning sup- port to labor laws pushed by unions and white liberal organizations. Then there's education. Many black 12th-graders deal with scien- tific problems at the level of whites in the sixth grade. They write and do math about as well as white sev- enth- and eighth-graders. All of this means that an employer hiring or a college admitting the typical black high school graduate is in effect hir- ing or admitting an eighth-grader. Thus, one should not be surprised by the outcomes. The most damage done to black Americans is inflicted by those pol- iticians, civil rights leaders and aca- demics who assert that every prob- lem confronting blacks is a result of a legacy of slavery and discrimina- tion. That's a vision that guarantees perpetuity for the problems. Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason Uni- versity. Fall on the road PUZZLED ABOUT WHAT TO READ? ..and you will have your solution. subscribe to 812-354-8500 Continued on page 8 Despite the unseasonably warm weather, it's autumn—a perfect time for a road trip. With the trees changing and the sunsets coming earlier in the day, you can see some amazing things from right out your window on a scenic highway. For us, that highway was US 231. I drove up and down 231 hun- dreds of times during college, to go home, to go to school, and to go see Jill. It's an old kind of road, the kind that passes through a town ev- ery 15 miles or so, and winds gen- tly through fields and forests in between. So there's plenty to see, plenty to remember, and plenty of places to stop and change a diaper. We visited Jill's sisters on an overnight trip north, and took 231 home. It's never been a busy highway, and with 69 on the scene as far north as Bloomington now, it was downright solitary. All the better for me. With the cruise set to 57 mph, my sandals kicked off in the driver's floorboard, and a cup of iced coffee in hand, a curi- ous feeling came over me. I was no longer propelling a hunk of met- al 57 mph down the road—I was sitting still, on a porch, and the world was floating past me at 57 mph. Fast enough, to be sure, but not too fast to cast eyes on an es- pecially pretty tree or a striking family of clouds. In that 57 mph stillness, Jill and I (and sometimes Flannery, too) talked for hours, and not about chores or finances or worries. Not about anything in particular. I wouldn't have missed that drive for anything. And it's my sincere wish that you find time to take a drive like that, too. All you need is a full tank of gas and a good road. STUFF OF THE WEEK Read: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Yes, that one. Listen: Pulse of the Planet, a pod- cast by Jim Metzner. Episodes are never longer than 10 minutes, and each one is a little audible morsel of scientific goodness. Eat: Turnips, parsnips and ap- ples, diced and pan-fried with but- ter and a hint of brown sugar. Spice to taste. Ponder: "The more you take, the less you have." -Kung Fu Panda 3 "Fatigue makes cowards of us all." It's a quote that most athletes have heard, because it's attribut- ed to legendary Green Bay Pack- ers coach Vince Lombardi. But the coach was quoting General George S. Patton, in whose line of work cowardice had more catastroph- ic and permanent consequences. In the 1950s, psychologists coined the term "compassion fa- tigue" to describe their diagnoses of nurses who were repeatedly ex- posed to traumatic, disastrous in- juries to their patients. It was lat- er applied to police officers, para- medics, teachers and the psychol- ogists themselves. Some analysts cited a broader, civic form of compassion fatigue in the 1980s when much of the American citizenry tired of the homelessness issue, and grew im- patient with the burden of multi- generational welfare transfers. I'm unconvinced of that explanation. The taxpayers may not have lacked compassion. They may have just confronted the realities of a coun- terproductive and unsustainable welfare system that re- duced people to perma- nent and insatiable de- pendency. But the concept of civic fatigue is valid. Our civic virtues— societal or individu- al—can weaken and die. Gay activists and their allies banked on this when they kept up a constant, unending drumbeat against us, confident that we would yield our institutions to them, one by one. The blueprint for fatiguing American virtue was the 1989 book A fter the Ball: How Ameri- ca Will Conquer Its Fear and Ha- tred of Gays in the 90s. Its gay Har- vard-trained psychologist authors unapologetically advocated a strat- egy of "de-sensitization" via Holly- wood and television programming. The reason their strategy worked is that we lacked the integ- rity to turn off our televisions and to stop watching mov- ies. Once they found that seam in our integ- rity, they knew where to start. Over time, given enough fatigue, we were sure to give away. As the cracks in our integrity opened and split into tributaries, the corruptors found other vulnerabilities. Now they are able to use sports, public schools, news media and economic develop- ment to suppress and fatigue our civic virtues. Sport cartels can dictate depraved public policy to state legislatures and governors to- day. Corporate employers threat- en to penalize communities with job loss if their state protects reli- gious freedoms. The propaganda techniques of A fter the Ball were affirmed in