| (a short essay four world civilizations) FOUR FATEFUL ELECTIONS
In
the course of a successful countries history there are often times when a great
change is needed. Likewise, there are
also the times when a great era runs its course. These two distinctives of a nation are
essential to the American experience, and that of the freedom experience. The article in the Smithsonian entitled FOUR
FATEFUL ELECTIONS outlines what the author deems to be the four greatest times
of change through election in our nation’s history. Lincoln,
Teddy, F.D.R., and Reagan were all in the running for president during key points
in time and whether elected or not elected compelled a new era to arise as
consequence.
Abraham
Lincoln is hailed often as our nation’s greatest president and it is very
likely that he is. He was the stitching or
glue that stretched so very thin but in closing kept America
a unified nation. The candidates that
ran against Lincoln in 1860 were
backed by factions, the united states were hardly that; united. The mosyt important ingredient for the
lasting legacy is the power to change, and Lincoln
was prepared to go to war, and preserve the union with a greater moral standard
with the status quo. Nothing suggests
that he wanted a war but when it came to that Lincoln
was a man of integrity and love of country who did not hide his head in the
sand in the time of great choices. Any candidate
that ran against him in 1860 would have in all likelihood sat back and let the
nation factionalize deeper and deeper. Our
country would have suffered the torrents of slavery and the issues surrounding
that for years to come. Lincoln
put the country to task and with firm leadership in time of war set forward our
country when others such as Seward, Breckinridge, and Douglas, might have made
no action.
Teddy
Roosevelt’s section within the article highlights, not his success’s but his
failure in 1912. T.R. had already been
president and gone on a safari when this election came around. Taft, T.R.’s hand picked successor did not
govern the way Roosevelt expected. He believed that Taft would stay in the path
of the progressives and Roosevelt. Taft though
was just not cut out for the job, when it came time to run in 1912 for the
presidency, Teddy decided he would run for the republicans, Taft would not step
down though as incumbent, and republican nominee. So Teddy ran for the Bull Moose party and
subsequently split the ticket for republicans giving the Democrat, Woodrow
Wilson the win. The interesting thing
about Wilson and Roosevelt is that their domestic policies did not differ that
much, but their views on international diplomacy did. Wilson
was a diplomat and T.R. was a wise warrior.
If Roosevelt would have been elected we can be
sure his walk softly and carry a big stick mentality would have been a player
to watch out for in the early days of World War I. America
might have joined the war sooner. What is
apparent and factual though is that these two schools of thought, diplomacy
versus action, are still stances taken democrat versus republican, today.
Another
Roosevelt, a distant cousin of the fore said Teddy, was F. D.R. This Roosevelt came to
power in a time of turmoil. Hoover,
a republican ran against the infectiously smiling democrat and lost
horribly. It was not so much that Hoover
did not notice the great depression going on literally outside of his window,
i.e. the veterans who lived in shanty’s in the capitol. He was just disconnected and did nothing to
bolster the American spirit; instead he did nothing, nothing really at
all. The fresh air of the try something
attitude rang a loud bell unmistakably across the land of the free and people
responded. It is apparent now that Roosevelt’s
policies were not fix all’s it is actually questionable whether they did much
at all. But the activity and optimism of
the president spurred the American spirit along, so much so that it kept America
alive until an economic need and boom hit.
This boom was World War II. This war
like any other war supplied jobs and rallied a country for a common cause. So in fact
presidency was a great one, it allowed us to hope. Hoovers
America was
dismal, and with all likelihood would have been dismal for years to come.
The
dismal nature of Hoovers America
was not unlike that of the America of Jimmy Carters presidency. We had American hostages held in Iran.
The economy was terrible. Gas prices soared. And the defeatist attitudes spread by our
failure to secure freedom in Vietnam,
brought this great nation to a depression of the soul as well as the
economy. Reagan, campaigned against this
dismal attitude, and Jimmy Carters “well we’re doing all we can attitude” with
an idea of a stronger America. Reagan put the last nail in the coffin of the
cold war by his stance against the USSR. He wasn’t afraid. He increased defense spending and cut the
amount of Government in everyday life. He
wanted a simpler America. His optimism was infectious and completed to
highly successful terms. If Jimmy Carter
had won that election, that boom for our economy and our confidence as Americans
might have been put off until the nineties; or later.
All
of these presidencies effected change some more than others but each one had
characters involved, who had character and moral clarity to get the job
done. This makes a landmark presidency,
this makes a better America.
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