Revelations Of A Reformed Republican
by Mary Pitt
I never questioned why I was a Republican. I was born a Republican. My daddy was a Republican, my mama was a Republican,
and so, of course, I was a Republican. It never occurred to me to doubt it. This commitment was reinforced by listening
to the conversations of my elders as they talked about how that "good old Kansan", Alf Landon, was going to beat that
smart-aleck Franklin Roosevelt, go to Washington, and "straighten out the country." That was good!
The mood changed markedly when "good ole Alf came a cropper" and lost resoundingly, leaving us with that smirking,
arrogant aristocrat, (who was certainly going to lead us to our doom), in charge of our fate. The first thing he did was
to close all the banks and to "take people's money". (The fact that we had no money in the bank or elsewhere did not
enter the conversation.) Then, (horrors!), he made hungry people stand in line for the privilege of being given food!
The recruitment of the young men into the Civilian Conservation Corps was seen as "depriving farmers of their help"
which they were accustoned to hiring at the enormous wage of a dollar a week or twenty-five cents a day. Of course, the
CCC wages were sent home to their families by the government but that didn't "get the crops in". In addition, the Work
Projects Agency was employing family men to work on the roads, "standing around, leaning on their shovels", and taking a
paycheck home to feed their hungry little kids. And it never entered my young mind to wonder at the dichotomy when the
war started. At the same time Mr. Roosevelt was cursed for trying to "kill off our boys", the old battery radio was
turned on every night to keep up with the progress toward "putting Hitler in his place" and "wiping that grin off ole
Tojo's face".
Every four years there was agony as another stalwart Republican tried to vanquish the hated Roosevelt. Wendell
Willkie..... Thomas E. Dewey..... the best and brightest of the Republican Party went down to defeat amidst great grief
in our household. In the meantime, solace was found as one Republican after another paraded through the Kansas
Statehouse. And, finally, FDR was gone! Of course, we were then "saddled with that Pendergast man", Harry Truman but, at
least, he was from the middle of the country and understood farmers. Finally, with the election of "Ike", the
Republicans were in our heyday. He would cut taxes and restore prosperity, he would cut out all the government spending
and get us back on the right track!
There had been great moaning and gnashing of teeth when Mr. Roosevelt had pushed through the Social Security
legislation. It was such a stupid idea, making people pay taxes all their lives so they could "retire"! Retirement, as
such, was all but unheard-of in farm country. A man worked as long as he could and then "turned things over" to a son,
the two families merged, and everyone did as much as they were able until death intervened. Of course, initially,
farmers were not included in either the payments or the retirement plan but they hated it anyway. For some twenty years,
the money that had been paid into the Social Security fund had been "just a-sittin' there" in the national Treasury and
a considerable amount had been accumulated, even at the depressed and frozen wages of war-time.
With the expenses of lend-lease during the war and the foreign aid assistance through arrangements like The Marshall
Plan, President Eisenhower found a lot of complaints about "deficit financing" to be a political liability within his
own party. It seemed, at the time, to be a good idea to "roll in" the Social Security funds into the General Fund in
order to hide the true amounts of the deficit. Having that amount added to the debit side would improve the picture of
national solvency even though none of those funds were actually to be spent. However, human nature being as it is, that
amount was listed as "available" to the budgeteers and soon it was allocated for current expenses along with the rest of
the available funds. What started as a simple bookkeeping procedure had become a "candy jar" which Congress simply could
not resist and the money was soon routinely "borrowed" and spent.
I'm not sure when my opposition to the policies of the Republican Party began. I believe it was more of an evolution,
begun in the years spent among and sharing the plight of those desperately poor souls who emigrated from the central
areas of the country to the Pacific Northwest to work in lumber mills as the result of the lack of work in their former
locations. This was particularly hard for the women, living in rudimentary shelters which could only be called "shacks",
trying to feed and clothe numerous offspring and to make a "home" of their cramped hovels while fighting eternal
homesickness and displacement. These were "company houses" owned by the men who owned the mill where they worked and the
rent was taken from the paychecks of the men on payday. If you lost your job, you lost your home as well. Running cold
water was furnished but only one of the three dozen or so houses were not graced by outhouses in the back yard.
One particular lady lives in my memory. She looked to be an ancient crone with wrinkled and weather-worn face and
intermittent gaps where her teeth should be, her shoulders stooped from hard work and heavy lifting. Nine of her ten
children lived in her house, the eldest, a seventeen-year-old, living nearby with her husband and two children. The
neighbors learned that this venerable matriarch was thirty-five years old! And then, one morning over coffee, she
divulged the fact that she was pregnant....... again. The primitive birth control methods were unreliable, her husband
"didn't like" condoms and Mother Nature had taken its course. An abortion would require a visit to an illegal
practitioner of questionable medical abilities and the odds were pretty good that hemorrhage or infection would result,
leaving almost a dozen small children motherless. This heroic woman steeled herself for the ordeal of another hungry
mouth to feed and another underfed body for which they could not afford medical care. It occurred to me then that it
just might be better if abortions were legal and could be obtained from a licensed professional and under sanitary
procedures.
Later I joined the white collar workforce and became a "Girl Friday" in service to a millionaire merchant. After a year
of faithful and diligent labor, I had received one raise and was required to be duly grateful for that honor. When the
time came for me to leave, a man was hired to replace me. When I was informed of his starting salary, in the course of
my duties of compiling the payroll, I was startled to learn that his salary was to be nearly twice what I was currently
earning. When I queried my employer as to the reason, the answer was, "Because he is a man and has a family to support!"
("The Man" was sorely under-qualified and was gone within the month) This in spite of the fact that the boss was well
aware that I was the primary bread-winner of my family. A few experiences like that could well turn a nice Republican
girl into a "women's libber".
However, I was not yet ready to give up my in-born Republicanism. The policies and practice of the Northwestern
Republicans were at that time kindly, caring, and progressive. During the "Carter Energy Crisis", we returned to the
Midwest and found ourselves living in a "whole 'nother country". At that time the Equal Rights Amendment, affirming full
rights of citizenship for women and making sexual disrimination illegal, had passed in Congress and was still trying to
gain ratification by the majority of the States. I recall one instance at the local grocery store when a lady was
expounding at length to one and all that, "Them wimmen don't need that big pay. They have men to take care of 'em!" I
politely inquired whether she had ever know any woman whose husband had died, become seriously ill, or left his family
for the favor of another woman or any woman who continued to work to provide the necessities of life for aging parents.
The only reply was, "Humphffff!"
I was also finding it more and more difficult to see the error in feeding hungry children because some mothers might be
taking advantage of the system or whether there was justification for ending a program that assured a healthy adulthood
for those children who were underpriviled in order to punish a few women who had made a career of becoming "Welfare
Queens". I had seen and experienced the good that these programs had brought about for families of my acquaintance as
opposed to the poverty of my own childhood.
The religious extremists were already in virtual control of the party and Ronald Reagan did not seem at all as desirable
as presidential material as he once had. His administrative policies bore out that judgement. The economy at the lower
levels did not live up to his promises as the rich got richer, in the usual pattern of Republican administration. I was
puzzled by the Iran-Contra thing which really did not seem to have been something that we should have done but applauded
with all the rest of the faithful as that handsone Oliver North stood valiantly and "took a bullet for his
Commander-in-Chief", but I bolted the party rather than to support "The Wimp", George H. W. Bush. I really tried, but
could see nothing presidential about the man and truly felt that "my party" could have done better.
When Bill Clinton was elected, (without my vote which went to a third party candidate), I applauded his promise of
"welfare reform". He had a sound plan for encouraging welfare mothers to work by offering education and childcare
supports with continuing assistance while they climbed the employment ladder and re-organized their lives as the family
breadwinner. However, what finally got through Congress was something entirely different, simply placing a cap on the
eligibility and offering childcare only in some places and for a limited period of time. The next Congressional election
resulted in a Republican majority who were honest and open about the fact that they had no empathy whatever for the less
fortunate. On the day after I saw Newt Gingrich on the television news, stating that the answer to "welfare mothers" was
to "build more orphanages", I changed my party registration.
Since that time I have been a "searcher", totally out of sync with those in control of our nation today. It is alien to
my culture to accept the rehabilitated Iran/Contra crooks that are warmed-over from the Reagan administration as well as
the new ones that were shipped in from Texas and imported from the Neo-Con think-tanks. However, the "loyal opposition"
has proven to be too loyal and to demonstrate too little opposition. The Democrats allowed themselves to be stampeded
into giving President Bush carte blanche to "do whatever is neccessary" in retaliation for the World Trade Center
attacks and to sit meekly by while the Neo-Cons diverted that permission into an attack against Iraq because of
imaginary "weapons of mass destruction". Then they sublimely accepted a Patriot Act that gave even more dictatorial
powers to the President even though they had not even been given the time to read it!
Time after time, this performance has been repeated. The great groundswell of populism was squelched by the Democratic
party machine and its manipulation of John Kerry into the presidential candidacy. His campaign was loose and
disorganized and the best "messages" we heard were delivered by his wife and by his running-mate, John Edwards. Then we
were treated to another spectacle on election day that almost equalled the 2000 results in Florida as hanky-panky was
conducted at the polling places. Apparently few of the Democrats in Congress were put off by this as they went right
back to their old practice of agreeing with the President that we need to stay in Iraq, we need to renew the tax cuts
for the rich and the hated Patriot Act, we need to cut unnecessary, (social program), expenditures, and we absolutely
MUST spend even more on the military and pork!
The national debt is equalled only by the trade deficit, more citizens of Mexico live in the United States than remain
in Mexico, the military is exhausted and their equipment old and in tatters, the middle class are suffering from
unemployment and insecurity as their jobs are bleeding first into Mexico, then into the Orient and now into Central
America, our personal rights are at the tender mercies of the President and Jerry Falwell, and our Social Security
system is under attack! Meanwhile, with all this "honesty and decency" that has been restored to the White House, we
have Karl Rove who will "eff" anybody who angers him, a vice-President who feels free to tell a Senator to go "eff"
himself, and a President who is quick to offer the one-finger salute to the media, the Congress, and the American
people.
It is not easy to confess to having spent a lifetime marching to the wrong drummer and I do understand those who still
have a problem with it. I am still not pro-abortion, feeling that it is a tragedy, but sometimes tragedies happen and I
am willing to allow others to make their own decisions with their own bodies and in their own lives. I am not
anti-American for I have revered my native land for the better part of a century and do not intend to stop now. I love
every one of our brave young men who have been placed in harm's way for the unfulfilled ambitions of a small cabal of
evil men, and I pray constantly for their safe return. I will vote for a good person of either party whom I feel will
truly represent the people rather than special interests, and I will contribute my small bit to support the return of
truly democratic government to its rightful place.
But I will never again waste my vote in suppport of any person or program that is based on the destruction of our
Constitutional rights or our traditions of freedom, just because I have "always" done so. It is well past time for the
American public to wake up, realize that they have been horn-swoggled, and to exercise their God-given right to think
for themselves..
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Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan who operates a small business caring and advocating for the handicapped and the
under-privileged. Questions and comment may be directed to mpitt@cox.net.