Friday, August 30, 2013

Dismantling America: A Progressive Tradition

—Mustang Sends


Like many Americans of his era, Dr. William A. Wirt was born and raised on a farm. The self-sufficiency of farm life had a profound impact on his attitudes about every aspect of American society, including politics, helping to form his attitudes about education, as well. He graduated from college with a Master of Arts in Political Science and began teaching in Redkey, Indiana. By 1899, Wirt became Superintendent of Schools in Bluffton, Indiana.

Not surprisingly, Wirt partially based his philosophy about education on a set of values he derived from a rural background. He viewed the self-sufficient family farm as containing all of the characteristics necessary for student development, particularly in vocational training, physical activity, and character development. Wirt was concerned that the rapid pace of urbanization in the early 1900s threatened American society because cities and rapidly growing towns lacked such values as family unity, work, and productivity. He believed that educational programs could help to maintain American traditional values, while ennobling common productivity, to produce quality citizens.

Wirt became the superintendent of schools in Gary, Indiana in 1907. At this post, he began to implement his ideas about educational values. He devised teacher-hiring protocols; he designed buildings to enhance learning, and he established an extended school day that included a work-study-play system. His programs were so successful that in 1914, New York City hired Wirt as a part-time educational consultant. Increasingly, however, New York parents and labor leaders objected to Wirt’s educational programs: they wanted children out of school and working in factories and mines.

In 1927, William Wirt married Mildred Harter, a general supervisor of speech in the Gary School System. During her career, Mildred Harter Wirt developed a philosophy of the role of auditorium training in the school curriculum and wrote several articles on auditorium theory. In addition, she taught summer courses in auditorium subjects at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. In 1948, Mrs. Wirt earned a Ph.D. in education from Jefferson College in Jefferson, Texas, with a thesis entitled, "Educational Philosophy of the Gary Public Schools."

While the 1920s saw the growth and expansion of Wirt’s influence and organization plan in Gary, the 1930s brought economic collapse and controversy. The Depression Era resulted in smaller budgets, program cuts, reductions in teacher salaries, shortened school years, and cancellation of night and summer schools. Most of these programs returned by 1938, but teachers remained discontented over salaries and working hours; the Indiana State Teacher’s Association began doing its vile work and state Democrats stirred up the population by objecting to vocational training for black students.

The demise of William A. Wirt began in 1933 when he openly opposed the New Deal programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Wirt charged that the New Deal threatened American individualism by attempting to force government planning of the economy. He wrote pamphlets and articles and gave speeches about the economy, particularly regarding the manipulation of the dollar to solve the economic crisis. He accused the New Deal of being a program infiltrated by communists who were about the collapse of America’s free market system.


Wirt attended a Washington dinner party, during which a conversation ensued about overthrowing the government and establishing a new social order. All of the men making such statements worked in New Deal agencies, which included the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, and Civilian Conservation Corps. At issue was this question: what could they do to further delay economic recovery in order to speed up a communist revolution?

By this time, Wirt’s charges gained national attention. The Bulwinkle Committee of the U. S. House of Representatives called Wirt to testify in 1934. After offering testimony and a stern warning about Franklin Roosevelt’s Brain Trust, House Democrats denounced Wirt. They called him a reactionary —a right wing hack, as some today might say— and although the committee rejected his evidence out of hand, Wirt continued to speak and write about the dangers of Roosevelt’s New Deal.

The fundamental trouble with the Brain Trusters is that they start with a false assumption. They insist that the America of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln must first be destroyed and then on the ruins they will reconstruct an America after their own pattern.” —William A. Wirt

How did the Democratic Party denounce Wirt? Why, they resorted to the same Marxist tactics they employ today: they shouted him down, refused him a platform, ridiculed him publicly, and refused to allow him to bring forth witnesses.

After denouncing William Wirt in the press, Roosevelt Brain Truster Donald Richberg quipped, “Cattle-fish squirt, nobody’s hurt, and that’s the end of old Dr. Wirt.” Franklin Roosevelt joined in. Having just returned from an extended vacation, a large delegation of Democrat politicians, cabinet secretaries, and three thousand adoring fans showed up to welcome home their hero-president. After the Marine Corps band played “Happy Days are Here Again,” Roosevelt chided legislators for, in his absence, having gone “from bad to Wirt.” Few in attendance even understood the president’s meaning.

Dr. Wirt died of a heart attack in 1938; his wife held the Roosevelt mob responsible, but this really does sound like something a grieving widow might say. After all, Dr. Wirt decided to pursue the Roosevelt machine. In this sense, we might argue that Dr. Wirt gave up his life for his country.


It turns out, however, that Dr. Wirt was not a right-wing hack at all—at least, not according to John J. O’Connor (D-NY), who later testified that Dr. Wirt was correct in his assertions. On 10 April 1940, O’Connor admitted to the press that he conspired with other Democrats to discredit Dr. Wirt before the Bulwinkle Committee. In his statement entitled “Confession is good for the soul,” he declared “…the committee met and discussed rules as to how to handle Dr. Wirt and to prevent the minority Republican members from converting the hearing into a real investigation of the truth of Wirt’s charges.”

So there you have it, readers … the true and now historical aim of the Democratic progressive movement: Marxism at any cost. Destroy anyone who gets in the way. Use whatever means is available to achieve the ends —to hell with the United States of America, and the principles upon which it was founded. Should anybody take the time to evaluate the United States today, it is hard to imagine how anyone can think that progressive ideas are working out to the advantage of the American people.

Moreover, in case no one has noticed, this progressive betrayal continues.

Yes, that's written by Mustang,and we should all thank him so much for it, and I am so troubled that, even back then, there were liberals planning the end of the American Dream.  Damn.

z

41 comments:

Unknown said...

Like many Americans I used to admire American blacks but now they disgust me. In just the last week I have read about them killing an innocent white boy, Chris Lane, out jogging, bashed to death a sweet old man on his way out bowling, and killed a white nurse in a car park - all by black teenagers filled with an irrational and all consuming hatred and jealousy of whites. The media does everything it can to hide the truth in the US but the fact is, if Zimmerman had not had a gun that night he would be just one of the thousands of other cases in America of a man bashed to death by a teenage black thug. So dont cry me a river over sweet little Trayvon, Obama. Boy, Slavery was wrong but white America has paid a heavy heavy price for their sins - or rather their ancestors sins. Any black who hates whites should put their money where their mouth is and go back to Africa. I would at least have some respect for them then.
It's sickening. And looking at African Americans still blaming slavery for the problems they create for themselves now . When was the last time a person of colour was barred from attending school? We're you fired for "being black" or was your attendence/ performance lacking? Is someone forcing you to deal drugs? Are you being coerced into shooting a jogger for "something to do"? Or does attending school and putting in a hard days work really too much to take? Can you not hold your head high for following societies rules, properly raising a family, and being a positive contribution to your community? Or does it affect you that much when one of your own calls you a " ni--r"? Did it affect you that much when you found out that Paula Deen used the “N” word 30 years ago? So freaken what! Stop carrying chips on your shoulders
It’s time for the American black man to either sink or swim.

JonBerg said...

A government that: shuns productivity (Keystone),stifles individual initative, promotes "redistribution" of a shrinking [real] economy will, eventually,result in a "dog-eat-dog" society. Our current situation indicates that we are on a 'fast track' toward that end!

Z said...

I'm hoping this article really opens the eyes of many of my readers and friends. It's so important to understand that all we've said about "this has been starting for years" was right; there has been an attempt to undercut all the wonderful things this country was founded on for more years than just now with our 'progressive' bunch. (How it is "progressive" to take self respect and self initiative away, to mess with the constitution, to push bills down our throats without even having read them, to do so many things we've talked about ...I don't know).

Send this to your friends and family...people really need to see this!

Thanks!...have a great day; see you later.
z

Anonymous said...

@Mustang

Firstly, an excellent article, sir, at least the first half! Secondly, i do not know if you are familiar with Xenophon's Oeconomicus, but there a figure emerges which is very much like Mr. Wirt. This is the figure of autourgos, literally a manual labourer, but it actually refers to — "neither the great land-owner nor the peasant, but the landowner who lives and works with his own hands on his own estate..."

What you would find even more interesting, however, is that this figure, this autourgos, is highly praised for his political competence. One such reference you will find in Eupripides's Orestes. The reasons are not given in Euripides but, as one could glean them from Oeconomicus, they are: 1. Because he is always willing to march to war and fight for the city, which he does better than anyone else; 2. because he is able to come to grips with argument; and 3. because he is a man of blameless principle and integrity.

But having said this, i have a question for you (it concerns the second half of your excellent essay): Is this the image, the very credible image, that you most frequently encounter of capitalism in the late 19th and early 20th century? Is it not that already and even as early as the early 19th century, the face of capitalism had changed and had become a sort of grimace of its former self? and it is in relation to this later image that one must understand socialism and communism, at least in their ideas and sentiments as they originally developed if not in their practice?

~ Trojn Horse ;)

Mustang said...

TH:

I do absolutely agree with you that the Gilded Age presented problems that demanded America’s full attention. I believe that initially, the concerns expressed by progressives were valid and did bring us finally to address them. Subsequently, the progressive movement was coopted by ardent Marxists, who made great strides in the dismantling of American traditions and values; the kind of values espoused by William Wirt (and others). Most Americans approved of efforts improve the safety of our food products, of our water supply; most approved of standing up against political corruption. Given the relative low level of education of most Americans at the time, most even supported the notion of Eugenics.

Not too far along into the Roosevelt Administration, however, concealed communists proceeded to do the work of the Comintern; not as concerned Americans, but as foreign agents. I am speaking now of Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers, Harold Ware, Lee Pressman, John Abt, Charles Kramer, Nathan Witt, Jacob Golos, Mary Taylor —and so many others who were happy to sacrifice individual liberty to the gods of an all powerful state; a notion that we can only identify as an un-American activity.

Now then, in the land of ideas … any man may stand upon his soapbox and endeavor to convince us of the propriety of his thoughts about this country. To such persons, I say proceed –talk to us about your concepts; convince us if you can. However, do it in the open. The progressive movement evolved into clandestine programs, much like Lyndon Johnson’s so-called Great Society. There are two things missing from the evolved progressive movement: the first is honesty, and the second is actual progress.

Unknown said...

So there you have it, readers … the true and now historical aim of the Democratic progressive movement: Marxism at any cost. Destroy anyone who gets in the way. Use whatever means is available to achieve the ends —to hell with the United States of America, and the principles upon which it was founded.

Do you mean like the executive orders Obama signs to bypass the Congress of the United States? Like that?

FreeThinke said...

I enjoyed the article, Mustang. I never knew of Dr. Wirtz before. Thank you for presenting it so well. Another of myriad examples that prove "no good deed goes unpunished," I'm afraid.

I hope no one takes offense at my drawing this comparison, but the story of Dr. Wirtz closely parallels the story of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Established power blocs almost invariably become corrupt and self-serving. Threaten them with superior ideas and more effective and effective methodologies, and you positively BEG to be crucified.

The story of Semmelweiss, who understood and tried to promote the value of antisepsis in preventing infant mortality long before it was even suspected by the general public is another case in point.

Instead of embracing Truth and welcoming Salvation with open arms, most of us resent and resist the very idea that any sort of change in our habitual behavior, or improvement in our understanding of reality should be necessary, and so we scorn, mock, defame, revile, torment, and otherwise persecute the bearers of Glad Tidings almost invariably.

Socrates, who was forced to commit suicide publicly, because his teachings, made the political establishment of his time uneasy is another of many cases in point.

The old saying "I'd rather be right than president" is neither as funny or inane as it may sound on first hearing.

Oscar Wilde put it another way: "Whatever is popular is wrong."

Rush Limbaugh -- surely one of the most reviled and sadly misunderstood individuals alive today -- recently explained why Satanic ideas like Marxism, Socialism, Fabianism, Liberalism, Progressivism that resulted in The New Deal that began in earnest the long, slow march towards the destruction of The American Ideal took hold. "NO ONE BEATS SANTA CLAUS," he said.

Others have explained it more elegantly in more erudite terms, but I doubt if anyone has ever explained it more succinctly.

Anonymous said...

Viva Rush Lambaugh!

FreeThinke said...

PS: I was disappointed, Mustang, that you, apparently, swallowed the myth, diabolically generated and perpetuated by Marxists, that the The Gilded Age, as liberals derisively called it, was an evil that needed to be overcome by the "enlightened thinking" of leftists.

I've written so many remarks in the past defending the so-called "Robber Barns" my fingertips have become permanently bruised and worn down to a nub. Suffice it to say that much-maligned era was the direct result of The Industrial Revolution.

It may have transformed America from a benign agrarian economy to the formidable, less bucolic powerhouse she became, and certainly many ugly things were attendant upon Industrialization, but -- unless you want to play the Luddite and reject the idea of "progress" altogether -- the good that emanated from The Gilded Age far exceeded the bad.

The very WORST thing brought about by Industrialization has been MARXISM -- whatever the slippery eels who love it want to call it these days. It doesn't matter. A pile of excrement by any other name still stinks to high heaven.

Anonymous said...

Be very careful about what you say about liberals FT, the wicked one is getting pretty pissed at you .

Anonymous said...

WOW FT, someone I know over at the Progressive Dp, is NOT going to like that!
Your going to get your tussle spanked for that one.

Anonymous said...

LOL, I agree .FT, The Wicked One is already pissed at you for what you posted on her blog, this one is going to make her foam from her fangs.

Ducky's here said...

Wirt developed a program for an agricultural community and it failed in NYC.

Well knock me down.

Ducky's here said...

FT, mustang feels your pain.

He too longs for the old days of the plantation economy.

Mustang said...

@ FT

I beg to differ; I never swallowed the myth about anything. I merely agreed with the supposition that the Gilded Age did produce problems that demanded solutions. Is that not so?

Ducky's here said...

Mildred Harter Wirt developed a philosophy of the role of auditorium training in the school curriculum and wrote several articles on auditorium theory.

--------
Just what is "auditorium training"?

Simple physical education or is it drama and music?
I can't see the right being too thrilled about music and dramatics in the curriculum. Too difficult for standardized testing, right mustang?

Mustang said...

@ Ducky

Be asinine somewhere else.

Anonymous said...

Why do the progressives feel that it's nesseccery to pay "respect" to Martin Luther King? Who was he anyway? A black who made a speech and was shot by his fellow blacks? Will we be making a hero out of Travon Martin as as well, and giving him a holiday? Enough already with giving blacks a month of holidays !

Sam Huntington said...

Auditorium training couldn’t have been worse than “New Math” or any number of truly idiotic progressive ideas about education. My personal favorite was the Communist Revisionism of American History by Dipwad Zinn.

IMHO said...

Wwll, what does it tell you about our politicians when you see them, almost without exception, falling all over themselves to honor King as a national hero? What does it tell you about our society when any public criticism of this womanizer and Communist. It is widely known that King was a womanizing adulterer. What does it tell you about the controlled media when you see how they have successfully suppressed the truth and held out a picture of King that can only be described as a colossal lie? You need to think, before your worship anyone. You desperately need to wake up.

Unknown said...

First of all, King plagiarized the “I Have A Dream” speech from one given at the Republican Convention in 1952 given by Archibald J. Carey, Jr., an an African-American lawyer -

Secondly, FBI investigators learned that Martin Luther King, and one of King’s advisers had been involved with the Communist Party.
Hahhahahahahahahahahah, deal with that you progressives name callers.. .

And thirdly, Just like John Edwards, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich and a slew of other well-known political figures,King was involved in marital infidelity, in other words, cheating!

Anonymous said...

FROM Z of GeeeZ:

"Mustang said...
@ Ducky

Be asinine somewhere else."



AMEN to that.

Ducky, by the way, don't TELL ME~! You found something YOU can mock Wirt with and THERE IT IS! I just LOVE picturing you Googling your fingers to the bone with this on your mind "Z has stuff that makes sense again! DAMN! But I'll find SOMETHING that pokes a hole in it if it's the LAST thing I DO!"

:-) They never actually DO poke a hole, they just show your desperation.

JACK TORRANCE: Could you quote the parts of the speech you feel MLK plagiarized from!?

IMHO: what the HECK are you talking about? You think Dr King was a total waste of time? And, by the way, who's "worshiping" him, anyway? If blacks and whites had paid attention and really heard what he said, and blacks wouldn't stop misquoting for their self-serving purposes, and had lived by his real words, we'd be in much better shape.

Ducky's here said...

I didn't Google anything, z.

All was taken straight from mustang's article.

Maybe you can explain why we should go back to educational methods designed for an agricultural society.

Z said...

Ducky, you made it sound like he thought school children should learn to irrigate and dig the NYC streets up to grow potatoes down Park Avenue.
Please read it again; he was talking VALUES, the VALUES of the smaller agrarian societies; Values of hard work, helping your friend, etc.
Geeez; I thought you'd found something that made him worthy of your mockery; but you didn't.
You just don't understand him.


Z said...

Mustang, your response to Trojan Horse is a classic;
If you don't describe the secrecy of the Obama White House there at the end, I don't know what you're describing.

And I BLAME THE MEDIA FOR ALMOST ALL OF THIS. if they were honest, and truly interested in the truth and put America first, we'd KNOW and lunkheads wouldn't have voted this guy in the second time..or the first.

Anonymous said...

Martin Luther King was a hero to the Black people, but he was certainly no saint.

King scandals does a good job of separating myth from reality, and the plagiarism is proven. ... in August 1963, at which he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Z said...

I'd still like to see the original speech someone else apparently gave, which Dr King 'plagiarized' from.

So far, nothing.


Impertinent said...

@Z:

Here's some scoop on Michael King...aka MLK.

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/mlking.asp

Impertinent said...

Wow..



Jackie Kennedy hated Martin Luther King so much she could barely look at photographs of him.
In interviews taped in 1964 but only just released, she said the black civil rights leader was a "terrible man" and a "phoney".
She claimed King bragged of being drunk at her husband John F Kennedy’s funeral and had been caught trying to set up an orgy.
Mrs Kennedy said her view of King was formed after being told [by Robert Kennedy] of secret FBI wiretaps which showed him trying to organise a sex party before he attended the March on Washington in August 1963, at which he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Z said...

Imp, I just don't believe he was the cad people would like him to have been.

Liberalmann said...

If you dolts still seriously think Obama is a liberal or progressive or socialist or communist, you really need to get a clue.

FreeThinke said...

This ought to explain my approbation of The Gilded Age. I refer to the Robber Barons as The Oligarchs:


______ Competing Views ________

Where everyone lives on the Dole,
Not meaning RINO Bob,
Who’s just a lackey to Those Who Rob.
I'm talkin 'bout The Oligarchs,
Whose money once created parks
And enhanced universities,
Built hospitals to fight disease, 
Palaces where Opera's housed --
Places at which no one's groused,
Libraries and Railroad Stations
Fit for endless celebrations,
Until that old New Deal was struck.
That changed the rules and killed good luck.
Since then "The Rich," forced to connive
To find a way they might survive,
Have joined with Statists to despise,
Deter, discourage those who'd rise.
We call it Crony Capitalism,
And it has caused the mammoth schism
Yawning now twixt rich and poor,
'Cause we let Marxists in the door.


~ FreeThinke


COMMUNISM KILLS.
IT CANNOT CURE OUR ILLS!

Kid said...

Consider:

One

Two

Three

I think the dems killed MLK too. He had a dream ya know that was a nightmare for the dems.


And consider now in retrospect, Kruchev, president of Russia who went head to head with JFK over the cuban missile crisis and tells us "our children will grow up communist". Then JFK is assassinated by at least two individuals. (I personally believe the frontal shot came from a man in a storm sewer, the opening aimed directly at JFK's head as he was shot. A 2 mile walkout led to some train tracks and perfect escape) LBJ studied taking over for a president starting about 2 weeks prior to the assassination.
LBJ did more damage to this country than did FDR. Followed by carter, then clinton and now obama who heaves sledgehammers against America's foundational pillars.
And the "citizens" cheered. And the rappers play on, and men pretend to wrestle to the delight of the majority. So I hear.

Not even the late Great Reagan turned back any of the liberal cancers thrust upon us.
We have quite the challenge as a country to survive as America.

Kid said...

PS Mustang. The folks I eat lunch with most days are retired Teachers form Indiana and they are the most Conservative/Libertarian people I've ever met. And I thought I was.

His dad had a farm, now owned by his Mom and he grew up on it just as you describe.

Kid said...

libnuts, 4 shots, 4 misses.

obama is a muslim activist.

Kid said...

Who cares whether MLK liked sex? Doesn't fit into the conversation of the progressive plague in America, and last I checked, all 6.5 billion humans, as well as the trillions of other life forms on Earth actually do like sex. Even me.

JonBerg said...

"Be asinine somewhere else."

Sir, NO place else would have him! Why do you think he shows up here?

Anonymous said...

@Mustang

Thanks for taking time out to respond, sir. Had i not been upto neck in work, i would have liked to continue the discussion and receive more of your excellent insight. (Actually, there are several points on which i would have liked your attention.) But as it is, i must wait until such time as when you take up the topic next. I hope it to be soon. Thanks again! :)

~TH

Mustang said...

@ TH

Thank you. I look forward to it.

Semper Fi

christian soldier said...

Thank you for the HIStorical reminder of Dr. Wirtz--and his wife--Their work in the Education System was mighty--

They were Demonized following the Lucifarian rules that Alinsky eventually wrote down and published--

Lucifer's Kids write / state / and follow through w/ their plans--

When are we going to be bold enough and tenacious enough to do the same--
Carol-CS

Anonymous said...

I alway enjoy FT's analysis. He's very smart, and says what he has to say in original and entertaining ways. I hope he'll return to blogging on his own again. I loved FreeThinke's blog, and miss the wide variety of interesting topics he discussed.

That bit of verse about how the Robber Barons were forced by progressive policies to become part of the problem in order to save themselves from being crushed is priceless. I hope others appreciate it as much as I.

Helen Highwater