Reparations Is A Total Scam!

by Al Benson Jr.

According to Wikipedia, Rep. Cori Bush from Missouri is a Black Lives Matter activist. She is also a willing participant in the ongoing “reparations” scam. In pending legislation Rep. Bush called on Congress to adopt measures “aimed at righting historic wrongs, including urging the federal government to issue federal reparations to black Americans…a minimum of $14 trillion would be needed ‘to eliminate the racial wealth gap that currently exists between black and white Americans’ the resolution argues! This bill, HR 414, is ridiculous and needs to be voted down resoundingly! Where does this woman think this $14 trillion is coming from, the Tooth Fairy? Or does she think the government can just print it and pass it out? If she does, does she have any idea of what such an act will do to the inflation level in this country? And the rank inflation won’t only hit white folks!

The “reparations scam” is just that–a scam. In an article on http://www.townhall.com for 5/11/23, writer Bob Barr, a former member of Congress, observed: “Neither history nor common sense mean anything to those demanding ‘racial reparations,’…” Barr then went on to list all the civil rights legislation, from the second 13th Amendment up to and including the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Barr duly noted: “In much the same way that junk science has provided the justification for New York Governor Kathy Hochul to ban the use of natural gas in new construction, ‘junk history’ is at the center of the racial reparations movement…At a recent public forum where Californians could comment on the proposed handouts (reparations) a ‘Rev. Tony Peirce’ boisterously demanded that the only fair dollar figure to be apportioned to him and his fellow black citizens was $200 million apiece…this episode encapsulates the junk history on which reparations advocates appear to justify their cause–that the anecdotal ’40 acres and a mule of 1865 is today worth a cool $200 million. It is doubtful Rev. Peirce or many of the others clamoring for massive monetary reparations for past–and in fact, continuing–wrongs understand or much care about the actual historic context or meaning of the ‘forty acres and a mule’ narrative.” To these people “history” is just another meaningless word. They want the cash, baby, and they want it now!

According to http://www.californiapolicycenter.org for 1/5/23 “California is considering paying ‘reparations’ to black Californians who are directly descended from enslaved people, which may surprise most Californians. After all, slavery was never legal in the Golden State.” But that fact makes no difference whatever. Governor Newsome feels he has a golden opportunity to garner black votes whether he decides to run for president (if the Democratic establishment lets him) or just run for governor again.

The article noted, quite accurately, that “To understand how slavery is applicable to California one must sift through the reports 500 pages of convoluted logic common to the victim industry in America…” The “report” goes into how slavery continues to “physically and mentally harm African Americans today.” And the article observes, again, accurately, that “The task force is not recommending reparations for slavery, but rather for discrimination.” The entire reparations scam is an exercise in political bovine fertilizer! In California it amounts to a giant vote-buying scam, as well as a major split in race relations, which may also be an alternate reason for it. And who will pay for all these black folks in California getting $200 million apiece–will it be white folks, Hispanic folks, and Oriental folks? That’ll go over real big with them!

An article on http://www.nypost.com for 4/30/22 duly observed that: “Ten years ago, the idea of ‘reparations’ sat on the political fringe in America. The question of whether or not compensation should have been paid to former slaves had died out. Not least because by the start of the 21st century no one in America had actually suffered from slavery…But there’s a tendency in our own age which does not allow wounds to mend or heal. Indeed, there is a movement that locates long-healed wounds in order to rip them open again. And then complain about the hurt caused to themselves.” And of course, the idea of scamming big bucks from people who never had anything to do with slavery really appeals to them. They want to be able to laugh at us poor suckers all the way to the bank. We want that cash, baby, anyway we can get it–honest, dishonest, makes no difference!

Every race of people in the world has either practiced slavery and been enslaved to some extent. Do they all deserve reparations? If not, why not? Why is it only blacks that deserve it? Every other race has put the issues of slavery and discrimination behind them, but not blacks (and all blacks don’t fit into this category) but many blacks seem to thrive on it. It’s like they have a never-ending grievance with the rest of the world and want to be paid to forget it (if ever they will).

The leftists among us, (to which our public schools are adding a growing number) are using this issue to divide the races one from the other, so we wont ever sit down together and talk to one another about how all of us are being taken to the cleaners. Reparations is a big part of the leftist agenda to cause racial division and we need to expose it for the racial scam that it is.

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The “News” Media–Part Of The Ruling Class

by Al Benson Jr.

According to http://www.swprs.org “Largely unbeknownst to the general public, executives and top journalists of almost all media outlets have long been members of the influential Council on Foreign Relations…” Now that would be an expose for Fox News to deal with, but don’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen. This may be forbidden territory to the vast percentage of our “news” media.

The article continues: “The CFR and its close to 5,000 elite members for decades have shaped US foreign policy…As a well-known Council member famously explained, they transformed the American republic into a global empire, albeit a benevolent one.” I’m afraid many would legitimately quibble about how “benevolent” the US “empire” has really been.

In a column entitled “Ruling Class Journalists” a former Washington Post senior editor, Richard Harwood, told his readers that the CFR and its members were “the nearest thing we have to a ruling establishment in the United States.” That’s quite an admission. And the average person remains blissfully unaware–and that on purpose! Harwood continued: “The membership of these journalists in the Council …is an acknowledgement of their active and important role in public affairs and of their ascendency into the American ruling class,…They are part of that establishment whether they like it or not, sharing most of its values and world views.” And I imagine, from what I’ve seen of some “journalists” so called, they pretty much like it.

Important CFR members have included several presidents and vice-presidents, almost all secretaries of state, treasury, and defense, many influential members of Congress, and practically all CIA directors, U.N. ambassadors, chairpersons of the Federal Reserve, presidents of the World Bank…many prominent academics in areas such as economics and political science.” Truly a group of unelected rulers. Interestingly enough, the CFR had “key members of both the 9/11 Commission and the Warren Commission.

The article went on regarding CFR members who had been president when it said: “Thus in 1993 former CFR director George H. W. Bush was followed by CFR member Bill Clinton, who in turn was followed by CFR ‘family member’ George W. Bush. In 2008, CFR member John McCain lost against CFR candidate of choice, Barack Obama…It was not until 2016 that the Council failed to prevail.” Does that tell you a little about why the ruling establishment (the Deep State) has been so adamantly opposed to Donald Trump? He wasn’t “one of the boys” and so couldn’t be depended on to play the game according to CFR rules.

But when you look at all this, you have to begin to realize that we have indeed been the victims of unelected rulers. Understanding that the Council on Foreign Relations was originally formed back in the early 1900s to guide this country into a one world government, you have to ask–if in a presidential election–both candidates belong to the CFR, what choice does the electorate really have? You can vote for socialist candidate A or socialist candidate B. Some choice and you will get screwed either way!

I said at the beginning of this article it would be a good topic for an expose on Fox News. I don’t expect that to happen anytime soon, given the direction Fox seems to be headed in. I wonder if this topic would be important to Tucker Carlson if he grasped the implications of unelected rulers in America.

The Union Leagues Created Racial Animosity

by Al Benson Jr.

The Union League, both during and after the War of Northern Aggression is one of those groups you will seldom see mentioned in the ‘history” books. In all my growing up time I never saw the merest mention of them in any history book I came across. Public school history books ignored them. Oh you read about the Ku Klux Klan and how bad they were, but nary a word about the Union League. Proof that the winners get to write the “history” books!

The Union League is not mentioned because most of its actions had a negative impact on the country–so negative that to include them in any real history book would cause many to question the pristine purity of Yankee intent. And again, I don’t impute the term “Yankee” to all Northern folks. Anyway the intent of the Union League was so negative that they were just not mentioned, just dropped from the historical narrative. In fact, if you had not had the Union League with its radical intent, you might not have even had the Ku Klux Klan. at least not in the form it took.

The Abbeville Institute, http://www.abbevilleinstitute.org had this to say, in part, about the Union League: “The Union League is one of the most cryptic of civil war and reconstruction topics even though it was a wellspring of tyranny…According to historian Christopher Phillips the leagues ‘demanded undiluted loyalty to the wartime policies of Abraham Lincoln.’ Western Loyal Leaguers (a kissin’ cousin to the Union League) believed there was no such thing as loyal opposition. Voters either supported Lincoln or they were traitors. ‘Western Loyal Leaguers fought dissent with much more than words. In central Illinois one woman claimed the Republicans ‘were forming vigilance committees to identify every man and woman not loyal to Lincoln’…In 1865, Leaguers tarred and feathered seven Ohio women including one who was a widow of a recently deceased Union soldier…”

The article continued “At the end of the war, league chapters were opened in the South to serve as rallying points for whites that had opposed the Confederacy…The new goal of the Southern leagues…was to make sure the blacks registered to vote and voted Republican…The Union League recruited members with a cult of secrecy and exaggerated promises…” Just like politicians today, promise them all manner of goodies during Southern “reconstruction” and then not deliver on any of it.

Often League members couldn’t read or write and so just voted the way they were told to. Members were indoctrinated, and basically brainwashed, into believing that their interests “were perpetually at war with the Southern whites that were falsely accused of wanting to put blacks back into slavery…” In this way the Union League fostered racial animosity. The lasting harm of this horrible lie is that it has existed and persisted right down to our day. Only now it is being perpetrated by socialist Democrats. How many times have you heard, from some well-paid black demagogue “Vote Republican and they’ll put you back in chains.” It’s all bovine fertilizer, but unfortunately it fools many blacks who have not bothered to do any homework because its so much easier to just pull the Democrat lever down in the voting booth!

According to https://heritagepost.org the Union League in the South was formed to establish the black man’s party and “so bend the negroes by secret organization to the Republican party, so they could be detached and taken entirely from under the control of the white people of the South. The Union League is the right arm of the Republican Party…the League taught in practice that the white men of the South were enemies of the negroes , and it excited the latter to deeds of disorder and interference in every way with the whites…”

In other words, the League fostered racial animosity that continues down to our day, and is even promoted by some in Congress. Do you begin to see why the activities of the Union League are continually omitted from our “history” books? One more bit of our history “down the memory hole” as it were. If you want a little more about the Union League check out a book by John Chodes called Washington’s KKK: The Union League. I believe it was published by Shotwell Publishing, Columbia, South Carolina and can be found at Amazon.com

Another Attack On The First Amendment

by Al Benson Jr.

According to an article on http://www.steadfastloyalty.com a new Democrat-sponsored bill to limit First Amendment rights has been introduced. The Digital Platform Commission Act would establish yet another federal agency to regulate and punish anyone who puts out “misinformation” as defined by the socialist Democrats.

In other words, and let’s be blunt about it, this is a bill to severely limit the free expression of their opposition and limit the right of the American people are able to hear, read, and learn. Misinformation will be anything socialist Democrats and socialist Republicans disagree with.

This is one you will need to contact your senators about when the bill number bursts upon the scene and let them know you want them to oppose it. If Congress passes this automatic cancellation of your First Amendment rights then China Joe Biden will appoint a commission of five people, which the Senate will have to confirm.

You don’t need a whole lot of imagination to figure out the kind of individuals Biden will appoint. So now the plan is for government-appointed “experts” to decide what constitutes “misinformation.” Won’t that be fun? I don’t know if this will deal with what you are able to look up on the internet or not, but probably it will. After all, why wouldn’t anything anywhere that the powers that be disagree with be removed from the public eye as “misinformation”?

George Orwell’s “memory hole” already exists to a large degree. With a new bill like this it could well become all encompassing. At least at this point in time we can still find some opposing viewpoints out there on the net to the government hogwash they foist upon us. What would happen, for instance, if all the opposing viewpoints dealing with the War of Northern Aggression were suddenly “discovered” to be “misinformation” and therefore subject to federal removal because of that, and those who refused to comply were to be “punished”? It doesn’t take much to figure out where this draconian measure is headed if enacted. Let your senators know you will be watching what they do with this travesty!

George Orwell And Controlling “History”

by Al Benson Jr.

George Orwell said “Who controls the past controls the future and who controls the present controls the past.” Someone named Bedaant Stivasten in http://www.linkedin.com commented on Orwell’s quote. He said, in part, “Those who control the way history is recorded and told, have the power to shape people’s understanding of the past and influence their decisions for the present. For example, governments and political leaders often attempt to control the way this history is taught in schools and presented to the public in order to shape public opinion and maintain their power.”

He also noted that media outlets have this same power. They decide what stories are told and how they are told. He also observed: “While the past cannot be completely controlled, those who seek to do so must be careful not to push their narratives too far, and risk undermining their efforts.” I don’t think those trying to control the past have heeded his advice. They may be sure at this point that their brainwashed audience will blindly accept most anything they say.

I don’t know anything about this man, other than he is involved in digital marketing and has a name I can’t pronounce. But wherever he is coming from, his commentary on this subject is pretty accurate. You could almost say, in this context, that the winners in any given struggle get to write the history books dealing with it.

It has also been said on http://www.ennyman.medium.com that “When future historians write about the 20th century it would not surprise me to find it had been nicknamed ‘the century of spin’. Today more than ever we see that the battle for the minds of the people revolves around the manner in which events get interpreted, not necessarily the events themselves.” Thus wrote someone named Ed Newman, and he is also on target.

The comments of these two individuals can readily be applied to most of the “history” we have been taught in the last 150 years. We’ve been taught that the North fought the War of Northern Aggression to free the slaves. They didn’t. They fought it so Lincoln could keep his tariffs and collect his duties in Southern ports because the South was paying most of the expenses for the whole country and Lincoln didn’t want to lose that revenue. Ask almost any youngster (and I’ve done this) what that war was fought over and he will dutifully answer “slavery.” That’s what he/she was taught in school. Most adults will say the same thing because that’s what they were taught. This is a prime example of controlled (and inaccurate) history. And your future decisions about that war and its consequences will be made based on faulty history. That’s how this game works. This is how those in power today control your past–and future.

In the context of the 20th century, it might be an interesting exercise for someone to check out how many newspapers or television or radio programs are controlled or influenced by someone who is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The website http://www.thefreethoughtproject.com carried an article on 6/4/2018 about how the Council on Foreign Relations advocated that the U.S. government should propagandize its own people. So typical of an organization that promotes the concept of one world government! Another article about the CFR appeared on http://www.ratherexposethem.org on 5/30/21 by William F. Jasper. This one is especially worth reading as it goes into China Joe Biden–the CFR’s man in the White House. And one final one from http://www.mintpressnews.com from 3/1/2018 by James Carey about how the CFR is pushing for a new cold war with Russia. Trump didn’t fall for this one but China Joe Biden is all in for it. But don’t expect the real story from our “news” media–only the establishment spin on the real story!

The entire intent of the CFR is to influence Americans to jettison their unique history, heritage, and culture and be willing to submerge themselves and their posterity into a socialist one world government. This is what the CFR plans for your future. And George Orwell nailed it. If people don’t understand their past and most today don’t then you can work to design your version of the future for them and they won’t realize how horrendous your plan for their future is.

Abraham Lincoln–Hero Of The Left–And Unfortunately The Right

by Al Benson Jr.

Those who have done research on Abraham Lincoln and his socialist proclivities realize he has been embraced by socialists, communists, and other left-wing types. This is common knowledge among many people. What is not always common knowledge, though, is that Lincoln, with all his socialist connections, is somehow still an icon of the right. That fact displays the large probability that those on the right have been taught bad history and had their historical understanding tampered with, which weakens their position.

Lincoln’s love affair with the left has been noted in an article on 2/20/23 on http://www.jacobin.com which notes that Abraham Lincoln is a hero of the left. The article states: “From Karl Marx to Eugene Debs to 1930s American Communists, leftists have regarded Lincoln as a pro-labor hero who played a crucial role in vanquishing chattel slavery. We should celebrate him today as part of the great radical democratic tradition.” If what this writer says is true, then Lincoln would have loved China Joe Biden and what he is doing to the country now.

The writer does not claim Lincoln was a socialist, but nonetheless, he grasped the “general concept” of socialism: the primacy of labor over capital and of liberty over property. The article continued: “Proclaiming ‘communism is 20th century Americanism’ leaders increasingly paired Lincoln with black abolitionists including Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, and Sojurner Truth…” If only those people had been aware of Lincoln’s racist turn of mind they might have taken a different tack. Their “hero” would probably have balked at being placed in the company of black abolitionists.

In actuality, Abraham Lincoln never freed a single slave. His “Emancipation Proclamation only applied to slaves in the Confederate States and it left slaves in slave states still in the Union in bondage. There were five slave states in the Union, including West Virginia, that the proclamation did not apply to. The slaves in those states were technically not freed until the passage of the 13th Amendment, which came months after Lincoln departed this mortal coil. So Lincoln was not really opposed to slavery–unless it was Confederate slavery. He was okay with Union slavery. All the hype about him being the “Great Emancipator” is something we could label as “specious humbug.”

Most on the left, and many on the right, don’t like to hear the truth about Lincoln. In an article on http://www.abbevilleinstitute.org for 3/14/22 Dr. Boyd Cathey observed: “Since then (1981) criticism of Lincoln is not acceptable, not tolerated by mainstream conservatives. Instead the conservative establishment now heralds such neo-Reconstructionist historians as Allen Guelzo or even Marxist Eric Foner (a favorite of Karl Rove). Any dissent from the virtual cannonization of Lincoln with contemporary American society comes from mostly Southern traditionalists and their allies…”

Dr. Cathey is right. When I wrote for the old National Educator newspaper back in the 1980s and 90s I did a series of articles on Lincoln and his socialist connections. The people that complained the loudest were patriotic conservatives who were ticked off at my telling the truth about their patron political saint. They didn’t want to be exposed to the blemishes of their “conservative” hero! They refused to be confronted with the facts! Many staunch conservatives today still think today he actually freed the slaves!

In an article by Claude S. Fischer on 4/5/2011 on http://www.madeinamericathebook.wordpress.com it was noted that “During just one term (plus 45 days) Lincoln managed to do the following, ‘socialist-communist acts: taxed the wealth creators…exploded deficit spending…led a federal takeover of currency and banks…forced people to work for the federal government…indulged in government giveaways to special interests…expropriated private property for redistribution…”

Joe Biden would have loved him except for his party label. But, you have to remember that in the mid 1800s the Republicans were socialists and the Democrats were conservatives. Today, both parties are socialist–Council on Foreign Relations socialists!

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Think Only The South Had Slaves–Then You’ve Believed The Lie

by Al Benson Jr.

The slavery question in this country has been carefully crafted so that most people who read about it hear only the arguments put out by the winning side and never get the entire story. The “news” media and many pseudo-historians have a vested interest in making sure it stays that way. Historical fiction sells books that keep people from learning the truth.

An article on http://www.tracingcenter.org has observed: “A central fact obscured by post-Civil War mythologies is that the Northern U.S states were deeply implicated in slavery and the slave trade right up to the war. The slave trade in particular was dominated by the Northern maritime industry. Rhode Island alone was responsible for half of all U.S. slave voyages. James de Wolfe and his family may have been the biggest slave traders in U.S. history, but there were many others involved. For example, members of the Brown family in Providence, some of whom were prominent in the slave trade, gave substantial gifts to Rhode Island College, which was later named Brown University…”

The article continued: “The North also imported slaves, as well as transporting them and selling them in the South…While the majority of enslaved Africans arrived in Southern ports…most large colonial ports served as points of entry, and Africans were sold in Northern ports, including Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Newport, Rhode Island. While the North gradually began abolishing slavery by law starting in the 1780s, many Northern states did not act against slavery until well into the 19th century, and their laws only provided for gradual emancipation, allowing slave owners to keep their existing slaves and often their children.” This isn’t what your “history” books told you is it–if they even mentioned it?

An article on http://www.library.providence.edu noted this commentary by Joanne Pope Mellish, Associate Professor Emerita, History Department, University of Kentucky, “Most Americans think of slavery as a solely Southern institution. In fact, the American slave trade was centered in New England, and enslaved people labored throughout the New England colonies from the mid-1600s through the American Revolution with slavery legally existing in Rhode Island until 1842…A few enslaved people still labored in New England on the eve of the Civil War–long after militant abolitionists had declared war on Southern slavery…” So you have to wonder, if this was the case, were those militant abolitionists really interested in doing away with slavery–or were they more interested in the destruction of the Southern states, with the slavery issue as a cover for their true agenda? For those who may not be able to pull up the above mentioned article by Professor Melish, she has written a book on this subject, “Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and ‘Race’ In New England 1780-1860.” It was published back in November of 2000 and you can check it out on http://www.amazon.com

Several years ago three honest reporters from Hartford, Connecticut, I think it was, wrote a book about how the North profited from and promoted the slave trade. I borrowed a copy from a friend and read it. It contained much information that has been carefully concealed over the years about the Northern complicity in the slave trade. This is not something the self-righteous Yankees want generally known–and when I talk about self-righteous Yankees I am not referring to all Northern folks.

But if you have bought the fiction that only the South was involved in the slave trade and that righteous Yankees fought a war to free the slaves then you have bought a specious lie that has no more truth in it than does belief in the tooth fairy. This whole erroneous tale is designed to make Yankees look good and all Southern folks to look bad and you should do enough homework on your own to give the lie to this tale. The truth is out there if you are willing to look. It has been covered up but you can still find it with a little digging. So do a little homework and you can tell the pseudo-historians where to go!

China Joe And “White Supremacy”

by Al Benson Jr.

According to http://www.politico.com “President Joe Biden denounced white supremacy as ‘the most dangerous terrorist threat’ to the nation in his commencement address to Howard Universities graduating class Saturday. Biden said ‘And I’m not just saying this because I’m at a black HBCU. I say it wherever I go!…invoking the battle cry he used to galvanize voters in the 2020 election cycle, he called on his audience to ‘fight for the soul of the nation’.”

Well, Biden is right about one thing. The battle he is engaged in is truly a battle for the soul of the nation. Unfortunately for Biden, as is usually the case, he is on the wrong side in this battle! As to whether he even realizes that or not, I will leave that up to my readers. Personally, I think he does realize it, but the lure of filthy lucre may have blinded him to any real truth. Those fat checks from foreign governments and companies tend to take his mind off any truth that might have once dwelled there.

Critics accused Biden of using this chance to inflame racial tensions in this country–and I would tend to agree with that. One might easily call him China Joe the race baiter! One commentator labeled him as our “divider-in-chief” and that is an accurate portrayal. Biden is actively working to divide Americans along racial lines because it is to his political advantage to do so.

His definition of a “white supremacist” most likely refers to anyone who is conservative or truly patriotic–or anyone who dared to vote against him and for Trump. Biden also uses the white supremacy label to push for more gun control–especially if the shooter in any given situation happens to be white. If the shooter is black or Hispanic then China Joe takes great pains, along with the prostitute press, to ignore the situation.

Many people just think Biden is just bonkers. They fail to realize that there is a method to his madness–a direct attack on his political opponents–all of which he would gleefully lock up if he thought he could get away with it. In other words, if you dare to oppose Biden’s extreme leftist agenda, you’re automatically a white supremacist, or a domestic terrorist, whichever label is appropriate at the moment!

Biden is using the classic “divide and conquer” strategy to keep all Americans of all races from understanding what a political trickster he really is. And, at this point in time, that also distracts from the congressional testimony being presented as to his family’s massive influence peddling and getting big money from businesses and hostile regimes such as Communist China.

Biden says the white supremacists will not have the last word. At this point in time we have to wonder if race baiters like Biden will get the last word–at least in the short term. Woe to this country if it does, for it will be the beginning of the end for this generation!

Socialist Hypocrisy?

by Al Benson Jr.

In the past several months several “blue” cities in the North rushed in to receive the designation of “sanctuary cities” for illegal aliens. They wore this badge proudly–as long as it didn’t cost them anything but a little rhetoric.

Now that Texas, which is being inundated with illegal aliens, has started putting them on buses and sending them to these sanctuary cities, the tune has suddenly changed. Now these sanctuary cities are being rudely awakened to the real world fact that what they asked for ain’t what they really wanted! It’s only what they thought they wanted back when it wouldn’t cost them anything.

When reality kicks in and the illegals start arriving by the busload, in increasing numbers, they begin to find out what the Southern border states are having to put up with. Now they are deciding they’re not having anymore of that! The illegal alien welcome mat is being removed in places like Chicago and New York City.

You’ll have to pardon me if I don’t feel all that sorry for these liberal/socialist cities. They got what they asked for, in part because they never thought it would really happen. Or, at best, they felt maybe a handful of illegals might show up that they could feel good about pampering. But when busloads of them came, it didn’t take long before it was “Katy bar the door.” What they wanted was to look noble in front of the socialist world. When reality started catching up with them, the liberal/socialist “nobility” started wearing off real quick!

The Tucson Ring–Cheating The Apaches For Fun And Profit (Mostly Profit)

by Al Benson Jr.

The other night I watched the 1993 movie Geronimo: An American Legend. Ive seen it a couple times before and always enjoyed it. The rugged Southwestern scenery in it is something I enjoy seeing, a remembrance of my time in that part of the country, but also a reminder that I will never get to go back there. For a movie it was amazingly accurate as far as it went.

Although the movie did not deal with it, the background for much of the Apache trouble in Arizona was the infamous Tucson Ring. Odie B. Faulk, in his book The Geronimo Campaign dealt with the infamous Tucson Ring, as well as the machinations of some of the crooked Indian agents, which displayed many of the problems with the reservation system–one of America’s early problems with socialism.

Faulk noted, in part, “Then in the early 1880s, as the Chiricahuas were forced back on this reservation (San Carlos), functionaries in the Indian Bureau decreed that these proud warriors become farmers, despite the recommendations of such knowledgeable officers as Crawford, Davis and Gatewood that they be encouraged in pastoral pursuits…” That didn’t work. And anyone knowing anything about the Apaches could have told them it wouldn’t work, but trying to tell a government bureaucrat anything about what they mismanage is an exercise in utter futility.

Faulk observed that: “But it was black humor, for thereby the proud Apaches were reduced to living on rations provided for them through the Indian Office through the resident agent at each reservation–a system inviting graft, one allowing the Tucson Ring to get rich through connivance. One of (General) Crook’s aides, Captain John G. Bourke, later wrote, ‘The Tucson Ring was determined that no Apache should be put to the embarrassment of working for his own living; once let the Apaches become self-supporting, and what would become of ‘the boys?’ The Indians were aware of this system, too, knowing that rations intended for their consumption were being openly sold in neighboring towns, that they were being shorted on their allotments. The principal items of issue to them were flour and beef, but their week’s ration of flour would barely suffice for a day. The cattle sent them were held without water by the contractor until they crossed the river just before being weighed; The Government was paying a pretty stiff price for half a barrel of Gila River water delivered with each beef,’ wrote Britton Davis of this practice. In addition, the scales used were incorrect in favor of the contractors, And ‘there was not enough fat on the animals to fry a jackrabbit, many of them being mere skin and bones’ Davis asserted. He once accused the herders of actually carrying some of the cattle to the Agency on horseback, but the herders swore that all had walked.”

Faulk also noted: “The Tucson Ring likewise profited when the Apaches left the reservation. Lucrative contracts could be had for supplying grain, hay, and provisions for soldiers sent to quell uprisings. Sometimes they even wanted to benefit both from the Indians on the reservation and from more soldiers, the ‘boys’ would generate an Indian scare through their newspapers, then bombard Washington with requests for ‘protection.’ As Captain Bourke phrased it, ‘They had only to report by telegraph that the Apaches were ‘uneasy. refused to obey the orders of the agent, and a lot more stuff ofthe same kind and the Great Father would send in ten regiments to carry out the schemes of the ring, but he would never send one honest, truthful man to inquire whether the Apaches had a story or not.”

The “Great Father” in Washington had learned from what he had done to white Southerners during what was euphemistically labeled as “reconstruction” after the War of Northern Aggression that if he could get away with what he did during “reconstruction” then he could surely get away with what he did to the Indians afterward and who would dare question his great wisdom? What Washington did during “reconstruction” and to the Indians later on was an early example of a government declaring war on its own people–something this government has continued to do up to and including our own day!