This page was last updated on September 17, 2010.
No party can claim King’s affiliation; Lonzie Cox, Jr.; Beaver County Times; September 17, 2010. I am not related to Mr. Cox.
Most of Mr. Cox’s at least 58 letters since 2004 are tinged with race, and all take leftist positions.
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“Contrary to what many believe, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not a Republican or a Democrat.”
[RWC] Who cares? For what it’s worth, though, Dr. Alveda C. King, Mr. King’s niece, wrote Mr. King was a Republican. Regardless of his party registration, Mr. King appeared to support policies/programs of the left, other than his opposition to government-sponsored discrimination.
“The rumor he was a Republican seems true because most blacks were Republicans from emancipation until Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt emancipated white and black America from Republican/conservative/teabagger-style starvation in the Great Depression era.”
[RWC] Mr. Cox is ignorant of FDR and “the Great Depression era” and/or hopes the rest of us are.
First, let’s go back to the Roaring ‘20s. Have you heard of the depression/recession of 1920-1921 [the last year of the Woodrow Wilson (a Progressive Democrat) administration]? Probably not, though most of us learned about the Roaring ‘20s. So how did we get from a depression/recession to the Roaring ‘20s? Presidents Warren G. Harding (R) and Calvin Coolidge (R) must have jacked up spending, taxes, and debt, right? Not even close. Using 1920 (the first year after World War I) as a base, the Harding/Coolidge administrations reduced spending 55% by 1927, reduced taxes 45% by 1925, and ran eight straight surpluses. According to the BLS, unemployment for 1923-1929 averaged 3.3%. Now you know why lefties like to brush over the 1920s; it provides proof Hoover/FDR/Obama “stimulus” programs don’t work but conservative principles do.
Now let’s go to “the Great Depression era.” Though a nominal member of the Republican Party (He once belonged to the Progressive Party and almost ran for office as a Democrat.), Herbert Hoover was a Progressive, like Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and FDR. Therefore, when faced with the 1929 stock market crash, Mr. Hoover reacted as a Progressive. The big difference between Messrs. Hoover and Roosevelt was FDR did a lot more of what Mr. Hoover started. Leftists would like us to believe the 1929 stock market crash caused the Great Depression. In truth, the “progressive” policies of the Hoover and FDR administrations took what should have been a short-term “normal” recession and turned it into a 10+-year Great Depression.
Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee in May 1939, Henry Morgenthau, FDR’s Treasury Secretary during the Great Depression said, “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot.” Further, unemployment never got below 9.9% before the U.S. entered World War II.
In summary, the only thing that ended the Great Depression was World War II.
Finally, when he wrote “Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt emancipated white and black America,” Mr. Cox apparently forgot about internment camps for U.S. citizens of German, Italian, and Japanese descent during WWII (similar to those of Democrat Woodrow Wilson during WWI) and that the military remained segregated throughout the FDR administration. You may recall when it comes to racism, Mr. Cox can look the other way when the offender is a fellow leftist.
Note Mr. Cox’s continued name-calling. I think Mr. Cox is accusing others of his own behavior.
“Sadly, the party of Lincoln is now the party of Limbaugh.”
[RWC] Does anyone doubt if Abraham Lincoln were alive today, Mr. Cox would be condemning him as a racist, “teabagger,” et cetera?
“In his 1963 book, King explained his politics of not registering or endorsing any candidates, including John Kennedy, who got him out of jail. King even criticized Lyndon Johnson over Vietnam.”
[RWC] Contrary to Mr. Cox’s claim, a quick Google search returned hits indicating Mr. King endorsed LBJ for President in 1964.
Since he’s a lefty and obsessed with skin color, I can understand why Mr. Cox wouldn’t want people to think Mr. King was a Republican, but why is he working so hard to convince us Mr. King wasn’t a Democrat?
© 2004-2010 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.