Rutherford B. Hayes, whose biography (by Hans J. Trefousse) I have just read, was a an intelligent, well-meaning, but not very imaginative president. It’s a blemish on his record that he compromised his principles and allowed ex-Confederate leaders in the southern states to install Jim Crow policies that would take a hundred years to undo. He should have fought much harder.
Hayes’ most famous sentence dates from his 1877 inaugural address: "He serves his party best who serves his country best." It’s an admirable principle — and one that that has been thoroughly violated by Mr. Bush and the pack of clowns and schmegeggies that he has installed to ruin our government.
After Hayes left office, he wandered to the political left. Although as president he had intervened to crush the railroad strikes, he later came to believe (according to Trefousse) that "the taxation system was unfair, taking a much smaller share of the estates of millionaires than of ordinary people." "The real difficulty," Hayes wrote, "is that vast wealth and power reside in the hands of the few and unscrupulous. Hundreds of laws are in the interest of these men and against the interest of the workingmen. Lincoln was for government of the people. The new tendency is for government ‘of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.’"
These are words of remarkable pertinence. It woult appear that we haven’t moved very far from the mark — the more shame to us. If Hayes had said these same words today, he would not doubt have been accused of fomenting "class warfare." (Class warfare: redistributing money from rich to poor. Normal state of affair (not class warfare): taking money from the poor to give to the rich.)
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