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The War of 1912

T.C. writes in from Seoul with an inquiry about my repeated call for the repeal of every law enacted since December of 1912. "How did you select 1912 as the date for which all necessary laws had been enacted?"

R. M. in Colorado expands the inquiry: "What is `magic' about the year 1912? Behold says 1862, some groups say 1866/1871, and others say 1933/1938. This is entirely new to me, and I would like to hear whatever you have that makes 1912 important."

I responded:

Yes, the reign of the tyrant Lincoln really started the destruction of the Founders' guarantee of a "weak limited" federal government. Let's talk about suspending habeas corpus, jailing Chicago newspaper editors for criticizing the president's war policies, introducing an unconstitutional income tax and equally unconstitutional military conscription--not to mention shelling civilian populations, burning American cities to the ground, and generally using murderous force of previously unimagined proportions to conquer by the sword states that had never been warned their admission into the union was irrevocable.

Imagine paying $3 to tour the Halloween House of Horrors at the state fairgrounds, only to be chained up and kept as a slave inside that darkened charnel house for the rest of your life, your screams for mercy being used to entertain each successive year's crowd, told, "Gee, we can tell from your ticket that you voluntarily paid to get in, but we can't seem to find anything written down here that says you're free to ever leave."

Going back to the 1860s, however, leaves room for hysterics to cry that we're looking to reverse the liberation of black folks and return to slavery times--patently absurd, but why invite such a red herring?

Although the federal income-tax amendment (the Sixteenth) was proposed by Congress in 1909, it was declared ratified (possibly with some degree of fraud, though I think that argument is profitless) in February 1913, just as Professor Wilson and the "Progressives" were being sworn into office after their victory in 1912.

Despite the fact Prof. Wilson did not receive the majority of the vote (the Republican vote of 7.6 million was split between Bull Moose Teddy Roosevelt and incumbent William Howard Taft, while Wilson drew only 6.3 million), the Democrats ignored their lack of a "mandate" and promptly rushed in the graduated income tax--a main tenet of the 1912 Socialist platform--which of course has provided expanded funding for every federal regulatory and police agency we have come to know and hate ever since.

The federal flood after this initial dam failure of 1912 was rapid. The first federal regulation of drugs and narcotics came quickly in 1914, after outrageously racist testimony before Congress, in which local sheriffs were allowed to present unchallenged anecdotal "evidence" that blacks, Mexicans, and "Chinese" were widely known to take on the strength of 10 men, and to assault and deflower white women in the streets, upon consumption of cocaine, marijuana, and opium, respectively.

Direct popular election of U. S. senators was rushed through between 1912 and 1913, turning them into nothing more than senior congressmen out grubbing for popular votes--destroying the indirect but vital veto power that the state legislatures had held over enactments by the populist House of Representatives.

Nationalization of virtually the entire economy got an enormous boost when Wilson promptly broke his re-election promise and took the nation into World War I, buying with doughboys' lives the seat he wanted at the peace table--the long-awaited entree for the American "elite" into the first line of world powers.

Oh, the Progressives were ambitious! With all that stick-in-the-mud stuff about "limited federal powers" finally swept away, suddenly their campaign to ban alcohol--to boost the nation's hygiene and productivity by banishing the Demon Rum--no longer had to proceed county by county and state by frustrating state. No, there would be no more "driving across the line into the wet county" once alcohol Prohibition became the law nationwide in 1919.

That police-state failure was repealed in 1933, of course. But few now remember that the National Firearms Act of 1934 was justified by the spectacle of bootleggers shooting up the streets of Chicago and Kansas City with their Tommy guns during the late 1920s.

How odd, to ban a behavior the year after you've eliminated its root cause. Gangsterism was plummeting in 1934, despite the Depression. And of course, said law had no impact on Clyde Barrow's ability to haul around a sawed-off Browning Automatic Rifle. It only makes it mighty difficult and expensive for law-abiding folks like you or me to buy a B. A. R.--John Browning's classic "militia weapon" of the 20th century, too nasty and "modern" a native engineering masterpiece for anyone but cops and rich hobbyists to be trusted with, as it now celebrates its 80th birthday.

Is it one of history's little ironies--or the result of something more closely resembling a conspiracy--that in their rush to suppress Reds, anarchists, and racial minorities who "didn't know their place," the table-pounders of 1912-1914 handed us our current collectivist welfare-police state? I leave that question for another day.