Now
Available from
CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included)
Today's
Stories
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
March 11, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Bedtime
for Democracy
Bill Kauffman
Hey,
Ralph! Why Not Another Party of the People?
James Hollander
Slaughter
in Madrid: Consolidating an Ally?
Norman Solomon
They
Shoot Journalists, Don't They?
Patrick Gavin
The Salvation of Dan Quayle: Family Values Return
Becky Burgwin
You're
Messing with the Wrong Generation
John Sugg
The FBI is on My Trail
March 10, 2004
Hammond Guthrie
Read
This Book!: "Who the Hell is Stew Albert?"
Chris Floyd
Operation Enduring Sweatshop: Another
Bush Brings Hell to Haiti
Elizabeth Corrie
Remembering the Death of Rachel Corrie
Mike Whitney
US Press Torpedoes Aristide
M. Junaid Alam
An Anti-Civilizational War?
Bob Feldman
The Occupation of Haiti: Recalling 1915-1934
John L. Hess
An Overload of Crises
Gary Leupp
On Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi and the Uses of al-Qaeda "Links"
March 9, 2004
Greg Weiher
The
Zarqawi Gambit, Part 2
Ben Tripp
Word Up! Let's Have a Conversation
Tom Barry
Neo-Cons Target Syria
Sharon Smith
The Hypocrites in the Catholic Church
Robert Fisk
The Same Old Iraq
Doug Giebel
The Bush Strategy: Laughing All the Way
Ralph Nader
Pension Rights, the Trail of Broken Promises
Daniel Estulin
In Memory of Ricardo Ortega: a Great Journalist, Killed in Haiti
Dave Lindorff
Martha Stewart's Cloudy Day
Saul Landau
Will the Filthy Rich Dump Bush?
Website of the Day
Imperial Armies in the Garden
March 8, 2004
Amy Goodman
An
Interview with Aristide
Eric Ruder
An Interview
with Robert Fatton on the Coup in Haiti
Robert Jensen
The Presidential Library Terrorist
Connection
Mike Whitney
Expel the US from the Security Council
Jason Leopold
How Cheney Helped Cover Up Pakistan's
Nuclear Proliferation
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Why is Apartheid Touted as a Solution?
Kevin Alexander Gray
The Legacy of Strom Thurmond
Derek Seidman
Radical Continuity: an Interview with Paul Buhle
Steve Perry
Kerry Fiddles While He Could be Burning Bush
Website of the Day
Patriot
Act Game
March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
Weekend
Edition
March 20 / 21, 2004
"We Need a Housing Bill in the Interest
of the Whole Country, Not Just the Real Estate Lobby"
When
Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
By JACKIE CORR
"I wonder how far Moses would have
gone if he'd taken a poll in Egypt."
Harry Truman
"There is a housing bill in the
interests of the whole country and not just in the interests
of the real estate lobby. That bill passed the Senate three times.
It even passed this Senate by the help of a lot of good men in
there who knew what they were doing. It has been shelved in the
House and it is still shelved, and the poor man is still going
to be out of housing and the veteran is going to be out of housing
because he can't afford to pay the prices that are on now, because
the prices have gone out of sight, just as they have for food
and clothing."
Harry Truman, June 8, 1948, Butte, Montana
With Butte yelling "give em hell," Truman
could say he was only telling the truth and the Republicans thought
it was hell.
On September 9 1948, national pollster
Elmo Roper noted Republican candidate for president, Thomas Dewey
led Harry Truman 44 to 31 percent. Roper added he would discontinue
polling the presidential race as the result was a foregone conclusion.
Thomas Dewey would be the next president.
But what Roper did not realize was that
on the afternoon of June 8, 1948, Harry Truman's train stopped
in Butte . The Butte stop was just that, a stop. Nobody at the
time considered it of any real importance. Truman was on his
way to Spokane and Seattle. A short ride through Butte from the
railroad station on Front Street and a brief speech at old Naranche
Stadium would do it.
From the depot, the Truman car went up
Utah past St. Joseph's Church and then on to Arizona St. passing
the Silver Bow Homes. Reaching the uptown district, the car paraded
on Broadway and Park Streets. It then preceded down Wyoming and
past what remained of Butte's once notorious red-light district.
Here Truman entered the stadium, next to the Butte High School,
from the east.
He was escorted by an honor guard of
the Butte Miner's Union. The miners wore their ceremonial uniforms,
good for Miner's Union Day or funerals, which were new bib overalls,
white shirts and ties, the distinctive miner's cap and lantern,
and the emblems and badges of the Butte union.
In the car with Truman were Congressman
Mike Mansfield, a former Butte miner, and Butte resident, U.S.
Senator James Murray.
Harry Truman, later recollected that
he was shocked and surprised by what would happen in Butte.
Truman, who would later return to Butte
on two different occasions, was visibly moved and those close
to him thought that upon arriving at Naranche Stadium he was
close to tears.
Newspaper reporters traveling on the
train said Truman left Butte visibly happy and with a new energy.
The crowds and the reception at the stadium had fueled Truman's
legendary determination and fight.
Upon leaving Front Street, the Truman
car was nearly swallowed by the men, women and children of that
boisterous working class Butte of 1948. The street crowd up to
the stadium was estimated at 40,000 spirited people. Inside the
stadium were another 10,000 supporters. Many of those on the
street route then surrounded the stadium to cheer Truman on.
And the people of Butte (and Anaconda,
I might add) had a common bond with Truman. Butte and Truman
both knew who the Republican "sons of a bitches" were.
In 1948 Butte and Harry Truman were a match made in heaven.
The President's speech began at 8:45
p.m. in the Naranche Memorial Stadium in Butte
When Truman was finally seated at the
stadium, the Butte High band played the Tiger Rag, the Missouri
Waltz. Then Truman made a request. "You know what I think?
I think it would be a fine thing if your band would play just
one more piece before I have to speak."
The Butte High band then performed a
long marching version of Sousa's "Stag and Stripes Forever."
Truman then thanked the crowd.
"I can't tell you how overwhelmed
I am at the welcome you gave me this afternoon on the streets.
In Kansas City, which is a suburb of my old hometown, I have
never had such a welcome. There are only two other places that
I know of to compare with it; one was at Mexico City and at Rio
de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil."
Tonight, Harry Truman was where he didn't
have to make any deals, where there would be no Max Baucus nonsense
about being bi-partisan, where he didn't have to give reassurances
to a civic elite, and where there would be no praising of Wall
Street and the bankers. With Butte yelling "give em hell,"
Truman could say he was only telling the truth and the Republicans
thought it was hell.
So in Butte he called the Republican
Congress, with it's hatred of working class America, the "worst
congress in history."
And he talked about housing, about how
so many people lacked a decent place to live and that something
should be done about it. And Harry Truman said "we need
a housing bill in the interest of the whole country and not just
the real estate lobby." The crowd roared.
And he talked about price controls, about
real regulation and the public good as opposed to deregulation
and the corrupt congress. In Truman's view prices controls had
been released too quickly and " we now had prices so arranged
that the people who have a lot of money can get anything they
want and those who are denouncing government controls (regulation)
are the people who control the things we buy and the everyday
man an woman can go hang."
And in Butte he made a prediction, that
sad to say, has mostly come true. The president brought up the
subject of what he called the "notorious Taft-Hartley Act
and how the Republican Congress had almost abolished the Labor
Department." He warned the crowd that "there is going
to come a time when there are no labor unions unless we do something
about it".
Truman ended his speech with a defense
of government and the legacy of the New Deal.
"They have been telling you a lot
of things about your President, that he doesn't know what goes
on, that he can't handle the Government. It seems to me that
it has run pretty well for the last 3 years. Everybody has got
something to eat, and has got a little more money in his pocket--more
than he ever had before. Business has been the best in the history
of the country."
"There is more money on deposit
in the banks, and the banks are not going to blow up in your
face like they used to. That is one thing you can be proud of."
Most of the people in the crowd at Naranche
Stadium remembered the banks blowing up in their faces. The Great
Depression and the hapless Republican rule that led to it were
a bitter memory in Butte in 1948.
Unfortunately, that lesson has been forgotten.
Harry Truman would be appalled at the corrupt President and the
corrupt Congress that presently run the country.
Jackie Corr
can be reached at: jcorr@bigskyhsd.com
NOTES: Truman visited Butte again in
1950 and 1956. During the October 1956 visit, Truman, a private
citizen, stayed at the Finlen Hotel He commented on his 1948
speech at Naranche Stadium, noting that "Butte was the place
where things really started to roll."
The former president also complimented
the Butte High Band: "This is still the finest band in the
world and I appreciate what it has done to receive me. "
Weekend
Edition Features for March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|