Heroic Political Figures in America

[Kanastrous]

To compliment the 'Most Harmful' thread, I got to thinking what about mostly-unsung heroes, in American politics?

I'll stretch the definition just a little bit to start off with USMC Major General Smedley Butler.

Nicknamed 'The Fighting Quaker,' Butler served with distinction in Asia and Latin America, winning the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and twice being awarded the Medal of Honor, and making Brigadier General before the age of 40. During a leave of absence from the USMC, Butler served as Director of Public Safety in Philadelphia, where he ordered raids on over 900 speakeasies and - unlike most law enforcement at the time - went after upper-class socialites as well as gangsters. Passed over for promotion to Commandant of the Marine Corps, Butler retired to civilian life in 1931.

Butler began a second career as a lecturer, writer, and outspoken critic both of American military interventionism - something he knew from first-hand experience - and what he perceived as a rise of fascism in the United States. In War is a Racket he wrote

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

In 1934 Butler came forward to report attempts to recruit him for a planned coup d'etat, 'The Business Plot' directed against President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although specifics of his testimony were verified, Congress chose not to act upon the information he provided them.

Today Camp Smedley Butler on Okinawa is named in his honor.

[KrauserKrauser]

I'll throw out the big man, TR, Theodore Roosevelt as I have been planning on reading up on him and would classify him as the model we conservatives should be aspiring to.

Had his Bull Moose party been succesful there may even be a three party system in the US, which would have been interesting with the Dems able to go further left, the GOP farther to the right and Bull Moose getting the center.

I may not know much about the man but what I can remember of a sickly boy that grew into the Man Mountain that was TR is an inspiring story in and of itself, though I'm sure it was embellished a bit for political purposes.

Anybody have any thoughts on Teddy?

[Ma Deuce]

Had his Bull Moose party been succesful there may even be a three party system in the US, which would have been interesting with the Dems able to go further left, the GOP farther to the right and Bull Moose getting the center.

Had Bull Moose been successful, they most likely would have simply replaced the Republicans, as the Republicans themselves supplanted the Whigs. The US political system as it is currently structured does not seem to be able support three major parties at the same time; when a new party ascended to prominence, one of the major existing parties always died shortly thereafter.

Of course, one strike against T.R. was that his splitting of the 1912 vote is what gave us Woody "Worst President Ever" Wilson, who would not have been elected had Teddy not cleft the Republican vote in half.

[CarsonPalmer]

Had his Bull Moose party been succesful there may even be a three party system in the US, which would have been interesting with the Dems able to go further left, the GOP farther to the right and Bull Moose getting the center.

Had Bull Moose been successful, they most likely would have simply replaced the Republicans, as the Republicans themselves supplanted the Whigs. The US political system as it is currently structured does not seem to be able support three major parties at the same time; when a new party ascended to prominence, one of the major existing parties always died shortly thereafter.

Of course, one strike against T.R. was that his splitting of the 1912 vote is what gave us Woody "Worst President Ever" Wilson, who would not have been elected had Teddy not cleft the Republican vote in half.

Alternately, you could blame William Howard Taft, because he was the one who actually came in third, and even stated that he was running to keep Teddy out of the White House.

Anyway, I'll nominate John Quincy Adams for his effective tenure as secretary of state, his decent presidency, but most importantly, his post-presidential career as an abolitionist, where he spent a long time as the face of the movement, bedeviling pro-slavery Southerners and politicians for years on end. The man was indomitable.

[Patrick Degan]

George Washington —successfully quelled a brewing coup d'etat against the Continental Congress by the army over the issue of pay for the troops by his own personal appeal, sealed for all time the tradition of civilian control of the military when he handed his sword back to Congress at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, and established the tradition of a two-term presidency and the voluntary surrender of power. All these actions had a profound and long-lasting effect upon American history from the founding of the republic onward.

[Qwerty 42]

Abraham Lincoln. With the exception of Washington, no Presidency has changed America so radically. And, perhaps, no better man has ever held the high office. As far as current impact goes, it's impressive how quickly both sides of the aisle attempt to draw comparisons between themselves and President Lincoln.

[Gerald Tarrant]

I'd say Paul Volcker. He killed inflation, at the cost of a recession and probably some very serious political pressure. I figure he belongs in the unsung-hero category.



edit: image from wiki which is itself taken from BLS CPI numbers.

[Haruko]

In 1934 Butler came forward to report attempts to recruit him for a planned coup d'etat, 'The Business Plot' directed against President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although specifics of his testimony were verified, Congress chose not to act upon the information he provided them.

I remember reading about that for the first time; I initially couldn't believe it. I think this event is worth elaborating on, and so I quote the Amazon.com editorial reviewer of History Channel's The Plot To Overthrow FDR who said the following: "A cabal of financiers and industrialists, alarmed by FDR's economic policies in the Depression, plotted to create a fascist state. Their choice of retired Marine General Smedley Butler to lead an army of disgruntled WWI vets proved their undoing. When Smedley learned details of the conspiracy, he reported the lot to Congress." As thanks, he was ridiculed, and his sanity was questioned.

Patrick Degan, as someone who's read The Politics of War, I was wondering if you think Sen. Robert Marion La Follette would also count as a heroic political figure worthy of the spotlight in this thread?

[Steve]

Carson mentioned my leading nominee for mention here, John Q. Adams, but I figured I'd add a couple mentions on Mr. Adams, namely that he was also the man who defended the Amistad mutineers in the Supreme Court with an argument that was brilliant and oh so awesomely critical of the limp-wristed and even cowardly way that the Van Buren Administration had acted in regards to the case, and that in one exchange of words with a Maryland congressman critical of the preponderence of women in the anti-slavery petitions, Adams gave a straightforward defense of the right of women to participate in the political process, even mentioning - albeit in a slightly tortured fashion - that forbidding women the vote was an injustice.

Hrm. *begins tinkering in brain to churn up other candidates*

While talking about abolitionists, there is also Theodore Weld, the great abolitionist orator of the 1830s who would later work with Adams when the Old Man Eloquent was fighting a second attempt by Southerners to censure him in the House. In turn Theodore married Sarah Grimke, who with her sister Angelina (nicknamed "Devilina" by irate Southerners) provided direct testimony to the Massachusetts legislature on the conditions of slavery in their native South. And, last but not least, there was the Lion of Ashtabula, the abolitionist Ohio Congressman Joshua Giddings, who served in the House until the eve of the Civil War and was the inheritor of Adams' struggle. Mr. Giddings himself was censured, successfully, in the House by Southern petitioners after his lightning-rod Giddings Resolution over a second slave-mutiny ship, the Creole (which put into the Bahamas and had the slaves, save the leading mutineers who were hung for the crime of mutiny, freed by the British), in which he argued that by the very arguments of the South in the legality of slavery in their territories, slavery could only legally exist within their boundaries, and any slave carried out past municipal waters was rendered free. As was expected, upon his censure he immediately resigned his seat and returned home, where his district defiantly returned him to the House in a new election.

[Patrick Degan]

Patrick Degan, as someone who's read The Politics of War, I was wondering if you think Sen. Robert Marion La Follette would also count as a heroic political figure worthy of the spotlight in this thread?

Fighting Bob? He showed more guts in lone opposition to Mr. Wilson's War for three years than the whole of the Democratic Senate Caucus against Chimpus Caesar. Progressive and a leading champion against big business corruption. Yes, LaFollette definitely belongs in the pantheon.

[Steve]

Patrick Degan, as someone who's read The Politics of War, I was wondering if you think Sen. Robert Marion La Follette would also count as a heroic political figure worthy of the spotlight in this thread?

Fighting Bob? He showed more guts in lone opposition to Mr. Wilson's War for three years than the whole of the Democratic Senate Caucus against Chimpus Caesar. Progressive and a leading champion against big business corruption. Yes, LaFollette definitely belongs in the pantheon.

What? You mean he wasn't a traitor being paid by Germany to keep America out of the war?

[Kanastrous]

Naw, he just hated Freedom.

[Coyote]

I hope it is not considered too cliche to say Martin Luther King, Jr.

Think of how our country could have turned out today if MLK hadn't stepped to the fore: a place of bigotry and hatred. Or, imagine if another --more radical and violent-- figure had taken the reins of the movement, and turned the Black desire for freedom and respect into a violent path.


I also respect Franklin Roosevelt, who knew what needed to be done and stared into fascism without blinking, and geared America up for a hard war that had to be fought.

[Kanastrous]

While I wouldn't argue with any of the nominees people are offering, the OP was after mostly-unsung heroes; for all their value to the nation the heroism of people like Dr. King, George Washington, John Quincy Adams and Teddy Rooseveldt is not exactly unsung.

[CarsonPalmer]

While I wouldn't argue with any of the nominees people are offering, the OP was after mostly-unsung heroes; for all their value to the nation the heroism of people like Dr. King, George Washington, John Quincy Adams and Teddy Rooseveldt is not exactly unsung.

The only one I'll dispute is Adams. At least in the mind of the public, he is pretty unsung. To make up for it, though, I'll offer the Boston abolitionists of the 1850's, whose resistance to the fugitive slave law was incredibly intense. A group of them battered down a courtroom door to free a fugitive, and shuttled him to Canada. An entire church congregation in New Hampshire stormed a police to free a fugitive, and rowed him across Lake Ontario to freedom. Abolitionists would conspicuously walk the streets with loaded weapons whenever slave catchers were in town. It was the focus point of the whole movement through the early part of that decade.