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Business News
Independence, MO —
To the editor:
On Nov. 6, we will vote for either a seasoned politician or a highly successful businessman. Can we learn from history how to match the resumes of our two current candidates with the specific problems of our day and times? Sometimes we have to look back to see the future.
Herbert Hoover, a mining engineer, presided over both “the best of times” and “the worst of times.” Our nation’s economy was booming when he defeated Al Smith, New York’s Democratic governor, in 1928. But the stock market crash in late 1929 doomed Hoover, the GOP businessman-industrialist, and brought us Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only president to serve more than two four-year terms and considered by many as the greatest politician of our time.
In 1940, FDR probably would not have sought a third term had it not been for the beginning of World War II, the fall of France to Germany and the threat to England. Businessman Wendell Willkie, an electric company executive, switched parties because he opposed FDR’s big government spending as the answer to our nation’s struggling economy. Many of FDR’s politically popular laws designed to overcome the Great Depression were eventually ruled unconstitutional. Had Willkie been elected and private enterprise prevailed, we may not be facing a $16 trillion national debt today.
Consider Jimmy Carter, a governor of Georgia, a nuclear physicist in the Navy and a successful peanut farmer operator. Despite extensive foreign policy peace efforts, such as the Egypt-Isreal peace treaty, negotiating nuclear bomb limits with Russia, renewing trade relations with China, high unemployment along with high inflation doomed this businessman-politician’s bid for a second term.
What about our Harry Truman? He failed in the retail clothing business, worked as a farmer and eventually became probably one of our 10 greatest presidents, certainly one of our truly highly successful politicians. A Democrat, he presided over some of the most controversial decisions since the Civil War. That includes dropping the atomic bomb to end World War II , keeping North Korea out of South Korea and preventing Douglas MacArthur from invading China.
In 2012, war and the economy should be the key issues. It will be tragic if wedge issues, such as gay marriage, abortion and contraception actually determine who leads us through our troubled times.
To the editor:
On Nov. 6, we will vote for either a seasoned politician or a highly successful businessman. Can we learn from history how to match the resumes of our two current candidates with the specific problems of our day and times? Sometimes we have to look back to see the future.
Herbert Hoover, a mining engineer, presided over both “the best of times” and “the worst of times.” Our nation’s economy was booming when he defeated Al Smith, New York’s Democratic governor, in 1928. But the stock market crash in late 1929 doomed Hoover, the GOP businessman-industrialist, and brought us Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only president to serve more than two four-year terms and considered by many as the greatest politician of our time.
In 1940, FDR probably would not have sought a third term had it not been for the beginning of World War II, the fall of France to Germany and the threat to England. Businessman Wendell Willkie, an electric company executive, switched parties because he opposed FDR’s big government spending as the answer to our nation’s struggling economy. Many of FDR’s politically popular laws designed to overcome the Great Depression were eventually ruled unconstitutional. Had Willkie been elected and private enterprise prevailed, we may not be facing a $16 trillion national debt today.
Consider Jimmy Carter, a governor of Georgia, a nuclear physicist in the Navy and a successful peanut farmer operator. Despite extensive foreign policy peace efforts, such as the Egypt-Isreal peace treaty, negotiating nuclear bomb limits with Russia, renewing trade relations with China, high unemployment along with high inflation doomed this businessman-politician’s bid for a second term.
What about our Harry Truman? He failed in the retail clothing business, worked as a farmer and eventually became probably one of our 10 greatest presidents, certainly one of our truly highly successful politicians. A Democrat, he presided over some of the most controversial decisions since the Civil War. That includes dropping the atomic bomb to end World War II , keeping North Korea out of South Korea and preventing Douglas MacArthur from invading China.
In 2012, war and the economy should be the key issues. It will be tragic if wedge issues, such as gay marriage, abortion and contraception actually determine who leads us through our troubled times.
