Norway’s Dark Secret, The Lebensborn, ABBA

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. not only invited Mr. Washington to dine at the White House, he appointed a Jew to his cabinet, a first in United States history. The contention that he were viewed by the nation in the unfortunate term used to describe him based on his race relations policy is beggared by the popularity he enjoyed throughout his career after 1901.

In 1904, Roosevelt polled fractionally over 56% of the popular vote, and took 336 electoral votes, with only 239 needed to win. That is the greatest proportional plurality by any candidate in a contested election (Washington was twice elected unopposed, and James Monroe was unopposed in his second term). His Democratic opponent received 140 electoral votes. Kentucy and Maryland were the only states north of "the Old South" which he did not take in that election. One might suggest a racist motive in Southern voting, but this would ignore the solid Democratic character of Southern voting in national elections in the entire period from the election of Lincoln until the election of Reagan. Even were one to assert that the motive for Southern voting in 1904 was racist, his plurality suggests that the degree of "casual racism" in the public were not so significantly virulent as the other member seems to suggest.

Additionally, in 1912, when Roosevelt ran against his "protege" Taft, whom he considered had betrayed their "radical" Republican roots--he managed to take seven states in the electoral vote, compared to Taft's two. This was undoubtedly the spoiler, which allowed Wilson to "bury" Taft in the electoral college, in which Wilson took 435 votes. However, Wilson only took 41% of the popular vote, and Roosevelt took 27%, well ahead of Taft's 23%. Given that Roosevelt survived a failed assassination attempt, and the blocking of an anti-trust plank by the Progressive Party's financial backers shocked those who saw him as a reformer, he nevertheless showed better than the Republican candidate.

Therefore, i consider a contention that Roosevelt were seen by Americans to be the type of person described in the other member's unfortunate characterization, or that the nation as a whole were sufficiently, racially motivated for that to have mattered to be nonsense.

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When President William McKinley told a delegation of church leaders that God had counseled him to annex the Philippines and "to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them," few Americans knew that the Philippines had an educational system older than that of the United States and that the majority of Filipinos were Catholic. McKinley's depiction of Filipinos as uncivilized pagans played on prevalent racist sentiments and served to justify an unpopular war. One commonly held view ranked peoples of the world into four grades of culture -- savagery, barbarism, civilization, and enlightenment. In this hierarchy, white America was the pinnacle of enlightenment while Filipinos belonged to the two lowest levels of culture and therefore incapable of self-government.

Senator Albert Beveridge in a famous Senate speech referred to Filipinos as "a barbarous race" of children incapable of even understanding "Anglo-Saxon self-government" adding: "[God] has marked the American people as his chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit..." The first American teachers introduced English into hundreds of schools already in existence at that time but the myth that the U.S. brought the school to the Philippines remains to this day. American education became a tool for pacification and assimilation into the U.S. colonial system.

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OK you two, go get a room and leave talk of FDR for your bedroom scene, I wanna talk about ABBA godammit.

More on the virulent racism of Americans during the late 19th/early 20th centuries, ...

OK you two, go get a room and leave talk of FDR for your bedroom scene, I wanna talk about ABBA godammit.

Kratos wrote:

More on the virulent racism of Americans during the late 19th/early 20th centuries, ...

Chumly wrote:

OK you two, go get a room and leave talk of FDR for your bedroom scene, I wanna talk about ABBA godammit.

Actually, Kratos, Chumly started this thread and perhaps you start an own one ... or just be polite enough to respect his wish.

Basically speaking, you're implying that his popularity ratings say otherwise. Race relations were but one minor aspect of his presidency and he clearly became tentative about doing anything in its regards following the Booker T dinner. How he could enjoy such popularity ratings suggests that his charisma and populist approach vastly outweighed any minor "incidences"; much like how most people view Bill Clinton very favorably despite being a bigtime philanderer.

Of her father, Alfred Haase, little is known beyond that he was a Wehrmacht (not SS) NCO, and is presumed to have been lost in a accidental ship sinking in late May of '45, at the beginning of the repatriation of foreign-based German troops following the end of the war.

The first meeting between father and daughter took place in Stockholm at Anni-Frid and Benny's place in September 1977.

- I couldn't (bring herself) go out to the airport. I was so unbelievably tense before the meeting with him. When he came we hugged. I don't remember much of what we said, Anni-Frid told Expressen. In the new book it is stated that Anni-Frid Lyngstad broke off contact with her father five years after the meeting when she got to know that Alfred Haase knew the whole time that Synni was pregnant.

Alfred Haase, now 82 years old, thinks that the statement is not true.

- We ring each other at regular intervals, at least once to twice a month. The telephone conversations are long. We chat about everything under the sun and we also have chatted about meeting each other again.

- We have a good relationship and maintain anything else is not true, he says to Dagbladet.

According to Alfred Haase their contact was broken for a while but was resumed.

- I have all the records that ABBA released. The most I have received from Anni-Frid. "Fernando" is my favourite song. I am proud of her and hope that we will see each other again soon, he says to Dagbladet.

Frida doesn't want to talk about the book.

But in an Expressen interview in January 1978 she described her meeting with her father as the greatest experience in her life.

- The whole thing still feels unreal. To have a father who is nevertheless a stranger. Right now we are exchanging letters impartially in order to discover/know each other as people.

Kratos wrote:

Basically speaking, you're implying that his popularity ratings say otherwise. Race relations were but one minor aspect of his presidency and he clearly became tentative about doing anything in its regards following the Booker T dinner. How he could enjoy such popularity ratings suggests that his charisma and populist approach vastly outweighed any minor "incidences"; much like how most people view Bill Clinton very favorably despite being a bigtime philanderer.

Which clearly beggars your notional contentions about the degree of virulence of casual racism in the United States in the early 20th century. I dispute the claim made at Wikipedia about the effect of the Washington dinner on the perceptions of Southern voters. It ignores what i have already pointed out, that Southerners reliably voted for Democratic candidates from the 1860 election of Lincoln. Roosevelt succeeded William McKinely in 1901. In 1896, McKinely did not poll the elctoral college votes of a single state of the "Old South" (he did get Kentucky and Maryland, which states were not members of the Southern Confederacy). In 1900, McKinely again failed to gain the electoral votes of any single state of the "Old South," and lost Kentucky to his Democratic challenger. In 1908, Roosevelt's successor, William Howard Taft, also failed to gain the electoral votes of any state of the "Old South," and also failed to gain the electoral votes of Kentucky and Maryland. It was not until the 1952 election of Eisenhower that a Republican made significant inroads in the "Old South," when he took Virginia, Tennessee and Florida. In the 1968 election, Richard Nixon took several states of the "Old South"--at a time when several others were taken by the "Dixiecrat" candidate, George Wallace, who also acted as a "spoiler" in those states which were awarded to Nixon. It was not until 1980 that the old pattern of Democratic voting in the "Old South" was finally and definitively reversed by Reagan.

My contention was that casual racism was common in the late 19th century. To that, i would add the observation that this condition continued well into the 20th century. (This is no partisan diatribe--Woodrow Wilson showed his adherence to casual racism with an executive order to segregate Federal offices on a plea that white women should not be obliged to sit next to black women in government offices.) However, i do not consider that you have demonstrated that this casual racism rose to any significant degree of virulence in the United States in the early 20th century, and that the electoral patterns of that era, both before, during and after the administration of Theordore Roosevelt, Jr., bear out this contention on my part.

Setanta wrote:

Kratos wrote:

Basically speaking, you're implying that his popularity ratings say otherwise. Race relations were but one minor aspect of his presidency and he clearly became tentative about doing anything in its regards following the Booker T dinner. How he could enjoy such popularity ratings suggests that his charisma and populist approach vastly outweighed any minor "incidences"; much like how most people view Bill Clinton very favorably despite being a bigtime philanderer.

Which clearly beggars your notional contentions about the degree of virulence of casual racism in the United States in the early 20th century.

I dispute the claim made at Wikipedia about the effect of the Washington dinner on the perceptions of Southern voters. It ignores what i have already pointed out, that Southerners reliably voted for Democratic candidates from the 1860 election of Lincoln. Roosevelt succeeded William McKinely in 1901. In 1896, McKinely did not poll the elctoral college votes of a single state of the "Old South" (he did get Kentucky and Maryland, which states were not members of the Southern Confederacy). In 1900, McKinely again failed to gain the electoral votes of any single state of the "Old South," and lost Kentucky to his Democratic challenger. In 1908, Roosevelt's successor, William Howard Taft, also failed to gain the electoral votes of any state of the "Old South," and also failed to gain the electoral votes of Kentucky and Maryland. It was not until the 1952 election of Eisenhower that a Republican made significant inroads in the "Old South," when he took Virginia, Tennessee and Florida. In the 1968 election, Richard Nixon took several states of the "Old South"--at a time when several others were taken by the "Dixiecrat" candidate, George Wallace, who also acted as a "spoiler" in those states which were awarded to Nixon. It was not until 1980 that the old pattern of Democratic voting in the "Old South" was finally and definitively reversed by Reagan.