Unsanctioned Voice; Saturday Evening Post; George Lorimer; French occupation of Ruhr; Calvin Coolidge; Herbert Hoover; agriculture; H.A. Nestos

Click these links for discussions of the Writer's Note , Chapters 1 and 2, Chapter 3, Chapters 4-6, Chapters 7-10 , Chapters 11 and 12 , Chapter 13 and Chapter 14 of Bruce Ramsey's Unsanctioned Voice.




Chapter 15 deals with the beginning of Garrett's career with the Saturday Evening Post and Garrett's writings on the war debt.

Garrett's writings for the Post included a fictional piece in 1917 about a "clerk in a bond house who figures out during the gold run of 1895 that the government is bankrupt." (p. 97). I am sure that this work (like almost all of Garrett's Post writings) is available on microfilm in larger libraries.

Ramsey describes the Post articles as "long articles, written for a world before television, when Americans had the patience to read." (p. 97).

Ramsey quotes and cites (pp. 98-99) two Garrett Post articles about France's attempts to collect reparations from Germany by occupying the Ruhr in 1923. Garrett described his visit to the Ruhr during the occupation and German resistance to that occupation. The story of the French occupation is fascinating and virtually unknown in mainstream history discussion.

The articles cited regarding the war debt cover much of the same material that later appeared in A Bubble That Broke The World. Bubble was a reorganized compilation of writing that appeared in the Post in 1931 and 1932. Two of the (many) articles cited in end note #2 (p. 104) have similar titles to two chapters of Bubble. The chapters are undated in Bubble. Ramsey's research thus has helped provide more background for Bubble.

Ramsey's discussion of Garrett's writings on the war debt included Garrett's conversations and meetings with the famous and powerful. "From World War I through the 1930's Garrett had the closest contacts he ever would with high politicians." (p. 101). Chapter 15 would include references to Garrett's contacts and relationships with Bernard Baruch, Secretary of State Elihu Root, Post publisher George Lorimer, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, and Presidents Coolidge and Hoover. (pp. 99-101). Hoover and Garrett remained life-long friends. (p. 102).

Chapter 15 also includes Garrett's views on immigration (p. 102) and how a culture and nation can be changed irreversibly by unfettered immigration.

The chapter also sets forth Garrett's views on the Phillipines in the 1920's (pp. 102-103) and quotes liberally from The American Story (1955) on several subjects. Ramsey also refreshingly uses the word "nationalism" to identify concepts that modern orthodoxy attempts to denigrate with the misleading label "isolationism."

Chapter 16 deals with agriculture. Here, Ramsey confusingly uses "nationalism" to mean the opposite of "individualism" (p. 105) even though a government policy promoting and allowing individualism tends to make the entire nation strong. Nationalism and individualism go hand-in-hand.

Reading this and the immediately prior chapters gives one an appreciation of the size of the task confronting Ramsey. Most of the knowledge available about Garrett comes from his many articles, essays and columns. Ramsey had to find these items (presumably) on old library microfilm, print them from the old machines (an arduous task itself) and organize them by subject so that a larger picture of Garrett's (sometimes changing) views could be developed. End note #1 (p. 112) from Chapter 16 alone cites more than two dozen lengthy magazine articles written by Garrett. These and other articles and writings are then compressed and summarized in an 8 page chapter and integrated into the broader picture of Garrett's life in the 1920's.

Garrett wrote about agriculture's role in the bubble that burst in the early 1920's. He resisted attempts to create more federal involvement in farming and sparred with North Dakota governor H.A. Nestos over these and other issues. (pp. 105-109). Garrett owned his own farm in New Jersey. (pp. 109-110).

Garrett compared farming with railroads and lamented that federal controls had tamed the railroads. (pp. 110-111). Chapter 16 provides a preview of the federal controls that would come to farming with the New Deal in the 1930's. (p. 109).

Update - click here for discussion of Chapters 17 through 19.