Dear Editor
I agree with Gene Tucker. Jarred Kutz’s critique of our electoral system pulled the rug out from under Donald Trump’s stolen election lie. Did you notice that Jarred had to reach back 100 years for an example of electoral corruption in boss Pendergast’s Kansas City regime? Kutz reminded me of a steady first baseman coming to a close play, stretching, struggling to keep a toe on the MAGA bag.
Kutz was historically correct. Pendergast was as crooked as a snake, but he made one very important contribution to American history.
Much like today, there was a wave of Nativism in the 1920s; quotas on immigration were enacted, and the Ku Klux Klan became popular. A road-building member of the KC regime, a fellow named Harry Truman, went to the boss to explain that he intended to join the Klan.
The KC caption listened to Harry thoughtfully, and then he offered the ambitious pol some of the soundest mentoring “the man from Missouri” ever hoped to hear. Pendergast reminded his underling that Klan hatred didn’t stop with racial minorities. He told Harry, “We’ve got a lot of fine Catholics here in Kansas City. Do you really want to join an outfit that hates those well-meaning folks?”
Harry changed his mind. Tom Pendergast died in a Jefferson City prison, and Harry Truman would not have slept in the White House if he had rejected the boss’s open-minded advice.
As president and leader of a diverse people, Harry had a great change of heart. He realized that our nation truly is a “melting pot” and that the richness of our culture and the shared trials of life have a way of neutralizing the differences in our dialects and the color of our skin.
In the aftermath of WWII, Truman integrated the US military. He felt that the service of minorities — suckers and losers,” some would say — during the war justified the transition.
In last week’s paper, Kelly McKerrow did a fine job of demonstrating the diversity among Show-Me Christians, and I especially enjoyed her astute characterization of the Stephanite migrants who settled the “east end” of our county.
Two books have been written on the Saxon migration, and Kelly came as close as either author in identifying the central motivating factor of the move. I found myself whispering “warm” and “warmer” when she mentioned the date of the sojourn, 1839.
You see, those Saxon migrants sailed for the New World the same year that Abner Doubleday invented baseball.
Heading west to play ball — is there anything more American?
Sincerely,
Jesse Laurentius
