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Early rough cut of an upcoming episode on the 1996 election, and how events in 1995 all but foretold the outcome.  Dick Morris and Clinton, Powell and Dole accusations that the media was biased against Clinton and lot of fundraising.

From one hundred years ago, a simple story that is highly political.  Sherwood Anderson’s tale of a son talking about his father’s egg farm and restaurant dreams is a criticism of the intensity and negative side of the American Dream.

US in Haiti, Fatty Arbuckle and Virginia Rappe, Tony Jackson dies but not his influence on jazz singers, Hitler meets Luddendorf.  And other items that didn’t fit in the episode.

A little bit more about Mayor Monroe and Lt Governor Oscar Dunn, players in the episode about the Mechanics Institute attack in new Orleans.  From the legal pad leftovers.

Many of the attacks on the Constitution lacked specific detail, so Federalists had to fight straw men and conspiracy theories.  In this episode we look at how James Wilson and Madison did, and how they explained the Constitution’s benefits.  We also get some of the response.

We get the perspective of George B. McClellan Jr, son of the Union general, about Congress in the 1890’s as a Democrat from the North.  Dealing with his Southern colleagues and avoiding duels was on his list of activities.  Also more obscure facts about Presidents that didn’t fit in the last episode, and a point I wanted to hammer on more in ‘We Got Problems’ that I may not have, or not enough anyway.

A look at the vice president under Theodore Roosevelt (1905-1909), who was overshadowed by his boss but kept the ‘stand pat’ conservatives happy while his boss ran the White House.

The 1890’s was dubbed The Mauve Decade because of the popularity of that color in fashion.  It was also a time of depression and boom, populist politics, attempts to fly, dead poets schoolyard games, automobiles that looked like bikes, and America getting modern.  Random notes and observations from American History in the 1890’s, which may or may not become a podcast episode some day.

Additional notes about Lincoln’s Inaugural train ride.  Including Whitman’s description of him. More Train stop speeches.  A curse of Congress by Benjamin Wade, Lincoln’s true opinion on Seward’s New Mexico idea (more complex I must admit than my comments in the episode), and a little bit about the ‘Rain in Springfield.’  A long episode usually results in a lot of ‘left overs’ on the legal pad and in my memory.  Some things are too lengthy to get in.  Some I can’t find at that crucial recording time!

We look at the Bonus Army of 1932 and 1933 and how two different Presidents reached to marches on Washington.  In the wake of tragic events at the Capitol this week, we discuss Coxey’s Populist ‘army’ and the first real use of the Capitol as a symbol of angry protests in the past.  While nothing reaches the rampage of recent events, there were times when US administrations and DC authorities aggressively put down marches on the Capitol before they were uncontrolled or impacted governance.    These events contextualize but do not excuse the events of recent times.