Wake up, America

You really can't miss that wild cover, but let me help you with the small print. On the first day, the program offered some great music--The Manhattan Quartet--and then a lecture by someone named G. A. Gearhart. Title?--"BENEFITS FORGOT," a wake-up call to small town America, begging good, sturdy, hard-working people not to fall asleep at the wheel but remember and then recommit themselves to the fabulous freedoms America afforded its blessed populace. 

Right here in Orange City, the second day, July 14, 1920, offered a wider and broader range of wholesome activities, all of it family entertainment, including stories and poems, dramatic readings by Miss Marybelle La Hatte, in a not-to-be-forgotten performance for young and old alike. Orange City must have considered itself especially favored among regional small towns in far corner of the state. The Radcliffe Chautauqua (RC) created big-time programming for American small towns. 

It was clearly, all civic pride stuff, featuring content intended to bring Orange City-ans (RC would be in Dakota City, NE the weekend before) to ordinary folk who might otherwise be starved for "classic music popularized, popular music dignified," as their advertising maintained. The whole Chautauqua movement meant to impart a dignified, thoughtful citizenry loyal to the central truths of American freedom.  You should support the RC, its own documents argued, "if you believe in making better homes, better churches and schools, better character, better civilization, in making life brighter and happier, and in making young men and women less anxious to go to the big city but more happy about staying in their home community."

RC wanted little more than to bring some class to podunk, and it did. Using the familiar tropes of old-fashioned tent revivals couple with a little Barnum and Bailey, RC created a big-top on some open field to attract a crowd, then preached the vital glories of American civic life with first-rate speakers, dramatists, and musicians. 

"Do you know that thousands of alien-born anarchists, Bolsheviks, and other "reds," thoroughly organized and backed by millions of dollars are deliberately plotting and working night and day for the destruction of the United States?"

That's the fourth paragraph of the middle pages of the brochure, if you're wondering. I would imagine, in 1920, with the fire and smoke of the Russian Revolution just recently drifting away, that paragraph wasn't political or propaganda, I'm guessing the good folks at RC would have maintained that paragraph was simple fact: there were "reds" and they were sworn to bring down American democracy.

I happened upon this 102-year-old program/brochure (it's the property of the Dutch American Heritage Museum) the day after ex-President Trump delivered a speech announcing his candidacy for the office of the President. How can you not note that wild cover?

“Biden has made a corrupt bargain in exchange for his party’s nomination,” Mr. Trump said. “He has handed control to the socialists and Marxists and left-wing extremists like his vice-presidential candidate.”

It's amazing. That argument has been a mainstay of Republic politics for more than a century, right here in River City, Orange City. 

And elsewhere. Lots and lots of American elsewheres.