Happy Independence Day! Hope you’re going to celebrate the day with a cookout and fireworks, and come away with all your fingers!
If you haven’t had a chance to read them yet, in the past year I’ve written five posts about the American Revolution and the family members who participated:
Captain John Parker and the Shot Heard Round the World
Crummy Cousin: Benedict Arnold
Mary Rockhold: Points in History
But if you want something short, here’s an excerpt of a speech given on July 4, 1899, by William Thomas Burgess, the husband of our 2nd cousin 4x removed (on the Standiford branch) Eliza Matilda Rockhold. Burgess fought in the Civil War—more on that in another post—which he parleyed into a public lecture side-hustle in the late 1800s. This passage comes from a talk he gave to an audience in Wichita, Kansas:
The greater trouble in this country today is that mere politics—party politics—permeates all and every industry, social and commercial, and even stalks into the churches and around their altars, thus making all great questions stepping stones to party success and men’s ambition and selfish aggrandizement.
Or in other words, things haven't changed much!
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