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Staying in the early 20th Century today. Here is an address by the legendary William Jennings Bryan, who may probably be best known for his role in the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925; teaching Evolution in public Schools. Bryan died within hours of the trials end. Although Bryan came to epitomize the Liberal Wing of the Democratic Party, he was a staunch prohibitionist and staunchly anti-Darwin, whose theory of Evolution was the basis for the famous trial. He unsuccessfully ran for President in 1896, 1900 and 1908 and was appointed Secretary of State in the Wilson Administration in 1913.

Here is the last portion of his address to the 1908 Democratic Convention, recorded several days later, on July 21, 1908 for posterity and also to be used for the Bryan campaign.

Later known as the "Ideal Republic" Address, here is the transcript of that speech since, being recorded in 1908, is a little hard to decipher in places:

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(Herbert Hoover - no doubt turning somersaults)

The name Herbert Hoover has been invoked in a lot of conversation and blogs the past few days with reference to our current President. But how many have actually heard him speak?

Not a whole lot I suspect. Hoover was out of office before the days of the broadcast Press conference, the weekly address, the televised speech.

So I thought it would be a good idea to play his acceptance speech at the 1932 Republican Convention - the whole address, no excerpts, no soundbites. It's a little over an hour (but with the snappy C&L embed player, you can download it just fine), so you can hear it for yourself.

Herbert Hoover: “Oft times the tendency of democracy in the presence of national danger is to strike blindly and listen to demagogues and to slogans all of which destroy and do not save. We have refused to be stampeded into such courses. Oft times democracy elsewhere in the world has been unable to move fast enough to save itself in emergencies. There have been disheartening delays and failures in legislation and private action which have added to the losses of our people. Yet this democracy of ours has proved its ability to act.”

Okay, Hoover was not one of the electrifying speakers of his day. He was, as was often quoted "a plain speaker" - loosely translated; dull. But you get an idea of where he stood politically and he covers some of the same topics we're looking at today.

History is not as painful as it seems. Just not paying attention to it is.

A significant day in history, but one that was moving so fast we didn't appreciate it at the time.

On February 7, 1990 sweeping changes were taking place in the Soviet Union, almost hourly and predominating the news of the day. As Mikhail Gorbachev repealed Article 6 in the Communist Party platform, making way for a multi-party system and Democracy to replace the old Communist system of government. Everyone was in favor, except for one - Boris Yeltsin, regarded by most as a maverick politician. The news was greeted in the West with enthusiasm, although President Bush quickly rushed to claim at least partial credit for the changes. Ironically, he also called for increased spending of the Star Wars Defense system, which baffled everyone, including Central Committee Member Georgi Abatov who said:

"I think you are, you Americans, not yet prepared to live without an enemy. You just don't know what to do without an enemy".

True, that. And still true, some 20 years later.

In other news - Vaclav Havel was scheduled to arrive in Washington for a visit and address a joint session of Congress. Jesse Jackson was scheduled to arrive in Johannesburg South Africa, continuing his call for an end to Apartheid and the release of Nelson Mandela. Schools in Selma Alabama were closed on this day, as racial tensions rose and black marched in protest to the recent dismissal of black School Superintendent Norbert Rousseau by a mostly white Board of Education.

The State Department was up to its eyeballs in scandal as it suspended employee Felix Bloch on spy charges. Chicago was minus 20 organized crime figures as the DOJ did a sweep and handed out indictments like party favors.

And a study found the majority of high school students had no idea about geography or even where they were on the map. The good news was 87% could find Canada - but that was about it.

And we were now The Big Kids Left Standing.

And so went this particular day in history as reported by CBS Radio and The World Tonight along with Special Reports and a word or two from Dan Rather.

(Sgt. Donald Duncan - there were signs early on Vietnam wouldn't work)

Sgt. Donald Duncan was the first U.S. soldier decorated with the Legion of Merit Medal in the Vietnam War. He had credibility and he was acknowledged as a hero. When he started voicing his doubts that our involvement in Vietnam was anything but disastrous, it raised eyebrows. So the war hero was quickly dismissed and his warnings gone largely unheeded. Sounds familiar.

In 1966, shortly after Ramparts Magazine published his piece "Dying For A Lie", in which he exposed the hypocrisy of our Vietnam excursion for what it was, he went on the talk show circuit, including this one, From The Capitol for ABC Radio.

George Watson (ABC News): “Sgt. Duncan, you say, and I quote; ‘our men are dying for a lie in Vietnam and corrupting the very word democracy’. What do you mean by that?”

Sgt. Donald Duncan: “Our administration is being continually pointing out, not only to the public but to the soldiers going over to Vietnam that we’re going there to preserve freedom, or to introduce freedom and democratic institutions. Just the opposite is true of course. There are fewer democratic institutions within South Vietnam now than there was, let’s say, in 1954. When you ask people to fight for freedom and fight for democracy then hopefully you are doing exactly that which of course we’re not.”

He was not warmly received by the mainstream media, but his message sent up a warning signal that Vietnam was not the noble war we were told it was. He would later testify before the International War Crimes Tribunal regarding the use of torture in Vietnam by Special Forces Green Berets (of which he was one).

All the warning signs were there. One of the issues it painfully brought up, and one which still holds true today in our present circumstances, is that the U.S. is very good at waging war, but completely inept at waging peace. It failed in Vietnam and it is rapidly failing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's that thing about learning from mistakes . . . or not.

(Sen. Claude Pepper - withstood many attempts at mud-slinging)

It's always interesting (and sometimes gratifying) to hear Sunday Morning talk shows from the past, just as a way of reminding yourself things were never as bad as they are now with mainstream media.

Case in point is certainly Meet The Press. Originally begun in 1946 as a feature on the Mutual Broadcast System Radio Network before switching to NBC in 1947, it was the brainchild of Martha Rountree and Lawrence Spivak and produced in association with American Mercury Magazine (of which Spivak was Publisher), Meet The Press pulled no punches and offered some serious grilling to whatever guest happened to be invited on. It prided itself in not asking canned questions and sometimes the results were newsworthy in themselves.

This episode, from November 27, 1947 features Senator Claude Pepper (D-Florida), himself an outspoken FDR Democrat, talking about our Post-war foreign aid policy and what needed to be done about it in view of the increasing presence of Communism in Eastern Europe.

Sen. Claude Pepper: “I’m in favor of spreading democracy in every part of the world. But there are many ways to spread democracy. You can’t cram democracy down the throats of people. And you can’t buy them off from Communism. We haven’t got enough money to buy the people of the world off from Communism. The best way, in my opinion, to spread democracy is to establish democracy so firmly here, that we’ll be able to propagate it to all nations and peoples of the world, we’ll be able to help them, we’ll set them a good example and the like . . not to buy them or cram it down their throats. . .

Lawrence Spivak: “ . . but certainly Senator we oughtn’t help those who are spreading totalitarianism . . or should we?

Pepper: Mister Spivak, we and the Communists have been living in this world a good many years together. Karl Marx started talking about Communism as you know in the last century. And it seems to me that unless we are willing to be blown to some other world to get away from a world where communism exists, we’ve got to live in a world with Communism. And they’ve got to live in a world with Capitalism. And the sensible thing to do is to learn to live together. We’ve got to live together whether we like it or not.”

Needless to say, Pepper didn't endear himself to the right wing fear mongers in the Senate, who nicknamed him "Red Pepper" and repeatedly attempted to smear him during the 1950's.

Times have changed - so have the people and so have the politicians.