Re: HOMESTEAD: The importance of the COG mission

["Don Ward" <donrward@hotmail.com>]

To Friends of COG: I am reading a book, written about 10 years ago, which caught my attention because it deals with the New York (Civil War) Draft riots in July 1863. Most of the participants were the working poor (many recent Irish and German immigrants), who would  bear the brunt of the draft, because they could not buy a substitute if drafted.The riots themselves  only lasted about a week, so in order to fill about 300 pages the author spent a lot of time talking about the causes, beyond the New York poor not wanting to be in the military under the Republicans, including President Lincoln. One chapter deals with  the exploitive business class in New York City and how it kept the common worker under their thumb. The Bad guys were Belmont, Holmsted ( the park planner of later years) and a host of others too numerous to mention  However, there were those including some businessmen who wanted to reform that system  in the city empowering the worker, giving them dignity, a bigger share of the pie including employe ownership as well as better wages working conditions and  the right to organize.(Sounds a lot like like the COG agenda}The champion reformer was Horace Greeley of "go west young man" fame. Changes at that time were minimal. It took some 70 more years for our government to get serious about those reforms in the United States. It may take that long world wide, however the clock is ticking and rightly so.   DonWard

 

>Shann Turnbull Ph.D.

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