Yesterday was Women’s Equality Day, marking the anniversary of American women gaining the right to vote in 1920 under the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Iowa nearly adopted a state-level woman-suffrage amendment on two occasions before that time. Inspired to learn more about those close calls, this week I read part of Louise Noun’s 1969 book Strong-Minded Women: The Emergence of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in Iowa. The short version of what I learned is after the jump.

Spoiler alert: Republicans in the Bleeding Heartland community may enjoy this post more than Democrats.  

Since I heard on Sunday that Julian Bond had passed away, I’ve been reading reflections on his life. Bond was one of the legends of the civil rights movement: an early leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a longtime state lawmaker who had to take his fight to be seated in the Georgia House of Representatives all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In his later years, he led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and was a strong voice for LGBT equality and against efforts to undo the Voting Rights Act.

I learned a lot about Bond from his obituaries; for instance, I did not know that he and John Lewis, both civil rights veterans from the 1960s, fought a bitter Congressional campaign against each other in 1986. Some personal reminiscences have been enlightening too. For entertainment value, you can’t beat Howie Klein’s story about the time he invited Bond and Strom Thurmond to speak on the same day of 1966 at the State University of New York in Stony Brook.

Stephen Carter wrote a wonderful column on “The beauty of Julian Bond’s voice.” Carter had known Bond since the 1970s, when his mother was one of Bond’s legislative staffers. Before I read Carter’s piece, I had no idea that a legendary Iowa Democrat and Bond were political allies.

The Iowa Democratic Party announced today that its State Central Committee voted “to begin the process to change the name of the annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner following the 2015 Dinner.” In a statement I’ve enclosed in full below, state chair Dr. Andy McGuire said “it is important to change the name of the dinner to align with the values of our modern day Democratic Party: inclusiveness, diversity and equality.” She promised that all Iowa Democrats will have a chance to suggest new names for what has often been the party’s largest gathering of the year.

One obvious choice would be to name the dinner after longtime Senator Tom Harkin, now that the Harkin Steak Fry is no more. Or, if party leaders want to stick with historical figures whose legacy unites Iowa Democrats, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt.

What do you think, Bleeding Heartland readers?

State Senator Jason Schultz weighed in last night on the controversy over Confederate flag displays: “I’m now convinced the whole Confederate flag issue is simply about progressives teaching the establishment R’s how to jump through hoops.”

During our ensuing dialogue, Schultz revealed the level of nuanced thinking and temperate choice of words one would expect from a Ted Cruz endorser.  

The continuing controversy over displaying Confederate flags has divided the Republican caucus in the U.S. House, forcing leaders to cancel a vote planned for today on a bill to fund the Interior Department for the 2016 fiscal year.

For the second time in less than a month, Iowa’s four U.S. representatives split along party lines over how to handle Democratic efforts to remove all Confederate flag images from the Capitol.

Follow me after the jump for background and details.

While too many Republicans of national stature “tread carefully” in commenting on displays of the Confederate flag, Iowa GOP Chair Jeff Kaufmann provided a clinic this week on how to talk about the issue.

The U.S. Treasury Department announced yesterday, “Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew has decided that the new $10 note should feature a woman who was a champion for our inclusive democracy […].”

Many people shared my immediate reaction: why not dump President Andrew Jackson from the $20 bill instead? Binyamin Appelbaum put it most succinctly: “Hard choices: Should we get rid of the hard-working immigrant on the $10 bill or the homicidal racist on the $20 bill? Hmmmmm”. Alexandra Petri explained in more detail why Jackson doesn’t deserve the honor of being on our currency. Among other things, he bears responsibility for the Indian Removal Act and the subsequent “Trail of Tears,” one of the most shameful crimes in U.S. history. As Steven Mufson pointed out, Hamilton “was a founding father, co-author of the Federalist Papers, Revolutionary War staff aide to George Washington, first Treasury Secretary and architect of the early American economy.’ Someone already started a White House petition to keep Hamilton on the $10 bill, but the Treasury Department’s FAQ page on “The New 10” don’t indicate that switching the $20 bill is an option.

Currency is primarily redesigned as necessary to address current and potential security threats to currency notes. When recommending a note for redesign, the Advanced Counterfeit Deterrence (ACD) Steering Committee considers these primary goals: that U.S. currency utilizes unique and technologically advanced security features to deter counterfeiting, that it facilitates the public’s use and authentication, provides accessibility and usability, and maintains public confidence. Based on analysis of these criteria, in June 2013, the Committee recommended that the $10 note should be the next note to be redesigned, assuming no other counterfeit threats emerge.

This thread is for any opinions about who belongs on the new currency. My first choice to celebrate women’s contributions to democracy would be Carrie Chapman Catt, a “Key coordinator of the woman suffrage movement and skillful political strategist.” She grew up in Charles City, Iowa, graduated from what later became Iowa State University, then worked in Charles City and Mason City.

Another good choice would be Francis Perkins, the first woman to serve in the president’s cabinet as labor secretary under Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

The Polk County Democrats’ spring awards dinner on Friday night exceeded all expectations. Hordes of journalists showed up to cover speeches by former U.S. Senator Jim Webb and former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. I enjoyed both speeches and have posts in progress on their messages. C-SPAN put up video of both speeches here.

You had to be there to experience the evening’s other high points. Beautiful videos honored the memories of veterans who died overseas and three legendary local Democratic supporters who passed away during the past year (including Paulee Lipsman). Tireless Urbandale volunteer and letter-to-the-editor writer Rick Smith was recognized for his activism. Before Webb and O’Malley spoke, Iowa Democrats honored Representative Neal Smith, who represented Polk County in Congress from 1959 to 1985. Unfortunately, Smith couldn’t be present, having suffered a minor injury last week. He sent a letter to be read on his behalf, while former Senator Tom Harkin shared memories by videotape and Representative Leonard Boswell told the crowd a few of his favorite stories about Smith. After the jump I’ve listed six new things I learned on Friday about the longest-serving member of the U.S. House in Iowa history.

In 2012, Smith sat down with Polk County Democratic Party Chair Tom Henderson to reflect on his life and long political career. Those videos are well worth your time: part 1 and part 2.  

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers?  This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

I haven’t been watching this year’s freakshow CPAC convention, but I was struck by Senator Chuck Grassley posting a photo of himself smiling and shaking hands with Oliver North at the event. For those not old enough to remember the 1980s, North was an important figure in the Iran-Contra affair (brief history here). As a little-known National Security Council official in the Reagan administration, North diverted funds from arms sales to the Iranian regime to supply anti-Communist fighters in Nicaragua. He lied to Congress about the policy and responded to an investigation “By stuffing many documents into a shredder and sneaking out others in his secretary’s dress.” His felony convictions for destroying classified documents and obstructing Congress were vacated because of technicalities: specifically, questions about whether Congressional hearings before his prosecution had tainted the proceedings. There was never any credible case that North hadn’t committed those crimes.

Why would North appeal to a guy like Grassley, self-styled advocate of strong Congressional oversight of the executive branch? How was the policy to supply weapons to the hostile Iranian regime substantively different from those by officials in the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms who carried out the “Operation Fast and Furious” gunwalking scheme? How were Oliver North’s actions substantively different from those of Justice Department officials under Attorney General Eric Holder, whom Grassley has excoriated for not cooperating with the Congressional investigation into Fast and Furious?

Speaking of Grassley, here’s some unintentional comedy from the senator’s Twitter feed on February 15: “Every republican senator but one wants to debate Homeland Security bill that will block Obama immigration but Dems filibuster Why not vote?”

Great question. Democrats should answer right after Grassley explains why he and his Republican colleagues didn’t let the Senate vote on the DREAM Act and repeatedly blocked campaign finance disclosure rules that were favored by the entire Democratic caucus.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo passed away on New Year’s Day. He was a hero to many liberal Democrats during the 1980s, thanks to the policies he promoted in New York and especially his legendary keynote address to the 1984 Democratic National Convention. I’ve posted the video after the jump, along with some excerpts from the full text and from obituaries. It has been ranked the 11th best American political speech of the 20th century.

I was unable to watch Cuomo’s keynote live, because I spent July 1984 at summer camp. But listening to it this week brought back many emotions. Liberals felt discouraged and embattled during the Reagan years. Cuomo gave voice to those frustrations. He focused on economic inequality in particular: “There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don’t see, in the places that you don’t visit in your shining city. In fact, Mr. President […] you ought to know that this nation is more a tale of two cities than it is just a shining city on a hill.” Cuomo’s words speak to me more than anything I’ve ever heard from Barack Obama, including the “Yes We Can” speech and his vaunted 2004 DNC address.  

By the way, this line from Cuomo’s speech is as true now as it was 30 years ago: “Now we’re proud of this diversity as Democrats. We’re grateful for it. We don’t have to manufacture it the way the Republicans will next month in Dallas, by propping up mannequin delegates on the convention floor.”

Only on reading Cuomo’s obituaries did I learn that in September 1984, he spoke at Notre Dame University and explained why a devout Catholic could support a woman’s legal right to an abortion. The full transcript from that speech is here. I’ve posted excerpts below.

Former Iowa Lieutenant Governor Art Neu passed away on January 2. After Governor Bob Ray and Congressman Jim Leach, Neu was Iowa’s most prominent moderate Republican of the 1970s and 1980s. I enclose below a few comments on his passing.

Having been raised by a “Rockefeller Republican,” I remember when moderates were a real force within the Iowa GOP. Now there is not a single pro-choice Republican in our state’s legislature, and only a handful of elected Iowa GOP officials accept marriage equality. In recent years, Neu made headlines primarily when breaking ranks with the conservatives who now dominate his party. He opposed the campaign to recall three Iowa Supreme Court justices in 2010 and endorsed Christie Vilsack for Congress over GOP incumbent Steve King. Neu caucused for Mitt Romney in January 2012 but said he would vote for Barack Obama in the general election, in part because of the abortion issue.  

Sunday night, the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines marked its 100th anniversary at a dinner gathering downtown. The gala was unusual in several respects. For one thing, I don’t recall seeing such a large and bipartisan group of Iowa politicians at any non-political local event before. Attendees included Senator Chuck Grassley, Governor Terry Branstad, State Senator Jack Hatch, Lieutenant Governor nominee Monica Vernon, Representative Bruce Braley, State Senator Joni Ernst, Representative Dave Loebsack, IA-03 candidates David Young and Staci Appel, State Senator Matt McCoy, Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie, State Representatives Helen Miller, Marti Anderson, and Peter Cownie, and several suburban mayors or city council members. (Insert your own “a priest, a rabbi, and an Iowa politician walk into a bar” joke here.)

The keynote speech was even more striking. It’s standard practice to invite a Jewish celebrity to headline major Federation events. This year’s guest was award-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss. But other than a “Borscht belt”-inspired opening riff about learning to nod and say “Yes, dear” to his wife, Dreyfuss left obvious material aside. He didn’t dwell on humorous anecdotes from his Hollywood career, or talk about how being Jewish helped his craft. Instead, Dreyfuss reminisced about a cultural place and time that could hardly be more foreign to his Iowa audience, regardless of age or religious background.

Former U.S. Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont passed away today at the age of 80. When he was first elected to Congress in 1974, New England Republicans were well represented in Washington, DC, and were more progressive than many southern Democrats in the Capitol. By the time he retired in 2006, only a few Congressional Republicans hailed from states to the north and east of New York.

Jeffords will be most remembered for becoming an independent in May 2001, shifting control of the Senate to Democrats just a few months into George W. Bush’s presidency. Emily Langer notes in her Washington Post obituary that Jeffords had been out of step with his party on many occasions before then.

In 1981, while serving in the House, he was the only Republican to oppose President Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts. Later, as a member of the Senate, Mr. Jeffords opposed President George H.W. Bush’s nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court and publicly agonized before supporting the president on the invasion of Iraq during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

During the Democratic administration of President Bill Clinton, Mr. Jeffords broke with his party by backing the president’s health-care plan and voting against the articles of impeachment brought against him in connection with the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Even so, leaving the GOP caucus was a difficult choice for Jeffords. You can watch his May 24, 2001 speech here or read the transcript at the Burlington Free Press website. Iowa’s senior Senator Chuck Grassley was among the GOP colleagues most hurt by Jeffords’ defection. Speaking to reporters on that day in 2001, Jeffords said his meeting with Republican senators had been

the most emotional time that I have ever had in my life, with my closest friends urging me not to do what I was going to do, because it affected their lives, and very substantially. I know, for instance, the chairman of the finance committee has dreamed all his life of being chairman. He is chairman about a couple of weeks, and now he will be no longer the chairman. All the way down the line, I could see the anguish and the disappointment as I talked.

So many elected officials have remained loyal to parties that no longer represent their views. It’s hard to redefine one’s political identity and jeopardize longtime relationships. Jeffords stands out because he took a painful step for principles he believed in.

Incidentally, Grassley focused on the policy implications of Jeffords’ switch, not his personal loss of power. As it happens, he didn’t have to wait long for another chance to chair the Senate Finance Committee, from January 2003 through December 2006.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

Late last week, a Virginia medical examiner determined that James Brady’s recent death was a homicide, stemming from John Hinckley’s attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981. I would be interested to hear from readers more familiar with the criminal justice system about precedent for charging someone with murder when more than three decades elapsed between the fatal wound and the victim’s death. The U.S. Attorney’s office had no comment other than to say that they are reviewing the coroner’s report. If prosecutors charge Hinckley with murder, they could get around double jeopardy questions, as Hinckley was never tried for murder before. But since his previous trial ended in a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, it seems that it would be quite difficult for prosecutors to convince a jury that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of killing Brady.

In one of the last decisions announced from the term that just ended, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled a few weeks ago in State v Lyle that mandatory sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional. You can read the majority ruling and two dissents here. The majority ruling built on but went far beyond a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that invalidated mandatory sentences of life without parole for convicted killers who were juveniles at the time of the crime. Writing for the 4-3 majority, Chief Justice Mark Cady extended reasoning from three Iowa Supreme Court decisions last year related to juvenile sentencing. Cady is not afraid to be ahead of the curve here. I expect that over the next decade, other courts will take into account the growing body of research on the adolescent brain, and this ruling will be viewed as a harbinger rather than an overreach. Justices David Wiggins, Daryl Hecht, and Brent Appel joined the majority.

In dissent, Justices Thomas Waterman and Bruce Zager argued that the court went too far in the current ruling as well as in the previous juvenile sentencing cases. They held that a seven-year mandatory minimum was not “cruel and unusual punishment” for a violent criminal who happened to be 17 years old at the time of the crime. Justice Edward Mansfield joined both dissents. It’s worth noting that the majority opinion didn’t say a juvenile couldn’t be sentenced to a long prison term–only that a judge must take into account individual circumstances and current knowledge of adolescent brain development when determining a sentence.

Side note: Governor Terry Branstad appeared not to understand this Iowa Supreme Court ruling, or perhaps he deliberately attempted to mislead the public about its implications. Speaking to reporters last month, the governor implied that juveniles who commit violent crimes will now have to be released at age 18. Not at all. The Iowa Supreme Court majority did not hold that juveniles could never be tried as adults, or that juveniles could not be sentenced to long prison terms. Judges simply can’t apply to juveniles mandatory formulas designed for adults who committed violent crimes.

Earlier this summer, I never managed to write a post about the idiot “open carry activists” who were hell-bent on walking into chain stores and restaurants heavily armed. Even the National Rifle Association characterized the movement as having “crossed the line from enthusiasm to downright foolishness”–though the NRA wimps soon apologized for offending Open Carry Texas. Thankfully, I haven’t encountered this phenomenon in Iowa, but if I see a person or group of people walking heavily armed into a store or restaurant, I will clear out immediately. There’s no way to tell whether someone carrying a semiautomatic weapon is an open carry activist or a psychopath about to go on a killing spree, and I wouldn’t hang around to find out. This philosophy professor had it exactly right when he pointed out that open carry enthusiasts are different from people who carry concealed weapons: “Those who conceal their guns are ready for trouble, but open-carry activists are looking for it. In general, I don’t trust anyone who is looking for trouble.”

Jim Brady never planned to be a gun control advocate. That task fell to him when a mentally ill person tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981. John Hinckley’s attack left Brady permanently disabled and unable to continue his career as a press secretary. However, he and his wife Sarah Brady remained in public life as the country’s most visible and dedicated advocates of gun control. More than twenty years after President Bill Clinton signed it into law, the Brady Handgun Control Act remains the most significant federal legislation designed to keep guns away from criminals, abusers, and some mentally ill people.

Like the 55 mph speed limit, which saved lives without allowing us to point to specific people who benefited, the Brady bill has surely prevented some gun deaths. We’ll never know who is walking around alive today because an unstable person was blocked from buying a gun. How well the Brady Bill works is a matter of debate. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence reported earlier this year that the law had “blocked more than 2.1 million gun purchases” to felons, domestic abusers, or fugitives. I’ve posted excerpts from that report after the jump.

Other researchers have suggested that the Brady law had limited impact on gun violence overall. While the waiting period introduced in 1994 likely reduced gun suicides, gun homicides were less affected because the “unregulated secondary gun market” has remained “a gaping loophole” in the system of background checks. The National Rifle Association and other pro-gun advocates have repeatedly stymied Congressional efforts to close that loophole.

Brady died yesterday at age 73. I appreciate how hard he worked, in a role no one would choose, to keep others from being killed or wounded by people who never should have been able to buy a gun.  

Republicans have been long been masters at demanding that prominent Democrats apologize for some obscure person’s offensive comment. Today the Black Hawk County Republicans used this tried and true technique to score a story by the Des Moines Register’s chief politics reporter. In a now-deleted post on the Black Hawk County Democrats’ Facebook page, a volunteer shared a graphic comparing Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. Among other things, the graphic described Reagan as a “white supremacist.”

Jennifer Jacobs’ story leads with a Republican press release and includes an apology from the chair of the Black Hawk County Democrats for this “unfortunate” and “unacceptable” post. However, nowhere does Jacobs hint at why anyone would think to apply this label to Reagan in the first place. Maybe she’s playing dumb, or maybe she’s too young to remember.

Sad to say, the U.S. has had more than a handful of white supremacist presidents. I don’t think Reagan was one of them. But I recommend the following reads on his use of racially charged language to win support for his political agenda.

Ian Haney-Lopez provides a good overview of how Reagan “used coded racial appeals to galvanize white voters.”

During the 1980 presidential campaign, Reagan traveled to Philadelphia, Mississippi, site of the most notorious murders of the civil rights movement, to deliver this speech declaring his support for “states’ rights.” (full transcript) As Bob Herbert wrote many years later, “Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair. Whites and blacks, Democrats and Republicans – they all knew. The news media knew. The race haters and the people appalled by racial hatred knew. And Reagan knew.”

David Love chronicles Reagan’s “troubling legacy” on race. Not only did he oppose the Voting Rights Act of 1965, during the 1980 campaign he criticized that law as “humiliating to the South.”

In 1981, Reagan White House aide Lee Atwater gave a remarkably frank interview about the GOP’s “Southern strategy.” He described how overtly racist political rhetoric evolved into conservative slogans about busing or economic policies that hurt black people more than whites.

Peter Dreier reminds us that Reagan’s “indifference to urban problems was legendary” and notes that his administration “failed to prosecute or sanction banks that violated the Community Reinvestment Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in lending.”

On a related note, Reagan’s riff about “welfare queens” is perhaps the most famous example of how he used racial code words. Josh Levin published a fascinating profile of the con artist who inspired that part of Reagan’s stump speech.

While checking for new Iowa Supreme Court rulings, I saw on the court’s official website that July 4 marked an important anniversary in Iowa judicial history. On that date in 1839, the territorial high court handed down its first ruling, which is still one of its most noteworthy opinions. “In the Matter of Ralph,” the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a slave-owner from Missouri could not enforce a contract that would have required his former slave Ralph to return from Iowa to servitude. Writing for the court, Chief Justice Charles Mason acknowledged Ralph’s monetary debt but held that “no man in this territory can be reduced to slavery”

and that Montgomery had lost his right over Ralph in Iowa. The justices wrote, “When, in seeking to accomplish his object, he illegally restrains a human being of his liberty, it is proper that the laws, which should extend equal protection to men of all colors and conditions, should exert their remedial interposition. We think, therefore, that [Ralph] should be discharged from all custody and constraint, and be permitted to go free while he remains under the protection of our laws.”

The Iowa Supreme Court’s current Chief Justice Mark Cady has hailed the importance of that ruling, which “declared equality for all people, regardless of skin color, in a very powerful way.”

Amazingly, just 53 years ago today, civil rights activist John Lewis (now a member of Congress from Georgia) was released from prison after being jailed for more than a month. His “crime” had been to use a “white” restroom in the state of Mississippi.  

I was so focused on the environmental impacts of Governor Terry Branstad’s recent vetoes, I failed to look closely at other appropriations in a supplemental spending bill he axed. Today I learned from Democratic State Senator Rob Hogg,

Saturday is the 50th anniversary of the start of Freedom Summer and the murder of Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney – it is too bad Governor Branstad vetoed the $300,000 the Legislature appropriated on a bipartisan basis to help the African-American Museum of Iowa collect Iowa’s civil rights history and educate the public about these historic events.

There it is on page 4 of Senate File 2363: $300,000 for “an oral history of civil rights” at the African-American Museum of Iowa in Cedar Rapids.

It’s maddening that Governor Branstad has no problem with tens of millions of dollars in tax giveaways to wealthy corporations, yet he pleads fiscal prudence when vetoing spending like this, which serves the public interest without major impact to the state budget. Many of the 1950s and 1960s civil rights activists have already passed away, and those who haven’t are senior citizens. “Freedom Summer” was a major event in 20th century American history. Some Freedom Summer veterans with connections to Iowa City or the University of Iowa have already told their stories to historians or recorded their memories on paper or film. The Historical Iowa Civil Rights Network are doing their part too, and you can follow their work here. I’m disappointed that the African-American Museum of Iowa won’t have the funding to collect and archive these stories on a larger scale.  

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

A joyous Easter to those who celebrate today and a happy Passover to those who observe. Last year I posted lots of Easter and Passover-related links here. I’ll just add a couple more: 2014 is one of those years when Eastern Orthodox Christians and those of other denominations celebrate Easter on the same day. Most of the time those holidays fall on different weekends because the churches use different calendars.

Reform Judaism magazine published a fascinating interview with Biblical scholar Richard Elliott Friedman. He argues that the Exodus story is not fiction, but reflects a departure from Egypt by the Levite tribe, and that most of the Hebrews never lived in Egypt. I’ve posted excerpts after the jump, but I encourage you to click through and read the whole interview. Friedman is “a leading proponent of the Documentary Hypothesis, which maintains that the the biblical texts traditionally known as the Five Books of Moses are actually the synthesis of many different sources from different time periods.” Click that link to learn more about what he views as “the editorial team behind the Bible.”

Religious or secular, I think all Iowans appreciate spring’s arrival. This weekend’s weather is almost perfect. Just within the past few days, the first ruby-throated hummingbird sightings were reported on the edges of Iowa. We don’t typically see any in Windsor Heights until early May. The latest central Iowa butterfly forecast is here. Our bloodroot only just started blooming this week, nearly a month behind schedule. We can see leaves or buds on a few other spring wildflowers, so I’m just about ready to relaunch Iowa wildflower Wednesday.  

The talk of Des Moines this weekend is the devastating fire which consumed the Younkers building downtown, early Saturday morning. Thankfully, the fire caused no loss of life or serious injuries, but the loss of this historical and architectural landmark is incalculable. Younkers opened in 1899, featuring central Iowa’s first escalators. For generations, the store was the premier local outlet for fashion. Families celebrated special events in the Tea Room.

Investigators don’t know yet what caused the fire and are asking locals to share amateur video footage to assist the inquiry. The Des Moines Register’s photo gallery of the fire is here. Work was underway to convert the building into a mixed-use space, including affordable housing as well as retail. No sprinkler system had been installed yet. UPDATE: The Des Moines Fire Department called in Iowa Task Force 1 and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ federal response team to help assess the damage and search for what caused the blaze.

WHO-TV posted a video of the store at the time it closed for business in 2005. The photographer Matthew Gordon took these shots before renovation work at the site. Members of the Facebook group Lost Des Moines have been sharing photos and stories about the building in its heyday.

Share your own Younkers memories in this thread. Although my family shopped more often at the Merle Hay Mall store, going to the downtown building was an exciting treat, especially if we were able to stop in the Tea Room.

Incidentally, the 1978 fire at the Younkers store in Merle Hay Mall, which claimed the lives of ten store employees, is still the deadliest fire in Des Moines history. The death toll would have been much higher if that fire had broken out while the department store was open. The Register posted a horrifying photo from its archive here.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? I’m excited about the Winter Olympics starting, despite NBC’s horrible coverage. (In some countries, television networks allow viewers to watch entire Olympic events from start to finish without commercial interruptions, and you can see all the competitors rather than the handful contending for medals.) The opening ceremony was spectacular, especially the holographic projections such as Peter the Great’s ship. I only wish NBC hadn’t repeatedly cut to a shot of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s smug face.

February 7 marked 50 years since the Beatles arrived in the U.S., and February 9 marks 50 years since their first live performance on the Ed Sullivan Show, the highest-rated television program of all time. When I haven’t been watching the Olympics, I’ve enjoyed listening to the Des Moines oldies station KIOA, which is playing wall to wall Beatles songs all weekend long. After the jump I’ve posted a few links about the Beatles in America and the British invasion. This is an open thread.

Government offices and many public school districts were closed today in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Bleeding Heartland has compiled links about King to mark this day for the past three years, as well as on last summer’s 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Here’s a new batch:

The civil rights leader was a fan of the “Star Trek” television series and persuaded Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Uhura) not to leave the show during the second season.

Thomas J. Sugrue on Restoring King: “There is no figure in recent American history whose memory is more distorted and words more drained of content than Martin Luther King.”

Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon on The Martin Luther King You Don’t See on TV: “[N]ational news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years.”

Daily Kos user HamdenRice on why Most of you have no idea what Martin Luther King actually did: “his main impact was his effect on the lives of African Americans, not on Americans in general. His main impact was not to make white people nicer or fairer.”

Todd Dorman on King’s visits to eastern Iowa in 1959 and 1962:

“We have come to the point,’ Dr, King said, “where we can say in the South to those who use violence against us:

“We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering.

“We will meet your physical force with soul force.

“Do to us what you will, and we still love you.”

P.S.-“Abigail Van Buren” published this quote from Dr. King in today’s “Dear Abby” column. It was new to me, but I agree with her that it “applies to many aspects of life”: “All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face-to-face with another problem.”

Who in the Bleeding Heartland community remembers Dick Clark, the Democrat Iowans elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972? Clark lost his 1978 re-election bid to Roger Jepsen (whom Tom Harkin defeated in 1984). David Rogers published a fascinating story at Politico this week about Senator Clark’s work as chair of the African Affairs subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He knew little about Africa before taking the position but learned quickly. In 1976, he sponsored an amendment to prohibit U.S. covert assistance for paramilitary operations in Angola, but he told Rogers that his larger goal was “disassociate us from apartheid and from South Africa.”

It was a time when Republican challenger Roger Jepsen felt free to taunt the Democrat as “the senator from Africa.” Tensions were such that the State Department called in a South African Embassy official in May for making disparaging remarks about Clark in Iowa. And after Clark lost, South Africa’s ousted information secretary, Eschel Rhoodie, said his government invested $250,000 to defeat Clark, who had become a thorn in the side of the white regime.

Jepsen denied any knowledge of South Africa’s alleged role. Nor does Clark accuse him of such. But 35 years after, Clark has no doubt that the apartheid government led by Prime Minister B. J. Vorster wanted him out – and had a hand in his defeat.

Clark’s liberal record and support of the Panama Canal Treaty, which narrowly cleared the Senate in the spring of 1978, also hurt his chances in Iowa. But the fatal blow was a fierce wave of late-breaking ground attacks from anti-abortion forces-something even conservative writers like Robert Novak had not anticipated in a published column weeks before.

I remember Jepsen running attack ads about the Panama Canal (“I voted to keep what is rightfully ours”), but I didn’t know the South African government was so vested in Clark’s defeat. Rogers describes how Clark tried to steer U.S. policy away from supporting the apartheid regime even after losing his re-election campaign. He worked with the Aspen Institute during the 1980s and 1990s to “to try to get a get a cadre of Congress who would know about South Africa and what was going on in South Africa.” I highly recommend reading the whole story.

Merry Christmas to everyone in the Bleeding Heartland community who celebrates the holiday, and peace on earth to all, regardless of religion. All topics are welcome in this open thread.

Last year I posted a few links on the origins of the Christmas narrative. Historians agree that the birth of Jesus was not one of the earliest Christian festivals, and it wasn’t until the fourth century that Christmas was widely celebrated on December 25 or January 6. No one knows the date of Jesus’ birth, and I had always assumed that the late December celebration stemmed from Christians appropriating pagan winter solstice festivities. However, Andrew McGowan offers a different theory on the Biblical Archaeology website.

There is another way to account for the origins of Christmas on December 25: Strange as it may seem, the key to dating Jesus’ birth may lie in the dating of Jesus’ death at Passover. […]

Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus diedc was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar.9 March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation-the commemoration of Jesus’ conception.10 Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25.d

This idea appears in an anonymous Christian treatise titled On Solstices and Equinoxes, which appears to come from fourth-century North Africa. The treatise states: “Therefore our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in the month of March [March 25], which is the day of the passion of the Lord and of his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered.”11 Based on this, the treatise dates Jesus’ birth to the winter solstice.

Many people eat traditional family dishes on Christmas. I enjoy reading Patric Juillet’s account of the Provencal culinary traditions from this season. I don’t cook anything that elaborate at any time of year, but I do plan to make noodle kugel later today. Like many Jewish Americans, we marked Christmas Eve last night by eating Chinese food and watching a movie.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? I’ve been reading and watching retrospectives on South Africa’s first democratically-elected president, Nelson Mandela. Bill Keller’s obituary for the New York Times is a good place to start.

When the question was put to Mr. Mandela in an interview for this obituary in 2007 – after such barbarous torment, how do you keep hatred in check? – his answer was almost dismissive: Hating clouds the mind. It gets in the way of strategy. Leaders cannot afford to hate.

Only about a tenth of one percent of people live into their 90s, and it’s phenomenal that Mandela lived to the age of 95 after suffering tremendous physical and emotional hardship during 27 years in prison. I wonder how much Mandela’s ability to rise above hatred, anger, and the desire for revenge contributed to his longevity. During the late 1990s, I had a chance to meet Keyan Tomaselli, a professor of media studies from South Africa. Having spent some time in the U.S., he felt that South Africa had a better chance of overcoming its racist past and identity politics than this country does.

Since news broke of Mandela’s death, many American politicians have reflected on the battle in Congress to impose U.S. sanctions on the South African government during the apartheid era. President Ronald Reagan supported the ruling regime, and many Republicans opposed the aspirations of the African National Congress, viewing Mandela’s group as a communist, terrorist organization backed by the Soviet Union. On Thursday and Friday, several Republican politicians posted tributes to Mandela on social media, only to see their comment threads littered with attacks on the commie terrorist. Steer clear of those threads if you don’t want to be depressed.

I wasn’t involved in the divestment movement, other than putting a “DIVEST” button on my backpack when I was in college during the 1980s. But I learned this week that as a college student, the future Iowa Democratic Party Chair Gordon Fischer was a leader of the drive to convince the University of Iowa to divest from South Africa.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread. I’ve been thinking about Iowa icons. A separate post is in progress summing up “lowlights” from U.S. Senator Ted Cruz’s two-day visit.

On Friday my Facebook and Twitter feeds were full of tributes to Peggy Whitworth, who lost her battle with cancer at the age of 71. She was an influential activist and mentor to countless Democrats in Linn County and statewide. The Iowa Democratic Party gave Whitworth a Hall of Fame award two years ago, and she continued to take leadership volunteer roles for Barack Obama’s re-election campaign and Brad Anderson’s bid to become Iowa’s secretary of state.

Former U.S. Representative Ed Mezvinsky recently donated his papers to Iowa State University. The collection looks extremely interesting, even if some of the House Judiciary Committee papers related to the Watergate investigation will be sealed until August 2024. A native of Ames, Mezvinsky narrowly lost his first Congressional campaign in 1970 but was elected to represent Iowa’s first district in 1972. (This Mezvinsky television commercial, playing on his difficult-to-pronounce name, is a classic.) He served two terms in the House before losing to Jim Leach in 1976. The boxes donated to Iowa State include material from Mezvinsky’s various political campaigns in Iowa and later in Pennsylvania, but not material related to fraud and other crimes for which he served five years in federal prison.

In all the years I watched “The Simpsons,” I never knew that Marcia Wallace, the voice of Mrs. Krabappel, was born and raised in Creston, Iowa. She died recently at the age of 70, and “The Simpsons” will retire her character. During the 1970s, Wallace played Bob receptionist on “The Bob Newhart Show”–an underrated sitcom in my opinion.

Johnny Carson grew up in Nebraska, but he was born in a small house in Corning, Iowa (Adams County). Locals recently completed a restoration of the house, where some mementos of the longtime “Tonight Show” host are on display.

I highly recommend a visit to the restored Orpheum Theater in Marshalltown, where you can find memorabilia from Marshalltown native Jean Seberg, a famous actress from the 1950s to the 1970s. A new documentary about Seberg’s life will premiere at the Third Annual Jean Seberg International Film Festival, which will take place at the Orpheum from November 15 to 17.  

Happy Labor Day! The U.S. Department of Labor provides a short history of the holiday here. A couple of years ago, Bleeding Heartland readers discussed favorite labor-themed music, inspired by Peter Rothberg’s top ten Labor Day song list. Here are three dozen reasons Americans should be grateful to the organized labor movement. After the jump I’ve posted excerpts from President Abraham Lincoln’s December 1861 State of the Union address.

Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer for many people. The heat wave smothering Iowa for the last week finally broke, so I hope everyone is able to enjoy some time outside today.

This is an open thread. The big news of the weekend is that President Barack Obama will seek Congressional authorization for military intervention in Syria. A post is in progress about Iowa political views on how and whether the U.S. should get involved militarily there.

The national unemployment rate is down somewhat this year, but our economy would be a lot healthier if we hadn’t sacrificed so much job-creating potential on the altar of federal budget austerity. We should have been taking advantage of low interest rates to invest in high-speed rail, clean water infrastructure and other long-lasting public works. But those efforts have been a dead letter since Republicans took back the U.S. House. The sequester set in motion by the 2011 clash over raising the debt ceiling is not only affecting federal employees directly, but also many people who rely on federal programs. Even some of the fact-checkers have bought into the “growing deficit” propaganda, despite the fact that the deficit is falling faster than it has in decades.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread. Last night I watched a fascinating CNN program about John Hinckley’s attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. I had no idea that Hinckley had been stalking Jimmy Carter during the fall of 1980. Twice he got within a few feet of the president at campaign events.

I also taped the CNN “Our Nixon” documentary first aired earlier this month, based on home movies shot by Nixon’s aides. Looking forward to watching that soon.

Rob Christensen published an interesting essay about conservatism in the south: “Few states took the idea of minimalist government as far as North Carolina. All of the 1800s was a case study of the proposition that North Carolina works best with bare-bones government.”

Speaking of small-government conservatives, here’s an oldie but goodie by Reagan administration economist Bruce Bartlett on Reagan’s forgotten record of raising taxes as California governor and president.

Moving to more recent history, I strongly disagree with what Patty Judge told the New York Times about Hillary Clinton needing a strong ground game if she comes back to Iowa. If Clinton runs for president, she will win the Iowa caucuses and the Democratic nomination without any question, whether or not she spends time on retail politics here. There won’t be a repeat of 2007-2008, because she will have only token opposition during the primaries.

Your unintentional comedy for the week: Republican National Committee and Republican Party of Iowa leaders freaking out over lengthy planned television broadcasts about Hillary Clinton. Republicans now threaten not to co-sponsor any presidential debates with CNN or NBC if those networks move forward with a documentary about the former first lady and secretary of state and a miniseries starring Diane Lane, respectively. The RNC is appalled by the “thinly veiled attempt at putting a thumb on the scales of the 2016 presidential election,” while the Iowa GOP is upset by the lack of “journalistic integrity.”

What a pathetic display of weakness and hypocrisy.

Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, corporations can make and broadcast movies about political figures, and such activity is not considered “electioneering communication” that must be funded through a registered political action committee (PAC). The Citizens United case arose because of a (very negative) corporate movie about Hillary Clinton. I didn’t agree with or welcome Citizens United, but Republicans were happy to treat corporations as people with unlimited free speech in the political sphere. Who are they to tell CNN and NBC not to make money by airing films that could draw a large potential audience?

I’m old enough to remember when prime-time television about controversial political topics had to be balanced with an opposing point of view. But under the GOP’s sainted President Ronald Reagan, the Federal Communications Commission voted to “abolish its fairness doctrine on the ground that it unconstitutionally restricts the free-speech rights of broadcast journalists.” Democrats didn’t like it, but elections have consequences. As a result, CNN and NBC can air films about any political figure as frequently as they believe they can profit from doing so.

P.S. – RNC Chair Reince Priebus and Iowa GOP Chair A.J. Spiker wouldn’t be making this threat if they believed in GOP talking points about Benghazi or Hillary being “old news.”  

It hardly feels like the beginning of summer in Iowa, with unseasonably cool weather all weekend and heavy rains causing flash flooding in many parts of the state. But no matter the weather, Memorial Day is always meaningful for many Americans. Setting aside a day for remembering the American war dead began shortly after the Civil War. I was surprised to learn that Memorial Day became an official federal holiday only recently, in 1971. The Iowa National Guard’s website includes brief histories of Iowa soldiers’ involvement in U.S. wars since the mid-19th century and a stunning photo of thousands of men standing in the shape of the Statue of Liberty.

In previous years, Bleeding Heartland has posted other links related to Memorial Day here and here.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. Here’s a conversation starter: Josh Marshall’s case against naming U.S. military bases after Confederate generals, who were actually traitors to the country. I’m with Marshall and Jamie Malanowski, who called for renaming those bases in this op-ed column.

Longtime readers of the Des Moines Register may remember columnist Rob Borsellino. He died of complications related to ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) on May 27, 2006.  

Johnson County Recorder Kim Painter is among ten openly LGBT elected or appointed officials the White House will honor tomorrow as “Harvey Milk Champions of Change.” Painter became the first openly gay or lesbian non-incumbent elected to public office in Iowa in 1998. She has since served as leader of the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women and president of the Iowa State Association of Counties. A strong supporter of marriage equality, Painter hated having to deny marriage licenses to LGBT couples before the Iowa Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. She believes those couples’ act of civil disobedience in 2004 started “the conversation about marriage equality here in Iowa.” She married her longtime partner soon after the Varnum v Brien ruling took effect.

Yesterday Painter credited Bill Crews and other Iowa public officials who came out as incumbents before she ran for office. Having lived outside Iowa during the 1990s, I was not aware of the important role Crews played in the LGBT community. He was appointed mayor of Melbourne (Marshall County) in 1984 and re-elected four times. Frank Myers wrote last year,

Although most in Melbourne were aware that Crews and his partner were gay, it was not a topic discussed by anyone until 1993, when Bill and Steve attend the the March on Washington of that year for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. Crews had written an opinion piece for The Des Moines Register, effectively coming out on a grand scale, that was published in their absence. When the two men returned home they discovered graffiti scrawled on the walls of their home: “Get out,” “No faggots,” “Melbourne hates gays.” A portion of the home’s interior also had been vandalized. This became a news story covered in nearly every market nationwide.

Click here to read an interview with Crews about the experience. During the 1990s, Melbourne was “believed to be the smallest town in the United States to have an openly gay mayor.” Crews was re-elected for the last time in 1995 and moved to Washington, DC in 1998.

Harvey Milk famously urged his “gay brothers and sisters” to come out for the good of the whole community. Painter, Crews, and others including State Senator Matt McCoy have helped make Iowa a more inclusive place.

Bonus Iowa political trivia: Painter was one of 31 Iowans on the LGBT leadership council supporting Hillary Clinton for president in 2007.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor recently met with the Chicago Tribune editorial board. When asked about her most controversial ruling in 25 years on the Supreme Court, she named the December 2000 decision in Bush v Gore.

“It took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue,” O’Connor said during a talk Friday with the Tribune editorial board. “Maybe the court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye.’”

The case, she said, “stirred up the public” and “gave the court a less-than-perfect reputation.”

“Obviously the court did reach a decision and thought it had to reach a decision,” she said. “It turned out the election authorities in Florida hadn’t done a real good job there and kind of messed it up. And probably the Supreme Court added to the problem at the end of the day.”

You think?

Bush v Gore permanently lowered my respect for the high court. When I first heard that the Bush campaign appealed the Florida Supreme Court’s decision, I laughed. I assumed people like Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia would stay true to their “states’ rights” ideology and refuse to hear the case, since administering elections is a state issue.

For my money, former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi wrote the best commentary on the utterly dishonest Bush v Gore majority ruling: None Dare Call It Treason.

President Barack Obama and four former presidents were in Dallas this morning for the dedication of George W. Bush’s presidential library and museum. Highlights from the speeches are here and here.

The Washington Post published this timeline of Bush’s eight years in office. Asawin Suebsaeng listed eight things you won’t find at Bush’s presidential library. Dylan Matthews summed up Bush’s presidency in 24 charts.

In my opinion Bush was one of the very worst presidents in U.S. history. I wish he had stayed out of politics, either by becoming a painter many years ago or being named Major League Baseball commissioner in the early 1990s. Although his approval rating is higher now than it’s been in years, I don’t believe future historians will look favorably on him. His administration had “the worst track record for job creation since the government began keeping records.” We’ll be paying for his unaffordable tax cuts and the ongoing costs of the war in Iraq for decades to come.

But in an effort to say at least one positive thing to mark today’s event, I will give Bush credit for supporting the DREAM Act in Texas and at the federal level. Share your own thoughts about “43” in this thread.

UPDATE: George W. Bush and his mother disagree on whether former Florida Governor Jeb Bush should run for president.

Preserving battlefield sites from early American history would seem to be promising ground for bipartisan agreement. Don’t we all want future generations to be able to visit and learn about historically important places in this country’s pasts?

Today more than half the Republicans in the U.S. House, including Tom Latham (IA-03) and Steve King (IA-04), voted against a bill designed to preserve Revolutionary War and War of 1812 battlefields. As Pete Kasperowicz reported for The Hill, the vote reflected a call to arms from conservative Heritage Foundation.

One of the most influential world leaders of the 20th century died today. Former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was 87 years old. The BBC posted her obituary and other links about her life, as well as reaction to her passing and a collection of her most famous quotes.

It’s hard to overstate how much Thatcher changed British politics and society during her eleven years as prime minister. On the other hand, she was such a lightning rod that her own Conservative Party replaced her in 1990 rather than face another parliamentary election with her leading the government.

Like her political “soul mate” Ronald Reagan, Thatcher is admired by many conservatives on this side of the pond. But whereas the Tories have moderated their policies under the last few party leaders, the Republican Party has moved much further to the right since Reagan’s presidency. Today’s GOP politicians reject any tax increases (failing to acknowledge Reagan’s many tax hikes) and view compromise on immigration reform as betrayal.

Any memories about Thatcher’s life or thoughts about her legacy are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: In this speech from 1988, the British actor Ian McKellen lambasted the Thatcher government’s “queer-bashing.”

Happy Easter to everyone in the Bleeding Heartland community who is celebrating today. I’ve posted some Holy Week-related links after the jump.

Passover began last Monday evening and ends this Monday evening in Israel and for most Reform Jews worldwide. Outside Israel, Conservative and Orthodox Jews will observe the holiday until Tuesday evening. A few Passover links are below as well.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.  

The Salisbury House Foundation was founded in 1993 to preserve, interpret and share Salisbury House for the educational and cultural benefit of the public. Implicit in this mission is a role we have embraced since our inception as caretakers of the Weeks Family history: not just for Carl and Edith (who built the house in the 1920s), but for their forebears, their four sons and their later descendants. (Social media has proven an incredible asset in this latter regard, as we have connected with many Weeks grandchildren via our Facebook page). In 2012, we received a Historical Resource Development Grant from the State Historical Society of Iowa specifically to research and interpret Weeks family history, so we have spent much of the past year delving deep into local and remote archives to better tell the story of this remarkable family.

A former Iowa student whose black armband led to an important U.S. Supreme Court decision of the 1960s died last week in Florida, the Des Moines Register reported yesterday. The Iowa Civil Liberties Union sued the Des Moines Independent Community School district on behalf of Christopher Eckhardt and his friends John Tinker and Mary Beth Tinker after all three students were suspended for wearing black armbands to their schools as an anti-war protest. The case eventually made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 1969 that the school principals were not justified in limiting the students’ free expression.

Tinker v. Des Moines Ind. Comm. School Dist. may be the most important case from Iowa ever to reach the Supreme Court. Judges have applied the “Tinker standard” in many other First Amendment cases. After the jump I’ve posted links about the case and some reflections on Eckhardt’s role.

The U.S. Supreme Court confirmed on Friday that justices will consider two cases involving same-sex marriage. I’ve posted some background and analysis of those cases after the jump. One of the cases has the potential to affect same-sex couples legally married in Iowa.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Happy Chanukah to everyone in the Bleeding Heartland community who celebrates–or rather observes–this holiday. My top Jewish parenting tip for this season: buy extra boxes of candles. Your children will want to load the menorah, and they will break some candles.

Most Chanukah traditions (lighting candles, eating fried foods, playing dreidel) don’t acknowledge the dark side of the events that inspired this holiday. History buffs will enjoy these brief accounts of what was really a Jewish civil war.

UPDATE: The National Weather Service reported on December 9, “The record streak for consecutive days with no measurable snow has ended in Des Moines at 279 this morning.”

The 21st amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect 79 years ago today, ending the Prohibition era. Utah was the last state needed to reach the necessary three-fourths majority for approving the constitutional amendment.

Few Americans living today can remember the political environment that led to the failed Prohibition experiment. Public water fountains established by local chapters of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union are perhaps the only visible remnants of the temperance movement.

At the 1874 organizing convention of the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the members were urged to erect drinking fountains in their towns so that men could get a drink of water without entering saloons and staying for stronger drinks. Often the drinking fountains that were erected offered a place for horses to drink, another place for dogs, and of course, a place for humans to drink.

Two WCTU fountains remain in Iowa: in Edgewood (Clayton and Delaware Counties) and Shenandoah (Page County). UPDATE: Added a photo of the fountain in Shenandoah below.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? All topics are welcome in this open thread. A few links on women voters and the gender gap are after the jump. As a bonus, I’ve enclosed an advertisement from the 1916 campaign about giving Iowa women the right to vote.