“The crisis is arrived when we must assert our rights, or submit ...  till custom and use shall make us ... tame and abject slaves. ...” George Washington to his friend and neighbor Bryan Fairfax, a royalist, after the “Boston Tea Party.”

Sam Adams, often referred to as the Father of the American Revolution, applauded his “gang,” ill disguised as Indians, on a crisp, December night in 1774, for tossing three shiploads of the King’s tea overboard into Boston Harbor. On guard that night, keeping lookout was John Hancock, a compatriot of Adams’. The two were to become the Crown’s “Most Wanted.” Paul Revere was to save them from capture at a later time.

History records the fact that King George III was not an evil man.  Far from it, he evidenced much of a character that most would find laudable. According to Churchill, he was one of the most conscientious sovereigns to ever sit the English throne.

It was not despotic “Kingliness” that led to the Revolutionary War and cranked up the presses of Paine and Jefferson. It was a host of “little” things like the sugar and stamp acts, the grinding away, by petty bureaucrats, of personal dignity and the rights to forge a man’s own destiny without undue governmental intrusion. It was the actions of these little tyrants, like our own building inspectors, corrupt cops, judges, “faceless bureaucrats” that attempted, and still attempt, to make us “... tame and abject slaves.” It is indeed, “Custom and use,” that system of evil laws and all forms of penurious taxation that prevent any hope or vision, that rob men of their manhood, rob women of their special place of homemaker and tender nurturer of children, rob children of their right to be children, that is killing us as a nation.

From Columbus, Bradford, Eliot, Penn, Adams, the “Molly Pitcher’s,” and Betsy Ross’s, Witherspoon, Asbury, Webster, our history has had its roots in a thousand men and women who had a profound belief in God, His Word and the destiny of this nation. It is a tragic loss to mine and the younger generation that so little is now taught or even known by those who purport to teach, about the History of The United States of America. And, in all, it is a noble history of noble men and women.

I have commented on the fact that mine was the last generation of readers; this, largely because of the film and TV industries together with the change from pre war agrarian populations to post war urban. The changes over the last fifty years have been deadly to families and reading in general. Much of what is called “critical thinking skills” was lost in the process. Critical thinking requires ability and practice in the area of reading and reflection on what is read. The reading must challenge to be effective. Therefore, it has to cover a broad spectrum, not just one, specialized area. The highest thought processes, involving imagination, are enforced in such a manner.

As a “simple honorary Okie” I may lack the verve and panache of my “betters” but I know something of the effects of the literature that has impacted our course as a nation. I also know that American literature is one of the richest in the history of the world. It is a truism that “The pen is mightier than the sword.” It is for that reason that, some years ago, I left off speaking engagements and took up the pen. Notwithstanding the fact that we have become a nation of non-readers, it is still my hope that my printed words will accomplish the task I have set.

My distinct advantage was being raised without TV and in settings that promoted reading. My grandparents made sure books surrounded my brother and me and the radio and literature were marvelous mediums to encourage imagination and dreams. The “How To” genre was well represented also. On the mining claim, lacking electricity or plumbing, I learned much as a child in the “How To” category. It also made reading the essential means of entertainment and the source of knowledge to satisfy curiosity.

James Fenimore Cooper is a name, like so many others, tragically lost to our young people. The writer, famed for his “Leatherstocking Tales” and the riches of imagination he provided for millions of readers is little known to, or past, my generation. Oh! But how I thrilled as a child as I would read of the great forests, of the constant battle between good and evil with good, invariably gaining the triumph, as the Deerslayer, (Natty Bumppo) also known as Hawkeye and his companion, Chingachgook, and the noble Uncas did battle in the name of honor and righteousness.

The wooded mountains and their teeming creatures would come alive in my imagination as Cooper skillfully weaved his tales of derring-do. I would stalk the trails of the wilderness with the honest, courageous and upright Hawkeye and his Indian companion as they fought evil men and explored this native and unspoiled vastness.

But Cooper was far more than a gifted “teller of tales.” He was an American and his commentaries are of far more significance than the tales he wove. Cooper recognized the many evils of his day and rightly addressed them in much of his writing. For example: “What the world of America is coming to, and where the machinations of its people are to end, the Lord, He only knows.... towns and villages, farms and highways, churches and schools, in short all the inventions and deviltries of man, are spread across the region.” Thus it was that Cooper foresaw the evil that government, even then, was capable of. And because he loved the wilderness, loved the country where men could be men and could work, explore, dream and hope, he warned of the evils he saw coming upon the land.

It was in the creation of Leatherstocking that Cooper evidenced hope that the wisdom of natural virtue, the desire for good that such wilderness as he describes where men could roam free of the restraints of the selfishness evidenced in the “villages” and “settlements,” free from the evils of petty tyrants, bureaucrats, would prevail.

Cooper wrote: “The doctrine that any one may do what he please with his own, however, is false...Thus, he, who would bring his money to bear upon the elections of a country like this, abuses his situation, unless his efforts are confined to fair and manly discussions before the body of the people...In this country, it is the intention of the institutions, that money should neither increase nor lessen political influence...If left to itself, unsupported by factitious political aid, but sufficiently protected against the designs and rapacity of the dishonest, property is an instrument of working most of the good that society enjoys. It elevates a national character, by affording the means of cultivating knowledge and the tastes; it introduces all above barbarism into society; and it encourages and sustains laudable and useful efforts in individuals. Like every other great good, its abuses are in proportion to its benefits...A people that deems the possession of riches its highest source of distinction, admits one of the most degrading of all influences to preside over its opinions. At no time, should money be ever ranked as more than a means, and he who lives as if the acquisition of property were the sole end of his existence, betrays the dominion of the most sordid, base and groveling motive, that life offers.

“The principle of individuality, or to use a less winning term, of selfishness, lies at the root of all voluntary human exertion. We toil for food, for clothes, for houses, lands and for property, in general.  This is done, because we know that the fruits of our labor will belong to ourselves, or to those who are most dear to us. It follows, that all which society enjoys beyond the mere supply of its first necessities, is dependent on their rights of property.”

But, as I have pointed out, forcefully, in previous epistles, the evil system we live with today precludes a man doing with his own property as he wishes. The “State” has robbed us of the hope of building for those we love and, if exorbitant taxes are not paid, the “State” will be the beneficiary of all we have worked for, not our children and those most dear to us.

Farewell old friends, my soul brothers and heart’s companions, James Fenimore Cooper and Hawkeye. Farewell to your vast, virginal mountains of forests, abundant wildlife and crystal, pure lakes, rivers and streams.  Farewell your voice of warning that the loss of such that gave dignity to men would be sold to the “villages” and “settlements” where “deviltry” would prevail in seeking the “Almighty Dollar!” with all its attendant corruption, devastating taxes and devastating, mountainous system of emasculating laws and codes.

Cooper also leaves a legacy in regard to the media to which we would do well to heed: “This is a terrible picture to contemplate, for when the number (newspapers and, today, TV) of prints is remembered, and the avidity with which they are read is brought into the account, we are made to perceive that the entire nation, in a moral sense, breathes an atmosphere of falsehoods. There is little use, however, in concealing the truth; on the contrary, the dread in which publick men and writers commonly stand of the power of the press to injure them, has permitted the evil to extend so far, that it is scarcely exceeding the bounds of a just alarm, to say that the country cannot much longer exist in safety, under the malign influence that now overshadows it. Any one, who has lived long enough to note changes of the sort, must have perceived how fast men of probity and virtue are losing their influence in the country, to be superseded by those who scarcely deem an affectation of the higher qualities necessary to their success. This fearful change must, in a great measure, be ascribed to the corruption of the publick press, which as a whole, owes its existence to the schemes of interested political adventurers.”

It is a tragedy for our nation that conscience has become a “vestigial organ” of politicians. I would call them all Asses but for the fact that I know of a few exceptions and, further, that would be defaming to that, comparatively, noble beast. The festering, suppurating sore that is now Washington, D.C. with its enormous crime rate, its beehive activity of every kind of corruption imaginable, is a heritage of those that have sought their own gain at the expense of an entire nation.

I have to assume that the only reason the drug problem in our country is not solved in common sense fashion is the result of the need by that “shadow government,” that system that operates behind the scenes like the C.I.A. and the “Doomsday” government which continues to use the enormous profits from an “illegal” drug business to finance itself. As with the BCCI of the not distant past, these shadowy, unaccountable groups like the Federal Reserve have the billions of dollars with which they give no account to Congress or the people. How appropriate that the trail of slime these creatures leave and Obama pays homage to invariably leads to the halls of Congress where it is effectively lost.