A Winter at Valley Forge – Part I

New Year’s Day in 1778 greeted the Continental Army of General George Washington with a blanket of snow as they were encamped in an area known as Valley Forge in rural Pennsylvania. No battle was fought during the six months they spent there from December 19, 1777 to June 19, 1778. But a harsher struggle was waged against the weather, a feckless Congress, political intrigue, and despair occasioned upon them by hunger, poor clothing, disease, death, and desertions.

This is their story.

In the fall of 1777, Washington had moved his army south from New Jersey to Philadelphia to confront the approaching army of British General William Howe. Howe was sure Washington would fight. Philadelphia was the largest city in the colonies, the seat of revolutionary government – such as it was – and it was surrounded by fertile countryside that could provision British troops.

But Washington had suffered defeats at Brandywine Creek and Germantown and Philadelphia would become his third when Howe outmaneuvered Washington and occupied the city. The defeat of the Continental army at Brandywine in September caused the Continental Congress to flee the city, stopping first at Lancaster and then settling at York west of Valley Forge. After his loss at Germantown in October, Washington and Howe clashed again in December for a three-day battle at White Marsh near present day Washington, Pennsylvania. Failing to destroy Washington’s army before the onset of winter, Howe withdrew his army to garrison it in the comfort of Philadelphia.

Washington chose a spot in the Pennsylvania countryside, 20 miles or a day’s march northwest of Philadelphia where a high plateau and the Schuylkill River made it defensible against surprise attacks. Yet it was close enough to Philadelphia to keep pressure on the British garrison and their foraging. These unsettled hills surrounded an iron forge located on Valley Creek from which it got its name.

Valley Forge was not Washington’s first choice for winter quarters. Like the British, he felt his army should be quartered in a substantial town near highways that could provision his army through the winter and spring when the weather made campaigning almost impossible. But with the provisional government in York, 80 miles west of Valley Forge, Congress wanted Washington’s army between them and Howe’s army despite having no money to feed and clothe an army wintered in the field.

Even before he got there, the Pennsylvania legislature criticized Washington for garrisoning his men for the winter instead of continuing the campaigning. Washington fired back:

I can assure those gentlemen that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fireside than to occupy a cold bleak hill and sleep under frost and snow without clothes or blankets. However, although they seem to have little feeling for the naked distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them and from my soul pity those miseries which it is neither in my power to relieve or prevent.

Washington’ 12,000 men occupied Valley Forge on December 19, 1777. They were poorly fed. Their clothes and shoes were worn out from fighting and marching. And they were ill-armed to fight – both then or later when the spring rains would subside, making the roads passable once again. Within days of arriving, six inches of snow was on the ground. Only one-third of the army had shoes.

Washington ordered the men to build a log encampment to provide shelter from winter weather. As long as they lived in tents, so did he. Only when they were fully housed did he move his headquarters into the Isaac Potts house – a small stone structure nearby which was owned by the local grist mill proprietor. Washington lived upstairs and conducted business on the ground floor where his aides competed for floor space to sleep at night. One observer called the headquarters “exceedingly pinched for room.” Washington built an adjoining cabin to provide space for meals.

He gave instructions on the dimensions of huts the men were to build, and he specified the layout of company streets and huts for officers and non-commissioned officers. In three days the first hut was up. Another was built in a week from 80 logs cut from miles around with only one axe. The entire army had shelter in six weeks – in two thousand huts. Most were 14 feet by 16 feet with six and a half feet of head room. Except for officers and sergeants, 12 men would live in these huts. Each had a fireplace and a mud-lined wooden chimney. A fire provided defense against the extreme cold, but with no nearby saw mills, there was no supply of planks for floors or roofs making it impossible to stay dry.

Sickness in the camp was rampant. With few blankets and no straw, the sick lay on wet if not frozen ground. Crowded together as they were, influenza, typhus, typhoid, and dysentery all erupted within the encampment. Frostbite was a major problem requiring amputation without anesthesia. Medicines were in short supply along with food and everything else. Soldiers dined on “fire cakes” – a concoction of flour and water cooked over heat. More often there was no food. Death would claim a quarter of them before spring. Fellow soldiers pooled their rags to clothe those who had guard duty, and if the guard had no shoes or stockings, he stood on his hat as protection from the snow. Hundreds of horses either starved to death or died of exhaustion. Men replaced them in the carriage harnesses to haul wood and supplies. At one point Washington had no more than two thousand troops who were able to fight if the British attacked. When enlistments ran out, a thousand men either refused to reenlist or simply slipped off in the night, deserting and returning home.

Twenty miles away, Howe’s army was quartered in dry homes with ample heat and food and sufficient clothing. Their animals were sheltered and fed.

One of the reasons that Washington chose the Valley Forge area to winter his troops was its food production. But as always there were people who used the war and the requirements of its adversaries for gain. Some local farmers held non-perishables off of the market in hope that the future would bring higher prices. Others withheld food and animal provender from Washington’s men but sold them to Howe’s men. Their reasons were economic rather than political. The British paid in gold and Washington paid in Continental dollars of dubious value.

For a while, Washington suffered the foibles of greed with resignation and understanding. Writing to a member of the Congress, Washington said war cannot be waged on patriotic fervor alone and that “we must take the passions of men as nature has given them” even when those passions were driven by the interest for gain or certainly the avoidance of loss. To the governor of New Jersey, William Livingston, Washington wrote in January, "I am pleased to find that your legislature have fixed a price circumscribing the avarice of your farmers, who like their neighbors" (especially those in Pennsylvania) "are endeavoring to take every advantage of the necessities of the Army" by demanding exorbitant prices for their produce.

Despite his deep respect for private property (he paid rent for the Potts house, which he could have seized) Washington drew the line when greed abetted the enemy. He announced that he would hang anyone who sold provisions to the British. He sent troops out into the country to destroy American mills that produced contraband supplies for the enemy and to break the spindles and spikes of their waterwheels.

Faced with starving troops and a defunct currency, Washington sometimes took food by force from the inhabitants of the countryside even as they cried “robbery!” General Nathanael Greene was ordered to fan out into the country with a thousand men and seize all cattle and sheep that were of slaughter weight. Farmers hid their livestock in the woods and swamps making it harder to find. These farmers were not Tory loyalists. Yet they were undisturbed in the contradiction that a struggle for freedom which would be enjoyed by all should be suffered by a few.

Normally an army’s needs for food and supplies are furnished by its quartermaster and commissary. But this was a revolutionary army fecklessly supported by a revolutionary government. It had an incompetent quartermaster more interested in political glory than supplying the troops. And its commissary had been fiendishly organized by Congress in two non-cooperating parts – a Purchasing Commissary and an Issuing Commissary. The former bought and the latter distributed. Logistics – getting food and supplies to where they were needed – was an afterthought whose inept management was compounded by an 18th century transportation infrastructure. Weather could make roads so impassable that teamsters refused to carry supplies to Valley Forge, or finding roads in horrid conditions, they abandoned their wagons full of supplies and returned home on foot.

As early as December 22, just three days after the army settled into winter encampment, Washington wrote to Henry Laurens, President of Congress, at York.
 

It is with infinite pain and concern that I transmit [to] Congress. . . letters respecting the state of the commissary's department. If these matters are not exaggerated, I do not know from what cause this alarming deficiency or rather total failure of supplies arises; but unless more vigorous exertions and better regulations take place in that line, and immediately, this Army must dissolve. I have done all in my power by remonstrating, by writing to, by ordering the commissaries on this head... but without any good effect, or obtaining more than a present scanty relief.

Washington was even more explicit in a letter the next day which warned Laurens that the army would be dissolved for lack of food or forced to disperse "to obtain subsistence the best manner they can. . ." The commissary’s failures, he complained, were starving the army into non-existence. A near-mutiny had begun the night before, Washington noted, which portended a breakdown in discipline provoked by a dreadful lack of provisions.

Washington’s exasperation with Congress would shape his later views on federalism. He was dealing with the problems caused by a lack of central government. The only real government that mattered was the government of the states, and after the first blush of patriotism passed, which had united them against Britain, the colony-states returned to business as usual – protecting their self interests. The little band of Congressional eunuchs huddled at York was no government. It could pass no law, levy no property, and raise no army. The states feared a standing army and the one at Valley Forge was little more than a collection of state militia, each under the control of their state’s governor. The Continental Congress at York had to ask – not demand – states to provide what was needed to wage war against Britain, and states could refuse. If Congress offered a bounty to enlist men into the Continental Army, states would offer a higher bounty to enlist them into the state militia, thus creating a bidding war for enlistments. Naturally this led to short enlistments so that a man’s military obligation was quickly over, making him a candidate for another enlistment bounty. If he enlisted once for the duration of the war, he was poorer for it. Manipulating reenlistments was raised to an art form.

Independence from the British king had not yet been won. Therefore, states were learning how to govern themselves on the fly. Little concern was given to governing each other. It was a case of every state for itself. Since power resided in the state legislatures, those bodies attracted the “brightest and best” men. Lesser lights were sent by the states as their representatives to the Continental Congress. Predictably, the esteem of Congress was never high, and its incompetence in getting anything done only lessened it. “What a lot of damned scoundrels we had in that second Congress" Gouverneur Morris of Philadelphia would later observe to John Jay of New York who concurred, "Yes, we had." The despised body could deal with matters of war and peace, produce a currency system, and sign treaties – issues of no real concern to the states. While there had been talk about a national union, the representatives from the states in Congress were in no hurry to produce it. The best that they had been able to achieve while exiled in York was the document known as the Articles of Confederation. This is sometimes called the first constitution but it specified no central executive, legislature, or judiciary.

With little help coming from Congress, Washington went over their heads. He personally wrote letters to the heads of state governments asking for their aid in a desperate situation. To the governor of Connecticut he wrote of “the alarming situation of this army” and that “there is the strongest reason to believe, that its existence cannot be of long duration, unless more constant, regular and larger supplies of the meat kind are furnished.” Washington said he was appealing eastward to New England because he had gotten only a partial commitment from the southern states (colonies) and thus “lay our account of support from thence. . .I. . .therefore entreat you in the most earnest terms. . .to give every countenance to the person or persons employed in the purchasing line in your state. . ."

Washington’s appeal to New England stirred a response. By March droves of beef cattle began heading to Valley Forge. Due to the perfidy of Tory spies in Philadelphia, one herd of 130 fine beef cattle was intercepted by a British raiding party alerted to their coming. Congress was able to round up a modest supply of food, but to supplement those provisions, Washington sent General Anthony Wayne to New Jersey to obtain whatever food and cattle he could find. He returned with 50 head of cattle and 30 horses.

In early March, Washington appointed General Nathanael Greene to be Quartermaster General over Greene’s objections that “nobody ever heard of a quartermaster in history.” Greene’s enterprise and enthusiasm, however, produced immediate improvements in logistics and supply. He sent engineers to improve roads and bridges between Lancaster and Valley Forge. Almost immediately wagons began arriving with clothing and food and farmers began bringing their produce to a camp market.

In early March 70 men from a baking company in Philadelphia arrived in camp. They were led by Christopher Ludwig, a German-born gingerbread baker and patriot. Ludwig refused to exploit his opportunity among hungry men, each of whom got a pound of bread daily. Ludwig was appointed Baker-General by Congress which authorized the daily bread ration for Washington’s men. He settled into baking for the headquarters staff, which brought him into almost daily contact with Washington.

In March, the men who had suffered through the winter to keep the army together received an additional month’s pay. To it Washington added a ration of rum for each soldier.

In April an unusually large surge of shad schooled up the Schuylkill River to spawn. The soldiers netted thousands of them and for the first time since settling the camp, they were able to gorge themselves with food. Those fish not eaten were salted and stored in hundreds of barrels for future consumption.

In a letter to his stepson, Washington characterized Valley Forge as “a dreary kind of place and uncomfortably provided.” While the army still faced critical problems, the immediate crisis of feeding the survivors of a terrible winter in that “dreary kind of place” had been providentially averted in the nick of time.

Their story continues next week.

The Christmas Story – Part II

Continuing the Christmas story from last week’s posting, Matthew skips over the details of the birth of Jesus, but Luke gives this account of what happened:

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

We have to think about what is going on here in order to grasp the magnitude of it. Here is a 14 year old girl, maybe younger, who has never had sexual relations with a man and has just delivered a baby who, according to an angel, is the son of God. There’s no mother present to tell her what to expect during the delivery of her first child – Luke says Mary did it alone. No midwife delivered or swaddled her baby – Mary did it. Mary cut the umbilical cord – probably with her teeth. Mary cleaned her baby and disposed of the placenta. Mary wrapped the limbs of her newborn with the traditional strips of cloth and, if there was one, wrapped him in a blanket. No mention of Joseph being there. It was a lonely birth.

Then Mary placed the baby in a feed trough because there was no guest room available for them. That’s right, guest room. Translations that suggest that Mary and the baby – and probably Joseph – spent that night where they did because there was no room in an inn are translated wrong. It’s improbable that a small village like Bethlehem had an inn. More likely, the house associated with the place of the birth was that of a relative and quite possibly Mary and Joseph arrived too late to get the guest room, which other relatives who came for the census had taken. The manger or feed trough infers that the birth took place in a stable. It may have. But archeology has discovered houses in the area with caves behind them to protect and safeguard the family’s animals, so Jesus may have been born in a cave. Or it could have been a lean-to against the house that gave some protection for animals. Whatever it was, it was not clean and was intended for animals, not people, not a birth, not a newborn.

As she looked at this baby, swaddled and lying in a feed trough, we can only guess what a teenage mother would think knowing he was divine. Will he act normal? Do I nurse him? How do I raise him?

Despite his humble entry into the world, the announcement of Jesus’ birth was regal. A celestial choir of angels joined to praise God for the event. And it was fitting that the birth announcement was made to men at the absolute bottom of the Jewish social hierarchy – smelly shepherds. Shepherds were the lowest, most common unskilled peasants in first century society. Those at the top of society, the religious leaders, were not included in the divine mailing list.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Why were shepherds social outcasts? When the Hebrews first journeyed to Egypt, they were nomads. Nomads aren’t farmers. They depend on livestock herds that travel with them. But the Egyptians were farmers and detested livestock herds because they ate their crops. When the brothers of Joseph came to Egypt during a famine to buy grain, he told them “Every shepherd is detestable to the Egyptians” (Gen 46:34).

During the 400 years that the Hebrews were in Egypt, much of the time as slaves, they lost their dependency on animals and became dependent on crops. Moreover, they absorbed the prejudices of the Egyptians toward shepherds. When they left Egypt to occupy the region of Canaan, they settled the new land as farmers.

Further, shepherds were not landowners; they were hirelings who lived in the fields. Some were disreputable and stole from the flock, so that people were warned not to buy wool, milk, or a kid from a shepherd on the assumption that it was stolen. But all shepherds were tarred with the same brush.

The Mishnah, Judaism’s written record of the oral law, reveals the prejudice against shepherds, referring to them as incompetent. One Mishnah excuses a Jew from rescuing a shepherd who has fallen into a pit. A shepherd was not permitted to serve as a legal witness, assuming he would lie, but if not, he was too ignorant. They could not hold a judicial office and were deprived of basic civil rights.

To such the good news of the newborn child was first revealed.

These allegedly “ignorant” herdsmen weren’t told by the angel to go look for the one announced to them, yet they did. Leaving their flocks in the field, they said to each other that they should go to Bethlehem to see the thing the Lord – not the angels – had announced. They assumed the message had come from God, which shows they were devout and they were expectant for the Messiah.

The shepherds therefore hurried into Bethlehem and found the baby swaddled and in a manger as the angel had said. No questions asked, they left and spread the word that they had been told this child was the Messiah. The people were amazed at what the shepherds told them. What amazed them? Perhaps they were amazed at the message or perhaps they were amazed that it had been revealed first to shepherds. We don’t know. But the shepherds returned – presumably to their fields, not the manger – praising God that what they were told is what they saw. They were the first eye witnesses in a society that said they weren’t qualified to be witnesses.

On the eighth day, as Jewish law required, a newborn boy was circumcised and named and then a sacrifice was offered. Because she had given birth, Mary was ritually unclean for 40 days in the post partum period. (Seeing that she was pregnant and near delivery, the owner of the house may have invited Joseph and Mary to “take the place out back” when they first arrived instead of the guest room, which would have been defiled by a birth. The unavailability of the guest room can be explained several ways. )

Jewish law dictated what must happen following birth as found in Leviticus 12:

A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over … When the days of her purification for a son or daughter are over, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin offering … But if she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean.

Throughout the Old Testament, a pair of turtle-doves or of young pigeons was the substitute for people too poor to provide a lamb or kid for sacrifice. The birds would have been readily available to even the poorest because they were abundant in the wild and their substitution for a lamb was evidence of extreme poverty – the state in which Joseph and Mary no doubt lived. Because turtle doves mated for life, their fidelity was considered a symbol of purity in a sacrifice intended to restore purity.

At this juncture, the story of the Nativity stops for at least a year and maybe two. Wait! What happened to the “wise men”?

The Magi did not visit the baby in the manger as commonly portrayed on Christmas cards. There were not three of them. We don’t know the names of any of them; Balthasar, Melchior, and Caspar were inventions of the 7th century. And, no, they did not ride camels.

Luke has nothing to say about these visitors from the East but Matthew does.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

The Magi lived in the region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern day Iraq. They were Chaldeans so their ancient origin was near where Abraham lived before he was called by God – that is, their roots are from an area about halfway between Baghdad and the Persian Gulf. Magi are referred to during the captivity of the Jews in Babylon – which became Persian captivity after the Persians overthrew the Babylonians – as reported in the Old Testament books of the prophets. Daniel the prophet was appointed the chief of the Magi (Dan 2:48.) They were physicians, philosophers, scholars, and astronomers. There is evidence that they were also astrologers, soothsayers, and magicians. In fact the word “magic” come from magi.

During the Babylonian and Persian periods of captivity, these Magi came into close contact with the Jews and their religion. They would have known the Jewish prophecies like the prophecy that "there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise out of Israel" (Num 24:17), the herald of a king.

In addition to their scientific and scholarly skills they also possessed political power. Their duties included the choice and election of the king, which is one reason Herod was so disturbed when they entered his kingdom. Persia and Babylon were part of the Parthian Empire at this time, the second most powerful empire in the world – second only to Rome. The Pathians and Romans had fought many battles, and Palestine conveniently served as a buffer state between them.

If the Magi who came to honor the young child Jesus began their journey from Babylon, which is to the east in Iraq, they would have to cover a distance of 550 miles as the crow flies. It would have been impossible to take a direct route due to topography and the need to provision the number of people in their group. If they came from Persia – farther east in modern day Iran – their journey would have had to cover an even greater distance. In other words, it would have taken many months if not a year or so to get to Bethlehem once they started – whenever that happened.

Therefore, the Magi didn’t show up while Jesus was in a manger. In fact, Matthew says “On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him.” Note that when the Magi’s visited, Joseph and Mary were temporarily living in a house and Jesus was no longer referred to as a baby but as a child.

Their gifts of honor were three in number. That doesn’t mean there were three visitors. The fact that these Parthians were crossing into enemy territory – the Roman province of Palestine – surely suggests that there would have been enough men to defend themselves from the hazards of the journey and the potential conflict with the Romans. Perhaps hundreds if not thousands were in their company. The Parthians were noted for their cavalry, so it’s most probable than their company arrived on horseback.

The sudden appearance of the Magi in Jerusalem, traveling as an armed force heralded by oriental pomp and flanked by enough cavalry troops to assure safe passage through Roman territory, certainly alarmed Herod and the populace of Jerusalem. As Matthew reports it, the Magi began asking around about a new king in a country ruled by a paranoid king with a history of killing any threat to his throne.

“Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.

The Magi were astronomers who knew the sky, and they were astrologists who interpreted signs in the heavens as indicators of events on earth. Astrology, however, was abhorrent to the Jews and no Jew was allowed to practice it. So when these star gazers showed up asking about a new king who has a star, Herod, a half-Jew, had to call the chief priests and teachers among the Jews in order to know what they were talking about.

“In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler  who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

The Magi were only five miles from their destination.

Herod was ill and near the end of his life when these events occurred, but even so, he had to have decided that there was only room for one king is this town. Therefore,

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.  He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

We don’t know when the Magi first saw the star. Nothing compels that it appeared as soon as Jesus was born or that they came in haste upon seeing it. But we do know that when the Magi failed to return and tell Herod where they found Jesus, he ordered the killing of all baby boys who were two years old and younger. That implies that between the time of the Magi’s first star sighting and the slaughter of these children as much as two years could have passed so Jesus could have been one or two years old at the time of their visit.

The star that the Magi followed is inexplicable. In an effort to give it a natural explanation, commentators have looked at celestial history and theorized that it was a super nova, a conjunction of planets, a comet, or some other explanation. However, those who believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, announced by angels, and saved from assassination by God speaking through dreams will have no problem in accepting a miraculous star which behaved like no other star. And if it was a miracle, no record of it would be found in the astronomical record of historic celestial events.

And the Magi … why did they cross hundreds of miles of desert and mountainous terrain to bow down and worship a child in an obscure village in Palestine?

Why did Joseph and Mary, instead of returning home to Nazareth following the birth, tarry for one or two years in Bethlehem before being forced to flee to Egypt after the Magi’s visit?

Everything has a purpose with God including the visit of the Magi. We can logically assume this much. The Magi knew Jewish prophecy from their contact with the Jews and their prophets and therefore knew that a Messiah would come. The star was intended for them – no one else saw it – and it was given to the Magi as a sign from God. (There is no mention that the shepherds, who surely knew the stars, saw this one.) The Magi were Gentiles. These were also devout. When they saw the child Jesus, these powerful king-makers bowed down in worship and gave him costly gifts – a sign of submission and honor in the East.

Moreover, Luke’s account of the Nativity tells that a righteous man, Simeon, had been assured he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. When Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to the Temple to be dedicated as Jewish law required, Simeon took the baby in his arms and said,

Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.

Just as the Messiah’s coming was announced by the angels to the shepherds as the first representatives of the Jewish nation, it was announced by the star to the Magi as the first representatives of the Gentile nations so that both might be eye witnesses that salvation had come.

That is the reason for the Magi’s visit.

The Christmas Story – Part I

Have you ever wondered why Jesus was born when he was? Why not 50 years earlier? Or 100 years later?

The apostle Paul gives the answer in the New Testament Letter to the Galatians. There he wrote “when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son.” (Gal. 4:4). In today’s vernacular we would say, “At the right time, God sent forth his son.” In other words, God was acting in accordance with a plan.

So, what made that particular night over 2,000 years ago the “right” time?

Our search for an answer would begin in the prophecies of Daniel who lived 600 years before Christ when the Hebrews were captive in the Babylonian Empire. The Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, had a dream about the future which troubled him. He called for Daniel to tell him what it meant and Daniel’s interpretation placed “the right time” in the Roman era – a period that lasted 700 years. That’s too large a time span to be more than generally helpful.

However, several significant historic variables help narrow the focus. One historic variable was the preparation of the Jews for the Messiah. Their preparation began during the Babylonian captivity. Before it they were promiscuously idolatrous; after it they were monotheistic and returned as a nation to God and his prophetic promises. A second variable was the consolidation of the Old Testament canon for the first time into one volume. This was done by Ezra, a Jewish priest, and made it easier for the Jews to trace the thread of prophecies about the coming Messiah. A third variable was the development of the Jewish synagogue system. Since the captive Jews were separated from their Temple in Jerusalem, the synagogue network gave them community-based places to worship while in captivity and this synagogue system would later facilitate the spread of the gospel throughout the world where Jews had settled.

All of these developments made it possible for the gospel of Jesus to be proclaimed to the Jews.

A forth historic variable made it possible for the gospel to be proclaimed to the Gentiles. This important development was the rise of the Greek hegemony and the collapse of the Persian Empire as Daniel had foretold. Beginning in 350 BC, and ultimately continued under Alexander the Great, the civilized world was conquered by the Macedonian Greeks. The Greek language became the lingua franca, and continued so even under the later Roman Empire. Therefore converts to the gospel of Jesus would one day travel the Roman Empire from end to end and find people speaking a common language, making it easier to spread the teachings of Jesus. Today thirteen languages have replaced the universal Greek once spoken in the geographic area of the old Roman Empire. Beginning in the third century BC, the community of scholars living around the great library of Alexandria in Egypt produced the Septuagint – a Greek translation of the Old Testament Hebrew scripture – making it possible for the Greek-speaking world to read Ezra’s canon and its prophecies.

The Roman Republic began hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus. Its power grew, and with the death of Alexander and the division of his land conquests among his generals, Rome eventually replaced the Greeks as the leading world power. Internal civil wars, however, eroded the Republic and the leadership of the Roman Senate. The solution was to appoint Julius Caesar as a perpetual dictator. He was assassinated in 44 BC and replaced in 27 BC by his nephew and heir, Octavius, who took the title Caesar Augustus – the Roman ruler at the time of Jesus’ birth. Octavius Caesar Augustus is credited with the creation of “pax romana” or Roman peace – a period of 150 years during which there was no war in the Empire. Pax romana was the fifth historic variable. It would enable the message of Jesus to spread and flourish in a world suspended of strife.

Roman world conquest, as harsh as it was, suppressed chaos and produced world peace, commerce, and prosperity for the period between 28 BC and 180 AD.  A postal system was instituted, allowing the Empire to communicate throughout its extent, and a road system allowed widespread travel on foot. Roman legions suppressed brigands and rogues who would threaten the safety of travelers. The dissemination of a new ideology over Roman roads was thus made unprecedentedly easy. Over these roads traveled a pregnant teenager and her husband to return to their hometown to be counted in a census ordered by Caesar Augustus. When Mary’s birth pains began, that journey would place them in the town where prophecy said Jesus would be born.

Could all of these historic variables have lined up favorably over six centuries by extraordinary coincidence? To believe so takes more faith than to believe that they occurred as part of a plan. In retrospect, we can now see a line from Eden to Bethlehem when the “fullness of time” was complete and the Messiah came. All of the pieces were finally in place.

Under Hebrew law a girl in ancient Jewish society 2,000 years ago could be married as early as 12 years of age plus one day, and the rabbis taught that a father should betroth his daughter to his slave rather than keep her unbetrothed beyond puberty.  Thus a girl would be married around 14 or earlier, although she would begin the relationship with her future husband in the state of betrothal. Betrothal was a one-year pre-marriage period in which the bride continued to live at home, although the period could be shorter than a year. Its objective seems to have been to provide time before marriage to prove she wasn’t pregnant, which several months would sufficiently demonstrate.

In Mary’s case, she was pregnant. Her conception was not the consequence of intercourse with a man, but as the Bible reports in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, the consequence of the intervention of the Holy Spirit. That this divine pregnancy would happen had been told to her by an angel, but because she was a virgin and still living in her father’s house, the angelic announcement was incomprehensible to her.

Mary was greatly troubled at [the angel’s] words … “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The divine impregnation of a virgin was clearly miraculous and had been prophesied more than 700 years earlier by Isaiah:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)

In fact, the first clue that Jesus would come by virgin birth was hinted at the beginning of time in the Garden of Eden when God placed this curse on Satan:

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed: it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:15)

The reference to “her seed” is extraordinary, since a child is the seed of the father. The implication of “her seed” is that no man would be involved. The coming conqueror foretold here would receive a bruised heel – not a mortal wound – but he would inflict a mortal wound – a bruised head – ending Satan’s reign. The bruised heel signifies the future death on the cross – an apparent defeat which was not a defeat because of the resurrection.

Yet before Joseph and Mary had begun to live as husband and wife, he discovered her pregnancy. This presented a serious problem to the young husband who couldn’t have been more than a teenager himself. Mary was apparently guilty of adultery and the punishment was death by stoning. But Joseph, the Bible tells us, was a fair man and decided that he would not put her on trial for her life but would instead “put her away quietly” – i.e. give her an unpublicized divorce.

Still, Mary’s untimely pregnancy apparently hadn’t escaped notice in the neighborhood. Rumors have circulated to the present time that the real father of Jesus was one of the ubiquitous Roman soldiers stationed throughout Palestine. These assertions are easily discredited, but even the New Testament reports an incident which could be interpreted as a slander on the legitimacy of Jesus’ birth. It involved one of his many collisions with the Jewish establishment during his ministry. The Jewish leaders took offense with him and their accusation suggests knowledge of the rumor that he was a bastard.

Then they said to Jesus, “We were not born as a result of immorality! We have only one Father, God himself.” (John 8:37-41)

Joseph’s concerns about the fidelity of his wife are assuaged when an angel appears in a dream and tells him that Mary is carrying the child of the Holy Spirit and he should take her as his wife, which, awakening from the dream, he does immediately. Remarkably, not one word of Joseph’s is recorded in scripture, but when he is told to do something, he does it promptly.

Matthew tells us that Joseph “did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son.” But there is no biblical evidence that they did not live as husband and wife thereafter and in fact Matthew and Mark give the names of younger brothers: James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas (Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3.) James was the brother who never believed Jesus was the son of God until after the resurrection when Jesus appeared to him.

A Roman edict interrupts the life of the young couple while Mary is pregnant.

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.

Since Joseph and Mary were descendents of David, they were required to travel 85 miles from their home in Nazareth by foot or donkey to journey to the home of their ancestor David and be counted. There Mary’s baby would be born, fulfilling another ancient prophecy:

Bethlehem, you are one of the smallest towns in the nation of Judah. But the Lord will choose one of your people to rule the nation – someone whose family goes back to ancient times. (Micah 5:2)

When the wise men come from the East, Micah’s prophecy will help them locate Jesus.

Caesar Augustus didn't know anything about Micah. Or the Old Testament or God. One of his accomplishments was the reform of the tax system and maybe the census was part of that. The census and Luke’s clue that Quirinius was governor of Syria helps pinpoint a time span when all of this took place.

Matthew’s account of the nativity tells us that Jesus was born when Herod was King. If reckoned by today’s calendar, Herod died in Jericho in the spring of 4 BC so the birth of Jesus would have had to occur before that. Yet Josephus, a first century Jewish historian, puts the census in the period of 7 BC to 6 BC. Reconciling Luke’s dating with Matthew’s has created a cottage industry of disputants, but suffice it to say that Jesus was likely not born on the first day of the first century – the date on which subsequent calendars are anchored.

Moreover, it’s unlikely that Jesus was born on December 25. The date of Jesus’ birth was not celebrated as a tradition for centuries and no tradition linking Christmas to December 25 can be traced back before the time of Constantine. The date was likely an invention of the fourth century – possibly to compete with the pagan holiday of Saturnalia, the worship of the sun god, which was celebrated on December 25.

Luke’s account of the nativity says that angels appeared to shepherds keeping watch over their sheep nearby. Bethlehem is about five miles southwest of Jerusalem at an elevation of about 2,300 above sea level – about 100 feet higher in elevation than Jerusalem. It’s unlikely that sheep would have been in the fields after about October due to night temperatures, although some say these could have been Temple sheep which remained in the fields year around. It’s unlikely that they were since the Temple was five miles away. The most likely time for shepherds to be in the fields with sheep after October would be springtime.

It’s unlikely that Jesus’ birth would occur on a random date. Since his coming happened in “the fullness of time,” God would have chosen a significant day in the Jewish year, and the most likely prospect would be a feast day, if not Passover, which comes in April. When we consider that he died on Passover, rose on the Feast of the First Fruits, created his church on the Festival of Weeks, also called Pentacost, the celebration of the giving of the law to Moses at Mount Sinai, it’s hard to argue that Jesus would be born on a day that had no significance in the Jewish calendar. While no scholar has given compelling evidence for a date, there is compelling evidence that it wasn’t December 25.

The Christmas Story is a long blog so I’m going to break it here and continue it next week. I hope you’ll read the rest of the story and have a very merry Christmas celebration!

The Death of George Washington

Two weeks short of the end of the 18th century and a little more than a month short of his 68th birthday, George Washington died on December 14, 1799. This week marks the 212th anniversary of his passing

Upon receiving the news of the death days later, President John Adams wrote this letter to the Congress:

Gentlemen of the Senate and Gentlemen of the House of Representatives:

The letter herewith transmitted will inform you that it has pleased Divine Providence to remove from this life our excellent fellow-citizen, George Washington, by the purity of his character and a long series of services to his country rendered illustrious through the world. It remains for an affectionate and grateful people, in whose hearts he can never die, to pay suitable honors to his memory.

Americans expressed their esteem of General Washington by participating in over 400 funeral processions and memorial services during 69 days of the “National Day of Mourning” which ended on February 22, 1800. Thousands of them wore mourning clothes for months. Throughout the capitals of the world, citizens were saddened to learn that this citizen of the world had passed from their midst. Napoleon ordered ten days of mourning throughout France.

Tobias Lear was Washington’s personal secretary and an eye witness to his last 30 hours of life. Lear’s account gives us these insights.

Washington had ridden out around 10 a.m. to inspect his farms on Thursday December 12th and didn’t return until after 3 p.m. The weather was cold – a mixture of snow, hail, and rain with temperatures around 28 degrees in a hard wind. Returning home, Lear asked Washington to frank some letters so they could be mailed. When finished, his dinner was waiting for him, which he took without changing out of wet clothes. Lear noticed there was snow hanging from his hair.

A heavy snow fell Friday. Washington had developed a “cold” and complained of a sore throat – quite possibly from his exposure the previous day. He did not venture out until the afternoon and then only to mark some trees between the house and the Potomac River that he wanted cut down to improve the view. By evening his voice had become hoarse though he made light of it.

Washington, Lear, and Martha retired to the parlor to read the newspapers that had been brought from the Post Office. After Martha excused herself around 9 p.m. to go upstairs, Washington continued to read and when he found articles of interest, he read them out loud to Lear, who noticed his voice was becoming squeaky. Otherwise, Washington was in cheerful spirits. When he retired to go upstairs, Lear suggested that he take something for his cold. Washington fobbed it off; "you know I never take anything for a cold. Let it go as it came."

Between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. Saturday morning Washington awoke Martha and told her that he didn’t feel well. He complained of the ague – a commonly-used 18th century medical term for conditions of fever, chills, and sweating. She wanted to summon a servant but he would not let her go outside lest she catch a cold. At sun up, Caroline, a woman servant, appeared to start the fires in house. Martha sent her immediately to fetch Lear who rushed to Washington’s bed chamber. He found Washington in a state of labored breathing and hardly able to utter a word intelligibly. He was able to tell Lear that he wanted Mr. Rawlins, one of the overseers of the plantation, to be sent for to bleed him. Lear complied and also sent for the family physician, Dr. James Craik. In the course of the day, Dr. Elisha Cullen Dick of Alexandria and Dr. Richard Brown of Port Tobacco were also summoned.

Eighteenth century medicine was pre-scientific and the rationale for phlebotomy was based on a belief that the blood of an ill patient was contaminated by morbid matter. If it was bled out, it would be shortly replaced by healthy blood to heal the patient. Further it was believed that the more acute the condition of the patient, the more blood had to be removed. The physicians of the day knew little about the true volume of blood in the body – believing it was twice the six quarts which the average male body holds – and they believed blood regenerated in hours instead of the weeks actually required. The noted physician of that time, Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, believed 80% of a man’s blood volume could be safely removed when in fact 40% can be fatal. Decades would pass before this practice would be discredited.

While awaiting the arrival of Dr. Craik, Lear mixed molasses, vinegar, and butter to soothe Washington’s throat, but Washington could not swallow it and further attempts caused him to convulse and suffocate.

Rawlins arrived and prepared to bleed Washington, though he was agitated to be called for such a task. “Don’t be afraid,” Washington assured him. The venesection, however, did not produce the blood volume Washington wanted removed and as he called for more, Martha intervened that bleeding might not be appropriate for her husband’s condition. Only a half-pint of blood was removed and Washington’s condition remained unchanged. The ever-resourceful Tobias Lear, seeing that Washington couldn’t swallow and hadn’t improved with bleeding, called for Washington’s feet to be immersed in warm water while he applied a “salve latola” to the neck – first by hand rubbing and then soaking a flannel scarf in it which was wrapped around Washington’s neck. Neither produced any relief.

Dr. Craik arrived and, after examining Washington, applied a blister of cantharidin to his throat. It was a mainstream medical practice of the day consisting of a poultice of Spanish fly beetle parts ground into powder which became a powerful skin irritant. The poultice intentionally produced blisters which were believed to have a medicinal effect. Craik also took more blood and made an inhalant of vinegar steam for Washington to breathe. When Washington attempted to gargle vinegar water, he almost suffocated and gagged up heavy phlegm. More bleeding and blister packs followed.

The other two physicians summoned, Dick and Brown, arrived around 3 p.m. After consulting among themselves, Washington was bled again and given an emetic of calomel (mercurous chloride) and tartar (antimony potassium tartrate).

Around 4:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon Washington asked his wife to retrieve two wills from his desk. One superseded the other, which he wanted burned. Lear was summoned to the bedside and Washington took his hand. "I find I am going, my breath cannot last long; I believed from the first that the disorder would prove fatal.” He asked Lear to arrange and record all of his military letters and papers and arrange his accounts and books since he knew more about the plantation’s affairs than anyone. He wanted Rawlins to continue recording his letters – a task he had apparently begun. Washington’s pain and breathing distress was increasing and Lear had to turn him on the bed several times so he could breathe.

About 5 p.m. Dr. Craik returned to the bed chamber and Washington said to him, "Doctor, I die hard; but I am not afraid to go, I believed from my first attack, that I should not survive it; my breath cannot last long.” Craik held his hand for a while and then sat by the fire in the chamber absorbed in grief.

Between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. the three doctors convened again at Washington’s bed and asked if he could sit up. They raised him but Washington said, "I feel myself going, I thank you for your attentions; but I pray you take no more trouble about me, let me go off quietly; I cannot last long."

Dr. Dick, the youngest of the three doctors, objected to more bleeding of the dying man and argued instead for a tracheotomy – a procedure in which an incision is made in the neck near the larynx or Adam’s apple. That would open a direct airway into the trachea. Tracheotomy is an old procedure dating back centuries but it hadn’t entered mainstream medical practice in Washington’s day. Years later Dr. Dick gave his rationale for proposing the procedure in a personal correspondence:

I proposed to perforate the trachea as a means of prolonging life and of affording time for the removal of the obstruction to respiration in the larynx which manifestly threatened speedy resolution.

But Dr. Craik, the senior physician and Washington’s family physician, vetoed the idea. Dr. Brown concurred with him. Craik was unmoved when Dick offered to be personally responsible for the outcome. Neither Craik nor Brown was concerned about their personal reputation in treating this particular patient. Rather, they may have been overly awed by the fact that this was George Washington, a man of international reputation as evidenced by the god-like esteem paid in foreign capitals when Washington’s death was announced. Moreover, as family physician, Craik would have been concerned that his 67-year old weakened patient would have to endure the pain of a ghastly emergency procedure of unproven efficacy without anesthesia. Even if the procedure succeeded in opening an airway, 18th century ignorance of antiseptic techniques would have likely led to infection of the wound site that would be every bit as life-threatening as Washington’s undiagnosed malady.

Poultices of wheat bran were applied to Washington’s legs and feet around 8 p.m. and more blister poultices were applied to his neck. The families – Martha’s grandchildren – were summoned.

Lear was called to the bedside again around 10 p.m. although Washington could barely speak. After several attempts, he managed to tell Lear, "I am just going! Have me decently buried; and do not let my body to be put into the vault less than three days after I am dead.” Lear nodded his understanding because his grief kept him from speaking. Washington looked at him again and said, "Do you understand me?" Lear replied that he did and Washington settled back on his bed pillow and said, “’Tis well.”

Years before Washington had revived a slave long thought dead and that experience haunted him for the rest of his life with a morbid fear that some day he might be buried alive.

Lear remained at the bedside holding Washington’s hand. His breathing calmed. At 10:10 p.m., Washington slipped his hand out of Lear’s to check his own pulse; his countenance changed, and he expired peacefully. Dr. Dick stopped the clock in the bed chamber to fix the time. Craik, who was sitting by the fire, came to the bedside. He confirmed that Washington was dead and closed his eyes.

While all in the room were fixed in silent grief, Martha Washington, who was sitting at the foot of the bed, asked, “Is he gone?” Lear could not speak and simply held up his hand instead. “'Tis well,” she said. “All is now over, I shall soon follow him! I have no more trials to pass through.” Indeed, three years later she followed her husband.

Thus departed the spirit of George Washington who 30 hours before was in robust health, leaving us to wonder how his body systems could have failed so rapidly.

Most modern diagnosticians would translate Washington’s symptoms – severe sore throat, hoarseness, cough, chills, breathing distress, difficulty in swallowing (dysphagia) leading to spitting or drooling, fever, loss of voice, and episodes of suffocation, in that progression – as symptoms of epiglottitis. Due to juvenile vaccinations, it is an uncommon affliction today but not so in the 18th century when it was fatal and untreatable with the methods of that time. If contracted today a hospitalization most certainly would be required, usually in ICU, and often needing intubation (breathing tube) because the patient would otherwise slowly asphyxiate as Washington did. Asphyxiation was likely the primary cause of his death. It is a frightening way to die and the fact that he could bear it with such resignation is remarkable.

The epiglottis is a stiff but still flexible piece of cartilage at the back of the tongue. It closes the trachea (windpipe) when food or liquid is swallowed to prevent either from entering the airway, causing coughing or choking. Epiglottitis is a severe inflammation of the epiglottis. The infection progresses rapidly and infiltrates the surrounding tissue, quickly causing that tissue to swell and obstruct the respiratory airway. It is acutely painful and causes the patient to struggle in breathing, swallowing, and speaking – all the symptoms Washington presented.

But a likely contributing cause of death was the amount of blood taken from Washington. Shortly after death, his body was carried downstairs and placed on the dining room table. He measured 6 feet and 3.5 inches. A man of his height and body mass probably weighed around 230 pounds, and from height and weight it’s probable that his total blood volume was about seven quarts. Adding up the various bloodlettings he suffered in his final hours – estimated to be about 82 ounces – Washington lost about 37% of the blood in his body within a 16 hour period, which is a remarkable blood loss for a critically sick patient. Tobias Lear described Washington’s final moments as “calm” which may have been due to the fact that he was entering a profound state of shock and hypertension brought on by blood loss.

Ironically, even as Washington lay dying, his friend and the colleague of his doctors – Dr. Benjamin Rush, a champion of bloodletting – was fighting the allegation of medical malpractice because of it. William Corbett, a Philadelphia journalist, had objected to Rush’s overzealous use of the practice, saying Rush had killed more patients than he had saved. Rush sued for libel and won on December 14, the day of Washington’s death.

In the weeks following Washington's death, the three attending physicians became embroiled in criticism which grew worse over the years. They were condemned for their reliance on bloodletting, one critic even going as far as to accuse them of murder.

And indeed, the doctors began to have second thoughts concerning their treatment of Washington’s condition. Dick had originally argued against bleeding and diagnosed that Washington suffered a "violent inflammation of the membranes of the throat" rather than Craik’s diagnosis of an attack of quinsy, an antiquated 18th century medical term for tonsillitis or strep. Dick’s diagnosis was essentially correct although he couldn’t have understood epiglottitis or its aetiology. Craik later mused that he had been inclined to consent to Dick’s recommendation for a tracheotomy before having second thoughts. Brown, writing later to Craik, had reflected on Dick’s diagnosis and treatment assessment, saying “I have often thought that if we had acted according to his suggestion when he said, 'He needs all his strength – bleeding will diminish it,' and taken no more blood from him, our good friend might have been alive now.”

However, it is unfair to hold Washington’s doctors to a higher standard than the medical practices of their day. From the perspective of 212 years later, we modern heirs of MRIs, laparotomies, and pharmacotherapies might condescend to treatments of beetle powders, blister poultices, purges with lethal mercury concoctions, and therapeutic bleeding. But Washington himself was an advocate of these practices and used them on himself, his wife, servants, and slaves. They were the therapies he knew and believed to be the best available, just as we today submit to invasive and mutilating surgeries, radiation treatments, and debilitating chemotherapy – practices that the beneficiaries of future therapies may deign to be marginally effective and barbaric.

Despite advances in modern diagnosis and treatment, we still don’t have a scientifically empirical understanding of the origin and progression of many diseases. Until we do, the practice of medicine will be more art than science, not unlike its application in Washington’s day

The Birth of the Welfare State

As the Great Depression enveloped the world in the 1930s, many people saw it as a failure of capitalism and blamed capitalists for causing it. The “blame game” rhetoric of that day and today are strikingly similar – accusations of business profiteering, exploitation of the middle and lower classes by the upper income earners, corporate greed, you name it. Franklin D. Roosevelt was especially vitriolic in his first inaugural speech in 1933:

We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated.... The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths.

The economic breakdown also caused informal welfare systems to break down. Before the Great Depression, church and community took care of its own. Welfare was provided locally by locals. But the severity and duration of the Depression caused those private systems to fail as their benefactors found themselves in need. Therefore, social liberals called for government economic intervention and called for wealth redistribution. Militarists like Hitler called for war. Each would produce misery in its own way.

As America struggled through the Depression, Roosevelt was the first President to seize the idea of not letting a crisis go to waste. He was enamored with socialism and employed a number of socialists in his administration. Because he had absolute majorities in the House and Senate – the first President since the Civil War to have such an advantage – he pushed his aggressive agenda into laws that transformed American society. Unfortunately World War II interrupted his efforts to completely transform America into a welfare state, but he did achieve what could be called a European-style social democracy.

Roosevelt’s interventions caught the attention of British socialists who were looking around the world for ways to transform British society into a welfare state. When war came, much to the delight of the socialists, the power and prestige of the British government was enhanced. Government managed the economy during the war, running it more efficiently and on a larger scale than had been the case in the 1930s. The government squeezed more production out of industry than the capitalist owners had done before the war. And the whole of British society rallied together behind the war effort, sharing the stress of war as if it were on the front lines – which in effect it was. The war converted the British Isles into one massive war machine.

These experiences led the British to a reject Adam Smith’s economic philosophy of laissez-faire capitalism after the war. The war years had shown what could happen when British society united behind common pursuits instead of promoting capitalistic pursuits whose self-interest, according to Smith, would benefit all of society if unfettered by the heavy hand of government. Not true, they said; profits proved morally corrupting. After all, didn’t the pre-war pursuit of self-interest plunge the world into the Great Depression with the few benefitting from the sweat of the many, bringing injustice and inequality with it? They thought so.

Following the war, a British "eminent lady" was interviewed by author John Gunther and expressed her distrust of laissez-faire policies, saying, "Frankly we do not know which to fear most, Russian Communism or American capitalism.” In her mind, they were moral equivalents.

The war imposed a great economic strain on the British economy causing the government to spend 13% more than it was taking in as revenues. There was every reason to expect that the country would be poorer after the war and that government would have to play a bigger role in the distribution of resources for the well-being of society. Therefore, in the war’s early years, the British government asked Sir William Beveridge to prepare a report on how the government could help the British people in the post-war years. Beveridge issued his Beveridge Report on December 2, 1942 – 69 years ago this week. It has become the Holy Canon for the founding of the welfare state in the United Kingdom.

Beveridge recommended that government should find ways of solving the five “nasties” of unreformed society – want, disease, ignorance, squalor, and idleness. If you think you’ve heard this hubris before, you have. It was called Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society in our country – one of the most expensive con jobs foisted upon the American taxpayers since the founding of the Republic. But I digress. In order to cure these social ills, Beveridge argued, the British government must be able to provide every member of society an adequate income, adequate healthcare, adequate education, housing, and employment. Somehow he left out being faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Kingsley Wood, astutely believed the report to be "ambitious and involv[ing] an impracticable financial commitment" and therefore urged delaying if not withholding its publication. However, the Cabinet decided to publish it anyway, its monstrous impracticalities notwithstanding.

The London Times called the Beveridge Report: "a momentous document which should and must exercise a profound and immediate influence on the direction of social change in Britain". The Manchester Guardian called it "a big and fine thing". The Daily Telegraph said it was a consummation of the revolution begun by David Lloyd George in 1911. The Archbishop of Canterbury said it was "the first time anyone had set out to embody the whole spirit of the Christian ethic in an Act of Parliament". Even Hitler ended up with a copy of it in his Berlin bunker. But after all of the jolly good backslapping was over, there was a war in process and social reform would have to wait to see who won.

The Beveridge Report was filled with good intentions but it failed to anticipate how the British and global economies would change in a post-war world. Some thought the world would fall back into an economic depression when war spending was cut off. In fact, the demand for consumer goods and housing had been so pent up because of the restrictions of the war years that consumer demand exploded after the war ended. The UK was able to participate in the boom better than countries on the Continent, especially the losers, but it lacked the resources to stay in the game. Money had to be borrowed which was relatively easy to repay during the boom years. But political choices ended the boom in the UK even as it went on in other countries of the world.

With the war ended, the Labor Party was swept into power in 1945 – somewhat surprisingly – and its leaders were determined to create what they called “the New Jerusalem.” A social transformation of the magnitude they envisioned would make government the partner and protector of the people using the Beveridge Report as the template. There would be cradle to grave security for all with basic needs provided by the government. The Labor government created “free” medical care under the National Health Service (forever cursing it to sub-standard care), nationalized the pension system (making it as bad as the American Social Security System, if not worse), reformed education and housing, and promised full employment which required, among other things, nationalizing basic industries – like power, broadcasting, and transportation – and operating them with the efficiency of the US Postal Service.

When the post-WW II boom ended, helped by the crowding out effects of British social policies, the UK found itself deeper in debt as the cost of maintaining these expensive welfare state programs overwhelmed the economy’s ability to pay for them.

Today, as the 70th anniversary of the Beveridge Report approaches, there is soul searching in the UK as it assesses the track record of the welfare state it chose to be three generations ago. The critics outnumber the advocates. One talking head, John Humphrys, a UK Dan Rather, is outspoken in his assessment of the defects of Beveridge’s gift. In a recent commentary entitled Our Shameless Society: How the Welfare State Created an Age of Entitlement, Humphrys said:

When Beveridge wrote his report in the 1940s he saw a nation in which there were vast numbers of people who were desperate to work if only they could get a job. Now there are many who have no incentive to get one because they are better off on benefits.

We are now seeing the UK welfare state experience play out across Europe as economies within the eurozone implode because entitlements are more attractive than work. With their governments telling them that their welfare programs are not sustainable, the citizens of these countries are rushing into the streets to protest and strike and destroy property like spoiled children throwing a tantrum. They apparently believe that turning their countries upside down will cause their governments to relent in withholding benefits they can no longer afford. In fact it’s the taxpayers in the more fiscally prudent countries who are telling their governments that they will not work well into the 60s in order to subsidize the profligacy of member countries whose citizens retire in their 50s with generous pensions and lounge on the beach.

Are you thinking it won’t happen here? Think again. It is happening here! Look at what happened in Wisconsin and Ohio when their Governors tried to restore fiscal sanity to their state budgets. There were recall elections in Wisconsin, teachers occupied the State House preventing the government from doing its work, even assaulting one legislator. The unions almost got a sympathetic justice elected to the Wisconsin state supreme court, which would have overturned Governor Walker’s reforms. Ohio unions likewise spent multiple millions but they were successful in defeating Governor Kasich’s reforms.

Almost 75% of the country thinks America is headed in the wrong direction and most are angry about the fiscal mess we call an economy, but the sure way to shorten a political career is to propose cutting federal welfare and entitlement programs. Those programs account for a majority of government spending and we can’t afford them but let a Presidential candidate run on that plank in 2012. The person who will win the 2012 presidential election and the people who will win Congressional seats will be those who can put the best con on American voters by admitting that things are bad but they can be fixed painlessly. Americans may not take to the streets to riot and burn but they don’t want to give up their goodies anymore than the welfare addicts in Europe and the UK.

But industrial economies, including the US, will soon have no choice. The aging demographic and the growth in entitlements are about to collide. Last year the Bank for International Settlements released a report showing that government debt in most industrialized nations will soar above 200% of GDP in a couple of decades – higher for some countries – and the options will be pretty grim if that causes markets to collapse and savings to evaporate.

The European economies are farther down the path to economic disaster than we are and may have passed the point of no return. Government spending already represents half of their economic output. I don’t see how they can survive, but the next two years should tell.

What will happen? Who knows? We’ve never seen anything like this before. It would be a good time for the bad guys to start a war.

In the meantime, how would you assess the health of an economy that borrows over 40% of what its government spends? Whose citizens, 47% of them – almost half – receive one or more federal government payments? Which has 21 million citizens on food stamps whose cost has doubled in the past four years? That’s America. Thanks to the reckless spending of Barack Obama, and to a lesser extent George Bush, the US economy is in debt by $14 trillion which with historically normal tax receipts would take about six years to pay down if no money is spent on any other program. Yet $14 trillion pales into insignificance when compared with the unfunded liabilities of welfare programs the federal and state government have piled up since the Great Depression.

Is there any hope for us? Sure. We can elect a government that will cut government spending by at least 20% to balance the budget, that will compel Americans to resume responsibility for their individual welfare by eliminating entitlement programs or limiting access to them, that will get government out of trying to solve every social ill and resume the Founders’ view of a limited government that devotes its resources to national defense, roads, and social capital. Voters would throw them out at the next election but Obama showed how much can be done in two years with a determined President and a bullet-proof Congress.

Or we can go broke.

Those are the choices.

When he was running for President, Barack Obama campaigned throughout Europe symbolic of his embrace of their social welfare economies. Before fawning crowds he gushed, “In America, there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world.” That romance with European socialism has pushed this country to the edge of an economic abyss.

We had better get our economic house in order and do it with haste. If world economies begin to fail, we will not escape the impact. If our economy fails, there’s not another economy in the world that is large enough to bail us out.

Dessert anyone?