History with a Bottom Line

Truths For Today.

Wallace — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 17:26:26 GMT

May 21, 2026. Truths for Today.

I last posted Truths for Today on April 23, 2026. Since then some new Truths have invaded America’s Strophe and hijacked it to a different political calculation and Cosmos.

Truth 1—On April 19, 2026 the Hungarian people decisively defeated authoritarian Viktor Orban, with 79% voting participation. Orban was the role model for Donald Trump’s conduct in office since his majesty’s royal administration began a catastrophic attack on America’s freedom and the Rule of Law. Indeed, Rubio and Vance embarrassed all Americans with their shameless Orban praise agenda.

The people, after 16 years, decisively voted Orban out, and he took their Word for it. Hungarians have much to undo: control over the universities, the Press and the corruption of the Orban family. That is a hopeful example for Freedom and the Rule of Law in America: a Truth based on a nation’s identity discovered the narrow bandwidth of Orban’s corruption and control, and there was Dancing in the Street and on the inaugural platform.

Truth 2—The day of the Hungarian election was the 251st anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the beginning of the American Revolution. The signers of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 were ALL IN, as in “we must hang together or we shall hang separately.” The Hungarian People rejected an authoritarian; so can we.

Truth 3—I personally believe that Trump never intends to leave the White House again. No true American would tear down the East Wing of the White House without involving Congress. No real American President would collude with BiBi Netanyahu and launch an unprovoked attack on Iran without consulting Congress. This is an unjust war and we are firing unjust missiles and bullets. Don’t claim Jesus told you to do this. If Viktor Orban’s fate becomes reality for Mr. Trump, I believe he will barricade himself in the Golden Vanity (ballroom) and will attempt to Occupy America.

Truth 4—The Republican Party is dead…and smells like it! John Prine’s line from “Grandpa Was a Carpenter” is no longer descriptive for Today’s White Elephant: John’s grandfather “voted for Eisenhower ‘cause Lincoln won the War.”

The president was impeached a second time in the house after January 6, 2021. All it would have taken was a handful of Senate republicans to uphold their integrity and the rule of law, and vote to convict. Justice would have been accomplished. Now two excellent Republican senators, Cassidy and Massie, fall victim to the Fox news-indoctrinated, uninformed primary voters in Louisiana and Kentucky.

Yesterday the US Senate voted a War Powers Resolution against the Iranian conflict, and when it became obvious the House of Representatives would concur, The Squeaker of the House preempted the vote and sent everyone home to stir this stinky potion in their home districts.

All Trump cabinet nominees exhibit malicious amnesia and inability to state the truth when asked in confirmation hearings who won the 2020 Presidential election. Isaiah 5:18 describes this destructive institutional behavior: “Woe to those who drag iniquity with cords of deception, and sin as on a cart.”

Truth 5.—America’s electoral process is ripe for exploitation, and the Supreme Court last month placed its 6-3 thumb on the scales of justice and gutted the election safeguards of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. They opened the door to gerrymandering at will in the states in the name of political affiliation. They chose to ally with a shrinking minority of fearful and angry Trump no-matter-what-voters.

To understand this catastrophe I urge you to read my friend Bryce Tolpen’s’ article: “The South Is Everywhere.” It may be found at politicaldevotions.substack.com. Bryce brings experience as a lawyer and teacher of writing and crystal clear interpreter of today’s events and Bible Truth. Bryce was at a rally against the malicious and Antistrophic history-canceling 6 Supreme Court Justices who can no longer look in the Mirror of Truth. Bryce is a Truth Farmer, and we need more of those.

Bryce wrote: “My favorite sign, not reproduced for distribution, suggested the regional and national reach of the emergency: “The South Is Everywhere.”

The emergency the rally addressed stems from U. S. Supreme Court’s April 29 Louisiana v. Callais decision. “In its aftermath, legislatures across the South are racing to eliminate Black state and federal districts, to turn Blacks out of office, and to dilute the Black vote. Many Southern states are redrawing districts to eliminate, in the aggregate, 15 to 20 African-American Congresspeople and probably over 190 African-American state legislative seats over the next six or eight years.”

Collective Delusion, even only among six Supreme Court justices, is still just wrong.

From the beginning, some Americans opposed extending equal status to people of color, especially in integrated schools. The kids were fine with learning, playing, and competing together unless their parents opposed; then they were embarrassed. My old track coach, discussing the integrated learning of the races in Cajun country, claimed in a public forum the new students would negatively affect our children’s educational experience: “Dey going to give dem chirrens an accent!”

Truth 6 and Consequences—Consider Tennessee’s new elections map with its insane congressional districts stretching in swaths almost 2/3 across the state to accomplish the unconstitutional betrayal of Memphis, Tennessee by republicans. Neighbors, alike proud Memphians, will vote in different congressional districts with people 2/3 of a state away. The LORD hates dishonest scales and keeps record of wrongs done to his children in the name of transitory power wielded by transitory politicians. How do we appeal this map—to the Supremely Partisan Court?

Truth 7—Our governmental structure is based on the old British King and Privy Council pattern, not the Prime Minister/House of Commons structure of today. We got the short end of the stick. The Brits evolved beyond the King/Privy Council form and gradually evolved the Prime Minister position to head the government’s function, relegating the Monarchy to a ceremonial and symbolic role. “Parliament” really means a place where speech holds sway. Every day, the occupant of 10 Downing Street and his cabinet are on the front row of the House of Commons with the PM’s Party seated behind. They directly face their opposition’s Antistrophic Leader and his alternative cabinet. It is direct political exercise and it can be noisy and is always confrontational.

The British Prime Minister’s political party must win a parliamentary majority outright or form a coalition. National elections are held when an issue, serious enough to question the People’s confidence in the ruling party, forces a popular vote. A national election can be triggered at any time by issues like “Brexit,” or a scandal implicating the government. The election happens in a matter of a few weeks, for a few million pounds in England, Scotland, and Ireland and smaller islands.

Contrast this with the annoyance of our long expensive primary and general election processes and the undue influence of PACs and billionaires, and we have a circus no one enjoys but we all pay for. Moreover, correcting an obvious mistake due to character failure or obviously deficient decision-making must wait for another four years if the calculus of political domination overwhelms civic morality.

Truth 8—We can get rid of our Orban and his enablers. It is called the mid-terms. Despite the Supreme Court’s surrender of the American Strophe’s hard-won progress, opponents will find it easier to oppose Trump’s lobotomized Yes-Men instead of independent thinkers like Cassidy and Massie.

Truth 9—Democrats must make changes to appeal to America’s center. This is not an optional reality. Independents like me may want the border controlled, birth-gender males not to be allowed to compete in women’s sports, and for standards to be met, not quotas to be filled. It is plain evil for quotas to be given to ICE agents resulting in the imprisonment and deportation of illegals contributing to the health of America and following procedures of the immigration courts. Truth is turned on its head in America today.

These are rational points of view subject to consensus as “iron sharpens iron.” Democrats who are also Christians or devout in other faiths should inhabit their beliefs fully and without apology. James Talarico of Texas provides a strong example of the power of Eternal Truth to elevate public discourse and opinion. Give to me and all others standing on the precipice of the Republicans’ lemming-leap onto the trash heap of history, a place to stand—next to you.

That’s enough Truth for today!

April 23, 2026. Truths for Today.

Truth 1 --Land of Plenty by Leonard Cohen also gives us plenty of truth for today’s twisted politics. Check it out on YouTube. Here is verse two:

I don’t know why I’ve come here
Knowing as I do
What you really think of me
What I really think of you

For the millions in the prison
That wealth has set apart -
For the Christ who has not risen
From the caverns of the heart –

For the innermost decision
That we cannot but obey -
For what’s left of our religion
I lift my voice and pray:

May the lights in The Land of Plenty
May the light in The Land of Plenty
May the light in The Land of Plenty
Shine on the truth someday.

Truth 2--Despite much ridicule and rhetoric, there remains only one documented case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Truth 3--Is 50% a Mandate?

The final curated totals for the 2024 Presidential election popular vote are as follows:

Total ballots Cast: 155,211,283

Trump: 77,301,297 popular votes, 49.8%, (312 Electoral votes.)

Harris: 75,017,626 popular votes, 48.33%, (226 Electoral votes.)

In this year’s State of the Union, President Trump claimed his election victory was a “Mandate” for his policies. Mathematical Truth tells us Trump fell just short of a majority; 49.8% can be rounded up to 50%, but not 51%. If he fell short of a majority, he was most certainly short of a Mandate.

Indeed, there is no justification for Donald Trump’s wrecking ball not only to the East Wing, but to America’s post-World War II diplomacy, to our allies, to NATO, and to justice following the attack on Congress as it met to certify the 2020 Presidential Election on January 6, 2021. Today, we have as much political debris and broken-faith rhetoric to clear in America as we do rubble in Gaza. Our pile grows with every news conference. We can and must focus clear-eyed on the Truth about America’s broken politics.

Truth 4--The Inconvenient Truth about Trump Tariffs.

In the State of the Union, President Trump said, “The other countries pay for the tariffs.” I beg to differ.

Tariffs are a tool of the isolated and insular past, not the Global Economy that prevails today. In 1890, tariffs shielded a nation’s manufactured goods from cheaper foreign competition by making American importers pay tariffs to import those foreign goods, which drove up the price on those goods for consumers. Then, anything US companies produced could have the playing field leveled in America in this way.

World War II and the sunset of Colonialism changed that reality. Japan became a powerhouse of manufacturing after the war. China has grown into that position in today’s world economy. African and Asian nations can export uniquely appealing goods. American entrepreneurs are forced by the realities of production costs to find a manufacturer elsewhere to give form to their genius.

Today’s worldwide web of manufacturing makes US tariffs a Kamikaze strategy for Americans. The world economy is like a really-spread-out Main Street; merchants bring through the back door many things they don’t produce. Free trade wouldn’t affect the price any customer pays when the front door chime rings. If you wish for widgets from half the world away, the transportation chain of outstretched palms would cost the same in Canada or Mexico as the US. We don’t manufacture dolls, maybe not even pencils; we have nothing to protect by a tariff, except MyPillows.

Tariffs are a direct tax paid by importers like Costco, and ultimately their customers, you and me. The world makes scores of products American businesses cannot manufacture. We would have to build new factories in these inflated times guessing where AI might change realities of production and sourcing.

Tariffs are paid to US Customs and to the US Treasury when foreign goods are imported, even if we have no American-made Barbie dolls to protect. Our President treats Tariff cash like his own piggybank, shelling out $40 billion to an authoritarian leader in Argentina to prop up his Trump-flattering “Make Argentina Great Again” regime. I have no idea where in the US budget that Argentina bailout money came from, perhaps from the anti-viral medication initiative that George W. Bush provided to HIV positive Africans. I personally can name HIV-positive Zulu children in an orphanage in Pietermaritzburg. The medicines that were keeping them alive, DOGE fed into the wood-chipper the first weekend at USAID. However, there is a good reason for us to hope that we haven’t spent all our tariff dollars yet:

The Worst Tariff Truth of all: The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against the President’s pretext for levying the “retaliatory” tariffs in the first place and declared those unconstitutional. American importers, even small companies, are suing to reclaim over a hundred billion dollars in tariff charges. It is a legal quagmire for businesses and American taxpayers are just out of luck, unless we can aggregate a class-action lawsuit of our own.

My Tariff Tale. I roast my own coffee. My wife has the best cup of coffee in Tennessee every morning. America grows no coffee except in the Hawaiian Islands, and it is too expensive for me. Early in 2025, I paid six to seven dollars a pound for wonderful green Arabica coffees from all over the world. A month ago, those same coffees cost me over ten to eleven dollars a pound. In addition, shipping costs via UPS or FedEx almost doubled.

Trump’s Terrible Tariff Tantrum is Taxing every American household.

Truth 5--Is Christian Nationalism Truly Christian?”

The word Christian appears in the New Testament three times:

Acts 26:28-29. “Then Agrippa said to Paul, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?” Paul replied, “Short time or long—I pray to God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.”

I Peter 4:16—”If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.”

Acts 11:26. “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.”

W. E. Vine’s “Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words says of “Christian” that it is a “word formed after the Roman style, signifying an adherent of Jesus, and was first used by the Gentiles…and there was no doubt an implication of scorn.” It would literally translate as “little Christs.” Believers generally did not use the word to describe themselves; faith in Christ Jesus was called “the Way” in the book of Acts.

Tacitus at the end of the first century wrote: “the vulgar call them Christians. The author or origin of this denomination, Christus had, in the reign of Tiberius, been executed by the Procurator, Pontius Pilate.” Annals, xv. 44. Also, note that the I Peter passage above is clearly speaking from the persecutor’s point of view.

Vine states that by the second century Jesus’ disciples were referring to themselves as Christians. When Roman historian Tacitus refers to Christians as “this denomination.” He is referring to the name by which they were called, not any group of believers.

Now, stay with me here! Those three New Testament usages above, two singular, one plural—What part of speech are they? They are nouns, “the name of a person, place, or thing.” It follows that the only Biblical usage of the word “Christian” begins where a believer in Christ is present in the flesh. Only he or she may be referred to as a Christian in the nominative, flesh and bone, sense of the word.

Today’s adjectival usage of “Christian this” or “Christian that” applies the speaker or observer’s hopeful linkage of the word Christian as a descriptor to a noun. The noun may conduct meetings, circulate literature, act as a group or an individual, or stage a protest: Christian university, Christian worship, or even Christian Nationalism. The adjective may be truly descriptive of an action taken by a group of believers, but it lacks the objective reality of a living, breathing, brother or sister of the Lord.

Paul writes to the Colossians: “To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Italics mine. Christ operating in Christians’ lives brings glory to God. We cannot unerringly transfer that meaning to the noun it modifies.

The nouns can act; the adjective must hope it is used truly and modifies the noun redemptively. Truth is, the adjective lacks being: the operative word is “Nationalism,” dragging its modifier “Christian” along for the ride.

Truth 6—Our US President’s encouragers in conflicts are easily identified. I need only mention Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, and you will know the short list: Vladimir Putin and BiBi Netanyahu. Trump has even repeated Russian talking points about the now 4-year conflict, including that Ukraine “started the war.”

In his second term, Trump has distanced himself from Ukraine and NATO passively allowing Russia to conduct the war in ways and on a scale we have not seen since World War II. Observing from the sidelines are other authoritarian leaders of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states, Hungary, Argentina, Venezuela, and El Salvador, to name a few.

Netanyahu has successfully turned the US into a proxy of Israel in the current Iran hostilities. The New York Times reported that Netanyahu pitched the Iran war in February of 2026 to President Trump in the situation room. John Kerry stated in an interview last week that Netanyahu had presented similar proposals to Presidents Biden and Obama.

The first indication that America was becoming interested in Iran was June of 2025 when our Air Force participated in a joint effort with Israel to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. Our stealth bombers flew from Missouri to Iran to drop bunker busters and then returned to their home base. Crowing about the mission, Trump stated that we had “obliterated” Iran’s capacity to produce a nuclear weapon.

By year’s end Iranians were taking to the streets to protest the Ayatollah’s repressive government. President Trump spoke directly encouraging demonstrators and even promised help from America. The regime and Iran’s military ruthlessly murdered tens of thousands of demonstrators, and the opportunity for US help was buried with them.

After the February Netanyahu meeting, Vice President Vance was against hostilities with Iran but stated he would support the President whatever his decision. General Caine warned the President that Iran would try to control the Strait of Hormuz. No one else cautioned, said observers who spoke to the press. The President did not seek approval from Congress for Netanyahu’s war, just like he didn’t seek approval--of Congress, historic preservation authorities, and certainly not Americans--before he destroyed a visible part of our history, the East Wing of the Peoples’ House.

On February 28, President Trump released a video on Truth Social announcing the commencement of the war with Iran; he spoke directly with Iran’s people, “The hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take,” Trump said. “This will be, probably, your only chance for generations. For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it. No President was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a President who is giving you what you want.”

Some American leaders have sought to cloak the war with Iran in scriptural passages. Read every red-letter statement of Jesus of Nazareth; I guarantee you will not find a justification for a pre-emptive war to make peace a reality. Any spirit-led believer can see through this cloak of invisibility to the reality beneath. Even Al-Jazeera is coming to the defense of God’s Word, calling it out when our War Secretary uses a Hollywood Screenwriter to fabricate scripture and justify his exaggerations of a “warrior ethos.” Our sons and daughters fighting in this war deserve better. We should be praying for their protection, and that their leaders understand the true cost of their words, of their needless and profane bellicosity.

Many observers of Iran know the fundamental underlying reality of the last 47 years: Iran is a country of ninety million Shiite Muslims in close contact with Shia proxy forces in Gaza and Lebanon. Shiites tend to be at war with everyone else, even other Muslims. Iran has a decentralized military, including the Republican Guards numbering almost 200,000 and an even larger armed militia force puts total trained and armed military forces near a million. They can mount very effective cyber-attacks on other nations’ infrastructure assets. American “boots on the ground” would likely lead to boots in the ground. All we can do is watch and pray for peace.

The Middle East has, tragically, to face the death of thousands of innocent men, women, and children, many entombed beneath the rubble of their cities. They were noncombatants, victims of a corrupt and immoral political calculus of power, survival, and wealth from Real Estate developers masquerading as statesmen. Trump’s Board of Peace should be renamed the “Bored of Peace.” Chairman Trump should refund everyone’s billion-dollar seat on the Board; what a cruel joke at the expense of innocent men, women, and children. The Author of History will judge those with innocent blood on their hands.

Trump has left Americans with a lasting taint of betrayal. Iran’s 90 million Shiite Muslims will never forgive Donald Trump’s attack while negotiations were in progress. His unjustified, ill-defined, and inexplicable conflict will affect generations; Americans at home and abroad are less safe now than we have ever been.

Jesus put these Truths in perspective in Matthew 6:34: “…sufficient for the day is the evil of it.” (Smith’s Literal Translation) and this war with Iran is the evil of this day. Pope Leo has it right. Each nation must be aware of the choices it is making for its survival as a civilization in these evil days. Sometimes peace can be won, other times negotiated, and, on rare occasions simply sought and given. May wiser minds prevail.

Truth 7. “Decimate” means to destroy 10% of something. The Far Side had a cartoon with 9 guys standing before a firing squad, the tenth lay on the ground. One of the lucky ones said, “This decimation thing isn’t that bad!”

“Mutilization” has no usage or meaning; neither Trump nor Cheung can make it a word.

Whew! That’s all the truth I can stand for one day.

1957: The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore

Wallace — Sat, 30 May 2026 22:50:03 GMT

The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore

Jean Ritchie, Viper, Kentucky, 1965.

I used to think my daddy was a black man
With script enough to buy the company store
Now he goes downtown with empty pockets
And his face is white as a February snow

I was born and raised in the mouth of the Hazard Hollow
Coal cars came rambling past my door
Now they’re standing in a rusty row, all empty
And the L and N don’t stop here anymore

Foley Ruggles returned from World War II and joined the staff of the Corbin Times Tribune. His brother John Ruggles married Mildred Sanders, so he was close to the Sanders family. Harland Sanders encouraged John Ruggles to get into the sign business, and the Ruggles Sign Company of Lexington, Kentucky is still operated by descendants of John and Mildred today.

I searched about information about Foley Ruggles and found that he became President of the Rotary Club and was part of a delegation of leaders from Corbin traveling to Washington D. C. in 1957 to advocate for the future Lake Laurel before the Senate Committee on Appropriations.

The statements of Congressman Eugene Siler and Corbin Mayor Robert Daniel are most revealing about all the causes of the poor post-war economy of Southeast Kentucky.

Congressman Siler gave a colorful description of the acreage to be under the water impounded by the dam. He stated: “the inundated land owners would mostly consist of the United States and a few others with title to some of the cheapest and roughest dirt on the face of the earth.” Another comment in these politically incorrect times: “If we could, since 1945, send $733 million to Yugoslavia, a country with Communistic sympathy, and $1 billion to Austria, a country that warred with us twice in one generation, then could we not spend just a little at home and some in a section like my own having the purest strains of Anglo-Saxon blood and grandest tradition of stalwart patriotism on earth?”

Robert Daniel’s remarks are a compelling and sympathetic description of the Micro-Depression in Southeast Kentucky linked to the decline in the Coal industry and its effects on the L&N Railroad. This is a thoughtful eyewitness account of Corbin’s economic downturn after World War II, while America was roaring out of the Depression.

PROPOSED DAM: ON LAUREL RIVER

ROBERT DANIEL, MAYOR 0F CORBIN, KY.

Exchange with Senators Clements and Ellender.

PLANNING FUNDS FOR SURVEY

Mr. DANIEL. Mr. Chairman, I have about 15 statements here from various groups, and resolutions from the various towns in the area in southeastern Kentucky, consisting of about 11 counties, that has been declared a depressed labor surplus area, and we are asking for approximately $10,000 in order that the Corps of Engineers might begin a preliminary survey for an estimate of the cost of building the dam on Laurel River.

The dam that we are asking for would serve many purposes because during and immediately following the war when a lot of the Nation was enjoying prosperity, we had a depression because of the basic raw material that we depend upon, which is coal.

We believe that this dam will show a ratio of benefits far in excess of the cost.

Senator ELLENDER. What river is that?

Mr. DANIEL. The Laurel River.

Senator CLEMENTS. It is on the upper Cumberland. It is a tributary.

Senator ELLENDER. I ask that because I do not happen to see it in our documents here.

Senator CLEMENTS. You have two projects in that area that are covered by the engineers—one on the Laurel River; the other is at Devils Jumps—and there is only about $10,000 needed in this year’s public works appropriation to complete the work on Devils Jumps, as is set out in the statement of Senator Barkley and myself.

There is $10,000 needed to initiate the survey on the Laurel River, the overall cost of which the engineers suggest will be $35,000.”

“Senator ELLENDER. I see. This is not a project that has been authorized.

Senator CLEMENTS. No, sir.

Mr. DANIEL. No, sir.

We are asking for this $10,000 so that it might be started. As I said we feel that the ratio of benefits there would far exceed the cost, and the reason for making that statement is that the majority of the land that would be covered by water from this dam is already owned by the Government in Cumberland National Forest, and this dam would be the high-dam type. Which would be a very efficient dam as far as power is concerned, and, because of the lack of power, we are really handicapped in our area.

STATEMENT of Mayor Robert DANIEL, CORBIN, KY.

Gentlemen, I am the mayor of Corbin, Ky., a small city located in southeastern Kentucky. I came here today with a group of interested citizens and taxpayers in hopes of bringing before your committee the economic plight of our community and our area in southeastern Kentucky, hoping that we might influence you in recommending funds sufficient for a survey and estimate by the Corps of Engineers, to build a dam of the power-generating and water-storage type on Laurel River in southeastern Kentucky.

Our basis of economy in southeastern Kentucky has been coal, but you gentlemen know that this industry in our area has been depressed for Some years now and is becoming more and more depressed each day. Why? Because of the increase of imported oil, the increased use of domestic oil, the Big Inch pipelines with the increased use of gas and the increased freight rates on transportation of coal it is only natural that the economy of an area such as ours that depends upon coal would be depressed and the future is even darker.

The taxpayers of my immediate community have depended upon the railroad for a livelihood because our town is a railroad town. The railroad has been supported by the coal industry but without traffic in coal there just isn’t employment in our community. To add to this unemployment comes the dieselization of the railroads. Where the steam engines burned coal, now the diesel burns oil. This increased the numbers of unemployed coal miners. In our immediate community the proportion of men and jobs in keeping a steam engine rolling as compared to a diesel, the ratio is 3 to 1. Yes, for every 3 men that used to be employed by the railroad in our town there is only 1. These aren’t figures that I just thought of, but they are figures that I obtained just last Friday from the superintendent of the division of the railroad located in our city. I was informed by him that in 1945 there were employed in our city by the railroad approximately 1,615 men. Today we have an estimated 596 men employed as compared to 1,615, a loss of 1,019 jobs. When these men lose their jobs they have nothing to turn to for employment. Their only alternative is the commodity lines or else move their families and look for work someplace else.

We have thousands of unemployed in each of the several counties around us and in southeastern Kentucky. In our city we have a State unemployment insurance office, and just last week I learned from the director that we have 2,270 registered in this office for unemployment benefits, and he informed me also that there are approximately 2,760 unemployed who are not eligible to draw benefits. These people are all in a small area consisting of only seven counties surrounding us.

I also obtained from the district union office located in Bell County, which is one of our distressed counties in southeastern Kentucky, that since 1952 there have been 24 coal mines closed for the lack of a market for coal and due to unprofitable operation. These 24 mines that I speak of that have closed were not “dog holes,” they were rail mines, the smallest of which employed 33 men, the largest employing 225 men. The closing of these 24 mines have put 2,573 miners out of work, not mentioning the many families that were dependent upon smaller mines. Gentlemen, just to show you how concentrated unemployment in our area is, these 24 mines that I speak about that have closed, that have put 2,573 breadwinners out of a job, all 24 mines were located in just 4 of the counties in our area of southeastern Kentucky, not mentioning other counties that have had similar experiences in our area.

There are no other jobs for these miners, and when they don‘t have a job there are no jobs for the railroad men. Put these men out of employment as they are, and you can imagine what is happening to our stores, our shops, our garages, our construction, and the value of our real estate. You know the effect upon the economy of an area with conditions such as this. These are the people who make up our unemployed, and they are all in an area that the Government has seen fit to declare a distressed surplus labor area, and rightly labeled, because we are distressed. These are people who are true Americans, and many of them are the same young men who have fought and defended our American principles and our country in the two recent wars. Yet today these young men have come home to find that there are no jobs for them, no means of supporting their families in the area they call home. These unemployed are people who are proud of our American way of life, proud of our country. and they have enough pride about them that they want to work in order to stay out of the so—called commodity lines.

With all the unemployed, jobless men, hungry families, barefooted, improperly clothed children in our area, it should be a point of major interest to all. I say this, and I hope I am taken seriously when I tell you, conditions such as this that have been allowed to continue have been breeding grounds of communistic ideas. However, we believe that a dam or dams such as we are seeking will give us a permanent, fresh foundation under the economy of our region. which can only survive if that foundation is provided. To begin with, the reservoir behind this dam will become the only storage of water in southeastern Kentucky of a sufficient size to be feasible as sites for giant steam-electric plants which the power companies would be certain to build. They would build them not to help us; they would build them because we are in the center of a vast supply of good, cheap coal, and they would build them there because it is cheaper to ship the power than it is to ship the coal.

We need this dam to industrially develop our own area because we were neglected during the war years and immediately following when all other regions were enjoying and are enjoying prosperity. Today the only steam-electric plant in our area is Kentucky Utilities, and its capacity is limited because in order to have enough cold water it has to shoot streams of water in the air to cool the water and reuse it. This limited capacity naturally limits our development of power-using industry in our area. In fact, the capacity of this plant is so limited our city, the city of Corbin, had to wait 5 years for installation of equipment before we could buy sufficient current for our consumers. Just think what an effect a limit such as this will have upon the development of a community or an area such as ours. Even today our supply of power is limited by contract to their ability to produce. Without water storage, without an abundance of power, how can we expect to attract industry that would give us employment?”

With the water storage that a dam would provide. with steam-generating powerplants, with the vast supply of coal that we do have, we would have a natural for attracting industry. We would become one of the most desirable locations for the chemical industry. You gentlemen are familiar with the increasing use of cheap, soft coal as the basic raw material for the chemical industry, and our depressed area has an abundance of this raw material.

You may ask me, why provide such a condition for southeastern Kentucky. I feel that we have already presented some of the reasons, but I also have some more. First, it such a program is not undertaken, the Federal Government will be spending more than the cost of several dams on annual relief bills in southeastern Kentucky. That’s how bad the employment picture in the coal area of southeastern Kentucky today.

Second, we believe that a dam located in the area we are asking for would show a ratio of benefits far in excess of the cost: our reasons for this statement is, the Government already owns in the Cumberland National Forest the majority of the land that would he covered by water, which would eliminate the buying of land. The timber in this area is all second growth and the expense of removing said timber would exceed its value. The terrain of this area is nothing but deep gorges, rocks, and cliffs, suitable for raising nothing unless it would be Wildcats. A dam built here would be of the narrow, high-dam type creating great depths of water rather than spreading water all over bottom and farmlands, and dams such as this create much more efficiency.

Third, we believe the return of income taxes over a period of years to our Government from the people who would benefit from this dam would exceed the cost, and this tax our people would like to have the opportunity to pay.

Fourth, this dam we are asking for would be another link in the vast flood-control program as proposed by the Corps of Engineers, which would benefit other areas as well as ours. Gentlemen, in closing, let me say we didn’t come here as simple beggars asking a handout. We are asking your assistance in helping us to put together the greatest combination known to industry: coal, water, and electric power. We have the coal, we have the water if it can be stored, and with the storage of water which this dam would give us we could have the power.

With this combination, our people who are in the commodity lines, who have been declared a depressed labor surplus area, could have and enjoy prosperity with the rest of the people of our great country. We humbly and sincerely ask your help that we might have the opportunity to help ourselves.

Public Works Appropriations, U. S. Senate 1957

United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Appropriations

Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations.

Tuesday, March 20, 1956, 10 AM

“STATEMENT of CONGRESSMAN EUGENE SILER.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I deem it a high privilege to appear before you and make my statement in behalf of two small and simple public works projects in which my people are interested and for which they would like to receive modest Federal appropriations at the hands of your committee at the present time.

LAUREL River

Down in the rugged terrain of southeastern Kentucky is a small and tortuous stream called Laurel River, which is a tributary of Cumberland River, and it flows through a hilly country of narrow valleys where soil is thin and where agricultural pursuits are practically limited to household gardening. In this immediate region population is sparse and its increase has been of very small proportions in the passing decades. As a matter of fact and according to official records, our Government itself owns an extensive acreage of land in this section— even to such an extent that it can be said that the biggest landlord is that untaxed gentleman known as “Uncle Sam,” who owns Cumberland National Forest in this section and who has, I believe, acquired other tracts nearby for purposes unknown to me.

Now it has been proposed to build Laurel River Dam across a narrow canyon or gorge at a point in this rugged country about 10 miles from Corbin, Ky. I have been there and have seen this stream and this proposed site, and I can say that the land nearby looks so poor that any wise crow flying across it would surely want to carry his lunch along with him for his own welfare on the journey. This land surely has enough seed ticks to sow it abundantly and enough blacksnakes to fence it adequately. And if this dam were built, the inundated land owners would mostly consist of the United States and a few others with title to some of the cheapest and roughest dirt on the face of the earth.

We would very much like to have an appropriation of about $40,000 made by this committee for the purpose of getting an Army engineers survey and report on the feasibility of this proposal and in order that we might see just where we stand on this entire proposition. Or if we cannot get $40,000, then we would like to get $15,000 to make a start on this survey at once. If the dam should some day be built it would serve these useful purposes, to wit:

1. Flood control

2. Navigation development

3. Conservation of water resources

4. Industrial development for the future.

This project lies betwixt and between two surplus labor areas that have been heretofore so designated officially, viz, one at Corbin, Ky., and one at Somerset, Ky., both in my congressional district and both hard hit by declining railroad employment and coal mining depression.

My people would like to see this survey made. There is no opposition to it known to me. It would not cost much—about $40,000—or the lower figure of $15,000, it you think wise, for an immediate start on the survey—and no valuable land would be taken and our Government possesses much of the land involved.

Our good President said in his recent message to Congress, “We must help deal with the pockets of chronic unemployment that here and there mar the Nation’s general industrial prosperity.” I agree and I believe you agree. And this appropriation would begin to “help deal” with two of these very pockets around Corbin, Ky., and Somerset, Ky.

If we could, since 1945, send $733 million to Yugoslavia, a country with Communistic sympathy, and $1 billion to Austria, a country that warred with us twice in one generation, then could we not spend just a little at home and some in a section like my own having the purest strains of Anglo-Saxon blood and grandest tradition of stalwart patriotism on earth?”

Robert Daniel’s remarks before the Senators follows a few other petitions and is the best summary of Corbin and surrounding areas’ economic challenges following downturns in coal and railroad employment. Corbin depended on both. Look for his comments on the “dieselization” of the L&N railroad.

Corbin Board of Commissioners.

RESOLUTION N0. 556

A resolution requesting approval and recommendation of funds by the Appropriations Committee of the Congress of the United States for the preliminary survey and estimate by the Corps of Engineers on a power and water storage dam to be constructed on the Laurel River in Kentucky

Whereas the above-mentioned dam would be located in an area already declared a depressed surplus labor area, there being an untold number of unemployed; and

Whereas this area is being supplied with more and more surplus commodities, the number of those steadily growing day by day qualifying for such commodities; and

Whereas this situation is not one by choice of the people but because of the lack of industry they are forced into such classification for the lack of employment; and

Whereas there now exists a shortage of electrical generating power as well as a shortage of water storage which retards the development of any industry in this area that would give the people employment; and

Whereas to allow such conditions to continue would be of major concern to all because if it is allowed to continue the Federal Government will be spending enough on relief bills in southeastern Kentucky to pay the cost of. several such dams; and

Whereas there now exist an abundance of good, cheap, soft coal in this area, plus a distressed surplus of labor, the building of such a dam to create water storage and the generating of power would give us an unbeatable combination of factors that would attract industry for the employment of our people:

Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Board of Commissioners of the City of Corbin, Ky., To urge upon the Appropriations Committee of the Congress to approve and recommend funds for the survey and estimate of building a dam on Laurel River in Kentucky by the Corps of Engineers; be it further

Resolved, That this project is of such urgent nature to the economy of this area that funds be made available from the travel expense appropriations of the city whereby the mayor may appoint a committee as recommended by the Laurel River Dam Association and pay their travel and lodging expenses to Washington, D. C., for the purpose of appearing before the Appropriations Committee of the Congress for the purpose of making an appeal and requesting approval and recommendation of funds for the above-mentioned project.

Read and adopted by the unanimous vote of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Corbin, Ky., this 16th day of March in the year 1956.

Approved.

Robert R. DANIEL, Mayor, City of Corbin, Ky.

Attest:

H. L. GANT, City Clerk, City of Corbin, Ky.

Whereas the undersigned heartily approve and are deeply concerned about the construction of a dam on Laurel River, near its mouth, for the dual purpose of flood control and generation of electrical power: and

Whereas this project would be a great asset in recreational facilities for our county and the Cumberland Wonderlands, a tourist promotion organization; and

Whereas erection of this dam would boost our economy greatly: and, with increased water supply. incentive would be much greater for the establishment of industry in this area, a section that has been declared a depression area: Therefore, be it

Resolved. we urge our Senators and Congressmen to provide ample finances for the construction of this dam on Laurel River, a tributary to Lake Cumberland, on the border of Whitley and Laurel County, Ky.

CITY or London, Ky

Geo. V. Su’r’ron, Mayor.

Signed and dated at London, Ky., this 15th day of March 1956.

STATEMENT OF LABAN JACKSON

Representative SILER. We have with us Mr. Laban Jackson. He has a statement he would like to file.

Senator CLEMENTS. Mr. Chairman, have not called on Mr. Jackson for the reason that he represents the Department of Conservation of Kentucky and has a statement that includes all of the projects, and I thought we would get the individual projects in here before we heard from one who wanted to testify in a, general way.

Representative SILER. Thank you very much, sir.

Senator ELLENDER. All right, Congressman.

Senator CLEMENTS. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Daniel, the mayor of Corbin, Ky., is our next witness. He is here in the interest of planning money for a dam on the Laurel River.”

PROPOSED DAM: ON LAUREL RIVER

STATEMENT OF ROBERT DANIEL, MAYOR 0F CORBIN, KY.

PLANNING FUNDS FOR SURVEY

We believe that this dam will show a ratio of benefits far in excess of the cost.

Senator ELLENDER. What river is that?

Mr. DANIEL. The Laurel River.

Senator CLEMENTS. It is on the upper Cumberland. It is a tributary.

Senator ELLENDER. I ask that because I do not happen to see it in our documents here.

There is $10,000 needed to initiate the, survey on the Laurel River, the overall cost of which the engineers suggest will be $35,000.”

“Senator ELLENDER. I see. This is not a project that has been authorized.

Senator CLEMENTS. No, sir.

Mr. DANIEL. No, sir.

PRESENT STATEMENTS

I would like to file these statements.

Senator ELLENDER. Very well. They will be filed.

(The statements and resolutions referred to follow.)

STATEMENT or Mayor Robert DANIEL, CORBIN, KY.

Local resolutions follow.

Whereas the upper Cumberland Dam, to be located on Laurel River near Corbin, Ky., is now in the planning stage; and

Whereas the project forms a natural storage place, and will provide vast quantities of water for all economic purposes; and

Whereas the area is faced with an acute power shortage which has already denied the area industrial location and expansion, and which can be alleviated by a generating plant of this project; and

Whereas the area now has a high unemployment ratio the building of this dam would give some permanent relief rather than the temporary relief being presently given this area; and

Whereas the area has never had any large public projects of this nature; and

Whereas the lack of storage water and the lack of electric power is stifling to the economic growth and development of this entire area: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the mayor of Barbourville, Ky., does record himself as favoring the construction of this dam.

Adopted March 15, 1956.

W. C. ASHER, Mayor, City of Barbourville, Ky.”

Resolution

Whereas the upper Cumberland Dam, to be located on Laurel River near Corbin, Ky., is now in the planning stage; and Whereas the project forms a natural storage place, and will provide vast quantities of water for all economic purposes; and Whereas the area is faced with an acute power shortage which has already denied the area industrial location and expansion, and which can be alleviated by a generating plant of this project; and Whereas the area now has a high unemployment ratio, the building of this dam would give some permanent relief rather than the temporary relief being presently given this area; and Whereas the area has never had any large public projects of this nature; and Whereas the lack of storage water and the lack of electric power is stifling the economic growth and development of this entire area: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Lions Club of Barbourville, Ky., does record itself as favoring the construction of this dam. Adopted January 12, 1956.

Barbourville LIONS CLUB, A. C. Cour, President. Maybe Cox?

RESOLUTION

Whereas the city of Corbin is located only a short distance from the mouth of Laurel River; and

Whereas the community is of long standing, and has some of the best mountain folk of Kentucky as its residents; and

Whereas for all of these years the families of Corbin have raised their children largely by work in the Louisville & Nashville Railroad shops, much work depending on the coal industry; and

Whereas the dieselizing of the Louisville & Nashville and the falling market of coal have cut employment for the people of Corbin, placing us in one of the depression areas; and

Whereas the building of a dam at the mouth of Laurel River would create employment of a permanent type for our people; furnish cheap power to help us attract private industry; and the recreation facilities created would boost the tourist industry in Corbin thereby giving employment to more of our peoples: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Corbin Chamber of Commerce go on record as supporting the Upper Cumberland River Development Association in its efforts to have the dam at the mouth of Laurel River constructed; thereby giving the peoples of southeastern Kentucky an opportunity to be self-supporting.

MORGAN B. Eversole, President.

Resolution

Whereas this project would be a great asset in recreational facilities for our county and the Cumberland Wonderlands, a tourist promotion organization; and

Whereas erection of this dam would boost our economy greatly; and with increased water supply, incentive would be much greater for the establishment of industry in this area, a section that has been declared a depression area: Therefore, be it

Resolved, We urge our Senators and Congressman to provide ample finances for the construction of this dam on Laurel River, a tributary to Lake Cumberland, on the border of Whitley and Laurel Counties, Ky.

LONDON LIONS CLUB,

PAUL R. Winsou, President.”

Signed and dated at London, Ky., this 17th day of March 1956.

Resolution

“Whereas the undersigned heartily approve and are deeply concerned about the construction of a dam on Laurel River, near its mouth, for the dual purpose of flood control and generation of electrical power; and

Whereas this project would be a great asset in recreational facilities for our county and the Cumberland Wonderlands, a tourist promotion organization; and

Whereas erection of this dam would boost our economy greatly: and with increased water supply, incentive would be much greater for the establishment of industry in this area, a section that has been declared a depression area: Therefore, be it Resolved

We urge our Senators and Congressman to provide ample finances for the construction of this dam on Laurel River, a tributary to Lake Cumberland, on the border of Whitley and Laurel Counties, Ky.

LONDON ROTARY CLUB,

Bowman W. Moons, President.

Signed and dated at London, Ky., this 16th day of March 1956.

Resolution

Whereas this project would be a great asset in recreational facilities for our county and the Cumberland Wonderlands, a tourist promotion organization: and

Whereas erection of this dam would boost our economy greatly: and with increased water supply, incentive Would be much greater for the establishment

of industry in this area, a section that has been declared a depression area: Therefore be it Resolved we urge our Senators and Congressman to provide ample finances for the construction of this dam on Laurel River, a tributary to Lake Cumberland, on the border of Whitley and Laurel Counties, Ky. London-Laurel County DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION, Cass H. Coon, President.

Signed and dated at London, Ky., this 15th day of March 1956.

RESOLUTION

The Williamsburg, Ky., Lions Club having heretofore met and in open meeting discussed the possibility of the construction of a dam and the building of a power plant in this area and upon the waters of Laurel River do now and hereby place themselves on record as wholeheartedly endorsing this project. In so doing we took into consideration the following presently existing factors:

That we as individuals are daily reminded of the poor economic plight of our citizens in this general community. We feel that with the whole country in an economic boom, that this section has reached a new low, economically. We, of this community, annually experience the extremes of lack of water control; flood in the winter and drought in the summer. We feel that a dam would modify this to some measure.

We also took into consideration in making this endorsement the surplus of our manpower, both in existing labor markets here at home and in the fact that daily our people move away to the North and to the South to secure any kind of employment. We feel that more electricity would lead to more employment opportunities, both during construction and after completion.

For these reasons we, the Lions Club of Williamsburg, Ky., do hereby go on record as supporting this proposal and to do so without any reservations and with the pledge that we will labor and work to this end.

WILLIAMSBURG LIONS CLUB,

H. B. Mosns, President. Fix name

RESOLUTION

Whereas a dam has been proposed on Laurel River near the Cumberland River; and

Whereas it appears that such reservoirs are necessary and urgently needed for the development of hydroelectric power and for the control of floods on the Cumberland River; and

Whereas it further appears that this section has never been developed industrially and is a desirable location for defense plants and military installations by reason of geographical location in that it is distant from the coast and from large cities; and

Whereas it further appears that the area included in the proposed reservoirs is almost entirely undeveloped land from which all valuable timber has been removed and no valuable farming land will be destroyed; and

Whereas there is not a sufficient amount of electric power available in this area to efficiently serve the needs of new industrial development; and

Whereas and due to the curtailment of coal production has created a surplus of labor, this area of southeastern Kentucky has been designated as a distressed area: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Corbin Lions Club of Corbin, Ky., express its approval of the proposed hydroelectric dam on Laurel River.

C?? Lawson, President

Resolution

The Corbin, Ky., Kiwanis Club, in regular session Wednesday, March 14, 1956, adopted the following resolution:

Whereas the Upper Cumberland River Development Association has asked the United States Corps of Engineers to recommend to Congress the construction of a hydroelectric dam across Laurel River in Whitley and Laurel Counties in Kentucky; and

Whereas this area of southeastern Kentucky has been designated as a distress area. due to the depressed condition of the soft coal industry; and

Whereas the area surrounding the site of this proposed dam has been largely bypassed in the industrial development of the State and the Nation since World War II; and

Whereas many thousands of citizens in the area are. badly in need of gainful employment, yet the Federal Government has not diverted any funds of any appreciable amount to this area; and

Whereas a hydroelectric dam across Laurel River at the designated site would not only provide power and water storage. but would also furnish a large impoundment of water that could be used for recreational purposes and for attracting tourists to the area; and would assist this area in becoming an asset to the State and the Nation instead of a liability: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved. That the Corbin Kiwanis Club, in regular session Wednesday, March 14, 1956. endorse the efforts of the Upper Cumberland River Development Association to obtain the Laurel River Dam; and that the president of the Kiwanis Club be empowered to cause-this resolution to be spread on the minutes of the club, and a copy be sent to the president of the Upper Cumberland River Development Association for his use in any way he may deem wise.

Respectfully submitted.

Corbin KIWANIS CLUB,

Louis MERENBLOOM, President.

Resolution to the Congress of the: UNITED STATES

At a regular meeting of the Corbin Rotary Club, March 15, 1956, it was voted unanimously to request the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States Congress to approve moneys for a study and planning of a project known as the Laurel River Dam to be located on Laurel River which divides Whitley and Laurel Counties.

This resolution on the part of the Rotary Club is being made on the basis that the general welfare of a part of our peoples is the welfare of all of our peoples, particularly if the area affected in a depression area such as the one from which this request originates.

The membership of the Corbin Rotary Club, composed of a cross-section of business and professional peoples, in religion and politics. all recognize the need of the development of our natural resources in the interest of peace and prosperity.

E. FOLEY Ruggles, President.

Resolution of THE WHITLEY COUNTY FISCAL COURT MEMORALIZING CONGRESS To APPROPRIATE FUNDS FOR a SURVEY FOR THE Construction of A DAM ON LAUREL River.

Whereas the members of the Whitley County fiscal court in a special called meeting assembled in Williamsburg, Ky., this 6th day of March 1956 are deeply concerned with the economic conditions in Whitley County. Ky., which conditions are causing many persons to migrate to northern industrial cities to seek employment; and

Whereas in Whitley County, Ky., and adjoining counties in southeastern Kentucky, more than one-third of the population of said counties have been certified as needy and eligible to receive United States Federal donated commodities and are wholly dependent upon the distribution of said commodities for a livelihood; and

Whereas there is great public concern about the economically depressed area Of southeastern Kentucky, which includes Whitley County, and which was

formerly dependent upon the coal industry for a livelihood, and which industry no longer provides employment for the peoples of these counties, and

Whereas the development of the upper Cumberland River and its tributaries which course through these economically depressed areas would provide adequate water storage facilities so as to entice industry to locate in these counties thereby providing employment for the peoples of these counties; and

Whereas it has been proposed that a dam be constructed in the upper Cumberland Valley of southeastern Kentucky near the mouth of Laurel River, and that this proposal is being given active consideration by the proper authorities; and

Whereas the Corps of Army Engineers of the United States Army has made available sufficient funds to provide for a public hearing with respect to the need for the development of the upper Cumberland River; and

Whereas there is a need for additional funds to be appropriated for a more complete survey of the upper Cumberland River and its tributaries; and

Whereas the construction of a dam on Laurel River Would alleviate the economically depressed area by providing immediate employment to vast numbers of the population adjacent to the Laurel River, and would also provide an ample water supply for the inducement of industry to locate in said counties: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, by the Whitley County fiscal court, That the Congress of the United States is memorialized to aid this economically depressed area by providing the necessary funds for the development of the upper Cumberland River; and be it further

Resolved, That the judge of the Whitley County fiscal court he directed to send a copy of this resolution to the presiding officers of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States.

This March 6, 1956.

“Prams Jones, Judge, Whitley County Fiscal Court. A copy, attest: E. G. chnmr, Clerk, Whitley County Fiscal Court.

RESOLUTION

Whereas it has been proposed that a dam be constructed in the upper Cumberland Valley of southeastern Kentucky at the mouth of the Laurel River, and this proposal is being given active consideration by the proper authorities; and

Whereas it is the belief of this body of citizens that such a project would be of immeasurable benefit to this section of the country, for many and varied reasons among which are the following:

(1) It would serve to further aid flood control in an area which has suffered heavily during past years when the Cumberland River went on periodic rampages.

(2) As a reservoir for the storage of excess waters it would insure a plentiful and constant source of water, and ease the threat of droughts during long, dry spells, a situation which has become increasingly familiar to us recently.

(3) As a future source of potential low-cost electric power it would enhance the prospects of this area to attract industrial units which require a plentiful and reliable source of water and electric energy.

(4) As a newly developed vacation and recreational area, it would increase the tourist trade. and encourage travel into this section of Kentucky.

(5) In this section of southeastern Kentucky which has been officially classified by the Federal Government as a “depressed area” any measures which increase our attractiveness to industry and tourists, are good economically, politically and socially.

(6) At the present this area is a drag upon the rest of the Nation. Unable to pay our proper share of tax dollars to the Government, at the same time our economic needs make it necessary for the Federal Government to pour a larger than usual share of Federal relief appropriations into this section to aid the distressed, the unemployed and the needy. Our people who can and should be gainfully employed are merely existing upon the dole and the generosity of the Federal Government.

Therefore, we the members of the Williamsburg Rotary Club, do hereby respectfully petition that most serious and thoughtful consideration be given to this proposed project, and that favorable action be taken at the earliest possible date.

Unanimously adopted. in regular session assembled on this 16th day of March. 1956.

Williamsburg- KENTUCKY ROTARY Cups,

H. R. Wnrrn, Sr., President.

MANUAL E. ENTREKIN, Secretary.

STATEMENT or J. T. Carson, PRESIDENT, UPPER CUMBERLAND RIVER DEVELOPMENT Association

The Upper Cumberland River Development Association, made up of members from Knox County, Whitley County, and Laurel County, with eight directors each from Barbourville, London, Williamsburg, and Corbin, was organized for the purpose of promoting a dam at the mouth of Laurel River.

The location of the proposed Laurel River Dam will be approximately equal distance from the towns of Williamsburg, county seat of Whitley ; London, county seat of Laurel; and Corbin, located on the lines of Laurel, Whitley, and Knox Counties. This is in the heart of one of the Nation‘s depression areas, in the midst of a period of national prosperity. Our association felt that this dam which will cost approximately $30 million will bring a measure of prosperity to the peoples of southeastern Kentucky directly due to employment during construction and indirectly to the industry that will be attracted by the power and water created by the dam.

The leaders in Congress have been talking about a program to alleviate small depression areas. Some efforts of aid have been made in the issuance of commodities to the poor families. What our people want and need is not a dole but some type of basic development that will give us a permanent type of economy in order that we can stand on our own feet and pay our own way. Frankly, we are unable to do so without help. Neither will we be able to receive aid from private industry since ours is a problem of developing natural resources of long-range investment and slow return.

It is not the intent of the association to ask for a bureaucracy on the upper Cumberland, we prefer to leave the operation of the dam in the hands of the Army Corps of Engineers. Also, it is felt that it is fitting that we point out to you that this section of the country has had little moneys spent by the Federal Government in the past years and nothing that would bring permanent improvement in the form of employment to the mountain people. Most of the depression in this area can be traced to a falling market for coal, which even when partly revived was revived at the expense of eliminating employees. There has been little work in this area for these people to turn to and many of them have undertaken farming, most on submarginal lands. Too, a loss of population and earning powers resulted in a slowup of business in this area which has had its effect on employment, property values, taxes—local, State, and national.

It is the opinion of most students of power projects that our area, because of its mountainous terrain, is admirably suited for the storage of waters by high water dams that will create cheap power. A dam on Laurel River would back water in deep canyon country, most of which is too rough and rugged for even timber to be of any value. What very few farms that would be affected by the storage of water by such a dam are considered submarginal farms.

Unharnessed the waters of mountain areas represent a constant source of danger Where they are a source of flood every spring and occasionally a real big one; unharnessed they represent a loss of a natural resource that would bring the regional economy of our area up from its present poor economic position to a point where we would be self-supporting. Harnessed they would represent a source of power, recreation, conservation, and flood control; harnessed the waters from this dam with other dams constructed or proposed can be used and reused the 652-mile length of the Cumberland River.

Congress can ,by investing money on such projects as the Laurel River Dam, help us to build for ourselves in our hills a flourishing new economy that will enable us to pay increased income taxes on our increased prosperity many times the amount that the Congress will spend on this investment.

Here follows a Joint Statement by Senator Clements and Senator Barkley concerning the Cumberland River Basin Project. (Note: I am including only remarks relative to the Laurel River project.WH)

“STATEMENTS or SENATOR EARLE C. CLEMENTS AND SENATOR ALBEN W. BARKLEY IN SUPPORT or FISCAL YEAR 1957 APPROPRIATIONS for PRELIMINARY Survey IN THE UPPER CUMBERLAND RIVER are

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, there are two studies in the Upper Cumberland Basin of importance to the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

One, the survey of the Big South Fork, on the basis of tentative allocations from the budget estimate for preliminary surveys and investigations, can be completed in fiscal year 1957, and I strongly urge that the $10,400 be included in the 1957 appropriations for this important work. The other, a study of flood control measures on the upper Laurel River, combined with a study of the feasibility of constructing a reservoir near the mouth Of the Laurel River, will get underway this fiscal year with a public hearing called by the Corps of Engineers for April 7 in Corbin, Ky. Although $1,000 was allocated by the Corps of Engineers from fiscal year 1956 appropriations for preliminary surveys and investigations, the budget estimates for such work in fiscal year 1957 do not make any provision for continuing this study. The Corps of Engineers has indicated to me that the total cost of the combined surveys for the Laurel River is approximately $35,000, and that according to established procedure, the combined survey could be completed in the course of two fiscal years, and that $10,000 could be employed advantageously in pursuing this Objective in fiscal year 1957.

Laurel River survey—The authority for the study as to the feasibility of constructing the Laurel River Dam at this time is a resolution requested by Senator Barkley and myself and adopted by the Senate Public Works Committee on December 12, 1955. This study has been combined with a previously authorized study of the feasibility of providing flood-prevention measures in the upper reaches of the Laurel River.

The potentialities of these projects were first developed in some detail in connection with a comprehensive study of the lower Cumberland in 1930. These findings were published in House Document NO. 38, 73d Congress. The projects were again referred to by the Chief of Engineers in his report printed as House Document 761, 79th Congress, 2d session. The studies envisioned construction of Laurel Dam 1.7 miles above the mouth of Laurel River, in Laurel and Whitley Counties, Ky., primarily in the interest of developing hydroelectric power.

The design of the dam would be as follows: a rockfill dam about 290 feet high and 950 feet in length, faced with reinforced concrete; side-channel concrete spillway, gate-controlled; powerplant with an assumed installation of 27,800 kilowatts; and a reservoir which would extend some 20 miles upstream from the dam site and cover an area of approximately 5,000 acres.

…Big South fork omitted

Necessity for prompt action—It is extremely disappointing to me that the Bureau of the Budget has not recommended sufficient funds to make rapid progress in the upper Cumberland Basin area, especially so in view of the fact that the area is one of substantial labor surplus—an area which is suffering a general decline in economic activity. In the 83d Congress I introduced legislation which would have immediately initiated public works projects in economically distressed areas. This legislation was opposed by the administration on the basis that it was not necessary, as the projects could be initiated under existing programs authorized by Congress in such areas. There is now presented an opportunity to provide funds on an investigation that can hasten the day when these projects will be available to the commercial, industrial, and agricultural needs of this area.

An early completion of these studies and a plan for developing the water resources of this area will provide an economic stimulus so necessary to the economic vitality of the area. For these reasons, I strongly urge the appropriation of $10,400 to complete the survey on the Big South Fork and, at a minimum, $10,000 for continuation of the study of the water resources of the Laurel River.

Working on the Railroad

Wallace — Fri, 22 May 2026 01:48:50 GMT

Workin’ on the Railroad…

…For a Dollar a Day,

Workin’ on the Railroad, For a dollar a day,

Workin’ on the Railroad, Good buddy, for a dollar a day,

Gotta get my money, Gotta get my pay.

This old hammer, ring like silver

This old hammer, Good buddy, ring like silver

Shine like gold, buddy, and it shine like gold.

Traditional

Harla…

The Hard Way By the Highway: Harland Sanders Never Stopped Moving; The Colonel's Story From Eyewitness Accounts.

Wallace — Thu, 14 May 2026 22:37:01 GMT

A Word on Sources...

From “Kentucky Fried,” by William Whitworth in the New Yorker, February 6, 1970

Here are the seven studies I have found most useful. Harland Sanders’ recollections were repeated thousands of times to appreciative audiences, sometimes with a television audience, but often with a restaurant to open or a plane to catch. The Colonel related details in an entertaining and truthful way, but many crucial events over time got whittled down to the entertaining facts. The Hard Way by the Highway will fix these without fanfare. Wikipedia will require a rewrite.

I will not rehash these sources but will credit them when they stand alone as to fact. Here are my reference titles you will encounter in the text:

Finger Lickin’ Good

The Colonel

It Wasn’t All Gravy

American Dream

Spicy Daughter

Celebrity Chef

Secret Recipe

In 1974, Harland Sanders published an autobiography, My Life as I have known it has been “Finger Lickin’ Good.” It offers frank folksy first-person accounts of the many turning points in the Colonel’s life and KFC’s saga. If you desire to meet and understand Harland Sanders conversationally, it is required reading.

A few years after Harland Sanders’ passing in December of 1980, John Ed Pearce, a Louisville Courier-Journal writer, wrote the only true biography, The Colonel. He had taped interviews and written stories about Harland Sanders, visited Shelbyville and Corbin, and interviewed John Y. Brown and others. Like Finger Lickin’ Good, it took its structure from the best-known events of the Colonel’s life and easily accessible opinions from the main characters. John Pearce relied on cassette tapes of interviews with Colonel Sanders, so he gets wrong some facts where the Colonel didn’t spell out names or places.

After Harland Sanders’ passing, friends and KFC franchisees put their colorful reminiscences in It Wasn’t All Gravy, which was edited by Corbin’s own Times Tribune editor John Leland Crawford in 1981. Crawford was editor of the Times-Tribune from the Sanders family’s 1930 arrival to the Colonel’s death in 1980. These stories are wonderful because of direct observation of the famous Sanders temperament and energy, and their recollections enabled me to pinpoint important dates in KFC’s history.

The only book adequately assessing the Colonel’s significance to American commerce is Josh Ozersky’s outstanding 2012 study, Colonel Sanders and the American Dream. It is part of the Discovering America series from University of Texas press. Ozersky was a self-admitted carnivore; he brings keen perception of what success looks like in the food industry and offers a superb analysis of H. D. Sanders’ undeniable skills and creativity culminating in the worldwide success of Kentucky Fried Chicken. He also gave the Colonel credit for his marketing savvy, especially his usage of signs. Ozersky called him perhaps America’s greatest practitioner of “Applied Semiology.”

The best book on Colonel Sanders’ life and family is from 1996. The Colonel’s Secret: Eleven Herbs and a Spicy Daughter, written by Margaret Sanders Adams. Margaret was Harland and Josephine’s oldest child. She was most like her father in temperament, creativity, and restless motion. She and her family owned the KFC development rights for the state of Florida. Colonel Sanders gave Florida to Margaret as a wedding gift.

Margaret was a talented weaver and sculptor and kept the most important archive of photos and articles about the Sanders family. In fact, if you have an early KFC collectible marked “Maggie” on the bottom, Margaret designed it. Spicy Daughter goes way beyond wonderful and gives important, even intimate, details found nowhere else. Margaret and her sister, Mildred Sanders Ruggles, were crucial to the early success of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I kept Margaret advised on anything I was doing about the Colonel. She was an incredible resource for our restoration of Sanders Café and Museum. My copy of her book, The Colonel’s Secret: 11 Herbs and a Spicy Daughter has this inscription:

Another recent book (2012) is based on notes and tapes John Y. Brown began collecting after he became co-owner of KFC. Published by YUM/KFC it is noteworthy for the Colonel’s most accurate first-person recollections of his early endeavors and lifetime of culinary achievement. The narrative for Col. Harland Sanders; The Autobiography of the First Celebrity Chef was ably edited by Jeannie Litterst Vezeau who worked at KFC Public Affairs when I started as a KFC marketer, and who knew Colonel Sanders very well. It features recipes and invaluable cooking tips in Harland Sanders’ own words.

Anyone who picks up a spatula should read this book. Free advice: anyone who desires to make the Colonel’s farmhouse coffee from the book’s recipe should know that one eggshell is added, not an entire egg. This from Moi, a Cajun coffee roaster and expert who knows the subject thoroughly. Also, the Mint Julep recipe is not the way Harland Sanders taught crowds how to make this most famous of Kentucky social creations.

For Pete Harman’s friendship with Harland Sanders and Pete’s importance to the beginnings and success of Kentucky Fried Chicken, see Robert Darden’s 2002 study copyrighted by Pete Harman himself, Secret Recipe: Why KFC is still cookin’ after 50 Years. Secret Recipe has the best detail of the early years of franchising, together with the subsequent history of KFC after the Colonel sold it in 1964. Remember, Pete Harman was there in 1952 as the first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchisee. He was also crucial to the incorporation of KFC in 1954 and its sale to Massey and Brown a decade later. So much here!

We will use these studies just enough to put the skeleton of our story together. The meat of Hard Way by the Highway will come from contemporary newspaper accounts. Colonel Sanders got more ink than all the tattoo parlors in Kentucky could provide. As he traveled in search of franchisees, newspaper reporters and their readers alike found him fascinating. Harland Sanders enjoyed a crowd, a parade, a celebration, and a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant opening; he overflowed with stories and recipes. The camera loved him, and he was completely at home in the spotlight. Families, and especially children, always brought out the best in the Colonel, no matter how tired he might be from his exhausting schedule. OK, let’s get to the stories.

Wallace

P.S. You may find my two pseudonymous books interesting:

Successful Senescence, by Dr. Olden D. Krepit. Much beneficial advice for coping with age and insignificance.

Native American Fart Remedies, by Dr. Flatus A. Flitter, with Billy Breakwind. An important cross-cultural partnership remediating an important social issue (of wind.)

Here's My Sign... Colonel Harland Sanders

Wallace — Thu, 14 May 2026 14:24:48 GMT

“I’ll take the sign down when I and a committee of businessmen see that the present practices in Whitley County cease.” Harland Sanders, April 3,1938 CorbinTimes/Tribune.

Which Came First...

Wallace — Sat, 09 May 2026 02:34:46 GMT

Which Came First…?

Unintended Consequences Part II: Fauna

Wallace — Thu, 07 May 2026 16:29:57 GMT

Unintended Consequences of Homo Sapiens’ Globalization Part II: Fauna

It is worth noting a few examples of unintended consequences from the past and asking a very pertinent question to each other: How long can we survive the politicizing of pandemics, the opinionizing of truth, the polarizing of politics, and the rising of sea levels? Aren’t we all living on God’s Green Earth? Shouldn’t there be more of us meeting in the middle, finding commonality and coherence? We must exit our silos and realize we are our brother’s keeper wherever, and whenever, humanity endures. Events out of our control can transform Antistrophe into Catastrophe

My business mentor in Columbia, Kentucky Fried Chicken Franchisee John R. Neal, liked to talk about the “Sea of Commerce” that any new idea or invention had to navigate to be successful. While today that includes intellectual property, electronic entertainment, and mysterious “Clouds” of personal data which we can access but cannot see. In the past it was the trade routes and the Seven Seas, the bartering of goods and services. Those ships brought humans exotic spices—and unanticipated peril.

Poliomyelitis victims with respiratory paralysis kept alive with “iron lungs.” Photo National Museum of Health and Medicine, reprinted in Atlantic Magazine, January, 2012.

Late in the year 1347 merchant ships from Genoa entered the Sicilian port of Messina with cargo from the Crimea. Their crews were found dead or dying with large black swellings in lymph nodes. Death was painful and occurred within a few days of symptoms. The Bubonic Plague was transmitted to humans by fleas that had bitten infected rodents, although this was unknown at the time. Ships brought the disease to port cities, whence it rapidly spread inland. After the infection became pulmonary, plague could be transmitted person-to-person via exhaled droplets.

Victims could fall asleep healthy and die before morning. Entire villages disappeared. In larger cities plague subsided in winter only to rebound with warmer weather. By the summer of 1350 it had swept through most of Europe, and “a third of the world died,” as chronicler Jean Froissart (1337-1405) observed. With a few heroic exceptions, the dead and dying received “little physical or spiritual care,” as an article in Christian History Magazine reported. The best Plague account I know of is the magisterial work of historian Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror. She relates that six waves of Plague followed between 1350 and 1400, and roughly half of Europe’s population perished. Johns Hopkins University puts the number of deaths at close to 50,000,000. The fleas hitchhiked in rodents, textiles, and carpets; ordinary human commerce doomed Europe.

Three Bubonic Plague outbreaks are known to history: AD 541, 1347, and 1894. John Frith, writing in the Journal of Military Veterans’ Health, said “The Justinian Plague of 541 started from Asia, and went from central Africa to Egypt and the Mediterranean. The Black Death of 1347 originated in Asia and spread to the Crimea then Europe and Russia. The last pandemic, that of 1894, originated in Yunnan, China, and spread to Hong Kong and India, then to the rest of the world.”

The bacterium was identified during the 1894 outbreak, along with its presence in rodents and humans by French doctor Alexandre Yersin, and it bears his name, Yersinia pestis. Recently a published study traced the 1347 outbreak even earlier to the Middle East and ultimately back to infected marmots in the steppes of Central Asia.

Plague remains endemic today in Madagascar, Peru, and Congo. Treatable with antibiotics, it still kills 10% of those infected. We now know it has been around for a very long time. “The new science of paleo-genetics can sequence the entire genome of a well-preserved bit of skeleton for $500” said Andrew Curry in the National Geographic Magazine in August of 2019. Paleogenetic analysis from excavated sites has determined that hunter-gatherers from Africa reached Europe about 45,000 years ago. By 6,000 BC Neolithic farmers from the Middle East had established communities in southern Europe, but by 3300 BC Yamnaya horsemen arrived from the steppes of northern Asia, likely bringing the plague and their immunity with them. Modern European DNA is a combination of all three.

Geographic recounts that “around 4,500 BC Neolithic settlements shrank or disappeared altogether.” This is perplexing since the Neolithic population should have been much more entrenched and robust than the horsemen could have easily subdued. DNA sequencing of Neolithic skeletons has found Y. pestis in an earlier form in about 7% of the individuals. It is hypothesized by Mr. Curry that the steppe Yamnaya had developed some form of immunity to Plague which aided in their supplanting of the earlier Neolithic farmers. It is therefore possible that human-to-human transmissible Plague helped produce the modern European DNA mix. Interestingly, Barbara Tuchman mentions a “pocket of immunity” in Bohemia during the 14^th-century European outbreak.

Corbin Times-Tribune, 1946

The worst pandemic in modern times was the Spanish Flu of 1918, an H1N1 avian virus which coincided with the “Great War” as the first World War was called. An estimated 500 million people were infected, about one third of Earth’s population. 20 to 50 million died, including 675,000 in America. Covid-19 has already surpassed the 1918 Influenza pandemic in lives lost, although perhaps not proportionally to current population levels. There were no effective treatments or vaccines in 1918, so people wore masks, and businesses, churches, and schools were closed during outbreaks.

A century later, Americans still live in the Influenza Era, taking a Flu shot annually based on experts who take their own shot at which strains will emerge in the next Flu season. The Common Cold, a coronavirus--we just trade around like dollar bills.

The first vaccine I remember was the Salk Poliomyelitis vaccine of 1955. Today, children begin a regimen of vaccination against the Polio virus shortly after birth, and the disease has been controlled. But Polio likely will always require vaccine vigilance.

Baby Boomers still remember the anxiety that every summer brought to their parents. On some beautiful August days, we were not allowed to swim in the river by our Louisiana home. By the peak of the worst year, 1952, 21,000 Americans had some form of paralysis: 3,000 died. When respiratory paralysis set in, only an iron lung could save lives. Some victims were able to breathe again on their own; some lived out the rest of their days with the apparatus breathing for them.

Corbin Sunday Times, July 17, 1949

The Times-Tribune featured heartbreaking stories of Polio outbreaks in articles from 1930-1955. The landing of a plane at London-Corbin Airport carrying the first Salk Vaccine for 20 counties in 1955 was huge news.

Corbin Times, April 24, 1955

Jonas Salk received no patent or payment for his vaccine, but grateful American families contributed to a substantial monetary gift for Salk in April of 1955.

In October of 2021, the first-ever vaccine against Malaria was announced by the World Health Organization. Plasmodium falciparum is a single-celled parasite transmitted by mosquito bites. In 2019 400,000 people died of Malaria, two thirds under the age of 5, and 94% in Africa. The parasite has a relatively complex genetic structure which has made an effective vaccine very difficult. Although today’s vaccine is 50% effective, it is a wonderful start and will save many lives of children in sub-Saharan Africa. Each year the Hebert grandchildren give mosquito netting to children in Africa.

One thing is clear. We are--and history suggests we will remain--in the Covid-19 Era.

The Hard Way By the Highway

Wallace — Thu, 07 May 2026 16:19:41 GMT

Myths Can Be Anchored in Truth.

Historical Truth, together with its inseparable, inevitable, unintended, unforeseen, and unpredictable consequences, is fascinating. I invite you to join me in considering the well-intentioned realities that brought mankind to unforeseen outcomes. I am a truth farmer, historian, musician, bibliophile, biographer, and KFC Chief Marketing Officer Emeritus. All of these will inform this website.

I include chapters from my upcoming Colonel Harland Sanders biography: his invention of Original Recipe Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1940--his businesses on US25 (The Dixie Highway) from Lexington, Kentucky to Miami, Florida. The heart of the story is Sanders Court and Café in Corbin, Kentucky at the convergence of US25 East to Asheville and the Great Smoky Mountains to Miami, and 25 West to Chattanooga and all the way to Miami. These were America’s first interstate highways.

This note is in my prized copy of “Eleven Herbs and a Spicy Daughter” written by the Colonel’s oldest child.

Please subscribe to read upcoming chapters of The Hard Way.

The astonishing quality of Sanders Café’s food, cleanliness, and service was “known from Canada to Cuba” as H. D. proclaimed in 1932. A destructive fire at Thanksgiving of 1939 gave Sanders seven months to rethink and rebuild Sanders Café. He did so around two major new proteins: pressure-fried chicken and blanket-wrapped country ham. Today Kentucky Fried Chicken is the world’s largest restaurant brand.

The Hard Way by the Highway uses contemporary accounts in newspapers, magazines, and television together with original sources to document the Colonel’s life. Most facts contained in this book remain unknown even to those curious about the KFC story and are certainly impervious to Artificial Intelligence. They also give correction to details of previous studies and even important events that were part of Harland Sanders’ often told stories. There are myths in the Colonel’s legend which, when true facts are revealed, become even more significant to his achievements.

When Harland David Sanders passed away in December of 1980, a photograph was proof that something really happened; the accompanying story by a reporter documented, explained, and anchored in time and place, a true event. There will be no airbrushing of photos or exaggerations of facts in these pages. They come from a time when Colonel Sanders became the most recognizable American. They were observed and recorded by reporters who answered basic questions: Who or what, when, where, how and sometimes why.

Netanyahu's Wars--America's Role.

Wallace — Thu, 07 May 2026 16:03:59 GMT

The War in Gaza:

(Lest we ignore the War between Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas, with 2,000,000 Palestinians in the bombsights.) May 7, 2026

United Nations photograph.

I have been reconsidering the war between Israel and Hamas and its effect on civilian population. All Israeli hostages were released October 13, 2025, consistent with the beginning of a ceasefire agreement. The agreement is not yet signed, and Benjamin Netanyahu will not attend, but a meeting in Egypt among world leaders seeks a multi-national, multi-faith path to bring the combatants to heel.

I listened to the UN’s UNICEF leader yesterday in a radio interview on the challenges facing recovery and rebuilding. After the ceasefire, he was finally able to see the current physical state of Gaza. 10,000 bodies, UNICEF estimates, lie in the rubble waiting to be recovered. 90% of hospitals are destroyed or non-operational, and 90% of buildings and homes are destroyed. On October 8, 2025, UNICEF said they estimated 64,000 children in Gaza have been “killed, maimed, or displaced,” including 1,000 infants.

How did our world get here? How did leadership in the United States and Israel come to see this as a real estate opportunity instead of a tragedy? How did the opening for a ceasefire come into being? Presidents Trump and Netanyahu have been speaking about the war for months without a ceasefire. Timing indicates to me that the Gaza City Israeli Defense Force invasion was the last piece of the puzzle.

Here are the facts informed by the journalists who have directly observed the conflict; many have paid with their lives to cover these events. No cable news or social media contributes to my opinions; I have no access to either.

October 7, 2023. Hamas killed or took hostage about 2,000 Israeli citizens. Previously, IDF watchers on the border had reported up the chain of command that Gazans were approaching, taking photographs and inspecting the border fence. Two IDF observers stated this fact in a video interview immediately after the Hamas attack.

Nonetheless, the fence was unguarded when the motley, but deadly, breach occurred. Hamas attacked on foot, on motorbikes, even a hang glider. They shot to kill at kibbutzim, ambushed drivers in cars, an IDF tank, and attendees at a music festival, taking over 200 hostages.

The lack of pre-emptive defensive action by the Netanyahu government stands out and remains unexplained and mostly overlooked at this point. How did intelligence assets which knew where Ayatollah Khamenei was going to be the first day of the Iran War, and had, incredibly, previously embedded functioning explosive pagers and cell phones which were detonated on Hezbollah members in Lebanon, not have similar information about Hamas?

Netanyahu immediately announced that Israel was at war, and the IDF swiftly prepared for the invasion of Gaza. Hamas, Israeli, and Palestinian blood began to flow as the conflict progressed. To date, 67,000 non-combatants have perished, far eclipsing the number of soldiers lost on both sides. Brutal urban warfare included penetrating the tunnel network of Hamas and the bombing into rubble of buildings and hospitals.

Hamas occupied tunnels under hospitals, and most civilian fatalities came from IDF fire or missile attacks. Hamas diverted food aid and heartlessly used civilians as cover for its units. Death was at times pinpoint in accuracy; sometimes the IDF’s targets were subterranean but the collateral damage was on the surface and heartbreakingly visible.

2025 saw civilians fleeing several times as Israel issued new evacuation warnings, razed towns, then moved to new target zones. Food, water, medicine, and hospital access were inadequate. 400 distribution points monitored by the United Nations were available to the Palestinian population. Gangs of young men were filmed looting aid intended for vulnerable civilians before the trucks could reach aid sites. Tents replaced bombed-out homes, and entire families were destroyed or displaced.

On March 2, 2025, the IDF announced the total suspension of outside relief operations, and conditions under the blockade became dire for non-combatants. U.N. observers could no longer directly monitor the situation, and nonprofit relief professionals could not provide trucks full of aid, which were stacked up at the border with Egypt. Several flotillas of aid by sea were intercepted and turned around by Israel, the last one only a few days into October 2025. Some pallets were successfully dropped by air, a distribution not without risk and more expensive by far than trucks.

Death and injury numbers since the war began have been provided by the Hamas-run health ministry. However, the overwhelming video record of the wounded and dead has led the world to judge the culpability of both Hamas and Israel. We have all desired peace, but war can never result in peace. War must cease before peace becomes a possibility.

Late in May of 2025 the U.S. and Israel announced that the newly formed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would open food sites designed to prevent Hamas from diverting the aid. Four total sites were opened, three in the south and one in the north. Security was provided by contracted ex-military, mostly U. S. under tourist visas coordinated by the IDF. The sites required food seekers to travel some distance and come under the direct observation of IDF forces once they approached the four sites.

Scores of civilians, including women and children, were killed attempting to obtain food from these sites. Some asserted that the recipients were being identity-checked by computer facial recognition as they picked up food. Palestinians released videos they claimed were showing that live fire was used for crowd control. Some were fired upon by the IDF and allegedly on occasion by the American contractors.

Doctors treating those wounded have identified bullets removed as overwhelmingly .762 caliber. These are Israeli-preferred rounds (also used by security contractors.) They can be fired by automatic rifles and ground and tank-mounted machine guns. Doctors report an unusual preponderance of head, neck, and upper body wounds, indicative of targeting. Allegations by whistleblowers and contrary affidavits provided by GHF make the truth about contractors’ deliberate use of force on civilians at the four sites unclear.

In my belief the evidence suggests GHF’s plan had fatal flaws from the beginning: Only four sites, thousands of starving families, located far from the sites, in war zones, with lengthy runs of razor wire queues. These facts make the GHF sites ill-positioned to assuage a generalized famine. The dried foods provided certainly required water to prepare, which was itself in short supply

Moreover, the IDF enforced the 5 A.M. start-times by firing upon anyone who approached earlier as a “hostile.” Taken together, these are not decisions true charitable professionals like the Red Crescent or Red Cross would ever choose or condone.

Almost 100 children died of malnutrition during this time; numerous premature births were reported, with few respirators available. Medical professionals and volunteers alike were skipping meals and donating blood for emergencies. Only a few hospitals were still functioning and overwhelmed. In my judgment the entire GHF exercise was manifestly inadequate and certainly benefited Israel’s war aims more than the awful plight of Gaza’s civilian population.

On August 20, 2025 the IDF began a campaign in Gaza City itself. The IDF’s main offensive in the city lasted from September 15 until October 10, again resulting in the flight of civilians and the destruction of 90% of the structures. The ceasefire ending 15 months of war began January 15, 2026, leaving Hamas still armed and present, and the Gaza Strip ready for the tender ministrations of bulldozers.

Today, this precarious ceasefire continues along with skirmishes along the IDF-held positions. Netanyahu’s coalition in the Knesset still holds. Most nations have endorsed the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Not the U.S. and Israel. Hamas has not yet disarmed.

Living hostages were released but it took weeks to locate and return all the deceased; the IDF has occupied a strip of territory along the Mediterranean and had already provided arms to any tribal group hostile to Hamas. A simmering civil war and executions in the streets of Gaza show Hamas still asserts authority.

Gaza is over 90% destroyed, with piles of rubble covering an estimated 10,000 bodies of the missing. The civilian population is still displaced and starving, although UN aid is flowing. Isolated Hamas attacks and IDF retaliation are frequent occurrences. Multiple nations will have to participate in the decisions ending this war.

The announced ceasefire agreement gives hope to lovers of peace and all who are tired of death. I pray that no single bomb or bullet hinders the process. Peace remains problematic so long as the tectonic plates of mutually-agreed-destruction by Israel and Hamas underlie the rubble. War has spoken; I pray peace will be given a chance.

At the end of April of 2026 UN officials stated that 1.8 million Gazans remain displaced, and reconstruction could likely take $71.4 billion. The Guardian reported Jared Kushner in a Harvard interview on February 15, 2024, stated that Gaza’s “waterfront property” was “very valuable” and opined that Israel could remove civilians and then “clean up” Gaza.

By October of 2024 Trump was saying in interviews that Gaza could be “better than Monaco.” On February 4, 2025, CNN reported that President Trump was floating the idea of Palestinians’ relocation and a US takeover of the Gaza Strip. Recently the U. S. president formed a “Board of Peace” consisting of seats sold at a billion dollars each. The Vatican and most U. S. Former Allies declined to participate. Then Netanyahu talked the President into a capricious and non-strategic war with Iran.

So, I guess this is really the “Bored of Peace.” All this war so a “FOR SALE” sign could be placed on Mediterranean seaside real estate for the billionaire class to build a Riviera-style playground on the bones of Palestinian men, women, and children. God is watching and weighing the hearts of those who wage, and profit by, offensive war.

Unfortunate Postscript:

Since the Gaza War, the IDF attacked Hezbollah in Lebanon. There is a functioning Lebanese government with Hezbollah remaining a strong independent force. In an astonishing multi-year operation, pagers and cell phones were sold from a fake company by Israel to Hezbollah which concealed explosives but were fully functional. Those were detonated on September 17 and 18 of 2024 and many Hezbollah members were killed or maimed. In 2026 the conflict still simmers in the south of Lebanon, a Hezbollah enclave, and the Lebanese government continues to function independently.

Israel enlisted the aid of U. S. stealth bombers and bunker busting bombs in the summer of 2025 in a joint operation which, according to the US President “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear threat. Now, effective February 28, 2026, Israel and the United States are at war with Iran, with that country bombed into opposition. A girls’ school was mistakenly hit twice by U. S. cruise missiles based on outdated information. Almost 200 young students died. America’s munitions stock is certainly diminished, and the Strait of Hormuz is now closed by the U.S. and Iran simultaneously.

Our president is trying to get the hot gravy off his hands and keeps postponing a reckoning for this war. Former President Barack Obama this week told Stephen Colbert that Netanyahu had given him the same oval office presentation that our current Chief Executive swallowed hook, line, and sinker, perhaps blinded by the Hubris of the adventure in Venezuela and the attack of the bunker-busters in 2025.

(See my earlier post on Truth Is A Rock for comments on the Iran adventure.)

Like America’s two expensive rescue aircraft consumed in our own fire, we are stuck in the desert sands of Iran and mired in the mines of the crucial Strait of Hormuz, which Iran could likely control with a slingshot.

History With a Bottom Line

Wallace — Thu, 07 May 2026 15:33:48 GMT

Substack

Since my college days, I have been a teacher, researcher and writer of history. My academic career path took a 180 degree turn when I met John Neal of Columbia, Tennessee. I began work doing research and writing about John’s 1838 home, one of the most complete plantations in the South, General Gideon Pillow’s residence. John was also owner and CEO of JRN, Inc., one of the largest Kentucky Fried Chicken franchisees east of the Mississippi. In 1986 John asked me to use my contacts in state government and business in Tennessee to forecast the regional implications and opportunities of the GM Saturn plant under construction in Spring Hill, Tennessee. I produced a White Paper making a number of findings and recommendations.

In 1987 John called me to his office. He asked me to begin a Marketing function for JRN. Mr. Neal said he was contractually obligated to spend a significant percentage of KFC sales on national, regional, and local advertising. JRN had over 70 KFC restaurants, so the number was quite large. He said, “I need to know what is working and what is not.” I replied, “Sounds like history with a bottom line to me.”

I include chapters from my Colonel Harland Sanders biography (lots of fascinating stories to excavate and curate.) The heart of the story is Sanders Café in Corbin, Kentucky at the convergence of US25 East to Asheville and the Great Smoky Mountains, and west through Chattanooga all the way to Miami: America’s first interstate highways. The astonishing quality of his food in Corbin ultimately drove the success of his creation, Kentucky Fried Chicken. KFC spread from Corbin to Salt Lake City, Utah, and had become the world’s largest restaurant brand by 2026. The KFC story begins in 1940 and today is a worldwide phenomenon. It all started with Colonel Sanders but he had help all along the way; it was a very Hard Way.

The Hard Way by the Highway takes a unique approach; it uses eyewitness accounts in newspapers, magazines, and television together with original sources to document the Colonel’s life as his contemporaries experienced it. Most facts contained in this book remain unknown even to those curious about the KFC story and the sources are certainly impervious to Artificial Intelligence. I quarried them out of microfilm and the amazing wealth of detail at Newspapers.Com. It took countless hours of ignoring KFC local newspaper advertisements to find the nuggets of journalistic observations and impressions of Colonel Sanders in the flesh.

In a hands-on 8-week summer program in 1937 (He attended two years, 1938 as well.) at Cornell University for Hotel and Restaurant owners, Harland Sanders wrote The Hard Way to explain how he conducted business. By the Fall of 1937 Sanders Court was opened along with the fourth iteration of Sanders Cafe. The food was already famous; the hospitality would become so as well.

The Hard Way was printed on the back of every issue of “Out of The Bucket” sent to franchisees beginning in 1959, when Harland and second wife Claudia relocated to Shelbyville, Kentucky. Sanders Cafe by then was still the Colonel’s restaurant and had been serving Kentucky Fried Chicken since 1940. In 1964 H. D. sold Corbin, along with KFC U.S. to Massey and Brown for $2,000,000. He remained the heart and soul of Kentucky Fried Chicken until his death at age 90 in December of 1980.

The Hard Way Award from KFC’s national advertising committee is given to a very few recipients. Here is mine. The most powerful words here are the Colonel’s! Please read:

The Hard Way By the Highway also gives correction to previous biographies and even important events that were part of Harland Sanders’ often told stories and live on in press releases. There are myths in the Colonel’s legend which, when true facts are revealed, become even more significant.

When Harland David Sanders passed away in December of 1980, a photograph was proof that something really happened; the accompanying story by a reporter documented, explained, and anchored in time and place a true event. Over his lifetime, thousands of observers, customers, and reporters were able to experience Harland Sanders in the flesh at close range. AI has no way to get to these stories. The birth of KFC was part of a mosaic including Southeastern Kentucky, US 25, the eastern Dixie Highway, perfect meshing with postwar Americans’ needs, and the astonishing insight and timing of a man schooled by the first half of the 20th Century.

There will be no airbrushing of photos or facts in these pages. They come from a time when Colonel Sanders was the most recognizable American. They were observed and recorded by reporters who answered basic questions: Who or what, when, where, how and sometimes why. I also include perspectives on current US and world events, and the fascinating history of Corbin, Kentucky in the days of Harland Sanders. All in service to historical truth.

You Always Wondered

Wallace — Mon, 04 May 2026 02:34:13 GMT

You Always Wondered…

Unintended Consequences of Homo Sapiens’ Globalization Part I: Flora

Neglected home place outside Hot Springs, North Carolina

Photo by Wallace

Points to ponder: It is worth noting a few examples of unintended consequences from the past and asking a very pertinent question to each other: How long can we survive the politicizing of pandemics, the opinionizing of truth, the polarizing of politics, and the rising of sea levels? Aren’t we all living on God’s Green Earth? Shouldn’t there be more of us meeting in the middle, finding commonality and coherence? We must exit our silos and realize we are our brother’s keeper and our planet’s keeper. As long as humanity endures, events we initiate but do not control can transform Antistrophe into Catastrophe.

Unintended Consequences can be catastrophic to a shrinking planet. One computer click on a message or email can infect entire networks with a virus or ransomware; a passenger on a jetliner carrying a virus can infect an entire nation with a pandemic. Today’s speed (and irresistibility) of information as well as contagion is far more than you or I can comprehend or contain. Of course, restless humanity has always brought along everything it could carry to new environments. Now we are at a pivot point; we can “Artificially Inform” ourselves we got something wrong, but when the wrong inherits the earth, we can only helplessly watch as our stewardship of nature is surrendered to the “automatic earth,” to quote Paul Simon.

Sometimes other restless species even hitch rides. Opportunistic animals have invaded America in just the last century: nutria infest Louisiana swamps, alligator gars are being caught in the upper Midwest, Burmese pythons now take prey in Florida’s Everglades, and boaters in middle America can’t joyride without being slapped in the face by Asian carp that arrived here in bilgewater.

Sometimes, though…We. Just. Get. It. Wrong.

Since 1987 I have driven all over the Southeastern United States as a Kentucky Fried Chicken Marketing Officer. Like our founder Colonel Harland Sanders, I was always paying attention to roadside advertising and interesting sights. It was depressing to see entire barns, deserted dwellings, and towering trees completely covered by an opportunistic Asian vine with no chlorophyl-based rivals. The question invariably came to my mind, “What idiot planted Kudzu?” Much to my surprise, the Corbin, Kentucky Sunday Times on March 3, 1946, provided the answer.

The above photograph appeared on the front page of the Sunday Corbin Times. The two white objects are allegedly cows, and they are standing in a big patch of yummy Kudzu. The image clarity is typical of old Times-Tribune microfilm, which requires a significant amount of trust on the part of the beholder. A farmer appears in the photo as well. See if you can find him. The accompanying article announced that 100,000 plants were to be set out in Whitley County at a cost of $6.50 for 500 plants per acre. Several farms were identified. The benefits of the plant were extolled by Soil Conservation Service experts:

Corbin Sunday Times, March 3, 1946.

So now we know when, who, and why. The what is catastrophic today.

Demographic and economic shifts aided in the explosive growth of “the vine that ate the South.” Many small farms were abandoned after WWII and there was no one to enforce boundaries on Kudzu’s growth. Vines can grow 1 foot every day; roots can be 7 inches in diameter and grow downward 3 centimeters a day, according to scientists. I have never heard of Kudzu hay, and doubt if farm animals have ever consumed it. If cows didn’t have to go back to the barn to be milked, Kudzu likely would have overgrown them as they stood and “rumenated,” turning Kudzu into cud.

The Kudzu plant arrived in America in 1876 from Japan, introduced at America’s Centennial exposition. By the 1940’s it was touted to U. S. farmers as useful for controlling soil erosion, and for high-nutrition cattle fodder. It is still widely used in Asia for food and medicine and there grown commercially.

The problem: Kudzu has no competitors among native American plants and must be eaten by American bovines and ungulates one leaf at a time. Today along with Chinese privet, ailanthus trees, and Japanese honeysuckle, Kudzu forms a doomsday, “Asian Invasion” quadruple-threat to the biodiversity of the Southeast. Add America’s own invention, the disastrous Bradford pear (See Postscript below.) and our native hardwoods scarcely have a chance.

By 1970 the Department of Agriculture declared Kudzu a weed, and by 1997 it was placed on the “Federal Noxious Weed List.” It is now estimated to cover 7.4 million Acres in the southeastern U. S. The vine dies back in winter, but roots are known to survive temperatures in Korea and Japan of 30 degrees below zero. Control measures in the US cost an estimated $2,000 per acre. The problem with importing non-native living organisms is that we cannot anticipate their effects on our environment.

Covid-19 continues to astound us with unexpected concatenations, linkages to problems and products in the Supply Chain we could never predict. I suggest we use Kudzu leaves to make toilet paper!

Keeping the focus on Corbin, Kentucky, though, let us turn our attention to fungi.

Arboreal diseases affect oaks, dogwoods, ash trees, pines, fir trees, sweet gums, black locust trees, oaks, and elms. The emerald Ash borer makes the death of Tennessee’s ash trees a current event. I am sure there are more in peril; those are all I see around me in Tennessee. However, the most devastating blow to the Appalachian Mountains, its people and animals was the fungus Cryphonectria Parasitica. This Asian invader wiped out an estimated four billion American Chestnut trees between 1904 and 1930.

Chestnuts covered much of the entire Eastern U. S. and were a fundamental food source for humans and wildlife in the mountains. In Appalachia they were estimated to be 1 in 4 hardwood trees in the forest. Chestnut wood was wonderful for any building project, but the trees were too beloved for large-scale lumber harvesting until entire groves were lost to the blight. C. Parasitica swept through them like a California wildfire.

The fungus is present in all Chinese and Japanese chestnut trees and came to America when Japanese seedlings were imported as ornamentals at a botanical garden in 1904. Today, if you have “Chestnuts roasting by an open fire,” they are likely from hybridized stock.

All dead chestnut trees of any size were logged; Middle Tennessee has many solid chestnut homes built before 1920. A century later, chestnut stumps still produce shoots which live for a short time until they, too, succumb. The fungus is localized and the spores airborne, so a very few American Chestnuts with no nearby cousins may still be found; the ones in densely wooded Appalachia never stood a chance.

Here is where Col. Harland Sanders and Corbin’s Sanders Café, built in 1940, make an appearance in our story. When the fire destroyed Sanders Court and Café in November of 1939, Harland was in Asheville, N. C. and daughter Margaret and her husband Jimmy Adams were at a class reunion in Berea, Kentucky. Demolition and rebuilding started the day after the fire. Margaret, Sanders, in Eleven Herbs and a Spicy Daughter, says “Somewhere in Tennessee, he found a man who had lost a grove of chestnut trees in a widespread blight. Father bought all the trees and cut them into lumber. He covered the walls of his restaurant with rich-toned wormy chestnut.” Harland Sanders thought they were the “last wormy chestnut boards in the whole country.” You may still see the deep brown wood at Sanders Café and Museum today.

”Thus He Builded.” H. D. Sanders gave thought to surprising details, whether he was building a restaurant, a home, or a reputation. From inspiration, to financing, through construction, to operation, to promotion he was capable of unique decisions beggared by our feeble descriptive categories such as “innovator” or “entrepreneur.”

Postscript and Lagniappe:

One last Unintended Consequence: A self-inflicted wound on the American landscape. Bradford pears were engineered to not produce progeny, but scientists forgot they had parent stock in the US and were prodigious pollinators.

Thorny and invasive Callery Pears have taken over neglected pasture near Columbia, Tennessee. All the white in the photograph are offspring of Bradford Pears taking Tennessee pastureland out of the ecosystem.

A Bradford pear tree in the author’s Columbia neighborhood after a slight breeze. October, 2021.

If you wish to understand the Bradford Pear Plague, read Adrian Higgins’ article “Scientists thought they had created the perfect tree. But it became a nightmare.” Washington Post Magazine, September 17, 2018. One quote should suffice: “But like a comic book supervillain who had started off good, the Bradford pear crossed over to something darker. It turned from thornless to spiky, limber to brittle, chaste to promiscuous, tame to feral. Most of all, it became invasive. It is now an ecological marauder destined to continue its spread for decades, long after those suburban tract houses have faded away. Generations yet to be born will come to know this tree and learn to hate it.” The Bradford was hybridized to be sterile, symmetrical, and showy; yet it produces tons of pollen which aggravates allergies, and proliferates Callery pears, themselves a blight on America’s landscape. Thorns on the Calleries will puncture tractor tires.

In full agreement with Mr. Higgins, I penned this as I sneezed and watched the Bradfords break apart and cover Maury County, Tennessee, with their Callery hybrid cousins.

The Bradford Perish Tree

Tune: “That’s What You Get For Lovin’ Me.” by Gordon Lightfoot, 1965.

Words by Wallace, 2020

That’s what you get for planting me!

‘Cause I’m a stinky Bradford tree.

Step out your door, look at your lawn…

I’ll soon be gone…

That’s what you get for planting me!

I’m not the kind to hang around.

My limbs like lying on the ground.

My blossoms reek, so hold your nose…

Smell like your toes…

That’s what you get for planting me.

You could have planted a white oak,

Takes them 200 years to croak.

Your landscape guy was high on crank…

That’s what I think…

Laughed all his way down to the bank.

Don’t come ‘round lookin’ for a pear.

‘Cause you won’t find one anywhere.

I’m just a waste of CO2…

but don’t be blue…

I’ll surely be survived by you!

That’s what you get for planting me!

‘Cause I’m a stinky Bradford Tree

Step out your door, look at your lawn…

I’ll soon be gone…

That’s what you get for planting me!

Do the right thing; cut down all your Bradfords--and all their cousins! Preventively bush hog your open land. It may be too late, but Tennessee should contemplate a ban and require removal.

Strophe

Wallace — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 16:55:09 GMT

A “handle” is just your identity as you interact on Substack. Mine is a crucial window into my method of forming Truth-based analysis of historical facts.

Strophe is a Greek word and rhymes with “trophy.” It means to “turn.” Classical Greek choral dramas had three designated parts: Strophe, Antistrophe, and Epode. During the Strophe the chorus moved to the left and chanted the primary theme, narrative, or truth. The chorus then moved to the right and chanted the Antistrophe. Antistrophe clarified, contradicted, or opposed the Strophe, using message and movement to create dramatic tension. Part three was the Epode which means “sung after.” It offered the Dramatist’s satisfying or troubling, tragic or comic, solution to the conflict.

Metaphorically, I am writing about Homo Sapiens’ Strophes, our collective self-conscious historical paths, movements, decisions, or initiatives. They produce as consequences our Antistrophes, often unanticipated, sometimes ironic, tragic, or comic. When the contrivances of Man stop the rhythmical movement of human heartbeats, we have moved from drama into real life and death. Antistrophe can break the bonds of human drama and becomes Catastrophe in real life.(Greek Kata, “Against.”)

In catastrophic events we have crossed the border between theater and reality; no explanatory Epode exists, only fundamental breaks, seismic shifts, and cultural and political strife. Humans are reduced to picking up the broken detritus of ambition without morality, exploitation without stewardship, desire without self-control, and power without love.

The Greeks were on to something fundamentally true about the effects of humans on this planet. Each day offers gifts of new places to stand and interact with winds, tides, and climate change. Rising temperatures and sea levels make all storms, droughts, and wildfires inevitably stronger: Antistrophic becomes Catastrophic. They are manifestly more disastrous than before.

My favorite running path: Mahon Road outside Columbia, TN.

Humans multiply like rabbits. Growth in human domiciling is accompanied by rooftops, shopping malls, and parking lots. Taken together, these reduce water table acreage to the point that every 10 years we are experiencing once-in-a-century flooding. People who count world population say that more humans are living today than lived and died on earth in previous history.

How in 2019 does a virus travel from a bat to a human? There are two possibilities: one, a raw meat market in China, operating as it has for generations, or two, a nearby infectious disease laboratory with all scientific safeguards in place.

Whichever, restless humans sickened and spread the virus by air travel. I remember news about a choir on the west coast with a member fresh from a trip to China. At a rehearsal everyone respirated and sang vigorously; within a few weeks almost half of the attendees were infected and some hospitalized. Covid 19 skipped straight into a worldwide pandemic.

Come with me as we examine environmental and infectious catastrophes resulting from the globalization of homo sapiens.

1. Your Ancestors Always Wandered.

2. You Always Wondered.

Kentucky Mint Juleps, Build Your Own

Wallace — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 15:25:43 GMT

KFC creator Harland Sanders was a lifetime collector of recipes. If asked about hobbies the Colonel had the same response in every interview: “Cooking…and collecting recipes!” Travel editors from all over America came to Kentucky annually for the Governors Tour of state parks and tourist attractions. Harland Sanders was a tireless promoter of Kentucky, and chaired the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Tourism efforts for years. The Tour stopped at Sanders Court and Cafe in Corbin, Kentucky, and it was showtime for Harland.

Harland Sanders’ wonderful fried chicken, country ham, and amazing steaks were legendary up and down US 25, the old Dixie Highway. Most years, the Colonel got on the bus and entertained the travel writers, politicians, and local audiences for the Tour’s duration. Far and away, everyone’s favorite activity was making traditional Kentucky Mint Juleps under Harland Sanders’ instruction. So here, just in time for Derby Day, and described by travel editors three quarters of a century ago, is how Mint Juleps should be prepared. You will understand why “Julep Cups” (and not red Solo cups) were essential to Kentucky social gatherings.

Sanders Café: Mint Julep Academy

Excerpted from my upcoming book about Col. Harland Sanders, US 25—The Eastern Dixie Highway, and the creation of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Colonel Sanders said, “The Julep is Not a Drink; it is a Social Hour.”

By 1950 Harland Sanders was a celebrity known across the Commonwealth as the Champion of Kentucky’s tourism industry. Each summer Kentucky’s “Governor’s Tour” traveled the highways in a Greyhound bus promoting State Parks and local attractions--with multiple stops, public events, evening banquets and speeches, and an early start on the next day’s itinerary. It was a movable bipartisan feast of practical jokes, politicians (including the Governor), leaders in business and agriculture, and journalists. H. D. Sanders attended eleven out of the first thirteen tours. “Harley Sanders” had been a public speaker since Jeffersonville in 1918, as the Louisville Courier-Journal documents. He always had a message, loved an audience of any size, and probably knew every influential journalist in Kentucky; Sanders couldn’t wait to board the Governor’s Greyhound every summer.

Louisville Courier-Journal, June 21, 1950

Bill Ladd’s Almanac column was a must-read for Courier-Journal fans in those days. Ladd covered the Colonel’s Corbin capers frequently and rode along with Harland Sanders on the Governor’s Tour in 1950. Bill’s column for June 21, 1950, included “How the old Kentucky Colonel made his juleps. This dope comes from Harland Sanders of Corbin. He looked enough like a Kentucky Colonel to have used himself for a sign at his tourist court. He demonstrated the process of the julep to several of us while jouncing along on the bus.” Ladd reported, “the results were delicious.”

“The julep is not a drink, but a social hour,” he (The Colonel) says. Each guest received a glass with ice, mint leaves and (powdered) sugar. They made their own julep while they sat around and talked. “This keeps the party sober and also saves on the liquor bill since it takes at least 20 minutes to make a julep.” One should “hold the glass with the palm around it to help melt the ice. Use the tip of the spoon against the side of the glass and press down on the ice with the heel of the spoon. The object is to bruise the leaves and extract the oil of the mint but not to crush the stems and release acids they contain. After about 20 minutes of this you will find the sugar melted, mint bruised, and about half a glass of greenish-tinted water. Pour in (two ounces of) whiskey. Then sip. Do not gulp!”

On June 22, 1952, the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch travel editor Mardo Williams provided another account. Williams paid attention to the recipe. Colonel Sanders explained mint juleps to “a score of travel writers” in Corbin, Ky, at Sanders Motor Court. “The glass must be thoroughly frosted and filled to the brim with chipped ice. Four or five mint leaves are placed on the ice, and two teaspoons of powdered sugar are placed on the leaves.” After 20 minutes of massaging with a spoon, the sugar should be dissolved, and the glass filled with mint-flavored and colored water. “With a running fire of commentary and humor, the mint julep authority doled out his instructions as folks juggled their glasses. ‘Be gentle, these mint leaves are as tender as a woman’s heart and should never be crushed recklessly.’” The Colonel concluded, “In the old days of beautiful women, fast horses, and gracious hospitality, every gathering started with a mint julep party.”

On June 13, 1954, The Milwaukee Journal’s travel editor offered this summary: Colonel Sanders was taught “40 years ago how to make a julep by an old Kentuckian.” He says “it was originally considered a temperance drink. You will save on the amount of beverage consumed.” “With their hard cocktails, too many Americans are goozlers. (That’s the way he pronounces it.) Making their own juleps will be a lot of fun for your guests, and it will slow up their goozling!”

On October 13, 1957, the Cleveland Ohio Plain Dealer Magazine reported an impressive event with numerous photographs: “Burgoo and Mint Juleps Flavor Menu at Party on Stouffer Farm.” At the close of Stouffer’s annual meeting of hundreds of managers and food supervisors from across America, Colonel Sanders from Corbin, Kentucky, “a famous restauranteur and Past President of the American Restaurant Association,” staged a hoedown, Kentucky barbecue and mint julep party. The Colonel was a close friend of the Stouffer family; he made and served the Burgoo (which cooked over 8 hours) and prepared blanket-wrapped country hams (which took even longer.) Each guest made their own mint julep under his direction: “A mint julep is not the product of a formula; it is a ceremony and must be performed with a true sense of the artistic.”

Along the way, one writer asked in 1952 at Sanders Café in Corbin, “What about those mint juleps we got in Louisville at Kentucky Derby time?” “Those were not good mint juleps,” said Sanders. “Those were tossed together to commercialize on Kentucky’s famed drink at the expense of the tourist. There ought to be a law against it!”

So... Have your Derby Party--but try the juleps the Colonel’s way!

WH 4/26/2026

Truth Is a Rock: A Stepping Stone or a Stumbling Stone.

Wallace — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 14:26:33 GMT

Eternal Truths about Truth

What is Truth? Homo Sapiens’ Inescapable Question.

--Work hard for Objective Truth; build your life upon it, and do not part with it for love nor money. Identify it in your present, and learn from your past.

“Buy truth, and do not sell,
wisdom, instruction, and understanding.” Proverbs 23:23

--Build Your Life on Truth.

Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice.” Pilate (said to) Him, “What is truth?” John 18:37-38

--America’s Strophe: Self-evident truths from the Declaration of Independence, 250 years ago. We are still Stewards of these truths today.

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

--July 4, 2026. May this date be not just an anniversary celebration, or a political football, but a truthful national conversation about equality and God-given rights.

1776 begins a story of stretching and extending these precious founding principles to “all citizens.” In the great Drama of Independence, this is America’s Strophe.

We became citizens, by birth or by redefining citizenship according to these foundational truths. This was an often-painful 250-year path through war and peace, wars fiercely fought and peacetime hard-earned and gratefully accepted, together with with its new truths.

We found the word “Citizen” could expand to include any person willing to abide by America’s Strophic Truth. We did it by engaging opposing points of view and deciding our nation’s future by voting for men and women of integrity. Character was supremely important, and voting was truth-based on each citizens knowledge and understanding. Since the Clinton presidency, the party in Congressional power has viewed impeachment as a possible path to short-circuit the will of the voters, existentially threaten the Chief Executive, and set a precedent for opposing parties’ conduct.

After 9/11 America was at war in George W.’s two terms; he viewed the war in Iraq as an inescapable burden for America’s military. Barack Obama’s second term saw the death of Supreme Court judge Antonin Scalia. The Constitution states: The President Shall appoint a successor. The Constitution states: The Senate Shall approve or disapprove by vote. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, betraying the Constitution, said “We will let the American People select the next Supreme Court Justice.” For almost two years he refused to advance Merrick Garland to hearings and a floor vote. His motto was Damn the Constitution and heed not the consequences. Gone was cooperation across the aisle.

Today, we are at the point of Antistrophe; some would say, Catastrophe. Our politics seem hopelessly bipolar, our national decisions are controlled by the merest of margins, and we have gone from a chaotic buffet of partisan internet silos and partisan journalism’s “truths” to an Artificial Intelligence salad bar which forces us to examine every byte for truth only to find it comes from computer analysis. Certainly nothing “human” which could be called “creative” survives. What does survive is a whole process (can’t use the word generation) removed from reality, and, in any truthful sense, indigestible.

Jefferson’s words and the example of George Washington’s peaceful transition are in direct conflict with an imperial presidency aligned with partisans heedless of Truth Or Consequences in the Congress and the Supreme Court. Jefferson also wrote in 1774: “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.”

No private agenda of any group of citizens which undermines America’s founding documents and hijacks our free and fair elections should be permitted and certainly not forced upon all citizens and sojourners. Open forums for free speech using pancake breakfasts with plenty of coffee need to be held across this nation this summer. Let us sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron. US citizen voters are smart enough to understand the issues.

--Recognize Falsehood Masquerading as Truth.

George Orwell: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” Animal Farm.

--Set Truth where people can see it and use it.

“May the lights in the Land of Plenty, Shine on the Truth Someday.” Leonard Cohen, Land of Plenty.

Matthew 5:15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it gives light unto all that are in the house.