Curtis Dall on His Exploited Father-in-Law

“A few months ago I read the interesting book, ‘When the Cheering Stopped’ by Gene Smith. (Published by William Morrow and Company, New York, 1964). It indicates the necessity of the American people being more adequately protected in the Executive Branch of our government in the event the Chief Executive should become very ill or suddenly incapacitated.

The book throws interesting lights upon the second marriage of President Wilson to Mrs. Edith Galt and to her complete devotion to him over the years; also, how she ran the country for a while when he became ill. In perusing pages 20 to 23, I was intrigued with the treatment of the well-known matter of the “Peck” letters, the numerous letters written to Mrs. Mary Allen Peck (later, Hulbert) by, Woodrow Wilson. Ultimately, Mrs. Hulbert re-assumed the name of Peck, after a divorce…

As I heard the story related, the matter does not center around Mrs. Galt and Mrs. Peck. It indicates to me more as to how Louis Brandeis came to be appointed by Wilson to the U.S. Supreme Court. It centers around Louis Brandeis . . . and illustrates, allegedly so, politics at its best, not women. Woodrow Wilson was often referred to as “Peck’s Bad Boy” before 1913 (page 23) and also whatever the “wits” felt called upon to say about him. That title went back to his days at Princeton. It appeared that Mrs. Peck’s son allegedly got into some financial difficulties in Washington. He needed about $30,000 to get straightened out, but Mrs. Peck did not have that sum of money handy. She allegedly retained Samuel Untermeyer, a powerful New York lawyer, to represent her and help raise the money for her son. The events allegedly proceeded something like this:

An appointment was made at the White House and Mr. Untermeyer called upon President Wilson and presented his client’s case, saying that his client needed money and that for the sum of $250,000 she would return to President Wilson certain letters, or else dispose of them to others.
President Wilson . . . “I haven’t that kind of money, Mr. Untermeyer. Let me think it over. Let’s take up this matter again, say in a week or so, and I will see what I can do.”

Later, at the next meeting, Wilson continued, “Mr. Untermeyer, I cannot come up with $250,000, but I may be able to raise something like $100,000 if that would satisfy your client.”

Mr. Untermeyer “No, Mr. President, that would not satisfy my client, but I have just had an idea … and, well, perhaps, it might be developed into a happy solution. If you indicate to me that you will consider appointing Mr. Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court, I will then discuss this unfortunate matter of the letters with friends of mine. They might be able to then arrange to settle this matter to the benefit of all parties concerned.”

President Wilson thought over the matter; so did Counsel Untermeyer and his friends. In due course, Louis Brandeis sat on the Supreme Court bench… Soon he was regarded by all as a very able Justice. In the world pro-Zionist movement, he proved an important aggressive figure and exerted great efforts in that connection, both here and abroad.

Curtis B. Dall
FDR, My Exploited FIL — pp.140

A Rose By Any Other Name … (Labeling the Enemy)

Labels in war are important. One should desire to smear the enemy with a handle that is both accurate, insulting, and demeaning.

For example during the War of Northern aggression the North got away with labeling those who were faithful to the Constitution as “the Rebels.” During the English Civil war the Cavaliers, who were supporters of the Monarchy successfully stuck the label of “Roundhead” on their opponents.
You must understand that during the English Civil war and for a time afterwards, Roundhead was a term of derision, and in the New Model Army it was a punishable offence to call a fellow soldier a Roundhead. The Jews call their enemy “goyim” which is a smear, while at the same time being a accurate level from the Jewish perspective. The word “goy” has so much historical and linguistic baggage that it is obvious that it is a weaponized word. Goy exists in all kinds of combinations that it obvious that it is a slur label put on Jewish gentile enemies.  For example there are the obvious slurs – like “goyishe kopf,” or gentile brains, which suggests (generously) a dullard, or “shikker iz a goy,” a gentile is a drunkard. “Goyishe naches” describes the kinds of things that a Jew mockingly presumes only a gentile would enjoy, like hunting, sailing and eating white bread. Examples of the necessity to properly label one’s enemy with a pejorative handle in order to better reveal who they are and why they should be opposed are ubiquitous throughout history (Japs, Krauts, Jacobins, etc).

Now, I have no beef with this. It is what the lovers of their cause should do in order to demonize as much as possible the demonic enemy that is being faced. Jesus Himself did it when he called His enemies “White Washed Sepulchers full of dead men’s bones.” Further, I fully expect my enemy to try and do it to me and that is exactly what they have tried to do by calling me “racist,” or by trying to morph the words “Kinist” and “Racist” to mean the same thing.

Given all this it is not surprising that I do the same thing. When I came up with “R2K” once upon a time it was not meant as a compliment. It has become the short handle to refer to an extreme movement that while claiming to be Reformed because of its appeal to two Kingdom thinking is in all actually not Reformed because it has radicalized Reformed  two kingdom thinking into something that nobody Reformed throughout history would have ever recognized.

There have been other attempts to label R2K in a slurred but accurate fashion.

1.) E2K — For awhile people were using this to identify Radical Two Kingdom theology. It stands for Escondido Two Kingdom and its purpose is to hang around the neck of Westminster-Cal (located in Escondido, California) the dubious honor of having invented out of whole cloth Radical Two Kingdom “theology.” E2K, in my opinion, was a gentler and nicer way to say “Radical Two Kingdom,” and so in my opinion did not work as well as R2K, though it did have the advantage of screaming the location of the viper’s den every time it was used. Used enough it is possible that it would cause people to eventually say, “Can anything good come out of Escondido.” And of course, exceptions notwithstanding, the answer is “no.”

2.) Another attempt that has been floated in order to label R2K is “NL2K.” This stands for “Natural Law Two Kingdom,” and gets at the reality that Radical Two Kingdom is Thomistic in its origins and relies on Natural Law to get its Christ denying project off the ground. The problem is that most people don’t understand how wicked Natural Law is when it has gone to seed and so NL2K doesn’t pack enough pejorative punch.

Having said the above, I am not opposed to a better handle on Radical Two Kingdom than R2K if one can be found. Yesterday, a comment was left on Iron Ink hoping to advance just that idea. The beauty of “R2K” is that it is pithy, memorable, and accurate. The lack of the label “R2K” is that it fails somewhat as a entry level insult. Being the person I am, the pejorative side of things is always a stretch for me.

The chap who commented on Iron Ink angling for a new handle for “R2K” used the following admirable reasoning in order to advocate for a more razor edged handle to attach to R2K.  I cut and pasted his reasoning for your consideration below. If we can find a better handle to stick on R2K in order to better communicate their heretical and dangerous nature, I’m all for it. I have no pride when it comes to defeating this enemy.

Here is my commenter’s reasoning;

“At some level, Protestantism is fundamentally about wrestling for control of the state. Taking control of the state from Catholics was what made Protestantism.

The best way to undermine R2K is to start alluding to the state as Catholic. “Cathedral” , “Babylon”. As well as smearing R2K proponents with the association.

(Here the idea may be to refer to R2K as B2K {Babylon Two Kingdom} or C2K {Cathedral Two Kingdom}. {B2K = Babylon Two Kingdom has a nice ring to it} — BLM) 

Don’t let them call themselves Protestants. Real Protestants seek to control the “state”. Whether, it’s the Armish nation within a nation, or Christian Nationalists changing state law. We need a new label.

There’s been a failure to win the war for the dictionary. Young men filled with hormones create the vocabulary to control the conversation.”

I wonder if since I am willing to let go of R2K if that means I can consider myself a “Young man filled with hormones?”

I finish this entry by offering a few ideas of my own to replace R2K;

1.) Dumb sons of Bitches Two Kingdom = DSOB2K (probably too unwieldy & sexist, after all women can be DSOB2K also.)
2.) Heretical Two Kingdom = H2K
3.) Enemies of Christ Two Kingdom = EOC2K
4.) Retarded Two Kingdom = R2K (Nope … that would be confused w/ R2K)
5.) Anti-Christ Two Kingdom = AC2K

Anyway, were I a rich man, I’d turn this into a contest where someone could win a grand prize for coming up with the perfect language to label R2K and the whole movement.

Repudiating the Ongoing Slander & Libel Against Biblical Kinism

Valerie Bost writes in Support of Fathead Sumpter

I didn’t follow some of the other debates that apparently took place in the FLF group, but my sense of things is that you’re simply following Paul’s instructions to address sin differently in different classes of sinners. Don’t harshly rebuke an older man (1 Tim. 5:1), and be careful about hearing charges against an elder (1 Tim. 5:19). There’s also a difference between dealing with an individual man’s error and dealing with a social contagion error like kinism or CRT. I can’t think of specific Scriptures that address that, but it seems pretty common sensical. In the first instance, you’re going to need focused sniper attention on the man; in the second, a broad-blasting shotgun approach. (Metaphorically speaking. No actual shooting in either case, please. 😉)

Valerie Bost

Dear Valerie;

Hmmm…

1.) Many of the Kinists are older men and are Elders. Where is the Pauline approach there?

2.) There is no Church council that has pronounced on Kinism. As such that you could refer to it as a “social contagion” is yet more slander and libel and a sign of “hate in your heart.” Indeed, no one has even dealt with the Kinist arguments yet… unless you consider pointing, spluttering and screeching like a Junior High girl to be a “argument.” There is a whole 600 page anthology out demonstrating the Kinist impulse throughout Western Civilization and Church History and yet the best we get in response to Achord and Dow’s book are stupid statements like… “they were just quote mining.”

3.) At the same time the Apostle’s Creed itself casts out Full Preterism and consequently it is indeed safe to consider it a “social contagion.” The works of Max King, Don Preston, and others demonstrate it is a social contagion. The fact that Full Preterism has bested Reformed men like David Chilton and Gary DeMar demonstrates it is a social contagion. Besides, anybody knows that the way to beat a contagion is by stopping it as soon as possible. DeMar needs to be cast out for advancing Full Preterism. Where are the men dealing with DeMar the way that Paul dealt with Peter as recorded in Galatians? Was Paul guilty of not being careful Valerie?

4.) Now if you desire specific scriptures that support Kinism, I suggest you look at this three part series written by a chap working on his Ph.D at Westminster East;

http://www.thedailygenevan.com/blog/2022/11/17/naturalvsnonnatural

Returning Fire on Ft. Sumpter

“On the other hand, I do think that Kinism is playing with a species murder – hatred and pride in the heart based on race and ethnicity. And murderers end up in the Lake of Fire. I’m not talking about love of family, love of tradition, love of your home, love of your nation, love of your culture, love of baseball and hotdogs and cold beer – all good and godly things, ordered by God’s Word. If that’s what you’re eager to recover, that’s great, just don’t call yourself a “Kinist” and don’t share White Boy Summer memes like some kind of fathead. To traffic in racialist categories is to take the bait of Critical Race Theory and all its ugly bastard children. You don’t beat Dialectical Materialism with your own materialistic dialectic. You don’t beat feminists by ordaining women to pastoral ministry. You don’t beat fire by pouring gasoline on it….

God requires us to honor our fathers in the faith, and sometimes when our fathers stumble into sin or error, they must be admonished and sometimes we walk backwards into the tent to cover their drunken shame. 

Toby Sumpter

As Possessed by Doug Wilson

So, our enemies think they get to dictate the language? Because Doug and old Toby thinks that we need to quit calling ourselves “Kinists” therefore we should quit calling ourselves “Kinists?”

I have an idea. Why don’t Toby and Doug and Darren and Foster etc. etc. etc. quit calling themselves “Reformed.” I mean these guys are Reformed the way that Michelle Duggar is a “virgin.”

Fathead Sumpter casts aspersions about how Kinists are trading in “Critical Race Theory.” Tell me Old Tobe, are all those quotes in the Achord & Dow book from all those Christian Fathers through the centuries who were clearly kinist as the leading kinists have defined Kinism also guilty of thinking in racialist categories and of having a materialistic dialectic?

Honestly, I don’t think Fathead Sumpter would know a materialistic dialectic if it came up and bit him on his fat head.

But hey… knock yourself out with all your slander and libel Toby boy. I mean, Jesus said that we are to rejoice when we are persecuted for righteousness sake and as Kinists are the ones with a Biblical anthropology and axiology, I’m partying pretty hard right now with all your insults Old Fathead Tobe.

See… I can play that card just as well as you can.

Honestly Doug Jr. (Is it alright to call you Doug Jr. Toby? I mean your writing style makes me think that Dougie is trying to possess you.) do you really think that Kinists are dealing with a species of murder with all the hate and pride in our heart?

Notice again though the seeming assumption on Fathead’s part that all kinists are white. Would Toby really accuse one of our Black or Brown Kinists brothers, who overwhelmingly agree with us on the necessity to prioritize one’s people, of being racialist fatheads who traffic in the hatred and pride that comprise murder?

Honestly, Old Tobey complains in the piece this quote is pulled from about people not excelling at reading comprehension and yet this fathead thinks this is what Kinists believe.

That’s ok… let him continue to try to break records for maxing out the Asperger’s scale. I’m too busy enjoying my latest Boilermaker while watching the classic, “Birth of a Nation.”

Oh… and that bit about honoring our Fathers?

You might want to consider this link Fathead and then ask yourself… how your slander and libel against Kinists and Kinism is honoring our Kinist Christian Fathers in the Faith.

And if after all that, you’ve missed the point let me quote one of your detractors;

“Counter signaling the only socio-political movement that is talking about the blight of white people, all while chanting Christ is King, seems like a smooth brain move.”

So Say We All … A Protest To Dr. Sproul 2.0’s Comments

Remembering My Grandmother Fondly; Eva Doris McAtee (Bower)

I’ve been meaning to write this post for several years now but it always seemed to get pushed out of the way for something else. Now, I am writing about her because I am feeling my own mortality more. I mean, it is not the case that I am having dark premonitions, rather it is a sense that if I don’t write about her, she may well be lost to the ages, seeing as there are not too many left around who remember and of that number fewer even still whose writing habits extend beyond writing out a grocery list. So, allow me to spend a few lines praising my grandmother, Eva Doris Bower McAtee.

Grandma McAtee was born in 1905 coming into the world as the daughter of  David Ezra Bower and Barbara Margaret Bower (born Chamberlain). She was the youngest of seven children being born when her Mother was 40 and her Father was 47. I know absolutely nothing of her childhood. When one is a grandchild one fails to ask those kind of questions and so her past is largely lost to me. I know she grew up in a hard scrabble life as was characteristic of much of rural America at that time. Her mother died when she was 23 and being the youngest she was left at home to take care of her Father who died when she was 31 and likely still at home. I say likely because this period of her life is kind of fuzzy. Her Father dies in 1936, she gets married the same year and she gives birth the same year to her only child, my Father.

So, 1936 was a bellwether year for Eva. No doubt still mourning over the death of her Father, Eva names her son David, introducing him into a home with several half-siblings. You see, Eva married Carl Bernard McAtee who was married to my Grandmother’s best childhood friend, Bertha Collins McAtee. Bertha had died giving birth in 1932 and in God’s providence, of which I know few details, eventually Eva, shortly after her Father’s death, married Carl McAtee and became an instant Mother to a rather large family that very soon included her own son.

I wish I could say that the marriage was a happy marriage but as is often the case with Step-Mothers and blended families combined with Carl McAtee’s reputed fondness for liquor Eva did not have a happy marriage to Carl. Of course, soon enough, the country is sunk in the throes of depression and one can only imagine the struggles of a woman trying to protect her own son from the dynamics of half-siblings that may have reason to resent him and her. There were all kinds of stories that I will spare you dear reader about those family dynamics but I will pass them by except to say that by all accounts they were not good years.

Maybe all of this is why I remember Grandma as being a resilient person. She was able to cope with the vicissitudes of life and did so without me ever remembering her complaining.

Carl Bernard McAtee passed away in 1952 after 16 years of marriage and 47 year old Eva and her 15 year old son (my Father) were left to make it with the help of her widowed Mother-in-law (Lorraine Reid McAtee) who lived directly across the old dirt road that ran between their houses. Grandma-Great was reputed to have smoked a corn cob pipe and lived by observing old superstitions (e.g.; don’t sit in a rocking chair that is moving).

Perhaps Lorraine had a soft spot for Eva, having lost her own husband (Murlin) in 1929 at 52 years of age. I know that David McAtee had a tender spot for his Grandma Lorraine McAtee as witnessed by the rose from her funeral in 1963 that remains pressed in his Bible that was passed down to me.

All of this kneaded grit into Eva. I can remember more than once my Father shouting to his mother (my Grandma), “Damn it Mom, would you quit being so stubborn.” So, my Grandmother was fiercely independent. That reality was demonstrated by the fact that she lived in her small farm-house in Tekonsha, Michigan until appx. 1969 without electricity or running war coming into the house.

When we would go to visit her, I have boyhood memories of the inside pump that would have to be worked to draw the water and then how we would have to heat up the water to do the dishes. One pan of water to wash the dishes in and one pan of water to rinse those same dishes before drying them and putting them away.

Grandma McAtee, being widowed, had to work to keep life and limb together. My vague memory recalls that she retired in the late 60s from an orphanage in Coldwater, Michigan. As I recall she worked in the kitchen as a cook but that memory is hazy.

I remember visiting her frequently. We live approximately 45 minutes away and it seems that many weekends we would go for a visit. She would always have the old archway cookies waiting to be generously distributed. As any rural grandmother from that generation she knew her way around the kitchen and visits to grandma were always characterized by a table full of food. My memory of her is often in this context as she puttered about the kitchen and dining room in her full length apron carrying this or that plate of food. When the food was finally set upon the table there would be a table prayer. A table prayer is so foreign to 2023 American families but in the late 1960s it was still something that was part of the furniture.

Speaking of meals, Eva spent a good deal of her time cooking wild game. Her farm house was surrounded by woods and fields wherein squirrel, rabbit, pheasant and deer were often harvested for the table. I can remember many a meal of squirrel and dumplings, or pheasant or venison cooked with perfection. She prepared them all and was involved a good many times in the pulling the pinions off the pheasant after being dipped in the hot water and paraffin mixture.

After the meal and clean up there was the inevitable family game of aggravation. She always used the white marbles. I miss those family times united around the throw of the dice and the movement of the marbles across the board punctuated by laughter and the sighs and giggle accompanying the progress of the marbles across the board moving home.

Grandma was a big Detroit Tigers baseball fan. I still have memories of listening to the radio with her as the Tigers battled the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1968 World Series. To this day I remember asking her what a RBI was and feeling like I had learned some deep secret that none of my friends would know when she told me.

Like most Grandmothers she never missed a birthday and on my birthday, without fail, she would put in the card she would send me in the mail her widow’s mite. Then when we would see her next I was sure to get a gift of pajamas for my birthday. At least that’s what I recall. I remember thinking at that time that I would never run out of pajamas.

Having lived a hard scrabble life, she was frugal with her money and so there was little excess associated with her spartan life. In 1980 I was hard put to meeting my rent obligation while living off campus during college. When she found out she sent me enough money to pay my rent with wise counsel on how important it was to be careful with my money.

I don’t think I ever heard a harsh word come out of her mouth. Maybe that was from being beat down so hard in her life. Maybe it was because she was just a kind person. Regardless of the reason, I was a child who needed to be around an adult who could only speak kindness and because of that I remember her, now almost 40 years since she passed with fondness.

Later in her life (appx. 1969, I think) at 65ish Grandma remarried to Floyd Persail. It was an adjustment to address her now as Grandma Persails as opposed to Grandma McAtee. Though remarried, I never felt like any of her affection diminished towards her McAtee grandchildren even though she inherited, via marriage, a passel of Persail grandchildren. She showed her humility when her new husband put up a large photograph of his former wife who was deceased in the middle of her tiny living room in the tiny house in Tekonsha. So far as I know she never uttered a word like, “What the blue blazes are you doing putting up the picture of your dearly departed wife so as to find it front and center in our home?”

It’s really kind of humorous because for years I would stare intently at that photo when visiting Grandma and wonder, “Who in the world is this woman who suddenly showed up covering most of the wall in Grandma’s living room?” It was only years later that I would learn that that was Grandpa Floyd’s deceased and honored wife Hazel. I’m now in my 60s and I can’t tell you that I would recommend this as a course of action for second marriages.

Grandma got to meet Jane circa 1981 while we were dating. She told Dad about Jane that, “I better be smart and not lose this girl.”  So, you see with that comment she had good people instincts.

In 1982 I moved away from Michigan. Before moving I had been able to help her with a bit of a crisis when Grandpa Floyd landed in a hospital with a clot problem. She needed someone to chauffer her back and forth to the hospital and as I was sitting out college for a semester because I was broke, I was able to aid her in those trips and in sitting with Grandpa Persails in the hospital. During that time, she was as steady and stable as ever. I don’t think I ever recall her being unnerved or worked up about anything. Straight and steady. Neither too high nor to low.

Before I moved away from Michigan to Maine in 1982 I visited with Grandma. By this time she had been diagnosed with a cancer. She was clearly distressed by that news and by the fact that her son had recently moved to Florida. With my Dad’s move to Florida and the news of her illness it is my conviction that she was feeling alone. Dad had always been there as a kind of extra layer of protection since his military duty had been completed in the 50s. I remember our last conversation. She said she had done some things that she didn’t want to recently but she felt like she didn’t have any choice. To this day I have no idea what she was referring to.

I was married to Jane in 1983. She could not come to the wedding due to the advance of the cancer. I know she would have given anything to have been present. A few months later in the winter of 1984 Eva Doris McAtee — my grandmother slipped this mortal coil. I wish I could have been near to visit her during her dying season. Not having her son or grandchildren around her as she fought cancer is still something that haunts me about her dying time.

Another of my regrets was that the Methodist Church she attended with their female “minister” was already far left. I don’t know how much exposure my grandmother had to Biblical Christianity. At this time I was Arminian and so while I could identify the leftism of her local church I wasn’t much good besides that.

As a wife, mother, and grandmother during some very hard times she lived a very courageous life. She was an important person in my life and as such I’d like folks to know a wee bit of her before she, and eventually I, are lost in the sands of time in terms of  the memories of the subsequent generations.

These are my 4-6 decade old reminiscences of my grandmother. Others may remember otherwise. Others may and should think it proper to correct where my reminiscences are not accurate. However, this is my attempt to honor my (grand)Mother.