"Not one member of his family was ever working class, middle class, or even upper middle class, ever," Burke's Peerage, about George W. Bush

"In the long run, there is no capitalism without conscience, no wealth without character." President George W, on Wall Street, 2002

1. The Foundation of a House Divided

1760 Twenty-two year old King George III succeeds George II and ascends the English throne. Although he's initially received with applause throughout the Empire, including America, King George III proves to be a man of narrow intellect and little interest in diplomacy, with a propensity to meet force with force.
"He had a smaller mind," says one British historian, "than any English king before him, save James II." King George showers favors on malleable followers even as he marginalizes men of independent character, accusing them of treason or otherwise running them out of government.
It doesn't take long for the New World colonies to offend King George III; when they defy British authority, he reacts with the same vindictive spirit he exhibits toward his critics in England, and is determined to humble the Colonies. The conflict between old country and new escalates, leading to America's Declaration of Independence in 1776.

1773 America's first spy, Nathan Hale, graduates from Yale.
[NOTE: Hale will later be captured by the British and sentenced to death- without trial- by a military tribunal.]

1774 Saudi Arabian sheiks intermarry with the family of a puritanical Muslim scholar, Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab, and convert to Wahhabi Islam. Wherever they rule, the notoriously bloodthirsty Wahhabis impose their medieval code on hapless subjects, making public spectacles of stoning women adulterers to death, maiming thieves, destroying decorated mosques and cemeteries, prohibiting music, sequestering women, and promoting war on infidels.

1798 John Adams, America's second President, leads the conservative Federalist party. Vice-President Thomas Jefferson calls the Federalists the party of "the rich and the well born" (probably in reference to Admas' notorious written comment that "the rich, the well-born and the able" should be elevated over other members of the Senate.
Although Adams himself isn't one of the super-rich, he reveres the opulent lifestyle and adorns his Presidency with the Royal pomp of the British Crown.

Benjamin Franklin Bache, grandson of Benjamin Franklin, speaks out against Adams' policies through his newspaper, the Aurora, one of about 20 independent newspapers openly questioning the President's vision of governance. Federalist newspapers respond forcefully. Noah Webster writes that Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans are "the refuse, the sweepings of the most depraved part of mankind from the most corrupt nations on earth." Others characterize the Democratic-Republicans as "demon-crats, momocrats and all other kinds of rats," while Federalist newspapers attempt to scandalize Jefferson over his alleged relationship with his deceased wife's half-sister, slave Sally Hemmings.

The Aurora 's criticisms send President Adams and his First Lady into a self-righteous frenzy. Abigail Adams writes that the Democratic-Republicans are engaging in "unpatriotic abuse, deception, and falsehood, insisting that Bache be punished, since his comments could even plunge the nation into a "civil war."
Federalist Senators and Congressmen- who control both legislative houses as well as the Presidency- pass four laws (surprisingly similar to the Patriot Act of the 21st century) that become known as the Alien and Sedition Acts.
The day Adams signs the Acts, VP Thomas Jefferson leaves Washington in protest, though he himself could benefit by using the Acts against his own political enemies. He and James Madison continue to protest the Acts and work toward repealing them.

President Adams orders his 'unpatriotic' opponents arrested and commands that only Federalist Party judges can sit on the Supreme Court. He throws Ben Franklin's grandson Bache into jail- before the Alien and Sedition Acts become effective- where Bache dies of yellow fever while awaiting trial. New York TimePiece editor John Daly Burk is targetted next, and his paper is forced to shut down. In all, editors of seventeen of the twenty or so progressive newspapers are arrested; ten are convicted and imprisoned, their newspapers subsequently folding.
Knowing that Jefferson will mount a challenge in 1800, Adams and the Federalists hatch a plot to undermine the next election. William Duane- who both takes over Bache's newspaper and marries his widow- publishes evidence of the plot. Adams has Duane arrested and hauled before Congress on Sedition Act charges. VP Jefferson intervenes, allowing Duane to "consult his attorney." Duane goes into hiding until the end of the Adams' Presidency.

Thomas Malthus, English economist and historian, publishes An Essay on the Principal of Population, wherein he theorizes that social unrest, crime, etc, are unavoidable because population growth will always exceed food production- leaving war, famine and disease as necessary to check population growth. He suggests that the 'lower classes' refrain from breeding to solve this problem. Malthus' theories later combine with Darwinism to lay the groundwork for Eugenics, the 'scientific' study of improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding. Eugenics will prove particularly attractive to the ruling class at the turn of the 20th century.

1799 On February 15, Vermont's Congressman Matthew Lyon speaks out against "the malign influence of the Federalists, serving only the interests of the rich and acting in opposition to the interests of their constituents." Federalist Congressman Roger Griswold savagely attacks Lyon on the House floor with a hickory cane. Across the nation, Federalist mobs and Federalist-controlled militia vandalize Democratic-Republican newspapers and attack citizens who dare speak out against President Adams. The progressive vision of the New Republic is clouded by the fog of rabid partisanship and fear.

When an unbowed Congressman Lyon writes an article pointing out Adams' "continual grasp for power" and suggesting that Adams has an "unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp and selfish avarice," Federalists convene a federal grand jury and indict Congressman Lyon for bringing "the President and government of the United States into contempt."
Lyon, who had served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, is led through the town of Vergennes, Vermont in shackles. He later runs for re-election from his 12x16-foot jail cell, however, and handily wins his seat. "It is quite a new kind of jargon," Lyon writes from jail to his constituents, "to call a Representative of the People an Opposer of the Government because he does not, as a legislator, advocate and acquiesce in every proposition that comes from the Executive."

John and Abigail Adams take a trip home to Massachusetts in their usual fashion. As the Presidential parade of costumes and fancy carriages, with cannon fire accompaniment and ringing church bells, winds its way through one small town, a drunken citizen named Luther Baldwin quips to his tavern-mates, "There goes the President and they are firing at his arse," adding that, "I do not care if they fire thro' his arse!"
The tavern's Federalist owner overhears the remark and turns the man in to Adams' police. The hapless drunk is arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for uttering "seditious words tending to defame the President and Government of the United States."

1800 Adams' no-holds-barred style of governance, in which not even a whisper of opposition or dissent is tolerated, backfires on him politically. Opposition newspaper readership expands rapidly. The jailed Luther Baldwin becomes a national celebrity. Federalist popularity begins to wane, and Jefferson beats Adams in the next Presidential election.

As President, Jefferson exposes Adams as a poseur and tool of the powerful elite. In what comes to be known as 'The Revolution of 1800' or 'The Second American Revolution,' Thomas Jefferson frees all of Adams' political prisoners. He even reimburses them for the fines they've paid- with interest- and grants each a formal pardon and apology. As the widespread corruption within Adams' Federalist Party is exposed, the Federalist Party loses its hold on Congress, and begins a 30-year slide into complete dissolution.

1818 William Brown, of Britain's Brown Brothers' shipping (with its ties to the China opium trade), opens a Philadelphia branch of the Baltimore-Liverpool-India shipping triangle. Brown Brothers, via Brown and Shipley, will ship 70% of US slave-produced cotton to England during the Civil War.
[NOTE: The Brown brothers befriend the Bush family, and merge with Bush/Harriman in 1931 to create Brown Brothers, Harriman "the...largest and oldest private bank," while leaving Brown & Shipley intact in London]

1832 William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft create the Skull & Bones, a super-exclusive fraternity at Yale University, for the sons of the anglo-American Wall Street and banking establishment. Today it is the oldest and most prestigious of Yale's secret societies; the others are: Scroll & Key, Book & Snake, Wolf's Head, Eliahu, and Berzelius. Skull & Bones is considered the elite of the elite among fraternal societies.
Unlike the Greek fraternities on most other American university campuses, Skull & Bones exists solely at Yale. It is not part of any nationwide public association. Other Ivy League colleges, notably Harvard and Princeton, will eventually have similar secret organizations, but the societies of Yale- led by Skull & Bones- are unparalleled in their influence on 19th and 20th century American politics.
The club's cryptic Skull & Bones iconography is borrowed from old German university societies and freemasonic sects. The skull and crossbones, symbolizing German military might, was also worn by the Prussian and Imperial German armies. In the 20th century, Hitler's SS Death Squads adopt the Skull & Bones, or Totenkopf (Death's Head), as their primary icon.

William Huntington Russell's brother Samuel runs Russell & Co, the world's largest opium smuggling operation. William later becomes a member of the Connecticut state legislature, a general in the Connecticut National Guard, and the founder of the Collegiate and Commercial Institute in New Haven.
Alphonso Taft- grandfather of US President/Chief Justice and Bonesman William Howard Taft- holds, in his long legal career, positions as Secretary of War, US Attorney General, and minister to Austria-Hungary and Russia.
By the turn of the 20th century, the Industrial Revolution will have propelled about one quarter of the members of Skull & Bones into some of the most powerful business/political positions in the Western world.

1835 The sciences expand hand-in-hand with the Industrial Revolution, and scholars everywhere turn to the study of human development. Belgian mathmetician Adolphe Quetelet publishes A Treatise on Man, and the Development of His Faculties. In it, he champions a new science he calls Social Mechanics, dedicated to the observation and categorization of normal, or 'average' human characteristics. Quetelet develops a system for defining an 'average man' based on characteristics at the center of the normal curve for all human traits.
The 'average man' concept begins as a simple way of summarizing some attributes of a population, but Quetelet later presents 'average man' as an ideal type, the ultimate intent of nature- with deviations from the average being errors.

1845 About 12,000 Jews live in Palestine, making up a very small percentage of the population. Arabs and Jews co-exist in relative peace.

1848 Congressman Abraham Lincoln votes to censure President James Polk while the war against Mexico still rages. He contends that the President's justification for war is "from beginning to end the sheerest deception" and that Polk would have "gone further with his proof if it had not been for the small matter that the truth would not permit him. Let him answer fully, fairly and candidly. Let him answer with facts and not with arguments. Let him attempt no evasion, no equivocation." Lincoln claims the President is "deeply conscious of being in the wrong."

1851 Dr. Samuel Cartwright describes a mental illness peculiar to black people. Calling the effort of slaves to escape 'Drapetomania' he says the condition can be cured by recapturing the patient, rubbing him down with oil and beating him. He feels that blacks can only achieve proper 'vitalization' of the blood through manual labor: "It is the red, vital blood, sent to the brain that liberates their mind when under the white man's control; and it is the want of...red, vital blood, that chains their mind to ignorance and barbarism, when in freedom."

1852 Philosopher Herbert Spencer coins the word 'evolution.' He introduces a theory of gradual human brain development, and describes intelligence in terms of environmental influences. Spencer also believes that because women use most of their energy in the reproductive process, they have little left over for other purposes and are thus naturally inferior (intellectually) to men.
[NOTE: Contrary to common perception, it is Spencer, not Charles Darwin, who originates the phrase 'survival of the fittest']

1853 Arthur Count de Gobineau publishes Essay on the Inequality of Human Races. He describes a race of Aryans superior to all other races.

1855 Andrew Mellon, the son of banker Thomas Mellon, is born in Pittsburgh.

1856 Skull & Bones' corporate shell, the Russell Trust Association, owns much of Yale University and other Connecticut real estate, and asserts control over Yale's faculty and campus publications.
[NOTE: In the late 1990's, the Russell Trust reorganizes under several new names]

1859 Edwin Drake drills the world's first oil well, to a depth of 69 feet, in Titusville, PA. At this time, kerosene, a petroleum distillate several carbon molecules heavier than gasoline, is replacing whale blubber as a cheap source of indoor and urban lighting. The refinery industry booms; ironically, gasoline is considered a waste product and is dumped into landfills, soil, streams, etc.

Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species by Natural Selection. He later applies the biological perspective to societal problems, claiming that man is no different physiologically, mentally, or morally from other mammals. His theories are promoted by and expanded upon by Herbert Spencer and others; 'Social Darwinism' is used to scientifically justify the age-old idea of upper-class superiority, as well as the new concept of the predatory capitalist as spearhead of evolution.

1863 On January 1, President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring the freedom of slaves in the rebelling southern states. But Lincoln lacks the power to enforce his edict in the Confederate-controlled South, and slave owners in remote states like Texas continue to exploit their human chattel. For two and a half years, most slaves are unaware that they are no longer a white man's legal property.

1864 A would-be assassin shoots at President Lincoln as he rides from the White House by night, on horseback, to his private suburban retreat. His stovepipe hat is later retrieved with a bullet hole through it. Lincoln prefers to reside at Anderson Cottage, three miles away from the White House, and commutes there almost daily- often at night and without guards- until this incident.

1865 As Union soldiers advance through the South, tens of thousands of freed slaves leave their plantations to follow. The rural, slave-owning South is defeated by the industrialized North, and the US Civil War ends. The North's terms are suprisingly magnanimous: sitting Confederate State governments preserved; property rights respected; no penalties against those engaged in the rebellion. Many rebels are allowed to keep their horses- sometimes even their weapons- so they can more easily rebuild their lives. The antebellum South, in some respects, remains as if it had not lost the War.

To help solve the problem of massing Southern refugees, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman issues 'Special Field Orders, No. 15', a temporary plan granting each freed slave family forty acres of tillable land, and a surplus Army mule, on the seacoast and offshore islands of Georgia.
News of 'forty acres and a mule' spreads quickly; freed slaves welcome it as proof that emancipation will finally give them a stake in the land they have worked as slaves for so long.

I. The islands from Charleston, south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. Johns river, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the settlement of the negroes now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States.

II. At Beaufort, Hilton Head, Savannah, Fernandina, St. Augustine and Jacksonville, the blacks may remain in their chosen or accustomed vocations -- but on the islands, and in the settlements hereafter to be established, no white person whatever...will be permitted to reside; and the sole and exclusive management of affairs will be left to the freed people themselves, subject only to the United States military authority and the acts of Congress. By the laws of war, and orders of the President of the United States, the negro is free and must be dealt with as such. He cannot be subjected to conscription or forced military service, save by the written orders of the highest military authority of the Department, under such regulations as the President or Congress may prescribe. Domestic servants, blacksmiths, carpenters and other mechanics, will be free to select their own work and residence, but the young and able-bodied negroes must be encouraged to enlist as soldiers in the service of the United States, to contribute their share towards maintaining their own freedom, and securing their rights as citizens of the United States....

III. Whenever three respectable negroes, heads of families, shall desire to settle on land, and shall have selected for that purpose an island or a locality clearly defined, within the limits above designated, the Inspector of Settlements and Plantations will himself, or by such subordinate officer as he may appoint, give them a license to settle such island or district, and afford them such assistance as he can to enable them to establish a peaceable agricultural settlement....

V. In order to carry out this system of settlement, a general officer will be detailed as Inspector of Settlements and Plantations, whose duty it shall be to visit the settlements, to regulate their police and general management, and who will furnish personally to each head of a family, subject to the approval of the President of the United States, a possessory title in writing, giving as near as possible the description of boundaries; and who shall adjust all claims or conflicts that may arise under the same....The same general officer will also be charged with the enlistment and organization of the negro recruits, and protecting their interests while absent from their settlements; and will be governed by the rules and regulations prescribed by the War Department for such purposes.

By Order of Major General W. T. Sherman

John Wilkes Booth, one of the nation's most famous actors (and a favorite of Lincoln's), and eight other individuals conspire to kidnap President Lincoln in exchange for Confederate POWs.

Congress establishes the Freeman's Bureau, on 3 March, to protect the interests of freed slaves. The Bureau is to help them find new employment and improve educational and health facilities. In its first year, the Bureau spends $17,000,000 establishing 4,000 schools, 100 hospitals, and providing homes and food for former slaves.

On April 11, President Lincoln addresses a drunken, joyous Northern crowd. Instead of a rousing speech focused on a harsh, punitive stance against the defeated South, however, Lincoln declares that the war is not quite over and calls for a 'soft peace'. This angers many Northerners, who want revenge hangings, confiscation of Southern property, and total humiliation of the Confederacy.
In the same speech, Lincoln also declares his intention to "give the vote to the very intelligent Negroes, and those Negroes who served in the army."
Audience member John Wilkes Booth fumes: "That's it, that means nigger citizenship. This is his last speech!" At some point, the conspirators decide to kill Lincoln.

There are now more than 1500 oil wells around Titusville, PA, alone. Oil is so close to the surface, and refining it into kerosene so easy, that practically anyone can get into the business. John D. Rockefeller, with a philosophy of: If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em, begins to buy existing refineries and creates a oil monopoly.

Booth and his co-conspirators plan to do more than just kill the President; they intend to completely decapitate the Northern government. On Good Friday, the 14th, Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. Shortly before Lincoln is shot, VP Andrew Johnson returns to his hotel room. His assassin is in the room above him, with a simple plan to knock on Johnson's door and plunge a Bowie knife into his chest; he allegedly gets cold feet and abandons the plan.
[NOTE: John Wilkes Booth had earlier left a note for the Vice President at the hotel; it read: 'Don't wish to disturb you; are you at home? Signed, J. Wilkes Booth'. Some historians claim the note is left to falsely implicate Johnson in the conspiracy, while others believe that the note implicates Johnson and explains why he both remains unscathed and later pardons three of the conspirators]

Louis Powell, a third conspirator, enters Secretary of State William Seward's home. Enroute to Seward's bedroom, Powell attacks five people in the house. When he finds Seward, Powell stabs him five times; Seward survives only because he's sleeping with a metal neck-brace (recently installed after a serious carriage accident).
All the conspirators are eventually captured; all but three shot or hanged. American history books, however, focus almost invariably on Lincoln's assassination alone, and portray Booth as a 'disturbed loner'- a label that will be applied, almost without exception, to every actual or would-be Presidential assassin in US history.

Andrew Johnson becomes the new President. Johnson and Lincoln had not enjoyed a close relationship; in fact, Johnson met with Lincoln only twice since the Inauguration. Johnson is a Southerner who had claimed loyalty to the Union. This is considered the primary reason Lincoln chose him as a running mate, even though he had a reputation as a racist, a boozer and a buffoon.

1866 Gregor Mendel publishes a theory of how traits are transmitted genetically, but his work is ignored and forgotten for decades.

Attempts by Congress to extend the powers of the Freemen's Bureau, and thus continue the assimilation of former slaves ino the American culture, are vetoed by President Johnson in February.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 grants citizenship, and the same rights enjoyed by white citizens, to all male persons in the US "without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude." The bill is designed to protect freed slaves from Southern 'Black Codes,' ie, laws that severely restrict freed slaves by prohibiting them from voting, sitting on juries, testifying against white men, carrying weapons in public places, and/or working in certain occupations.
President Andrew Johnson's veto of the Civil Rights Act is overturned by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress, and the bill becomes law.

After black men are given the vote, they elect hundreds of black legislators to state and national offices, even though many of the elections are tainted by threats and violence. New black politicians, like Mississippi's John Roy Lynch, pass ambitious civil rights and public education laws.

The first branch of the Ku Klux Klan is established in Pulaski, TN. Most of the leaders are former Confederate Army soldiers; the first Grand Wizard is Nathan Forrest, a brilliant Southern Civil War general.

1867 The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is passed by Congress, granting equal protection to all citizens, including recently freed slaves. Most Southern states refuse to ratify the amendment. This fuels the Radical Republican movement (consisting of Southern Congressmen who are ideologically equivalent to today's progressives). Radical Republicans urge the passing of even stronger legislation to impose these civil rights measures on the former Confederacy.

Congress passes the first Reconstruction Act, which divides the South into five military districts- each under a general's rule. New elections are to be held in each state, with freed male slaves being allowed to vote. The Act also offers readmission to Southern states after they ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, and guarantee adult male suffrage. President Andrew Johnson immediately vetoes the bill, but Congress re-passes it the same day.

Racist violence flares against black voters. Congress sends the Union Army to oversee Reconstruction and the new elections. A furious President Johnson seizes control of the Army in an attempt to block intervention in the South- leading to eight Articles of Impeachment against him.

1868 During the next two years Klansmen, wearing masks and white cardboard hats and draped in white sheets, torture and kill black Americans, sympathetic whites and immigrants. Between 1868 and 1870 the Ku Klux Klan play an important role in restoring white-supremist rule in North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia.

Andrew Johnson's Presidency survives his impeachment trial by one vote.

1869 English psychologist Francis Galton, half-cousin to Charles Darwin, publishes Hereditary Genius. Later acclaimed as being the first major document of the modern Eugenics movement, it stresses that the upper classes should be encouraged to have children, while the lower classes should be induced, or compelled, to have fewer. He expands on Darwin's theories in an attempt to prove that mental attributes are hereditary, and conducts the first word association test.

1870 Friedrich Nietzsche concludes that man should see his 'will' as his primary purpose, and use it to develop ultimate potential and power while rejecting religious 'limitations' of morality, ethics, etc.

1873 Henry Maudsley recommends that societies search for, and use new technology to weed out "physical signs...which betray degeneracy of stock...any malformations of the head, face, mouth, teeth and ears. Outward defects and deformities are the visible signs of inward and invisible faults which will have their influence in breeding."

1875 The last biracial US Congress of the 19th century passes the Civil Rights Act of 1875. It protects all Americans' access to public accommodations such as restaurants, theaters, trains and other public transportation, as well as the right to serve on juries. However, the Act is little-enforced, and the Supreme Court will declare it unconstitutional in 1883.

1879 Thomas Edison gives his first public demonstration of the incandescent light bulb.

Andrew Mellon leaves college to organize a lumber business with his brother, Richard B. Mellon.

The party affiliation of Presidents matters little in the last quarter of the 19th century, as American political culture is dominated by both laissez-faire- an economic doctrine that opposes governmental regulation of, or interference, in commerce, and social Darwinism- the notion that millionaire capitalists, and the ruling class in general, represent the ultimate evolution in a 'survival of the fittest' selection process.
[NOTE: Social-Darwinism will experience a rebirth of sorts in the 1990's, with the publishing and right-wing promotion of such pseudo-scholarly tomes as Losing Ground and The Bell Curve.]

1880 Inventor-entrepreneur Solomon Dresser founds Dresser Industries during the nation's first oil boom. A patent for a cylindrical packer launches Dresser's oilfield products manufacturing business. In the next century, Dresser will be managed by Prescott Bush Sr and owned by Halliburton.

John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil now controls 80% of America's kerosene refineries.

The US Senate becomes essentially a House of industry leaders. Two Senators from each state are chosen by legislators, not by voters. Quoting one historian, the Senate consists of: Standard Oil Senators, sugar-trust Senators, iron and steel Senators and railroad Senators- all men known for their business associations rather than for their efforts on behalf of their constituents.
This new kind of aristocracy- made of monopolists rather than courtiers- exacerbates America's imbalance of weath and power and promotes the notion that government should neither interfere with the market machinations of the rich, nor intervene on behalf of the downtrodden. State child labor laws, for example, are routinely labeled as improper governmental interference and overturned by the courts.

Much of the rural US is in deep economic depression, giving rise to numerous populist parties and politicians; most of these grass-roots groups, however, are poorly financed, easily quashed, and make little political headway.

1883 The US Supreme Court declares the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. It will take nearly another century for Civil Rights legislation to become law in the US, aided and abetted (ironically enough) by another VP Johnson-turned-President-after-assassination.

1886 Philadelphia-based Brown Brothers' American Steamship has become better known as the American Line, and serves the Liverpool-New York route; it also contracts with a travel agency for immigrants in Hamburg, Germany. The Brown Brothers buy the Hamburg Carr-Line, creating the Hamburg-Amerika Line.

When Thomas Mellon retires, his two sons take over the banking firm, now called Thomas Mellon and Sons.

1888 Self-proclaimed mystic Madame Helena Petrova Blavatsky publishes The Secret Doctrine, in which she describes seven stages of human evolution. Included among these developmental levels are the Lemurian, Atlantean and Aryan races. Blavatsky writes that the Aryans founded Grecian culture, and are the race destined to lead mankind into the next phase of its evolution. She asserts that the swastika is a symbol of Aryan supremacy, and hers is the first publication in Germany to carry the swastika on its cover.

1889 Andrew Mellon establishes the Union Trust Company of Pittsburgh, later to become one of the largest financial institutions in the United States. Next he founds the Union Savings Bank, a subsidiary of UTC.

1890 Increasing public opposition to the market stranglehold of monopolies leads Congress to pass the Sherman Anti-trust Act. The Act, exercising Congress's constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce, declares illegal all contracts, business ownership combinations (trust or otherwise), or conspiracies that result in restraint of interstate and foreign trade.
The Sherman Act authorizes the federal government to institute proceedings against trusts, ie, monopolies, in order to dissolve them, but Supreme Court rulings prevent federal authorities from effectively utilizing the Act.

1891 Henry Ford, age twenty-seven, lands a position as an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company; he'll work eight years for Edison, until breaking away to form his own company.

1892 The People's Party, better known as 'The Populists,' hold their founding convention. The members of the Party are mainly cotton and wheat farmers from the recently reconstructed South and the newly settled Great Plains. In the midst of an expanding industrial America, the Populists face falling prices for their crops on one hand and skyrocketing interest rates, freight charges and supply costs on the other. Their platform- issued on the 4th of July- angrily declares:
"We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot box, the [state] legislatures and the Congress, and touches even the bench. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few."

Predictably, the Populists are denounced, feared and mocked as fanatical hayseeds ignorantly playing with socialist fire. They get twenty-two electoral votes for their candidate in '92, plus some Congressional seats and state houses, but the Party will not gain in power or membership.

1894 Formation of the Immigration Restriction League in Boston. The organization consists of wealthy lawyers, teachers and philanthropists seeking to limit the flood of immigration from southern and eastern Europe. Many of the Leagues members subscribe to Eugenics principles, and consider a majority of the immigrants inferior beings.

1895 Adolf Jost publishes The Right to Death, wherein he states that the decision of an individual's life or death must ultimately belong to the social organism called the State.

1896 On June 4, Henry Ford completes his first gasoline-powered motor car, after more than two years of experimentation. He dubs his creation the "Quadricycle," so named because it rolls on four bicycle tires.

The robber barons and the Trusts unite behind Ohio Congressman (R) William McKinley's 1896 Presidential campaign. Senator Mark Hanna, chairman of the Republican National Committee, invents the first truly national campaign fundraising machine, setting precise assessments for contributions from banks and other businesses that fear Democrat William Jennings Bryan's populist appeal. Hanna, who famously quips: "There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can't remember what the second one is," raises $7 million for McKinley (about $150 million in today's dollars).
[NOTE: By comparison, Bush's expected $200 million for the 2004 Election cycle will total more than all the private money raised by the Republican Presidential nominees since Watergate, adjusted for inflation. It's not for nothing that Karl Rove describes Mark Hanna as his political hero.]

On December 12, 1896, The Coming Nation publishes this article:

On This Appeal He Was Elected Twenty-fifth President of the United States
Fellow Citizens: We the people of the United States are not now in a state of prosperity. Furnaces have blown out, mills and factories shut down, merchants and traders are bankrupt, millions are out of work and have no means of livelihood. Poverty and misery prevail in the land.
The cause is distrust. Moneyed men have lost confidence. There can be no prosperity for you until confidence is restored. Capitalists must be confident that they see a chance to make money. You are completely in their power. You can do nothing without capital. When capitalists find it in their interest they will give you prosperity. Capitalists are the masters in this land, the arbiters of your fate....

These, your masters, demand two things of you as the condition of allowing you to enjoy prosperity:
First--Sound money; that is, money which is scarce and dear, of high purchasing power.
Second--Protection; that you buy your goods of them and give up your right to buy in any market which they do not control.
... Elect me! I will see that their demands are met. I WILL OPEN THE MILLS! Money shall be scarce and dear, and you shall buy only of them. I have no doubt that this will conciliate them and that they will allow you to have prosperity.

The US Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that designating separate railway cars for whites and blacks is constitutional, as long as the facilities are 'equal.' The 'separate but equal' doctrine stands until 1954, when a more liberal Supreme Court orders school desegregation in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
[NOTE: A federal bill protecting civil rights won't become law until 1957, three-quarters of a century after the 1875 Civil Rights Act.]

Connecticut, home of Yale University, becomes the first US state to adopt Eugenics legislation by regulating marriages on an 'inherited traits' basis.

1897 The Zionist movement organizes in Basel, Switzerland. Zionism's goal is to establish "for the Jewish people a home in Palestine, secured by public law."

Houston Stewart Chamberlain, student of Aryan Supremist Arthur Count de Gobineau, is summoned to the Kaiser's court in Germany. Chamberlain urges the elimination of Jews and other racial aliens from Germany, as well as the establishment of a Teutonic religion founded on the sacred mystery of Aryan blood.

1898 Chemists at the Bayer pharmaceutical company in Germany alter the morphine molecule slightly, creating heroin, which is widely promoted as a cough remedy.

A Eugenics-inspired sterilization bill is introduced in the Michigan Legislature, allowing castration of all inmates of the Michigan Home for the Feebleminded; the mentally retarded in general; epileptics; and third time felons.

Twenty-four male children in Massachusetts are castrated for "persistent epilepsy and masturbation" and "masturbation with weakness of mind" among other forms of behavior.

Stock broker E.H. Harriman gains control of the Union Pacific Railroad with credit arranged by Standard Oil's William Rockefeller. Harriman's subsequent railroad empire is due to the patronage of John D.Rockefeller- Harriman's railroad transports Rockefeller oil. George H.W Bush's paternal grandfather, Samuel P. Bush, social climber and owner of Ohio's Buckeye Steel Castings Co, manufactures steel bearings and other parts for Harriman's railroad cars.

1899 Houston S. Chamberlain publishes The Foundations of the 19th Century, further defining Aryan superiority, holding the German race to be a bastion of Aryan purity, and condemning Jews and Negroes as inferior. He will later marry Richard Wagner's daughter.