Funny, the inaccurate history that some of these comments give. The last comment from March 19, 2013 attempts to correct them, but doesn't make it very clear what he is saying. Seems to expect people will pay attention long enough to compare what he said with what they said.
He's saying that the song was not written right after World War I ("The Great War" it was called, before Word War II happened)
World War I ended in 1918. This song was written in 1931.
It was not written about Theodore Roosevelt paying or not paying the soldiers the money they were owed for fighting in WWI. Theodore Roosevelt was President from 1901-1909. World War I hadn't started yet. WWI took place from 1914 to 1918. Theodore Roosevelt died in 1919. Googling this matter of the soldiers not getting paid in WWI, I see that this is not true. Soldiers were paid in for fighting in both world wars.
FRANKLIN, not Theodore Roosevelt was President around the time this song was popular. Franklin Roosevelt saved the country from the Great Depression. (something that current (2015) Republicans don't like to admit.) because he did so by putting the unemployed to work creating great public works, like dams.
This song IS about the people of this country fighting WWI, building railroads and cities, and now finding themselves jobless and poverty stricken. This happened because of the mishandling of money by the rich, similar to how it has been mishandled recently by Republicans, and Republican policies. After the Great Depression, anti-trust laws were instituted. They kept big businesses from joining with other big businesses and muscling the small businessman out of the competition. When there is nothing but big corporations and no small businesses, they can charge whatever they want for goods. Anti-trust laws have been ignored. The recent Trans Pacific Partnership is horrifying to me and should be to any American. How is a small business in America supposed to compete with businesses in other countries where the worker is paid one tenth or less of what the American worker is paid. You see now that more and more people should be singing this song. How many people's parents worked and worked to buy a house to leave to their kids—and those houses are gone. The kids didn't get them, they live in apartments.
So that is what this song is about. The people working their fingers off and getting nothing for it—stolen from them by the rich. Except they did not know what happened to it, just that it was gone. Now we know—what happened in the cash of 1929 has been analyzed.
Obama has been a pretty good President. There is nothing more ridiculous, there has been nothing as ridiculous in the history of this country as the shark, Donald Trump, actually the front runner in the Republican campaign. The country continues to march toward disaster, as the rich involve us in more wars to distract us from the fact that 1 % of the population owns 99 % of the wealth of this country. This is America? This is a democracy? The people of America voted for THIS? I don't think so.
Funny, the inaccurate history that some of these comments give. The last comment from March 19, 2013 attempts to correct them, but doesn't make it very clear what he is saying. Seems to expect people will pay attention long enough to compare what he said with what they said.
He's saying that the song was not written right after World War I ("The Great War" it was called, before Word War II happened)
World War I ended in 1918. This song was written in 1931.
It was not written about Theodore Roosevelt paying or not paying the soldiers the money they were owed for fighting in WWI. Theodore Roosevelt was President from 1901-1909. World War I hadn't started yet. WWI took place from 1914 to 1918. Theodore Roosevelt died in 1919. Googling this matter of the soldiers not getting paid in WWI, I see that this is not true. Soldiers were paid in for fighting in both world wars.
FRANKLIN, not Theodore Roosevelt was President around the time this song was popular. Franklin Roosevelt saved the country from the Great Depression. (something that current (2015) Republicans don't like to admit.) because he did so by putting the unemployed to work creating great public works, like dams.
This song IS about the people of this country fighting WWI, building railroads and cities, and now finding themselves jobless and poverty stricken. This happened because of the mishandling of money by the rich, similar to how it has been mishandled recently by Republicans, and Republican policies. After the Great Depression, anti-trust laws were instituted. They kept big businesses from joining with other big businesses and muscling the small businessman out of the competition. When there is nothing but big corporations and no small businesses, they can charge whatever they want for goods. Anti-trust laws have been ignored. The recent Trans Pacific Partnership is horrifying to me and should be to any American. How is a small business in America supposed to compete with businesses in other countries where the worker is paid one tenth or less of what the American worker is paid. You see now that more and more people should be singing this song. How many people's parents worked and worked to buy a house to leave to their kids—and those houses are gone. The kids didn't get them, they live in apartments.
So that is what this song is about. The people working their fingers off and getting nothing for it—stolen from them by the rich. Except they did not know what happened to it, just that it was gone. Now we know—what happened in the cash of 1929 has been analyzed.
Obama has been a pretty good President. There is nothing more ridiculous, there has been nothing as ridiculous in the history of this country as the shark, Donald Trump, actually the front runner in the Republican campaign. The country continues to march toward disaster, as the rich involve us in more wars to distract us from the fact that 1 % of the population owns 99 % of the wealth of this country. This is America? This is a democracy? The people of America voted for THIS? I don't think so.