Republicans have made red-baiting into a cottage industry for generations. So I thought I would devote this post labor day Marxist IQ to the “forgotten” revolutionary history of the Republican party, to show how things can change. All of these examples were once true, however difficult that may be for most people today to believe.
1. A number of active early Communists, German refugees from the Revolutions of 1848, played a significant role in the first years of the Republican party and in the Union Army during the Civil War. Which one among the following became a major leader of the Republican party in Missouri during the Civil War while he corresponded regularly with Karl Marx
a. Herman Welker
b. Adophe Coors
c. Joseph Weydemeyer
d. Wilhelm Weitling
2. This Republican Senator and Governor more than a century ago fought to break up the trusts, tax the corporations and the rich, and supported unions, public higher education and social welfare legislation, a policy he called “economic democracy’
a. Chris Christie, Sr
b. George Pataki, Sr
c. Robert La Follette, Sr
d. Mitch Daniels, Sr
3. This New York Mayor, initially elected as a Republican, fought for the rights of workers, tenants, minorities, and the poor, calling himself a “Lincoln Republican” and joking that many of his fellow Republicans knew as much about Lincoln as the anti-Semitic corporate leader Henry Ford knew about the Jewish Talmud, a statement more true today than ever
a. Edward I Koch
b. Fiorello La Guardia
c. Rudolph Giuliani
d. Abraham Beame
4. Since the early 20th century, however, most progressives who began as Republicans switched parties, either by choice or because they were driven out of the Republican party. Which one of the following politicians, initially elected as a Republican would not be an example of this
a. Wayne Morse
b. George Norris
c. Michael Bloomberg
d. John V. Lindsay
5. If Frederick Douglass, an early member of the Republican party came back to earth, he would most probably see today’s Republicans as
a. still the party of “free soil, and free labor”
B. A cross between thechauvinistic Know Nothings and the pro slavery Democrats of his time
c. a party of revolutionaries fighting for no taxation without representation
d committed to protecting American labor and industry from foreign competition
On the labor day IQ, Doug Smiley was right in his answers, although I did make a slight mistake on question one--Gompers did support the Holiday, but so did Peter McGuire, who was much more of an activist than Gompers and who was eventually ousted from his leadership of the carpenters by a conservative business unionist more in line with Gompers
answers
1. c or d is acceptable
2. d
3.c
4.d
5. The second c, another mistake on my part for what should have been d
