Author Chris Brady's Leadership Blog

The Curse of Wealth Unearned

Whenever modern situations become worrisome, it is nearly always instructive to peer back into history for perspective and understanding. With the crazy, off-the-wall economic policies of the current United States government, there are many historical events from which one can draw context. One such moment in time is the monarchy of Spain during the 1500s. See for yourself if there are not parallels inumerous.

In the late 1400's, explorations for gold and passages to the east produced the discovery of what became known as the New World. Spain quickly edged out Portugal as the dominant player in this game throughout much of the 1500s, and literally tons of gold and silver made its way across the Atlantic from the infamous Spanish Main in Mexico, Latin and South America to the coffers in Seville, Spain. There were many unfortunate effects of this, such as the near total decimation of the Inca and Mayan native populations, as well as the instigation of the African slave trade. First the natives, and increasingly so the Africans, were needed to man the mines. As a result of this system, massive amounts of gold and silver were hauled across the Atlantic and into Europe. Some estimates say that this amount was so enormous that the total of precious metal in Europe at the end of the 1500s was more than five times what it was at the beginning of that century when the New World was discovered!

It would be logical to deduce that Spain became one of the richest nations in the world as a result of this massive influx of wealth. But interestingly, and very educationally, this was not the case.

What happened?

Author Peter L. Bernstein writes:

"Once the gold began arriving in quantity, the Spanish were far more proficient at spending than at producing. The massive imports of gold and silver stimulated the spending skills at the same time that they stifled Spain's incentive to produce. Spain acted like a poor man who makes a great windfall at the gambling tables but comes to believe that the money is his destiny rather than a nonrecurring event . . . . Late in the century the . . . Parliament declared, 'The more of [gold] that comes in, the less the Kingdom has. . . Though our kingdoms should be the richest in the world . . . they are the poorest, for they are only a bridge for [the gold and silver] to go to the Kindgdoms of our enemies.' Another Spanish observer, Pedro de Valencia, wrote, 'So much silver and money . . . always has been fatal poison to  republics and cities.  They believe money will keep them and it is not true: plowed fields, pastures, and fisheries are what give sustenance.'  Gold has always been associated with power. Once the kings of Spain realized how much new wealth the discoveries of gold in the American colonies would bring them, they convinced themselves that their wealth was great enough to bend the world to their will.'"

An apt analogy would be of 'second generation wealth.' It is almost a cliche that sons squander their father's wealth, thinking that they have somehow, by eating at the same table, sleeping under the same roof, and being sufficiently 'talked at' by the patriarch, been bestowed the 'magic touch' which their father used to produce the wealth in the first place. The squandering of the father's empire in such cases is so common as to be almost a rule. This is because there is no 'touch' of greatness, nor family superiority, nor endowments or bestowed rights, there are only the laws of success. And those laws are almost immediately broken by a son taking over the reigns of a great empire for which he was not forced to labor to create nor strive to earn. The violation of the earning principle produces harsh results and even harsher lessons. Sorry golden boys.

Another comparison, and the one that inspired this article, is made to the current United States government and its hubris and arrogance in thinking it has found its own Spanish Main in the printing of free money by the Federal Reserve banking scam (er, um, I mean banking system). Having arranged for itself a tidy little sitaution in which it can produce currency out of nothing, the government has taken to acting like the monarch of sixteenth century Spain, with figurative ships laden with "bailout money" and "earmarks." Our bureaucratic government has taken leave of its senses in a 'gold fever' all its own creation, thinking it can disdain major industrial and agricultural infrastructures while gifting billions of dollars in bailouts to its partners in banking complicit in its schemes. Worse, it seems to think it can foist this on an American citizenry without ramifications, as though Americans are naive Incas or backward Mayans.

Tellingly, however, the Incas were not naive, only trusting. The Mayans were not backwards, only fooled into thinking the Spaniards were gods. Today, Americans, or at least some of them, seem to be falling into the same traps of the Incas and the Mayans: too trusting of the government, and somehow duped into believing in political messiahs. To continue such foolishness will result in the same fate as the indiginous peoples of Latin and South America; decimation.

But America cannot stand upon its stolen spending power any more than Spain could stand upon its stolen treasure. Wealth unearned bears with it a curse. Instead, as Peter Schiff said, "Consumption is made possible by production and credit is made possible by savings." Government economic shenanigans are no substitute, but rather a drug taken to defer the pain until later, at which time the pain is even greater.

  

Actions Accumulate - Caesar Augustus

Gaius Octavius was born in 63 B.C.. Nephew to acting dictator of Rome, Julius Caesar, Gaius was (unbeknownst to anyone until after Caesar's death) named Caesar's adopted son and heir.  Only eighteen years old at the time, he was instantly a wealthy man, and had the additional clout of his adopted father's name.  In ancient Rome, however, this was not enough.  The country was not yet run as a dynastic empire, and birth was no guarantee of ascent to power.  Competing factions in the senate and former advisors and consuls to Rome jockeyed for position.  Nobody gave the young teenager much credit, and few would have predicted his determined rise to power.  Eventually, Gaius Octavious, later known as Cae sar Augustus (for which the month of August is named), became Rome's first and longest ruling emporer.  His efforts effectively killed the last remnants of Republican Rome and ushered in the approximately five-hundred year Age of Empire.  The story of his patient, brilliant, and ruthless rise to his position as the most powerful man in the world is gripping and as racey as a soap opera.  Leadership lessons abound in his long and storied career.

One prominant feature of Augustus's life is his incredible ability to hold the long-term view of things.  While others sought short term fixes, Octavius was patient enough to manuever for long-term solutions.  Opposed by powerful and ruthless men (and treacherous women working behind the scenes), Augustus was able to take one step at a time, carefully and deliberately, until he was literally the last man standing in the quest for power.

Perhaps the biggest thing a leader can learn from the life of one of the world's most successful leaders is Augustus's ability to compound the effects of his actions over a long period of time.  Augustus had the rare ability to pile one forward move on top of another, and spent very little time doing what most average men do in wasting their lives re-doing the same things over and over again.  Augustus rarely squandered a resource or opportunity, and used every advance as a stepping off point for another one. Most people do not operate this way.  Power-thirst and ruthlessness aside, Augustus is a great example for efficient use of our time and resources as leader.

Our money, our time, our relationships, our connections, our reputation, our name, our education, and our abilities are all assets that can help us advance througout our lives.  Sadly, however, many waste and squander much of this "capital" along the way.  We blow our money, sabatoge our relationships, deconstruct our credibility, tarnish our name, refuse to continue or utilize our educations, and fail to manage and cultivate our connections.  In so doing we find ourselve having to cover the same ground again and again.  We have to earn money to replace that which we spent so unwisely.  We seek new relationships because we haven't been able to sustain or grow the old ones.  We make new connections because people have stopped trusting us.  We are forced to learn the same lessons over and over again.  This is like an army that charges up a hill and successfully pushes the enemy off, only to endure a self-inflicted retreat back down to charge that same hill once again!  As Orrin Woodward says, "Some people who have been doing something for thirty years with little to show for it cannot claim they have thirty years experience.  They have one year's experience thirty times!"

The best leaders leverage all that they have to get everything they want.  This requires a long term view, a respect for the assets in their possession, and an ability not to sabatoge their own progress.  Life is too short to learn the same lessons over and over again, or to re-do what has previously been done.  Consistency is also key.  Effort upon effort, consistently applied over time, produces tremendous compound results.  Conversely, inconsistency is one of life's supreme inefficiencies.

In the end, success is largely a matter of hanging on after others have been shaken off.  It is also the accumulation of consistent effort over time.  The best leaders build an edifice out of their lives, taking steps each day to add to previous accomplishments.  The rest struggle in futile repeats.  We only get one life.  The choice is ours.

  

They Were There

"Why do you like history?" someone once asked, "It's so dull; dates and places and names I can't remember."

Somewhere along the line in this person's life he was given the wrong sample of the subject of history.  This led to a grave misunderstanding.  It would be like giving you an icecream sandwich that you spit out because you don't like the taste of the paper.  If no one ever unwrapped it properly for you, or taught you to do it for yourself, you might be stuck your whole life thinking icecream sandwiches taste like paper.

Amatuer teachers and poor writing have contributed to this effect as regards history and its interest.  There are few things quite as interesting, or "tasty" as history clearly presented.  History is not names and places and dates, although those features are present.  History is also not about politics and war and government, although these aspects seem to get a large share of the focus.  Rather, history is the consideration of life lived by others, in previous times, in differing circumstances than ourselves, but from the same human perspective.  History is the mystery of time, the wonder of others, and the finality and authority of God's laws all mixed together.  History is pain and suffering, joy and celebration, and relationships good and bad.  History is memory and tradition and lightness and darkness.  History is human nature and nature in juxtaposition.  History is a story told in old photographs, a myth told around campfires, the meaning in old-fashioned words.  History is real.  It happened.  And what makes it most interesting; it happened to them.

They will always be the most interesting part of it all; the ones before us.  They were the ones who lived it first hand.  Our ancient is their modern, our old was their new.  Our mystery of history was their reality.  Our fictions their truths.  I see them in yellowed photographs, staring blankly while holding still for a process that took minutes to our milliseconds.  I see them in their writings and their architecture and their art.  I see them in their descendents and their creations, and I see them in myself.  Each tragedy, each triumph, each dramatic scene, however painted by the sketchiness of the facts that remain to us, each of these were real and vivid to them.  They were not better than us, and they were not worse.  They were not backwards, and they were not always right.  But they do have one thing over us, an advantage we cannot claim until the wheel moves further round its axis, and that is the plain, solid fact that they were there.

This is where history comes alive for me.  I feel what it might have been like to have been amongst them.  I sense their fears and aspirations as they faced events blindly that we see through the adventageous lense of the passing of time.  I wonder at their decisions and choices, and yearn to learn from both their failures and weaknesses.  I stand in awe that God arranged to put them here before me, and wonder why it is so.  I think about why we are placed where we are, and when we are.  And I remember that many of them, an extreme many of them, if I understand the mathematics of the generations properly, were my ancestors.  Their blood is pumping through my vines.  We have inherited not only the very dirt upon which they have trod, but the very tour of duty they have already completed.  They have had their turn, and now we have ours.  As George Washington said to John Adams at Adams' inauguration, "Now I am fairly out and you are fairly in."  It is our turn, now.  Let's see if we can do any better at it than they did.  We do have an advantage, after all.  We can learn from them.  As long as we first take off the wrapper.            

The Lesson of Iniative - Part 2

Hawke’s Blockade of Brest

            Thirty-six years before Captain Pellew made his courageous interference with a French squadron escaping out of the harbor of Brest, another English captain was in a similar position.  The year was 1759, the pivotal year in the Seven Years War between France and Great Britain. Britain’s Royal Navy had grown in size and professionalism.  With a clear understanding that its objective was to rule the seas, the Royal Navy had taken a terrible toll on French shipping and commerce.  The English had been so successful that France was increasingly cut off from its colonies in Canada and the West Indies.   It was feared, correctly as it turned out, that without a turn in fortunes, Canada would be lost to the English.  Just as they had previously, and would again decades later, the French concluded that their best hope was an invasion of England.  Three years earlier, the mere assembling of a force to invade England had kept most of the Royal Navy close to home in the English Channel for protection, freeing French ships to sail where they pleased.  Perhaps the same result would occur again, allowing French fleets to supply the beleaguered soldiers in Canada.  Preparations for the invasion moved forward, with major activity taking place in the harbors of Brest and Quiberon Bay, France.    

            Admiral Sir Edward Hawke was in command of Britain’s Western Squadron, which had responsibility for the protection of the English coast.  Hawke had orders to cruise to Brest within fourteen days, check on French invasion preparations there, and return to a home port for reprovisioning.  When Hawke got to Brest, however, he was confronted with eleven full-size battle ships appearing capable of sailing out of the harbor at any time.  Hawke immediately decided to countermand his orders and began a close-blockade of the harbor. 

            Blockading an enemy harbor was not new.  Amassing a fleet of ships off the coast of an enemy port was an effective strategy, because the ships at sea had a distinct advantage over those that would try to come out of the port and engage in battle.  With the slow speeds of sailing ships, their reliance upon wind and its direction, and the large amount of space required to bring a fleet of ships into proper formation for battle, any fleet emerging from port into the waiting ships of an enemy blockade would be in for utter destruction. 

            Hawke, however, took the concept of close-blockade a step further than usual.  Already low on provisions, he knew he and his fleet could not last long outside the enemy port.  Water was in short supply, and it wouldn’t be long before all the other victuals would run out.  So Hawke initiated a system of re-supply at sea.  What sounds so obvious and simple to modern ears was actually quite revolutionary at the time.  Hawke sent ships back to English ports to obtain supplies, and had them rendezvous with various ships under his command out to sea.  The ships on blockade duty would then either go out in small groups to meet those ships for re-supply, or would have supplies brought to them.  This idea had been considered before, and even tried in limited ways, but never had met with much success or favor with commanders.  With Hawke, however, an aggressive and strategic commander, the concept worked remarkable well.

            Hawke’s close blockade effectively took the French fleet at Brest entirely out of the plans for invasion.  That was not all.  With the English ships on constant duty at sea, keeping watch over the trapped French ships, the morale of English sailors soared while that of the French plummeted.  There was just something intimidating about being trapped at harbor, watching an enemy off shore show its flag every day, baiting you to come out and fight.  Additionally, the English used their time to hone their skills, getting actual sailing time twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and practicing their gunnery.  The French were growing rusty while the English were growing strong.  Additionally, the French port was effectively blocked off from receiving any waterborne commerce or supplies.  The large French fleet there instead had to be sustained with expensive and slow overland operations. 

            According to author Peter Padfield, “This relentless grip on the enemy fleet base formed the cornerstone of a series of victories that year which established Great Britain as the final winner at sea and across the seas; as such it ranks among the most decisive naval campaigns in world history.”  And it all began with Hawke’s decision to cast aside his orders and pioneer the idea of a sustainable close-blockade.

             Finally, frustrated by the effectiveness of Hawke’s blockade, the French fleet made an ill-advised escape when winds were favorable to them and had blown the British out into the Atlantic.   It was the kind of move for which Hawke had been hoping.  With incredible decisiveness and almost reckless abandon, Hawke pursued the French south as they fled into QuiberonBay.   With terrible weather and dangerous rocks all around, and the day’s light fading quickly, Hawke charged ahead for the attack.  Padfield wrote, “The scene was the grandest in the long history of Anglo-French wars: under low skies darkened with lines of squalls, the two fleets drove down the spume-lathered swell from the Atlantic, ships heeling wildly as the wind gusted up and shifted a degree or so, tiers of canvas whipped taut, topmasts, t’gallants and slender stunsail booms quivering with the strain, weather rigging stretched bar-tight, timber groaning, water torn through the head gratings as the bows plunged, pressing out wide patterns of foam, the sea surging swiftly down the sides . . . Quiberon Bay . . . put an end to [king] Louis XV’s invasion plans and to his battle fleet, which ceased to exist as an effective fighting force.  The victory was a natural outcome of the close blockade which had preceded it . . . .”  Hawke’s victory at Quiberon Bay was total.  J. Creswell wrote, “It has been observed, with justice, that ‘no more courageous decision in the handling of a navy’s main battle fleet has ever been taken.’”    

Understanding and Application

            Being a sea captain in the nineteenth century was a picture of loneliness.  Far out to sea, separated from superiors and all lines of communication, with orders that were usually months old, these men were forced to rely upon their own judgment.  There was no one else on scene to guide their actions or concur with their decisions.  It is a beautiful picture of leadership. 

Leaders know that their very calling requires action, decision, and courage.  Often, leaders are confronted with facts that they don’t like, circumstances that put them at peril, and adversaries that mean them harm.  Further, there will not always be time to gather adequate intelligence before taking action, and the odds will not always be in a leader’s favor.  A leader takes stock of a situation, confronts brutal reality without denial or panic, and calculates the best plan of action.  Since time is almost always of the essence, leaders are normally faced with making decisions on their own.  Usually there just isn’t time for consultations and committee approval.  Then, once the leader makes a decision and takes action accordingly, he or she takes great pains to make the decision into a correct one.  As one lawyer stated, “I have never seen a case I couldn’t win, if properly handled, and I’ve never seen a case I couldn’t lose, either.”  A true leader makes a decision, and then works to make the decision right. 

In the course of “making it right,” leaders are often forced to improvise.  The incredible story of Cochrane and his tiny Speedy capturing the much larger El Gamo is a study in creative leadership and innovation.  Each time the battle turned against him, Cochrane was ready with a quick ruse or creative stroke.  He strung enough of these together fast enough to pull off an upset against incredible odds.  He made decisions quickly and confidently, then backed them with immediate action.  His innovative ruses then ensured that each previous decision didn’t turn out to be the wrong one.  Cochrane took initiative, created solutions, and progressed through the incredible drama with such alarming success that it enthused his crew to follow him boldly.  That’s the power of a leader’s initiative.

Hawke’s courageous decision to countermand his orders and blockade Brest, which he was unprepared to do, was bold enough.  But then creating a way to sustain his decision proved to be the master stroke.  It not only gave him an enormous strategic advantage over his enemy, but ultimately caused one of the most devastating battles in naval history.  It should also be noted, that Hawke’s innovation became a new standard of operation for the Royal Navy and a major weapon against the French in its own right.  The impact of Hawke’s methods of re-supply at sea and resulting long-term close blockade were used extensively in the later Napoleonic Wars to enormous effect.              

Action and the habit of initiative, in addition to developing a leader’s effectiveness, also tend to foster creativity.  Innovation in the face of adversity is a key component in the initiative required of a leader.  Where many people, when confronted with difficult circumstances, hesitate, gather more information, and seek to ask superiors for advice and assistance, leaders enact creative solutions and take action.  If there isn’t a ready-made solution, they invent one.  What others may perceive as a gamble, leaders understand to be a mere calculated risk.   In the face of superior odds, a leader must have the courage to innovate.

(To be Continued)

The Lesson of Initiative - Part 1

  One trait common to all leaders is initiative.  Leaders don't have to be told to do something, they don't need managers above them, and they don't wait for the all lights to turn green before departing on a trip.  Leaders take action, they take responsibility, and they don't take their time waiting and wondering if they should act.  There is an old line that there are three types of people in the world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened.  Leaders are the ones in the first group making things happen.  A component in initiative is the courage to act.  Another is decisiveness.  Leaders display a willingness toward action, seeing what needs to be done and doing it without further delay.  Initiative is not to be confused with recklessness.  Instead, it is a mixture of a spirit of enterprise, courage, and competent decisiveness.

Thomas Cochrane and the Capture of the Gamo 

            Englishman Thomas Cochrane’s first command was the tiny brig misnamed the Speedy.  It was actually quite slow and difficult to handle.  But this fact hadn’t stopped Cochrane and his crew from amassing an impressive string of victories, capturing scores of enemy vessels along Spain’s Mediterranean coast.  In fact, their successes had been so numerous that the crew of the Speedy was at about half strength, the remainder of the men having been sent off as “prize crews” responsible for sailing the captured crafts back to home ports.  There were barely enough men left on board to sail the ship.  The Speedy and its plucky commander had become more than a nuisance to the Spanish, whose trade had been significantly interrupted by the capture of nearly fifty ships in less than a year.

            On the one year anniversary of his command, Cochrane was in pursuit of two Spanish gunboats that fled into the harborof Barcelona.  Apparently acting as decoys, the gun boats led the Speedy into the path of a thirty-two gun Spanish frigate named El Gamo, which had been sent out in search of Cochrane.  The Gamo was four times the size of the Speedy, and had over three hundred sailors and marines on board compared to Cochrane’s mere fifty-four.  Whereas the Speedy had only fourteen guns, the El Gamo had thirty-two.  The capability of the guns was all out of proportion as well, with the broadside of the Gamo being 190 pounds to the Speedy’s 28 (a broadside was the total weight of shot capable of being fired from one side of a ship’s guns and was a common measure of firepower). 

Being too close to the larger ship to run for safety, Cochrane surprised his crew by deciding to turn and fight rather than surrender.  According to biographer Donald Thomas, “The one factor in Cochrane’s favour was the improbability of what he was about to do.  The officers of the Gamo would never believe that anyone but a lunatic would try to attack them with a brig whose mastheads hardly reached much above their own quarterdeck.”  Cochrane sailed in close to windward (the side offering the advantage of the wind), and to cause confusion, he flew the American flag.  Flying the colors of other countries, particularly a neutral like the United States, was a common ruse during the age of fighting sail.  Nonetheless, it caused hesitation on the part of the Gamo.  For the moment the menacing gun ports of the Spanish ship remained silent.  Then Cochrane turned the Speedy and came around on the leeward side of the Spanish (giving the Gamo the wind advantage); another move designed to confuse.  At this point, Cochrane quickly had his crew raise the British flag.

As the Speedy sailed closer at high speed, it somehow survived the first broadside of the larger ship.  This was by design.  Cochrane had surrendered the coveted “weather gauge” by giving the Spanish ship the windward position, and he purposely took the leeward side.  Although battle maneuvers were more difficult from that side, it was also harder for a ship in the Gamo’s position to fire at an enemy so close to leeward.  The wind heeled the ship over and shots were likely to go into the sea.

 

Cochrane told his men to hold their fire, and he instructed them to double-shot their guns.  This meant they would have less of a firing range, but would spew forth twice the amount of projectiles and have the potential for causing much more destruction.  “Grape” or “grapeshot” was a mixture of metal pieces and balls designed to scatter like a shotgun blast and inflict maximum damage to personnel and rigging.  A double-shot dose of it, properly aimed, would be deadly to all in its path.  It was risky to sail in close enough to use a double-shotted broadside, but it just might give the Speedy a chance.

 

A second broadside for the Gamo had no affect on the charging Speedy, which was approaching as though it meant to ram the bigger vessel.  Then there was a crash as the masts and rigging of the two ships entangled upon impact.  The Gamo’s guns fired again, but the shot went over the heads of all aboard the tiny Speedy and only damaged sails and rigging.  Finally, the Speedy aimed its comparatively little four-pounders as high as possible and fired.  Because of the angle of the shots, upward and through the Gamo’s gun ports, the effect was devastating.  The flooring under some of the Spanish guns was blown upwards as the grapeshot scattered in its deadly patterns. The captain of the Gamo was killed instantly.  The firing continued furiously from both sides, but because of the mismatch in size and gun position, the Speedy inflicted more damage.

Because of the ineffectiveness of their firing, soldiers aboard the Gamo made three attempts to “board” the Speedy and force a hand-to-hand fight.  Each time, however, Cochrane would let the Spanish assemble for the jump across, then maneuver his ship to widen the gap of ocean between.  Once perched in such a position, musket and small arms fire from the Speedy would wipe out the would-be attackers.

The fight continued in this manner for over an hour.  Then, according to Cochrane, “The great disparity of force rendering it necessary to adopt some measure that might prove decisive, I resolved to board.”  His men, in disbelief over what they had so far achieved, enthusiastically responded to this practically suicidal order.

Cochrane split his men into two groups, leaving only the ship’s surgeon aboard and at the wheel.  One group, with faces painted black for effect, went to the front and climbed aboard the Gamo from the bow.  The other, led by Cochrane himself, climbed straight up the side of the Spanish ship.  In the smoke, noise, and confusion, the Spanish were unnerved by the screaming black faces rushing at them from the front of their ship while they were engaged with attackers from the side as well.

 

In the tight quarters aboard the deck of the Gamo, the superior numbers of the Spanish could not be brought to full advantage.  Even so, Cochrane was not out of surprises.  In the middle of the melee, he called over to the only man left aboard the Speedy and instructed him, very loudly, to send the second wave of attackers.  Somehow the recipient of the bogus order managed to contain his surprise, and pretended to comply with loud shouts and orders to sailors who didn’t exist.  Many of the Spanish apparently concluded that the Speedy had been packed with Marines and the whole battle had been a trap. 

Next, someone noticed that the Spanish ensign was being lowered from the mast: the sign of surrender.  But it wasn’t the Spanish lowering it. Rather, it was one of Cochrane’s men who had previously been instructed to do so at a proper point in the struggle.  Before they could figure out that it was a trick, the disheartened Spanish, with their captain dead, laid down their weapons.  Afraid the Spanish would discover how few had defeated them, Cochrane and his men were quick to shuttle the Spanish below decks, where they were held in position with the Gamo’s two largest guns. 

The tiny little Speedy proceeded to the British port in Minorca towing a prize ship four times its size.  Donald Thomas wrote, “The Gamo should have been able to blow the Speedy out of the water before the British ship came near enough to fire a shot.  The Spanish troops should have been able to overwhelm the depleted crew of the brig as soon as she came alongside.  A man who was so foolish as to lead forty-eight seamen on board an enemy ship with a crew of more than three hundred ought to have found himself and his men prisoners within a few minutes.”  But it didn’t happen that way.  Instead, Cochrane had pulled off what Nathan Miller called “the finest single-ship action of the Napoleonic Wars.”

(To be continued)

The Desire to Secure Property - Taken to the Extreme

I recently came across a very scolarly work regarding slavery in early America and was fascinated by the interesting angle from which it analyzed that horrible institution.  I have chosen a few segments upon which to comment, my remarks in blue following each section.

A New Perspective on Antebellum Slavery: Public Policy and Slave Prices

Yanochihk, Ewing, Thornton

Atlantic Economic Journal, Sept. 2001

Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman [1974] revolutionized the economics of slavery and established the "capitalistic character" of antebellum slavery. They showed that the price of slaves and the profitability and long-run viability of slavery in the American South were based on economic factors such as the demand for plantation output, capital markets, and the entrepreneurial ability to organize slave labor and increase productivity. Fogel [1989, p. 11] recognized that "the slave economy did not operate in a vacuum. Both its original economic successes and its ultimate collapse were heavily influenced by the legal and political conditions." However, while Fogel [pp. 11, 201-417] places great emphasis on political forces in the destruction of slavery, he maintains that economic conditions were the overriding factors for explaining the success of the institution [pp. 60-80]. Many scholars have recognized the importance of the slave codes for determining the legal character of American slavery and the treatment that slaves received from their owners, but public policy and the slave codes continue to be ignored as a factor in the economics of slavery. [1]

This article posits that one of the over-riding reasons slavery continued to work in the south was because it was carefully established to remain economically viable.  This was done through several factors, but two that are rarely heard about are Public Policy and Slave Codes (using the government and the legal system).  The whole arrangement of slavery was for the "many" (slaves) to do all the work so that the "few" (slave owners) could be prosperous.  I guess it should not be surprising that the large plantation owners of the antebellum south used their clout, wealth, prestige, resources, and influence to bend the local laws to their advantage. 

The relationship between public policy and the profitability of antebellum slavery is explored here with an empirical investigation of the impact of manumission laws and slave patrol statutes on the market value of slaves. Empirical testing confirms that these public policies did have a sta tistically significant relationship with slave prices. These results provide a new perspective [2] on antebellum slavery: the profitability of slavery and the political institutions of slavery--the slave codes--were dependent on public choice. [3]

The more successful the wealthy slave owners were at getting statutes passed and using laws to "trap" slaves into their condition of bondage, the wealthier they became as a result.  In essence, the more trapped the slaves were, the more valuable they were to the wealthy plantation owners who amassed all the resultant wealth of production and shared almost none of it with the slaves.

The Political Economy of Slave Security

Economists John S. Mill [1987] and John Cairnes [1863] identified public policy and other institutions as important constraints on the value of slaves. They also recognized that monitoring slaves was the important variable in determining the efficiency and profitability of slave labor. Combining these insights, this paper investigates the role that public policy played in the monitoring of slaves and, thus, the economic viability of slavery in the Antebellum South.

Monitoring slave labor consists of both supervision and security. Productivity supervision is common to both free and slave labor and is necessary to prevent shirking and increase labor productivity. This type of monitoring includes direct supervision, the threat of punishment, output incentives, and other advanced management techniques. A central contribution of the new economic historians was to identify the supervision of labor in the gang system as the key to the productivity and efficiency of slave labor in the Antebellum South.

Security monitoring or policing was necessary to prevent slave labor from escaping and was unique to slave management. [4] Security monitoring to prevent the loss of slave capital has both internal and external functions. Internal security involved the use of lookouts, armed guards, spies, natural and artificial barriers to escape, as well as intimidation of slaves with guns and whips. External security consisted of resources to track down escaped slaves and discourage escape attempts. Internal security is a private sector function while external security can be both private and public.

Private external security included the use of free labor with guns, horses, and dogs to find and capture escaped slaves. Slave owners also posted reward notices, took out newspaper advertisements, and hired bounty hunters to track, capture, and return escaped slaves. Public external security consisted of laws and public policies that were designed to increase the cost and reduce the likelihood of successful escape. The slave codes were state statutes that provided public external security. [5]

The value of the whole system rested upon the ability to keep the slaves trapped.  To manage this, a complex arrangement of Internal and External controls were erected, over time.  First, there would be direct supervision and tight security provided by the slave owners themselves.  If any slave ever got caught fleeing, he or she would be brutally and publically punished, sometimes unto death.  The purpose of this was to deter the others from "getting notions of freedom."  In effect, Internal Control required a physical example that others who would try to escape could expect the same drastic fate.  External Controls were the contrivances of local laws, statutes, and even the sermons of local preachers, all which combined to ensure an external threat to slaves attempting escape.  Even if they could outrun the restrictions of bondage provided by their direct slave owner, "out there" awaited a system equally constructed to infringe upon their freedom.  In essence, to "get away" was not to escape, it would simply take the slave into the second ring of defense - the public system.

In addition to being the distinguishing feature of slave management, there are several reasons why security was crucial to the management of slave labor. First, the primary concern of any investor is the preservation of capital, and a single slave represented a substantial investment. Second, large-scale slave escapes or rebellions represented a great risk to other property such as homes, barns, and livestock as well as the lives of slave owners and their families. Thus, while the subject of supervision was relegated to agriculture and business journals, security issues such as the slave codes, the Dred Scott decision, and John Brown's Raid were topics of intense political and public debate. Indeed, Franklin [1952, pp. 52-3] has described the South as an "armed camp" and labeled the efforts to subjugate the slave population a "cornerstone of Southern civilization."

As is true of many enterprises, it is easier to secure for itself the prizes of its investment, rather than to risk it on the open market of competition.  Business history is full of examples of companies and leaders who, once having secured an asset or market share or whatever, suddenly leaves the realm of capitalism and begins scrambling for whatever means possible to secure their holdings and procure an advantage that doesn't have to continue to be earned in the free market. 

Notice how slave holders were fearful that a successful slave revolt could lead to a large-scale revolt, which would threaten their whole system.  It is a clear understanding of this that explains the barbarity with which a single escaped slave was treated.  In essence, the other slaves had to "see a dead body."  Otherwise, if escape, especially on a large scale, were ever shown to be possible, the remaining masses of slaves just might rise up together and escape en mass.  This, in effect, would topple the whole institution. 

Since the whole economy of the antebellum south was predicated upon extracting value from people against their will, the protection of this entrapment had to have top priority.  In fact, it is quite easy to speculate that more effort was placed on keeping, trapping, and enslaving the slaves than was expended in making them more productive, comfortable, or efficient.  Instead, slave owners placed their focus upon Internal and External means of keeping the slaves in bondage, rather than on becoming more competitive in an open market.

The Antebellum South is generally characterized as a free market, agricultural economy based on slave labor. Slave owners exploited the value of slave labor and benefitted from the rising world demand for cotton generated by the Industrial Revolution. However, slave owners were also in a position to control the political process. It has often been noted that slave owners had political power at the national level, and indeed, the history of the antebellum period centers on the conflicts and compromises between the slave power of the South and the mercantile interests in the North. Slave owners certainly had dominating political influence at the state and local levels.

One of the most effective ways of maintaining the bondage of slaves (and therefore their unfair economic advantage) was for wealthy plantation owners, many of them second and third generation, to use their influence in the public processes to enact laws to their advantage.  The more influence on the political process they could weild, the more External help they would have in keeping their institution protected.

While large-scale slave owners were not a majority, there is little question that they could control the political process. First, restrictive voting laws ensured that white male property owners dominated the electorate. Second, the economic power of slave owners surpassed that of nonowners. Third, the combination of slave owners and aligned interest groups suc h as financiers (bankers and factors), lawyers, brokers, and owners of transportation facilities ensured that slave owners could manipulate the political process to their own advantage. With respect to slave security issues, their power was reinforced by the general population's fear of slave uprisings and racist ideology.

Because of their wealth, large-scale slave owners could muster a disproportionate level of influence on the public policies of their state and local governments.  In effect, they had more power to help shape laws and control the various forms of government than anyone else.  Their wealth also opened doors with other powerful figures in what today would be called "special interest groups." 

Also, the wealthy plantation owners had successfully propagated a common public fear of a general uprising, so that, unwittingly, the non-wealthy local populations inadvertently added to the constraints on the freedoms of the slaves.  As long as an argument could be made to show how what was bad for the wealthy plantation owners was also bad for the "common, little guy," this process of mass exploitation could continue.

Slave patrol statutes were state laws that mandated local police patrols to examine the passes of traveling slaves, monitor slave meetings, enforce other aspects of the slave code, and capture escaped slaves. Naturally, these patrols enhanced the security of slave assets and reduced the private costs of security to slave owners. Public security against escape in effect extended the average work life of a slave at public expense, and this was expected to increase the capital value of slaves. [6]

The longer wealthy plantation owners could keep slaves trapped, the more valuable they were.  The more they could get external forces to work to their advantage, the more complete the encirclement of the individual slave.  The more the wealthy plantation owners could get the forces of government to do their work for them, the cheaper it became for them.  In effect, by employing the forces of public policy, the wealthy plantation owners were getting the government to help them trap slaves, and at a discounted rate!

Manumission laws restricted the right of a slave owner to grant freedom to slaves or to allow someone to purchase a slave's freedom. [11] The purpose of these laws was to prevent the emergence of a large, free black population who could facilitate the escape of slaves or help organize slave rebellions. Most importantly, black slavery in a free white society provided a distinct security advantage because slaves could be identified by the color of their skin. [12] If slave owners were allowed to free their slaves (or to sell them their freedom), then the proportion of free blacks would rise as it had in other slave societies. A large population of free blacks would reduce the security advantage of black-only slavery and drive down the profitability and the price of slaves. Generally, manumission laws did permit owners to free their slaves, but only if the slaves were exported to other states or to Liberia, a fact that emphasizes the security nature of such laws. [13]

Not only were wealthy plantation owners doing everything in their power to entrap their own slaves, but, in order to keep the whole house of cards standing, they had to infringe upon the rights of other slave owners to free their own slaves!  "Since I'm working so hard to keep mine trapped, you don't have the right to free yours!"  Notice how the motivation for this was how dangerous it would be to have a bunch of "free blacks" walking around.  This could lead to confusion as to who was free, and bring us right back to that old fear again of a general uprising.  The phrase for these genteel plantation owners was, "Once a slave, always a slave."  Notice how it also, once again, is all about profitability.

There is much more in this article by Yanochik, Ewing, and Thornton, but I have culled the main points for our purposes here.  For those interested in digesting the whole thing, I would encourage you to read it all here. 

Why this negative illustration from history?  What can someone on the journey of leadership development learn from all of this?

Benjamin Franklin once said, "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security deserves neither, and loses both."

This is true in an economic sense, as well.

Leaders must understand that the pursuit of "advantage" is a losing proposition.  What is gained in the battle of free enterprise cannot and should not ever be secured by means other than competition.  A leader must always guard against the tendency to arrive at a place only to "pull up the draw bridge" behind them.  Instead, real leaders must understand the need to stay in the battle, to be willing to continue doing the things that brought them success in the first place, and to resist the temptation to become more concerned about securing what they have than in advancing to new accomplishments.  Whenever "securing property" takes precedence over "fulfilling destiny," leaders are simply not leading anymore.  Worse, they are becoming weak and increasingly succeptable to becoming eclypsed by a new competitor who does not fear the battle of free competition.

African slavery in the Antebellum South is one of history's most glaring examples of what happens when men strive to secure for themselves an unfair advantage at the expense of others.  Protectionism, tariffs, import duties, and the like, in the economic world, weaken those who are "protected" until they no longer are fit to compete.  Their abilities grow so weak under this protected position that they become slaves themselves to the protections they have set up for themselves.  In other categories, the principles are true, as well.  Whenever someone tries to arrange "security" at the expense of competition, weakness results. 

In such cases, as Benjamin Franklin said, BOTH security and liberty are lost.

The wealthy plantation owners not only lost everything they had, including their entire way of life in a bloody civil war, but they will live on in the memories of time as some of the most vile, greedy, mostrous examples of ambition-gone-wrong.  By refusing to compete with the outside world on even terms, by enslaving human beings against their will, by manipulating the public system of laws and security to aid them in their efforts, they corrupted themselves and became one of history's "best" worst examples of leadership.

And those they enslaved, whipped, tortured and killed in an effort to suppress the thoughts of freedom and rebellion in the breasts of all the other slaves?  History remembers them with respect and admiration, for the dignity and perseverence they showed in unbelievable circumstances.  The scars from whips and chains, meant to deter and frighten, instead look to us like badges of courage and honor, and serve as a constant reminder of the evil man is capable of.

 

Nazi Propaganda

Throughout history, one of the key ingredients in waging an unjust war is the tight-fisted control of information to those whose support the tyrant was required to retain.  In order to wage an unjust war, and to make one's actions appear not only acceptable but justifiable, the tyrannical force needs to lay a continuing foundation of false beliefs upon which to operate. 

Perhaps the most dramatic example of this is what occurred under the Third Reich in Germany during World War II.  Adolph Hitler is famous for "the Big Lie" theory, which basically involves telling a lie so enormous that nobody would ever believe you would risk making up something so preposterous. 

The Nazi propaganda machine followed the strategy of mis-information to a tee.  First of all, it needed a scapegoat.  For this, they found the Jews.  Secondly, they needed an event.  For this, they had the Treaty of Versailles, which they famously thought was unfair and laid a harsh burden upon Germany for starting World War I (which it did, and which they did)! 

Armed with a focal point and a scapegoat, the Nazi propaganda machine spun into high gear, attempting to "spin" the story to fit its desired ends.  In doing so, the Nazis certainly satisfied the "Big Lie" theory, acting like they were only doing what was justified when in fact they were doing what was unimaginable. 

It all began with economics.  First, the Nazis blamed their financial woes on the Jews.  Instead of having to face the fact that they had started a World War, and were caught up in a depression that had not only engulfed Germany, but the entire world, the Nazis instead found it convenient to blame the Jews.  Instead of facing their own responsibility for the mess they were in and working on solutions, they found someone to blame. 

Next the Nazis built up the concept of "protection" from their enemies.  They understood the power of fear in making people take leave of their common sense, and they played upon it shamelessly.  After all, it is not easy to entice an entire civilization to butcher another (or to at least turn its head while it is happening), so to accomplish this, they needed to strike fear in the heart of the average German citizen.  This was accomplished by talking about the power of Germany's enemies, and the need to "protect" the people from these terrible enemies.  After all, hadn't Germany's enemies devastated the businesses of a number of German citizens?  Hadn't the enemies of Germany jeopardized the livelihoods of thousands of German people?  The Nazi party had gone to war because it had to, in order to protect the interests of innocent German citizens everywhere.  Wasn't the economic decline felt by Germany the fault of someone else? 

Further, the Nazi propaganda machine was designed to build morale, even when the Nazi cause was failing miserably, when the world was finding out about its shady, hidden operations, and when its armies were being crushed in the field.  The way this was done was by very craftily telling the German people over and over again that the Nazis were winning.  No matter what happened in the court of world opinion, the Nazi government would tell its trapped citizens that it was winning, and that anything that didn't appear to be a victory was either lies from its enemies, rumors, reverse-propaganda, or the like.  As long as the Nazi government could "spin" events into appearing to be victories, it thought it could keep its people fooled.

This whole strategy worked very well for a time.  But a house of cards cannot stand forever.  As the Allied armies pushed further into the German interior, and as the losses became more and more substantial, and as the failed ideology of blaming a nation's entire host of problems on a small group of people began to play itself out, the world was finally allowed a glance into a horror it could not have conceived.  As the truth became known, it was so despicable, so terrible, so horrifying, that one wonders how monstors like Joseph Goebbels (one of Germany's head propagandists), could sleep at night.  The lies, the mistreatment of an innocent people, the butchery, are a stain on Germany's (and mankind's) history that will never be erased or forgotten. 

Goebbels and Hitler and the Nazis are all dead and gone.  But the legacy of their lies remain.  And that becomes a lesson for any leader:

Lies outlive spin.

And as the Bible says, be sure that the truth will find you out.

Leaders everywhere can learn a valuable lesson from this negative example.  Leaders deal in truth, honesty, integrity, character, and what author Jim Collins calls "confronting brutal reality."  Anything less than this is not leadership.  And if it's not leadership, it's not worthy to be followed. 

Launching an Armada - Buyer Beware

Philip II of Spain's father was a brilliant soldier and statesman named Charles V, and when he passed on, he left the world's largest empire in the hands of his son.  Philip had been trained since childhood in the arts of leadership and diplomacy.  At age sixteen he was made Regent of Spain.  His "marriage of conquest" was to the Queen of England, Mary Tudor (known to history as "Bloody Mary" for her butchery of Protestants).  Philip was handed the world's largest empire, encompassing the largest territory, the most colonies, the best ports, and access to more natural resources than any other country.  But during his long reign, he would manage to squander away his position atop the world's heap of power, and through his mistakes, allow a fledgling little island country led by an indecisive Queen to plant the seeds that would grow into world dominance.

What happened?

You might not be surprised to learn that it came down to leadership.

A quasi-war of sorts had been waged between England and Spain for decades.  Queen Elizabeth's "gentleman pirates," including Francis Drake, John Hawkins, Walter Raliegh, Martin Frobisher, and Charles Howard, had pecked and picked away at Spain's holdings in the New World, and had managed to disrupt and even steal large amounts of South American treasure bound for Spain's coffers.  Drake's circumnavigation of the globe and capture of one of Spain's largest treasure galleons was only one example of the daring feats the English carried out at Spain's expense.  In the meantime, King Philip was behind numerous assassination attempts directly aimed at Queen Elizabeth, and the two countries were at war against each other for the religious choice of the people of the Netherlands. 

When Queen Elizabeth sentenced Mary, Queen of Scots, to death for treason (a confirmed assassination attempt on Elizabeth), it brought the two countries to the edge of declared war.  Philip began preparations to amass a large "armada" of ships that would sail in something called The Enterprise of England.  The "Enterprise" was supposed to be a secret plan to attack the island of England itself, but the large-scale buildup of supplies and ships in Spain's ports could hardly go unnoticed.  Sir Francis Drake was able to delay the launch of the Armada by at least a year by attacking and destroying a major fleet of ships and supplies in the port of Cadiz.

Then, somehow, peace negotiations were proferred.  Diplomats from both sides began testing the waters for terms of settlement.  Queen Elizabeth, despite violent opposition from nearly every one of her advisors, was extremely interested in a peaceful settlement.  England was a small island country, by no means able to match the enormous wealth and stature of Spain, and it had virtually no way to defend itself should armed forces actually land on her shores.  Queen Elizabeth was also a bit of a realist, and she understood the enormous cost of fighting the world's only Super Power in a protracted war.  For these reasons, she was able to make huge concessions for the peace process as long as they didn't compromise her principles and the things she had promised her people.

King Philip, however, was not disposed towards peace.  He sat atop the World's richest empire, its largest military, he held most of Europe under his control, he had recently annexed Portugal and with it enormous territory in the East Indies to add to his dominance in the West Indies.  According to author Neil Hanson, "Philip's correspondance shows that he gave not the slightest throught to any compromise.  He could have had peace in the Netherlands on several occasions, but [as Philip said himself], 'With regard to Holland and Zealand or any other province or towns, the first step must be for them to receive and maintain alone the exercises of the Catholic religion and to subject themselves to the Roman church, without tolerating the exercise of any other religion . . . There is to be no flaw, no change, no concession by convention or otherwise of liberty of conscience or religious peace, or anything of that sort.'" 

Although Elizabeth was all for the concession of allowing religious tolerance, Philip was dead against any "liberty of conscience" whatsoever.  It became a classic struggle of tyranny versus freedom of choice, of big versus small, Goliath pushing around David.  Again, according to Hanson, "[the entire conflict] was partly about money . . . partly about political and dynastic imperatives, and partly about the loss of face that Philip had suffered through attacks on his own coast, but it was also genuinely driven by religious fundamentalism and Philip's obsession with restoration of Europe to the Catholic faith.  A flexible and pragmatic ruler in his youth, he was now a stubborn and dogmatic old man, brooding alone . . . . the only solution that would satisfy him would be the overthrow of Elizabeth and the total destruction of the Dutch rebellion."

Instead of negotiating for peace in good faith, Philip played games.  In his own words: "I declare that my intention is that these negotiations shall never lead to any result, whatever conditions the English may offer.  On the contrary, the only object is to deceive them and to cool them in their preparations for defense, by making them believe such preperations will not be necessary." 

Analyzing the details of this history, we see that Philip's fatal choice to launch the Armada against England came from the following four factors:

1. money

2. political and dynastic imperatives (nepotism and power)

3. the loss of face (pride)

4. religious fundamentalism (tyranny and the suppression of freedom)

The details of the Armada, its mammoth size, its incredible expense to Spain's treasury, and its resulting failure, are story enough for a future post.  But the launching and failure of the Spanish Armada in 1588 represented the "high water mark" in the world-dominance of Spain.  Its cost, and its loss of prestige for Spain throughout the world, were blows too large from which to recover.  Even though Philip had inherited the world's largest power from his father, he would hand it on as a much reduced, debt-ridden, and shrinking power.  England, a tiny island country, would rise on the ashes of the fading Spain and over the course of time would rise to become the world's largest empire, and it would hold that position for a long time until one of its former colonies, The United States of America, would gain that postion in the twentieth century.  The entire period from the Armada in the sixteenth century to the beginning of World War I, with the American Revolution as the sole exception, would witness the rise and dominance of Great Britain as the world's pre-eminent empire.

Leadership is critical to the success of any endeavor.  Leaders lead best when motivated by visions that build up instead of destroy, that seek to help rather than hinder, and that become more concerned about what can be accomplished than by who can be oppressed.  In the case of Philip II of Spain, his motivations were all wrong.  Money, power, pride, and oppression of the freedoms of others became the seeds of his own destruction.  At many points along the way he could have made an acceptable peace with a smaller, but stubbornly principled and belliegerent nation - but he would have nothing of it.  It was all or nothing for Philip.  He made his choice accordingly, and his empire dwindled to insignificance as a result. 

Remember the story of the Armada as you lead in your life.  Be careful of your motivations.  Never get suckered into believing that oppressing the freedoms of others, grabbing for money, fighting for power, or struggling to regain "lost" pride are worthy pursuits.  Don't get fooled into launching your own "Enterprise of England."  If you do, you can rely on having to face a Sir Francis Drake, a Sir Walter Raliegh, or any number of individual privateers who will take to the waters to oppose you.  And never underestimate the power of a storm or two to dash your ships on the rocky shores.

It's much better to lead from a position of integrity, to fight for good, to stand for freedom, and to defend the individual and his or her rights.  That's the side on which all the heroes of history have found themselves.  That's the side on which the true leaders live!

Lead on, and if you lead for good, fear no Armada that comes against you!   

   

    

Alvin York - A Hero Leader

Alvin York is perhaps America's most famous World War One personality.  In the following short biography, his exploits are clearly represented, and the myth is well separated from the man.  Many points along his journey are very illustrative of the life of a leader, and my comments are in blue.

Alvin York (from Dr. Birdwell and the York Institute website)

Known as the greatest [American] hero of World War I, York avoided profiting from his war record before 1939. Born December 13, 1887 in a two-room dogtrot log cabin in Pall Mall, Tennessee, and raised in a rural backwater in the northern section of Fentress County, York was a semi-skilled laborer when drafted in 1917. Quite literally having never traveled more than fifty miles from his home, York's war experience served as an epiphany awakening him to a more complex world.

Many leaders don't realize the full scale of the task God has before them.  We don't determine our destinies; we discover them.

The third oldest of a family of eleven children, the York family eked out a hardscrabble existence of subsistence farming supplemented by hunting, and York became a competent marksman at an early age. Living in a region that saw little need for education, York had a grand total of nine-months schooling at a subscription school he attended in his youth. York's father, William York (who died in 1911), also acted as a part time blacksmith to provide some extra income for the family. Prior to the advent of the World War, York was employed as a day laborer on the railroad near Harriman. As a result, York had little experience with managing money and later suffered from chronic fiscal problems. (York spent money when he had it, gave it away to other people who he believed needed it, and invested poorly).

As York came of age he earned a reputation as a deadly accurate shot and a hell raiser. Drinking and gambling in borderline bars known as "Blind Tigers," York was generally considered a nuisance and someone who "would never amount to anything." That reputation underwent a serious overhaul when York experienced a religious conversion in 1914. In that year two significant events occurred: his best friend, Everett Delk, was killed in a bar fight in Static, Kentucky; and he attended a revival conducted by H.H. Russell of the Church of Christ in Christian Union. Delk's senseless death convinced York that he needed to change his ways or suffer a fate similar to his fallen comrade, which prompted him to attend the prayer meeting.

In the lives of many leaders occurs a "wake up call."  These tumultuous events, though painful at the time, often lead to radical change in the lives of a future leader and become the foundation for later achievement and character strength.

A strict fundamentalist sect with a following limited to three states--Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee--the Church of Christ in Christian Union espoused a strict moral code which forbade drinking, dancing, movies, swimming, swearing, popular literature, and moral injunctions against violence and war. Though raised Methodist, York joined the Church of Christ in Christian Union and in the process convinced one of his best friends, Rosier Pile, to join as well. Blessed with a melodious singing voice, York became the song leader and a Sunday School teacher at the local church. Rosier Pile went on to become the church's pastor. The church also brought York in contact with the girl who would become his wife, Gracie Williams.

By most accounts, York's conversion was sincere and complete. He quit drinking, gambling, and fighting. When the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, York's new found faith would be tested. York received his draft notice from his friend, the postmaster and pastor, Rosier Pile, on June 5, 1917, just six months prior to his thirtieth birthday. Because of the Church of Christ in Christian Union's proscriptions against war, Pile encouraged York to seek conscientious objector status. York wrote on his draft card: "Dont [sic] want to fight." When his case came up for review it was denied at both the local and the state level because the Church of Christ in Christian Union was not recognized as a legitimate Christian sect.

Leaders often try to resist their calling without even realizing it.  The more we try to shape events, the more they sometimes shape us.

Though a would-be conscientious objector, drafted at age thirty, York in many ways typified the underprivileged, undereducated conscript who traveled to France to "keep the world safe for democracy." With great reservations, York embarked for Camp Gordon, Georgia to receive his basic training. A member of Company G in the 328th Infantry attached to the 82nd Division (also known as the "All American Division) York established himself as a curiosity--an excellent marksman who had no stomach for war. After weeks of debate and counseling, York relented to his company commander, G. Edward Buxton, that there are times when war is moral and ordained by God, and he agreed to fight.

Leaders must be sold out to the cause in order to be effective.  Half-heartedness is not in them.  Also, it is extremely painful for a leader to be forced into acting against his or her conscience.  As the saying goes, for a true leader, their "heart has to be in it."

Also, leaders don't have a "lock" on knowledge.  Sometimes, new information or circumstances alter previously firmly-held convictions.  Leaders are not too big to experience a change of mind if confronted with compelling evidence. 

York's role as hero went beyond his exploit in the Argonne and continues to both inspire and confound. On October 8, 1918, Corporal Alvin C. York and sixteen other soldiers under the command of Sergeant Bernard Early were dispatched before sunrise to take command of the Decauville railroad behind Hill 223 in the Chatel-Chehery sector of the Meuse-Argonne sector. The sevente en men, due to a misreading of their map (which was in French not English) mistakenly wound up behind enemy lines. A brief fire fight ensued which resulted in the confusion and the unexpected surrender of a superior German force to the seventeen soldiers. Once the Germans realized that the American contingent was limited, machine gunners on the hill overlooking the scene turned the gun away from the front and toward their own troops. After ordering the German soldiers to lie down, the machine gun opened fire resulting in the deaths of nine Americans, including York's best friend in the outfit, Murray Savage. Sergeant Early received seventeen bullet wounds and turned the command over to corporals Harry Parsons and William Cutting, who ordered York to silence the machine gun. York was successful and when all was said and done, nine men had captured 132 prisoners.

Leaders are required to face an "unfair" load.  They will be forced to act upon incomplete information in times of uncertainty against enemies dead-set on their destruction.  Leaders not only survive, but thrive in such environments.

That York deserves credit for his heroism is without question. Unfortunately, however, his exploit has been blown out of proportion with some accounts claiming that he silenced thirty-five machine guns and captured 132 prisoners single-handedly. York never claimed that he acted alone, nor was he proud of what he did. Twenty-five Germans lay dead, and by his accounting, York was responsible for at least nine of the deaths. Only two of the seven survivors were acknowledged for their participation in the event; Sergeant Early and Corporal Cutting were finally awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 1927.

A leader's exploits sometimes grow into legend, bumble leaders give away credit.  And what is common among many true heroes: when questioned about their endeavorss, they don't understand why everybody makes such a big deal out of them.  Their attitude is that they were just doing their duty, and anybody else would have done the same thing.   

York's war exploit typified that of the nineteenth century American hero. He appeared larger than life and was most often compared to three peculiarly American icons: Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and Abraham Lincoln. Literally growing up in a quasi-frontier existence tucked away in a remote Tennessee backwater unscathed by industrialized America, York was born and raised in a log cabin near the Tennessee-Kentucky border--a region which bore no resemblance to the break-neck bustle of New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles--so York seemed to belong to another more idyllic time. As late as 1917, he hunted squirrel, raccoon, quail, wild boar and deer with a muzzle-loader. York's life caught fire in the American imagination not because of who he was, but what he symbolized: a humble, self-reliant, God-fearing, taciturn patriot who slowly moved to action only when sufficiently provoked and then adamantly refused to capitalize on his fame. Ironically, York also represented a rejection of mechanization and modernization through his dependence upon personal skill. George Pattullo, the Saturday Evening Post reporter who broke the story, focused on the religio-patriotic nature of York's feat. He titled his piece The Second Elder Gives Battle, referring to York's status in his home congregation in Pall Mall, Tennessee.

Leaders inspire more by who they are than by what they do. Notice how the author describes York in this section: humble, self-reliant, God-fearing, patriotic, dangerous when provoked by a righteous cause, and uncorruptable.  The reluctant leader is nearly always the most effective.  Leaders who desire power, status, prestige, and wealth are not basing their desire upon hunger but rather upon ambition.  True leaders desire change, growth, service to others, and lasting influence for good.  Many, many times throughout history we see very reluctant leaders rise to greatness on the strength of their convictions and the goodness of their "hungers." 

Another subtle message in this section: reluctant leaders are extremely dangerous when pushed to the brink.  If convinced of their cause they will stop at nothing short of victory.  Enemies and obstructors may at first underestimate them, but they do so at their own peril.  True leaders will fight to the death for a cause in which they believe deeply.

For his actions, York was singled out as the greatest individual soldier of the war and when he returned home in 1919 he was wooed by Hollywood, Broadway, and various advertisers who wanted his endorsement of their products. York turned his back on quick and certain fortune in 1919, and went home to Tennessee to resume peacetime life. Largely unknown to most Americans was the fact that Alvin York returned to America with a single vision. He wanted to provide a practical educational opportunity for the mountain boys and girls of Tennessee. Understanding that to prosper in the modern world an education was necessary, York sought to bring Fentress County into the twentieth century. Thousands of like-minded veterans returned from France with similar sentiments and as a result college enrollments shot up immediately after the war.

Again, leaders viewpoints can change in the face of overwhelming evidence.  Also, the more experience a leader gains, the more hungry he or she is to learn.  Knowledge and learning become one of a leader's top priorities, and the joy of sharing this desire with others is strong.

Throughout the 1920s York went on speaking tours to endorse his hopes for education and raise money for York Institute. He also became interested in state and national politics. A Democrat in a staunchly Republican county, York's endorsement carried a degree of clout for pols. York used his celebrity to improve roads, employment, and education in his home county.

York receded from the national spotlight during the 1930s, and focused his waning political aspirations on the state rather than the local level. He considered running for the U.S. Senate against the freshman senator, Albert Gore (the dude's been around a long time.  Must have been back then that he started creating the Internet). In the 1932 election, he changed his party affiliation and supported Herbert Hoover over Franklin D. Roosevelt because FDR promised to repeal Prohibition. Once the New Deal got underway, however, York returned to the Democratic party and endorsed the president's relief efforts, especially the C.C.C. and the W.P.A. In 1939, York was appointed superintendent of the Cumberland Homesteads near Crossville.

In 1935 York delivered a sermon entitled, Christian Cure for Strife, which argued that the vigilant Christian should ignore current world events, because Europe stood poised on the brink of another war and Americans should avoid it at all costs. Recalling his career as a soldier, York renounced America's involvement in World War I. In order to achieve world peace, Americans must first secure it at home beginning with their own families. The church and the home, therefore, represented the cornerstones of world peace.

Leaders understand that the only person they can control is themselves, and that all organizational change occurs at the level of the individual first.  Leaders care about others and disdain anything that brings harm.  When away from "the battle" they can temporarily forget "the beast" that makes the battle necessary in the first place, and this can cloud judgment.

At the same time, the threat of war had rekindled the interest of some filmmakers, most notably Jesse L. Lasky, into reviving the story of York's exploits during World War I. Lasky, having witnessed the famous New York reception of the hero from his eighth floor office window in May of 1919 had wanted then to tell York's story. While several other studios found interest in York's saga in 1919, only Jesse Lasky of Famous Players Paramount (later associated with Twentieth Century-Fox, and finally Warner Brothers) had persistently pursued him. In the late 1930s the world once again appeared on the verge of war and the official stance of the United States government was reminiscent of York's initial attitude toward the first World War. America (in 1939) and York (in 1917) both had to be convinced that war was not only justifiable, but sometimes necessary.

When York at last relented, he announced that the film would "be a true picture of my life...my contributions since the war. It won't be a war picture. I don't like war pictures." Yet the film that bears his name definitely was a war picture. The original screenplay presented the war as an epiphany for York which forced him to recognize his own inadequacies but fulfilled his wish to improve himself and his homeland. The motion picture that arrived in movie theatres in July of 1941 not only signaled a profound change in York's pacifism but sounded the clarion for American involvement in World War II.

York's heartfelt belief that war represented moral evil never wavered before his association with Lasky and the Warner Brothers. In 1937, York not only condemned war but also questioned America's involvement in the First World War. In that same year, York joined the Emergency Peace Campaign which lobbied against any U.S. involvement in the growing tensions in Europe. A pious peaceful man, York had fought his country's enemy only after great deliberation and had to be convinced that war was sometimes necessary. His personal struggle in World War I found new resonance in an America at odds over the recent European war, for York personified isolationist Christian America wrestling with its conscience over whether or not to engage in the current war abroad.

Leaders enter the battle reluctantly, and again, must be totally convinced that it is right before they fight.  Always willing to try to accomplish justice with peace, true heroes know, however, that there are times when a fight is justified.  Peace without justice is not peace, but slavery and cowardice birthed in ignorance.

Because the Church of Christ in Christian Union condemned movies as sinful, Lasky had a tough time convincing York that a film based on his life was justified. York finally agreed when he decided that the money made from the film could be used to create an interdenominational Bible school. As the film progressed the focus of the project changed and York's war exploit gained prominence. Through York's association with Lasky and Warner Brothers, he became convinced that Hitler represented the personification of evil in the world and turned belligerent. York's conversion to interventionism was so complete that he wholeheartedly agreed with General George C. Marshall that the U.S. should institute its first peacetime draft. Governor Prentice Cooper approved York's endorsement by naming him chief executive of the Fentress County Draft Board, and appointed him to the Tennessee Preparedness Committee to help prepare for wartime.

Though slow to anger, true leaders awake like sleeping giants once they become convinced of injustice.  They throw themselves wholeheartedly into the cause because they hate evil and injustice.  Throughout history, the strain of hunger is consistent: leaders can't stand oppression, evil, cruelty, injustice, and tyranny.  Some of the world's greatest leaders have come to the fore in times when these things were flourishing. 

In 1940-41, York joined the Fight for Freedom Committee which combated the isolationist stance of America First, and York became one of its most vocal members. Up until Pearl Harbor, York battled another legendary American hero, the man who symbolized America First to the general public, Charles Lindbergh. Meantime, the film Sergeant York starring Gary Cooper, became one of the top grossing Warner Brothers films of the entire war era and earned Cooper the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1942.

Once a leader buys into a cause, he or she is "all the way in."

During the war, York attempted to reenlist in the infantry but could not do so due to age and obesity. Instead, through an affiliation with the Signal Corps, York traveled the country on bond tours, recruitment drives, and camp inspections. Ironically, the Bible school that was built with the proceeds from the movie opened in 1942, but the very people the school was intended for had either enlisted in the armed services or moved north to work in defense related industries. The school closed in 1943 never to reopen.

Not all dreams come true.  Leades must be aware of that and continue on regardless.

York's health began to deteriorate after the war and in 1954 he suffered from a stroke that would leave him bedridden for the remainder of his life. In 1951, the Internal Revenue Service accused York of tax evasion regarding profits earned from the movie. Unfortunately, York was practically destitute in 1951. He spent the next ten years wrangling with the IRS, which led Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn and Congressman Joe L. Evins to establish the York Relief Fund to help cancel the debt. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy ordered that the matter be resolved and considered the IRS's actions in the case to be a national disgrace. The relief fund paid the IRS $100,000 and placed $30,000 in trust to be used in the family's best interest.

York died on September 2, 1964 and was buried with full military honors in the Pall Mall cemetery. His funeral was attended by Governor Frank G. Clement and General Matthew Ridgway as President Lyndon B. Johnson's official representative. He was survived by seven children and his widow.

When asked how he wanted to be remembered, the old sergeant said he wanted people to remember how he tried to improve basic education in Tennessee because he considered a solid education the true key to success. It saddened him somewhat that only one of his children went on to college, but he was proud of the fact that they all had received high school diplomas from York Institute. Most people, of course, do not remember him as a proponent for public education. York's memory is forever tied to Gary Cooper's laconic screen portrayal of the mountain hero and the myth surrounding his military exploits in the Argonne in 1918.

Alvin York's story is a great illustration of the principles of leadership at work.  We see a humble, good-natured, God-fearing man who is time and again pushed to the brink of his convictions and forced to fight against evils he hates.  Not relishing the battle, nor the glory that accompanies it, he nevertheless pushes ahead and accomplishes incredible feats of heroism, refusing to capitalize on even his own exploits unless they can be turned for the good of others.  On more than one occasion he had to battle strongly with his consciense, making sure he knew what he fought for before he fully engaged: but once engaged, his focus was complete and his effectiveness near legendary.

A leader is remember more for who he is than for what he does.  And we are still talking about Alvin York and what he stood for nearly a century later. 

Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One

Benjamin Franklin was always a master of satire.  During the early stages of the American Revolution he penned what I believe to be one of his funniest and most biting works.  It is my favorite.  I hope you enjoy it (I'm sure King George did)!

[Presented privately to a _late Minister_, when he entered upon his Administration; and now first published.]

An ancient Sage valued himself upon this, that tho' he could not fiddle, he knew how to make a _great City_ of a _little one_. The Science that I, a modern Simpleton, am about to communicate is the very reverse.

I address myself to all Ministers who have the Management of extensive Dominions, which from their very Greatness are become troublesome to govern, because the Multiplicity of their Affairs leaves no Time for _fiddling_.

I. In the first Place, Gentlemen, you are to consider, that a great Empire, like a great Cake, is most easily diminished at the Edges. Turn your Attention therefore first to your remotest Provinces; that as you get rid of them, the next may follow in Order.

II. That the Possibility of this Separation may always exist, take special Care the Provinces are never incorporated with the Mother Country, that they do not enjoy the same common Rights, the same Privileges in Commerce, and that they are governed by _severer_ Laws, all of _your enacting_, without allowing them any Share in the Choice of the Legislators. By carefully making and preserving such Distinctions, you will (to keep to my Simile of the Cake) act like a wise Gingerbread Baker, who, to facilitate a Division, cuts his Dough half through in those Places, where, when bak'd, he would have it _broken to Pieces_.

III. These remote Provinces have perhaps been acquired, purchas'd, or conquer'd, at the _sole Expence_ of the Settlers or their Ancestors, without the Aid of the Mother Country. If this should happen to increase her _Strength_ by their growing Numbers ready to join in her Wars, her _Commerce_ by their growing Demand for her Manufactures, or her _Naval Power_ by greater Employment for her Ships and Seamen, they may probably suppose some Merit in this, and that it entitles them to some Favour; you are therefore to _forget it all_, or resent it as if they had done you Injury. If they happen to be zealous Whigs, Friends of Liberty, nurtur'd in Revolution Principles, _remember all that_ to their Prejudice, and contrive to punish it: For such Principles, after a Revolution is thoroughly established, are of _no more Use_, they are even _odious_ and _abominable_.

IV. However peaceably your Colonies have submitted to your Government, shewn their Affection to your Interest, and patiently borne their Grievances, you are to _suppose_ them always inclined to revolt, and treat them accordingly. Quarter Troops among them, who by their Insolence may _provoke_ the rising of Mobs, and by their Bullets and Bayonets _suppress_ them. By this Means, like the Husband who uses his Wife ill _from Suspicion_, you may in Time convert your _S uspicions_ into _Realities_.

V. Remote Provinces must have _Governors_, and _Judges_, to represent the Royal Person, and execute every where the delegated Parts of his Office and Authority. You Ministers know, that much of the Strength of Government depends on the _Opinion_ of the People; and much of that Opinion on the Choice of Rulers placed immediately over them. If you send them wise and good Men for Governors, who study the Interest of the Colonists, and advance their Prosperity, they will think their King wise and good, and that he wishes the Welfare of his Subjects. If you send them learned and upright Men for Judges, they will think him a Lover of Justice. This may attach your Provinces more to his Government. You are therefore to be careful who you recommend for those Offices. -- If you can find Prodigals who have ruined their Fortunes, broken Gamesters or Stock-Jobbers, these may do well as _Governors_; for they will probably be rapacious, and provoke the People by their Extortions. Wrangling Proctors and petty-fogging Lawyers too are not amiss, for they will be for ever disputing and quarrelling with their little Parliaments. If withal they should be ignorant, wrong-headed and insolent, so much the better. Attorneys Clerks and Newgate Solicitors will do for _Chief-Justices_, especially if they hold their Places _during your Pleasure_: -- And all will contribute to impress those ideas of your Government that are proper for a People _you would wish to renounce it_.

VI. To confirm these Impressions, and strike them deeper, whenever the Injured come to the Capital with Complaints of Mal-administration, Oppression, or Injustice, punish such Suitors with long Delay, enormous Expence, and a final Judgment in Favour of the Oppressor. This will have an admirable Effect every Way. The Trouble of future Complaints will be prevented, and Governors and Judges will be encouraged to farther Acts of Oppression and Injustice; and thence the People may become more disaffected, _and at length desperate_.

VII. When such Governors have crammed their Coffers, and made themselves so odious to the People that they can no longer remain among them with Safety to their Persons, recall and _reward_ them with Pensions. You may make them _Baronets_ too, if that respectable Order should not think fit to resent it. All will contribute to encourage new Governors in the same Practices, and make the supreme Government _detestable_.

VIII. If when you are engaged in War, your Colonies should vie in liberal Aids of Men and Money against the common Enemy, upon your simple Requisition, and give far beyond their Abilities, reflect, that a Penny taken from them by your Power is more honourable to you than a Pound presented by their Benevolence. Despise therefore their voluntary Grants, and resolve to harrass them with novel Taxes. They will probably complain to your Parliaments that they are taxed by a Body in which they have no Representative, and that this is contrary to common Right. They will petition for Redress. Let the Parliaments flout their Claims, reject their Petitions, refuse even to suffer the reading of them, and treat the Petitioners with the utmost Contempt. Nothing can have a better Effect, in producing the Alienation proposed; for though many can forgive Injuries, _none ever forgave Contempt_.

IX. In laying these Taxes, never regard the heavy Burthens those remote People already undergo, in defending their own Frontiers, supporting their own provincial Governments, making new Roads, building Bridges, Churches and other public Edifices, which in old Countries have been done to your Hands by your Ancestors, but which occasion constant Calls and Demands on the Purses of a new People. Forget the _Restraints_ you lay on their Trade for _your own_ Benefit, and the Advantage a _Monopoly_ of this Trade gives your exacting Merchants. Think nothing of the Wealth those Merchants and your Manufacturers acquire by the Colony Commerce; their encreased Ability thereby to pay Taxes at home; their accumulating, in the Price of their Commodities, most of those Taxes, and so levying them from their consuming Customers: All this, and the Employment and Support of Thousands of your Poor by the Colonists, you are _intirely to forget_. But remember to make your arbitrary Tax more grievous to your Provinces, by public Declarations importing that your Power of taxing them has _no Limits_, so that when you take from them without their Consent a Shilling in the Pound, you have a clear Right to the other nineteen. This will probably weaken every Idea of _Security in their Property_, and convince them that under such a Government _they have nothing they can call their own_; which can scarce fail of producing _the happiest Consequences_!

X. Possibly indeed some of them might still comfort themselves, and say, `Though we have no Property, we have yet _something_ left that is valuable; we have constitutional _Liberty_ both of Person and of Conscience. This King, these Lords, and these Commons, who it seems are too remote from us to know us and feel for us, cannot take from us our _Habeas_ _Corpus_ Right, or our Right of Trial _by a Jury of our Neighbours_: They cannot deprive us of the Exercise of our Religion, alter our ecclesiastical Constitutions, and compel us to be Papists if they please, or Mahometans.' To annihilate this Comfort, begin by Laws to perplex their Commerce with infinite Regulations impossible to be remembered and observed; ordain Seizures of their Property for every Failure; take away the Trial of such Property by Jury, and give it to arbitrary Judges of your own appointing, and of the lowest Characters in the Country, whose Salaries and Emoluments are to arise out of the Duties or Condemnations, and whose Appointments are _during Pleasure_. Then let there be a formal Declaration of both Houses, that Opposition to your Edicts is _Treason_, and that Persons suspected of Treason in the Provinces may, according to some obsolete Law, be seized and sent to the Metropolis of the Empire for Trial; and pass an Act that those there charged with certain other Offences shall be sent away in Chains from their Friends and Country to be tried in the same Manner for Felony. Then erect a new Court of Inquisition among them, accompanied by an armed Force, with Instructions to transport all such suspected Persons, to be ruined by the Expence if they bring over Evidences to prove their Innocence, or be found guilty and hanged if they can't afford it. And lest the People should think you cannot possibly go any farther, pass another solemn declaratory Act, that `King, Lords, and Commons had, hath, and of Right ought to have, full Power and Authority to make Statutes of sufficient Force and Validity to bind the unrepresented Provinces IN ALL CASES WHATSOEVER.' This will include _spiritual_ with temporal; and taken together, must operate wonderfully to your Purpose, by convincing them, that they are at present under a Power something like that spoken of in the Scriptures, which can not only _kill their Bodies_, but _damn their Souls_ to all Eternity, by compelling them, if it pleases, _to worship the Devil_.

XI. To make your Taxes more odious, and more likely to procure Resistance, send from the Capital a Board of Officers to superintend the Collection, composed of the most _indiscreet, ill-bred_ and _insolent_ you can find. Let these have large Salaries out of the extorted Revenue, and live in open grating Luxury upon the Sweat and Blood of the Industrious, whom they are to worry continually with groundless and expensive Prosecutions before the above-mentioned arbitrary Revenue-Judges, all _at the Cost of the Party prosecuted_ tho' acquitted, because _the King is to pay no Costs_. -- Let these Men _by your Order_ be exempted from all the common Taxes and Burthens of the Province, though they and their Property are protected by its Laws. If any Revenue Officers are _suspected_ of the least Tenderness for the People, discard them. If others are justly complained of, protect and reward them. If any of the Under-officers behave so as to provoke the People to drub them, promote those to better Offices: This will encourage others to procure for themselves such profitable Drubbings, by multiplying and enlarging such Provocations, and _all with work towards the End you aim at_.

XII. Another Way to make your Tax odious, is to misapply the Produce of it. If it was originally appropriated for the _Defence_ of the Provinces and the better Support of Government, and the Administration of Justice where it may be _necessary_, then apply none of it to that _Defence_, but bestow it where it is _not necessary_, in augmented Salaries or Pensions to every Governor who has distinguished himself by his Enmity to the People, and by calumniating them to their Sovereign. This will make them pay it more unwillingly, and be more apt to quarrel with those that collect it, and those that imposed it, who will quarrel again with them, and all shall contribute to your _main Purpose_ of making them _weary of your Government_.

XIII. If the People of any Province have been accustomed to support their own Governors and Judges to Satisfaction, you are to apprehend that such Governors and Judges may be thereby influenced to treat the People kindly, and to do them Justice. This is another Reason for applying Part of that Revenue in larger Salaries to such Governors and Judges, given, as their Commissions are, _during your Pleasure_ only, forbidding them to take any Salaries from their Provinces; that thus the People may no longer hope any Kindness from their Governors, or (in Crown Cases) any Justice from their Judges. And as the Money thus mis-applied in one Province is extorted from all, probably _all will resent the Mis-application_.

XIV. If the Parliaments of your Provinces should dare to claim Rights or complain of your Administration, order them to be harass'd with repeated _Dissolutions_. If the same Men are continually return'd by new Elections, adjourn their Meetings to some Country Village where they cannot be accommodated, and there keep them _during Pleasure_; for this, you know, is your PREROGATIVE; and an excellent one it is, as you may manage it, to promote Discontents among the People, diminish their Respect, and _increase their Dis-affection_.

XV. Convert the brave honest Officers of your Navy into pimping Tide-waiters and Colony Officers of the Customs. Let those who in Time of War fought gallantly in Defence of the Commerce of their Countrymen, in Peace be taught to prey upon it. Let them learn to be corrupted by great and real Smugglers, but (to shew their Diligence) scour with armed Boats every Bay, Harbour, River, Creek, Cove or Nook throughout the Coast of your Colonies, stop and detain every Coaster, every Wood-boat, every Fisherman, tumble their Cargoes, and even their Ballast, inside out and upside down; and if a Penn'orth of Pins is found un-entered, let the Whole be seized and confiscated. Thus shall the Trade of your Colonists suffer more from their Friends in Time of Peace, than it did from their Enemies in War. Then let these Boats Crews land upon every Farm in their Way, rob the Orchards, steal the Pigs and Poultry, and insult the Inhabitants. If the injured and exasperated Farmers, unable to procure other Justice, should attack the Agressors, drub them and burn their Boats, you are to call this _High Treason_ and _Rebellion_, order Fleets and Armies into their Country, and threaten to carry all the Offenders three thousand Miles to be hang'd, drawn and quartered. _O! this will work admirably!_

XVI. If you are told of Discontents in your Colonies, never believe that they are general, or that you have given Occasion for them; therefore do not think of applying any Remedy, or of changing any offensive Measure. Redress no Grievance, lest they should be encouraged to demand the Redress of some other Grievance. Grant no Request that is just and reasonable, lest they should make another that is unreasonable. Take all your Informations of the State of the Colonies from your Governors and Officers in Enmity with them. Encourage and reward these _Leasing-makers_; secrete their lying Accusations lest they should be confuted; but act upon them as the clearest Evidence, and believe nothing you hear from the Friends of the People. Suppose all _their_ Complaints to be invented and promoted by a few factious Demagogues, whom if you could catch and hang, all would be quiet. Catch and hang a few of them accordingly; and the _Blood of the Martyrs_ shall _work Miracles_ in favour of your Purpose.

XVII. If you see _rival Nations_ rejoicing at the Prospect of your Disunion with your Provinces, and endeavouring to promote it: If they translate, publish and applaud all the Complaints of your discontented Colonists, at the same Time privately stimulating you to severer Measures; let not that _alarm_ or offend you. Why should it? since you all mean _the same Thing_.

XVIII. If any Colony should at their own Charge erect a Fortress to secure their Port against the Fleets of a foreign Enemy, get your Governor to betray that Fortress into your Hands. Never think of paying what it cost the Country, for that would _look_, at least, like some Regard for Justice; but turn it into a Citadel to awe the Inhabitants and curb their Commerce. If they should have lodged in such Fortress the very Arms they bought and used to aid you in your Conquests, seize them all, 'twill provoke like _Ingratitude_ added to _Robbery_. One admirable Effect of these Operations will be, to discourage every other Colony from erecting such Defences, and so their and your Enemies may more easily invade them, to the great Disgrace of your Government, and of course _the Furtherance of your Project_.

XIX. Send Armies into their Country under Pretence of protecting the Inhabitants; but instead of garrisoning the Forts on their Frontiers with those Troops, to prevent Incursions, demolish those Forts, and order the Troops into the Heart of the Country, that the Savages may be encouraged to attack the Frontiers, and that the Troops may be protected by the Inhabitants: This will seem to proceed from your Ill will or your Ignorance, and contribute farther to produce and strengthen an Opinion among them, _that you are no longer fit to govern them._

XX. Lastly, Invest the General of your Army in the Provinces with great and unconstitutional Powers, and free him from the Controul of even your own Civil Governors. Let him have Troops now under his Command, with all the Fortresses in his Possession; and who knows but (like some provincial Generals in the Roman Empire, and encouraged by the universal Discontent you have produced) he may take it into his Head to set up for himself. If he should, and you have carefully practised these few _excellent Rules_ of mine, take my Word for it, all the Provinces will immediately join him, and you will that Day (if you have not done it sooner) get rid of the Trouble of governing them, and all the _Plagues_ attending their _Commerce_ and Connection from thenceforth and for ever. Q. E. D.