American Minute

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APRIL 6, 1917, the United States entered World War I by declaring war on Germany. Within the next two years, America enlisted 4 million soldiers and spent 35 billion dollars, resulting in an Allied victory. In a Day of Prayer Proclamation, October 19, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson stated: "In view of the entrance of our nation into the vast and awful war which now afflicts the greater part of the world...I set apart...a day upon which our people should...offer concerted prayer to Almighty God for His divine aid in the success of our arms." On May 11, 1918, President Wilson wrote: "Whereas it has always been the reverent habit of the people of the United States to turn in humble appeal to Almighty God...Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim...a day of public humiliation, prayer and fasting, and do exhort my fellow-citizens of all faiths and creeds to assemble on that day in their several places of worship...to pray Almighty God that He may forgive our sins...and purify our hearts...to accept and defend all things that are just and right...beseeching Him that He will give victory to our armies as they fight for freedom."

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The "Greatest Show on Earth" was owned by P.T. Barnum, who died APRIL 7, 1891. Selling millions of tickets, his big draws were General Tom Thumb, a man only 25 inches tall, and elephant "Jumbo," whose name entered the dictionary. Barnum, who was received by President Lincoln and gave a command performance for Queen Victoria, stated: "Most persons, on the whole, are humbugged by believing too little, than by believing too much." The circus not open Sundays, Barnum let his New York Great Roman Hippodrome be used by Dwight L. Moody for evangelistic campaigns. When Barnum's show began traveling, Moody, with help from J.P. Morgan and Cornelius Vanderbilt, transformed the Hippodrome into a revival tabernacle. Services began February 7, 1876, with 7,000 people in the main hall, 4,000 in overflow, thousands outside, 500 ushers and 1,200 singers directed by Ira Sankey. Sunday attendance hit 25,000. It was perhaps Moody's most important campaign, for impacting New York impacted the nation. D.L. Moody said: "Moses spent 40 years thinking he was somebody; 40 years learning he was nobody; and 40 years discovering what God can do with a nobody."

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Five-Star General Omar Bradley died APRIL 8, 1981. Born 1893, in a cabin near Clark, Missouri, he was a star player on his high school baseball team. He worked for Wabash Railroad, until his Sunday School superintendent recommended he apply to West Point. President Eisenhower said, April 29, 1954: "I thank General Bradley, my old comrade in arms, my classmate from West Point, my great associate in World War II." Bradley commanded the 2nd Army Corps in North Africa, was Senior Commander of U.S. Ground Forces for the invasion of France, and in August 1944 led the 12th Army Group in France and Germany, consisting of a million men in four armies. President Johnson stated, May 23, 1964: "General Bradley, you were the field commander of more American fighting troops than any commander in any era." Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, 1948-49, and first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1950, General Omar Bradley stated, November 11, 1948: "We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount...The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants."

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The Civil War began on Wilmer McLean's farm in Manassas Junction, Virginia, with the First Battle of Bull Run. A Union shell exploded in his kitchen. He moved to get away from the conflict, yet almost four years later his new home near Appomattox Court House, Virginia, was the agreed location for General Robert E. Lee to surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant on APRIL 9, 1865. Ken Burn's documentary film of the Civil War stated that the war began in Wilmer McLean's front yard and ended in his front parlor. The War resulted in approximately 258,000 Confederate deaths and 360,000 Union deaths. General Lee took off his sword and handed it to General Grant, and Grant handed it back. The next day, General Lee issued his final order: "After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude...I have determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen. By the terms of the agreement, officers and men can return to their homes." Robert E. Lee concluded: "I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you His blessing and protection."

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Millions of people in 91 countries are helped by The Salvation Army, founded by William Booth, who was born APRIL 10, 1829. He began by ministering to the poor, drunk and outcast, and fought to end teenage prostitution in England. Awarded an honorary degree from Oxford, he traveled the United States, met President Theodore Roosevelt and opened a session of the United States Senate with prayer. Booth wrote: "While there is a drunkard left, while there is a lost girl upon the streets, where there remains one dark soul without the light of God-I'll fight! I'll fight to the very end." Years after his death, William Booth's daughter, Evangeline, became the new leader. President Franklin Roosevelt sent her a telegram, September 4, 1934: "Please accept my sincere congratulations on your election as General of the Salvation Army throughout the world. In these troubled times it is particularly important that the leadership of all good forces shall work for the amelioration of human suffering and for the preservation of the highest spiritual ideals." FDR concluded "Your efforts as Commander-in-Chief of the Salvation Army...have earned the gratitude and admiration of millions of your countrymen."

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"Houston, we've had a problem" were the words sent from Apollo 13, which was launched for the moon APRIL 11, 1970. Mission control identified that an oxygen tank had exploded, irreparably damaging the craft. Special prayer services were held at the Chicago Board of Trade, at St. Peter's Basilica by the Pope, at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and reported in The New York Times. Even the U.S. Senate adopted a resolution urging prayer. In sub-zero temperature, the crew pieced together an oxygen filter, jump-charged the command module batteries, and manually steered the ship to land in the ocean near a raging hurricane. On April 19, 1970, President Nixon spoke at Kawaiahao Church, the oldest Christian Church in Hawaii: "When we learned of the safe return of our astronauts, I asked that the Nation observe a National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving today...This event reminded us that in these days of growing materialism, deep down there is still a great religious faith in this Nation." Nixon concluded: "I think more people prayed last week than perhaps have prayed in many years in this country...We pray for the assistance of God when...faced with...great potential tragedy."

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Less than two months after Lincoln was inaugurated President, the Civil War began APRIL 12, 1861, with Confederate troops in Charleston, South Carolina, firing upon Fort Sumter. The Confederate Army was unstoppable, twice winning battles at Bull Run, Virginia, just twenty miles from Washington, D.C., forcing the Union troops to retreat to the fortifications of the Capitol. It was not until the Battle of Gettysburg, over two years into the war, that the tide began to turn. President Lincoln confided: "I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go." In his General Order, November 15, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln stated: "The President, Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service. The importance for man and beast of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of a Christian people, and a due regard for the Divine Will demand that Sunday labor in the Army and Navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity."

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He drafted the Declaration of Independence and was Governor of Virginia. As the 3rd U.S. President, he approved the Louisiana Purchase and had Lewis and Clark explore it. His name was Thomas Jefferson, born APRIL 13, 1743. Excerpts of his writings are inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC: "God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever." In his Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, January 16, 1796, Jefferson wrote: "Almighty God hath created the mind free...All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments...tend only to begat habits of hypocrisy...and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in His Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone." In his 2nd Inaugural, Jefferson wrote: "I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old."

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Noah Webster first published his Dictionary on APRIL 14, 1828. This 26-year project with 30,000 new definitions, standardized spelling and gave American English its identity. Proving unprofitable, the rights to were purchased after his death by George and Charles Merriam. In the preface of his original edition, Noah Webster wrote: "In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed...No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people." Webster concluded: "To that great and benevolent Being...who has borne me and my manuscripts in safety across the Atlantic, and given me strength and resolution to bring the work to a close, I would present the tribute of my most grateful acknowledgments." Noah Webster's Dictionary defined "Property" as "The exclusive right of possessing, enjoying and disposing of a thing; ownership. In the beginning of the world, the Creator gave to man dominion over the earth...It is one of the greatest blessings of civil society that the property of citizens is well secured."

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On APRIL 15, 1865, President Lincoln died. He was shot the night before in Ford's Theater. On APRIL 15, 1912, the Titanic sank. It struck an iceberg the night before. In 1954, APRIL 15 became the deadline for Income tax returns. Though the Constitution banned a Federal Income Tax (Art.1,Sec.9), Lincoln passed an emergency income tax to pay for the Civil War. It was repealed in 1872. An income tax was attempted in 1895, but the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in Pollock v Farmers' Loan. In 1913, with World War I threatening, Woodrow Wilson promoted the 16th Amendment, which was a 1 percent tax on the top 1 percent richest people. In 1942, with World War II, Franklin Roosevelt passed "the greatest tax bill in American history." John F. Kennedy stated April 20, 1961: "In meeting the demands of war finance, the individual income tax moved from a selective tax imposed on the wealthy to the means by which the great majority of our citizens participate in paying." In 1988, President Reagan said: "I believe God did give mankind unlimited gifts to invent, produce and create. And for that reason it would be wrong for governments to devise a tax structure that suppresses those gifts."

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On APRIL 16, 1859, French historian Alexis de Tocqueville died. After nine months of traveling the United States, he wrote Democracy in America in 1835, which has been described as "the most comprehensive...analysis of character and society in America ever written." Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: "Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention...In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united." De Tocqueville continued: "The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other...They brought with them into the New World a form of Christianity which I cannot better describe than by styling it a democratic and republican religion." In Book Two of Democracy in America, de Tocqueville wrote: "Christianity has therefore retained a strong hold on the public mind in America...In the United States...Christianity itself is a fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to defend it."

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On APRIL 17, 1790, the son of a poor candle-maker died. The 15th of 17 children, he apprenticed as a printer, and published a popular almanac. He retired at age 42, then taught himself five languages, invented the rocking chair, bifocal glasses, and the lighting rod, which earned him degrees from Harvard and Yale. He helped found the University of Pennsylvania, a hospital, America's first postal system and fire department. He became the governor of Pennsylvania, signed the Declaration of Independence and called for prayer at the Constitutional Convention. He was also president of America's first anti-slavery society. His name was Ben Franklin. In his Poor Richard's Almanac, May 1757, Ben Franklin wrote: "Work as if you were to live 100 years; pray as if you were to die tomorrow." In a pamphlet for Europeans titled "Information to Those Who Would Remove to America," 1754, Benjamin Franklin wrote: "Atheism is unknown there; Infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an Atheist or an Infidel. And the Divine Being seems...pleased to favor the whole country."

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William Brewster died APRIL 18, 1644. His position as a leader of the Pilgrim church in England led to his capture and imprisonment. Fleeing to Holland, he later sailed with the Pilgrims to America, signed the Mayflower Compact and was elected an elder. Governor William Bradford wrote of Brewster: "(In England) on the Lord's day they generally met at his house, which was a manor...and he entertained them with great kindness...providing for them at heavy expense to himself. He was the leader of those who were captured in Lincolnshire, suffering the greatest loss, and was one of the seven who were kept longest in prison and afterwards bound over to the assizes. After he came to Holland he suffered much hardship, having spent most of his means... Towards the latter part of those twelve years spent in Holland, his circumstances improved...for through his knowledge of Latin he was able to teach many foreign students English." Bradford continued to say of William Brewster: "He labored in the fields as long as he was able; yet when the church had no other minister he taught twice every Sabbath, and that both powerfully and profitably, to the great edification and comfort of his hearers, many being brought to God by his ministry."

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Paul Revere was captured along the way, but William Dawes and Samuel Prescott continued the midnight ride from Boston's Old North Church to warn the inhabitants of Concord that British troops were coming to seize their guns. In early dawn, APRIL 19, 1775, American "Minutemen," as poet Emerson wrote, fired the "shot heard round the world" by confronting the British on Lexington Green and at Concord's Old North Bridge. The conflict began that in eight years would end in independence. New England celebrates this as "Patriots' Day." Also on APRIL 19, in the year 1951, General Douglas MacArthur retired from 48 years of patriotic service. The most decorated soldier in U.S. history, he served in France in WWI, was Superintendent of West Point and the youngest Army Chief of Staff. He was Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific in WWII and received Japan's surrender. He commanded UN forces against North Korea, but was dismissed by President Truman for not fighting a limited war. Douglas MacArthur said: "Like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who has tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty."

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His interpreter, Moses Tinda Tautamy, helped him minister to Indians along the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers, camping at night. Born APRIL 20, 1718, David Brainerd wrote in his Journal: "FORKS OF DELAWARE, Pennsylvania, Lord's day, July 21, 1745. Preached to the Indians...Divine truth seemed to make very considerable impressions and caused the tears to flow freely. Afterwards I baptized my interpreter and his wife, who were the first I baptized among the Indians...Though before he had been a hard drinker...it is now more than six months since he experienced this change; in which space of time he has been exposed to strong drink in places where it has been moving free as water; yet has never desired after it...He discourses feelingly of the conflicts and consolations of a real Christian." David Brainerd contracted tuberculosis and was nursed at the home of Princeton president Jonathan Edwards. Dying at age 29, his diary inspired millions, including John Wesley, William Carey and Oswald J. Smith. David Brainerd wrote: "Oh, how precious is time, and how it pains me to see it slide away, while I do so little to any good purpose. Oh, that God would make me more fruitful."