March 1, 2026

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

In another time, even with continuing inequality, President Lincoln, in signing the 1862 Homestead Act, spoke for the ongoing American Experiment, that it was the purpose of our government “to elevate the condition of men to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.” The act offered free land for those willing to cultivate it. It helped build our nation.

Move to another century. By the mid-1930s, about 90 percent of urban homes had electricity while 10 percent or so of rural homes were electrified. Enter the 1936 Rural Electrification Act, which provided federal loans to build electrical distribution systems in isolated areas. More than 900 electric cooperatives were established, serving millions of rural residents and transforming their quality of life. Another “fair chance in the race for life.”

Today, the transmission line from national government to the people has been deliberately shorted. Those who have never benefited from the “trickle-down” 1980s – the middle and lower classes – have metaphorically lost power while the ever-bigger elegant but perhaps gaudy homes on the hill have more lights than you can see.

In 1960, about 66 percent of Americans, largely white, were in the middle class. They afforded homes, cars, education for their children. According to the Pew Research Center, the figure fell to 61 percent in 1971 and in 2023, 51 percent. The “fair chance in the race for life” has become unreachable for too many Americans.

A popular quote is that “democracy dies in darkness,” or that reduced, even non-existent news reporting allows all manner of shenanigans by government, big business and the greedy. Democracy also loses its footing when the middle class reduces. The rich get richer, the ranks of the poor increase.

In this difficult-to-fathom time of the national government deliberately ignoring the intent of the founders; in the growing hatred, prejudice and false information; in the self-neutering of Congress that ignores the Constitution; in the pied-pipering of the flock, in the gathering of lemmings that are the neglected who are promised relief only if others lose their “fair chance in the race for life,” we are in danger of throwing down a dark forever hole the American Experiment.

How many of us will be without the light that government once sought to bring to our homes, to us?

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

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