Speaking from a Place of Encouragement – with Bob McEwen, part 1: Today, our black history segment today is on Charles Patterson, and early automobile manufacturer at the time the horse-drawn carriage was being replaced by horseless carriages. Next, we bring you a presentation from former Congressman Bob McEwen that he gave at the ProFamily Legislators Conference a couple months back. He offers hope for the direction of our country by reminding us of past victories and that our current trajectory can be influenced by Godly leaders

Air Date: 2/21/2023

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Tim Barton and Rick Green

Guest: Former Congressman Bob McEwen

Listen:

Download: Click Here

Listen:

Download: Click Here

Transcription:

Rick Green
Welcome to the intersection of faith in the culture. Thanks for joining us today on the WallBuilders show, we appreciate you being a part of it, you can check us out at wallbuilders.com . That’s WallBuilders.com, lots of great information there for you. And it’s also the place, you can make that one time or monthly contribution. I’m Rick Green, America’s constitution coach, here with David and Tim Barton. And we’re doing a pretty cool thing this month, if you’re just tuning in, or maybe it’s your first time you’ve ever listened to WallBuilders, of course, we’re always teaching history, always bringing back great heroes from American history that most people don’t know about, or that we just lost or things we don’t know about them that we can learn and apply to our lives today. So throughout the month of February, we’ve had a new hero from history every day. And Tim is, man, he’s had some extra work this month, to be prepared for all of these opening segments. Tim, who’s our hero of history today,

Tim Barton
Rick, our hero today is Charles Patterson. And, you know, we’ve gone through so many of these heroes, I’m excited, we still have several really exciting stories left to walk people through. And we’ve identified for some of these individuals, you know, started off really bad circumstances, were able to rise above it and accomplish something significant. It’s no different with Charles Patterson. And for those who want to know more, certainly we’d encouraged them to go to WallBuilders.com. And you can follow along with the short one and a half page bio, we have all these different heroes. There’s footnotes at the end. So you can go check the original footnotes and find out way more. We’re condensing this story, just for the sake of time, but Charles Patterson is the father of Paterson and Sons, which the Patterson family, are the first black family to actually make automobiles in America back in the era of the Model T and they did an incredible job. But to walk kind of through the story a little bit more- Charles Patterson was born as a slave in Virginia, had a very large family. I think it was 12 Brothers and sisters. And it was before the Civil War, he was able to escape from the plantation, goes over the Allegheny Mountains through West Virginia, and finally arrives in Ohio. When he gets to Ohio, there was an anti slavery community there, there was a safe station on the Underground Railroad. So he’s welcomed in. He joins the community and begins to develop a skill or at least takes on a job where he’s learning a skill of blacksmithing. And he begins making carriages and making coaches which of course, back in that day, you’re talking the mid 1800s. People are getting around, in stagecoach and carriages and he is learning to make those and actually does a really, really good job. As a side note along the way, he also becomes very involved in a local church and becomes a Sunday school teacher. And you know, Rick, Dad, we’ve talked about this on several of these heroes, how their faith was so significant to them in their journey along the way. And their faith became very evident in the life they lived. For so many of them as they got money, they were building churches or they became pastors or preachers of churches. Well, this one, Charles Patterson is a Sunday school teacher, and he actually gets married, has a family has five children and his oldest son was named Frederick Douglass Patterson. Now obviously Frederick Douglass after the great abolitionist leader, Frederick Douglass. And when Frederick Douglass is going to high school, there’s a public school where he’s going to attend and a public school rejects him because he’s black. Now, it’s worth noting, right, Ohio was an anti slavery state, Ohio was part of the Union when you’re looking at the Civil War. And so this is not a racist state. But just like we say, with nations or states in general, that every nation is filled with people. Every state is filled with people. And so even though the state might predominantly not be racist, there can still be racists in the state. Just like, if you look at some of the southern states that had some very racist position, it doesn’t mean everybody in the South was racist. They… you look at people individually, well, in this case, there was a public school in Ohio, and they told him he couldn’t come because he was black. There ends up being a massive lawsuit, which actually Dad, I think it was the pastor that worked with them in that lawsuit. Am I remembering that correctly?

David Barton
That’s right. It was the pastor and it was the father of Charles, who sued on behalf of the son Frederick.

Tim Barton
So he ends up winning the lawsuit. The family wins the lawsuit. He ends up graduating from the high school and he is the first black person to graduate from that high school. He then goes to Ohio State University, where he plays on the football team and becomes the first black player on the Ohio State University football team. So Frederick Douglas Patterson is already making waves in his life and what he’s doing but his father back to Charles Patterson, he’s been making carriages and stage coaches and does a very good job and really starts to master it where he decides that he wants to expand what he’s doing.

David Barton
So yeah, the father had been really involved as a smith back with carriages when they were carriages with horses, not horseless carriages. And at that point in time, he became really good at what he was doing. He actually bought the business from his partner, he and a white partner in business together. And he does so well. He buys the business from partner. And they became really known for high quality carriages back when horses were pulling them. But son, Frederick goes into business with them. And he starts seeing the signs of the times. He says, Look, the culture is changing. We’re going to have to have cars pretty soon. And listen to the stat that Frederick through out. He said in 1902, there was one car to every 65,000 people. Imagine a town of 65,000 today with only one car. He said in 1902, there was one car for 65,000 people. He said by 1909, seven years later, there’s now one vehicle for every 800 people. Imagine that! But he says, hey, this has grown so fast, we’d better get into cars. And so they did. They’re the first black family to manufacture cars of any kind, the first black owned business to manufacture cars. They came out with top line cars, they were really high quality. And what put them out of business is what put most car manufacturers out of business. It was Henry Ford and mass production. When that Ford came off that model T and they cranked out so many of them. Nobody could compete with that lower price. So they got into actually making buses. Once the cars were being made with motors. They said, well, we can make buses and put carriages on buses. And they did. And it was a really high caliber quality bus that they made. But it’s really cool story of successful business. And the first black car manufacturer in America is Charles and Frederick Paterson.

Tim Barton
And it’s worth noting too, that to this point, there have been no Patterson vehicles that have been found or discovered. So if you’re listening and you happen to have like a Patterson vehicle in your garage, if you want to make a donation, we accept those WallBuilders we would totally love you to donate your Patterson vehicle to us, that would be awesome. But these are something considered an incredibly significant collector’s item that to this point, it seems that there are none that remain. But dad, as you mentioned, this was a very significant thing the family was able to do and accomplish for many years. And so if we’re talking about some of these incredible American heroes who are breaking glass ceilings, who were being leaders in their era, and in their time, the Patterson name is certainly one that we should learn and celebrate for what they accomplished.

Rick Green
All right, guys, quick break. We’ll be right back. Stay with us, folks, you’re listening to WallBuilders.

Tim Barton
This is Tim Burton from WallBuilders with another moment in American history. Alexis de Tocqueville, a political official from France, traveled to the United States in 1831. And penned his observations in the now famous book Democracy in America. Being from France, what he found in America was completely unexpected. He reported, upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention. And the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this. In France I’d almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom, marching in opposite directions. But in America, I found that they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country, de Tocqueville recognized that it was Biblical Christianity and the morals that produced that made America great. For more information about Alexis de Tocqueville and the positive influence of Christianity in early America, go to WallBuilders.com .

Rick Green
Welcome back to WallBuilders. We’re going to jump into a presentation from Bob McEwan at the programming legislators conference. A couple of months ago, we’ve shared several of these with you over the last couple of months, these presentations from folks that came to speak to these state reps and senators from across the nation. And of course, Bob McEwen, every year gives a great presentation and we love to share it with you, our listeners. He’s a frequent guest here on WallBuilders. And also just a wealth of information I love the way Bob explains things he’s got a gift for metaphors and analogies that just makes things make sense. That’s why his Politics Easy as Pie is one of the best programs out there. So let’s jump in. Here’s Bob McEwen at the ProFamily Legislators Conference.

Bob McEwen
I feel like the mule that got entered in the Kentucky Derby. And a farmer said to him, said, you know, you got no chance of winning. And he says I know, but he’s going to be in some mighty fine company. So for… it’s good to be with all of you. I know, you know exactly where we are on a Saturday afternoon at 2:30. I know exactly what it’s like. But so therefore, what I’m going to do is I’m not going to teach. We’ve learned a lot, and hasn’t this been a very productive time. It’s been very beneficial to learn so many things. But what I want to do is not talk to your head. I want to talk to your heart just a bit, because the entire world is waiting and depending upon the leadership and strength of the United States of America, and the United States of America’s future is in the hands of Republican leaders. And you hold that. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve done more than a couple of dozens of prayer breakfasts around the country, and when they do a presidential prayer breakfast, whether it be In Latin America, Ukraine or Russian suburbs or whatever, they spend half the time praying for the diplomatic corps and the parliamentarians in the leadership, but they spend the other half praying for the leadership of the United States of America, because they know if we elect incompetent leadership, that the damage is going to be to them. And now in order for that to be secured, you have to be there. And what I want to do is just to take about 15 or 20 minutes to just say a word of encouragement to each one of you. The scripture says that hope being often deferred maketh the heart sick. And that is if you constantly hear negative, negative, negative, it just flat wears you out. And I’m here to say that we really shouldn’t be all that disappointed. You know, all disappointments come from expectations. You invite four people to dinner and they show up, you have a wonderful time. You invite 12 people and set 12 places and only four show up, you’re disappoint… What’s the difference? The only difference is the expectations. And here we have Democrats going around rejoicing because they only lost by a little bit. And here we have Republicans going around moaning because we only won by a little bit. And in the course of it, we need to understand that while we’re winning, we need to celebrate. The most critical part is leadership. And that’s why I want to encourage you. People are going to… They do. They take their key from you. And I remember the time back when I would be a little bit discouraged. And I would look forward to Rush Limbaugh coming on. Because he could find a pony in that pile of manure, almost invariably. But now that he’s gone, it relies upon us. And what is a leader? A leader is a person who knows what needs to be done next, knows why it’s important (now that’s the critical part) and can bring together the resources necessary to accomplish the task, usually people. Let me say it again. A leader is a person who knows what needs to be done next, knows why it’s important. I remember George Bush used to always talk about, he’s the decider. He’s the decider. Well, you can flip a coin and decide. So making a decision is not the important… Making the right decision for a reason is what’s critical. And so what I want to take just about four or five quick examples, a couple of minutes apiece, is that our nation has often been in trouble. And the people that were responsible leaders, we’re no different than you or I. Remember that after we won the war for independence, the individual countries had their individual currencies and people didn’t respect them. And people from South Carolina, North… The folks in Charlotte wouldn’t accept their money for grain. And so they went up there and they rioted and all this was going. On George Washington’s front yard, stretched over to Maryland and he made a agreement with Maryland and Virginia. And people said we need to do more of that. So let’s all get back where we have wrote the Declaration of Independence 11 years before. They went back there to try to set up a national program financially. In the course of it, they ended up writing an entire Constitution because they had to get a currency and they had to get an agreement between states that had a debt and states that didn’t. And all the things that came a part of it. In fact, the Continental Congress had written money. And to this day, when we say something’s absolutely useless or worthless, we say it’s not worth a continental, because the financially it was a real mess. But once our nation was formed, and President Washington appointed Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, and he put the dollar on the gold currency. As you know, in part of the Constitution, it said that the President shall, from time to time provide reports on the State of the Union. He chose to do it only once a year. And in George Washington’s Third State of the Union address, he said this, I think it’s interesting, he said the United States enjoy a scene of tranquility and prosperity under the new government, that could hardly have been hoped for. Now listen to this. He said, the public credit stands at high ground which three years ago, it would have been considered a species of madness to have foretold. George Washington said in his third State of the Union address, if I would have told you that America would have the strongest currency in the world three years ago, you would have said I was crazy. What’s the point? The point is that when you do things, right, you can fix things. And, of course, we all know that when you do things wrong, you can foul them up. And all you have to do is look at New York and Chicago and Washington and a few other… They’re very good at that. But that’s where we can see the country is on the precipice. Let’s just look at what we did in the most recent presidential election of Donald Trump. If you go to the Federal Reserve of St. Louis, they have all of the various charts and they have the one for the median income and for median income in America 1996 which is Clinton 2006 Carter 2016 at the end of Obama. For the first time in the history of The United States is absolutely flat just floats around a little bit. It’s $200 difference over 20 years. It’s flat for 20 years. And under Donald Trump, immediately came in, begin to cut taxes on savings and investment. I remember under Ronald Reagan, we cut the capital gains tax in half, and we were so proud of ourselves. And it did make a tremendous upswing, but under Donald Trump, they went to zero. They went to capital expenditures and the last three months of 2017 more cabs, truck cabs, were ordered in the previous three and a half years combined. And so the net income, the median income for Americans having been flat for 20 years, jumped $8,300. And of course, we know that NAFTA agreement, where you could bring things in through Mexico or Canada and not have to pay tariff on it. And Donald Trump took a picture of 5000 acres of Chinese cars that are sitting in a lot in Mexico, where these Chinese were bringing Chinese cars in through Mexico and avoiding the tariff. And he sent a picture to both the president of Mexico and the president of China, and said this will stop this month. If this ever happens again, there will be a consequence. And of course, it’ll begin to straighten up, but while we’re talking about cars, as you know, there are very few American cars in Europe. And there’s a reason for that. It’s because there’s a 27% tariff on American cars that are sold in Europe. And Donald Trump says 27%, that’s a good number. I think I like that number. And you know the Germans, we often think about the German industry, but Germany only does one thing. It makes cars. I mean, in fact, it makes steel and rubber and glass and things. But it makes BMWs and Mercedes and Volkswagens and Audi’s and all… So Donald Trump said, I’ll tell you what, 27% is such a good number, we will put 27% tariff on all German cars coming to America.

Rick Green
Alright friends, one more break, today. Stay with us. We’ll be right back with Bob McEwen on WallBuilders.

Tim Barton
Hey, this is Tim Burton with WallBuilders. And as you’ve had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you’ve probably heard the wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, about all the things that makes America exceptional. And you might be thinking, as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area, and share with my group, whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school, or public school, or some political event or activity. If you’re interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www.wallbuilders.com . And there’s a tab for scheduling. And if you’ll click on that tab, you’ll notice there’s a list of information from speakers bios, to events that are already going on. And there’s a section where you can request an event. To bring this information about who we are where we came from our religious liberties and freedoms. Go to the WallBuilders website and bring a speaker to your area.

Rick Green
Welcome back to WallBuilders. We’re going to jump right back in with Congressman McEwan over at the ProFamily Legislators Conference.

Bob McEwen
Lo and behold, Liz and I were in Brussels at the European Union on the day that the German Automobile Manufacturers Association proposed to the European Union, that tariffs on American cars into the European Union will be dropped to zero. Now, my question was, why did they do that? Because George Bush sent him a Christmas card? Or because Barack Obama gave a speech in Berlin saying Americans are arrogant? No, just a businessman said look, you want to do that? We’ll do it right back. You had 27% of the cost of every BMW, that place will hit the wall overnight. So in the course of it, we began for the first time to create new jobs at home. Energy independence is something that you, just stop and think about, this nation has more oil and gas and coal than any other place on the planet. Now, you’d have to be a Chicago incompetent to mess this thing up. I mean, there is no way that you can do that. And what I want to conclude at the end is the fact that our nation, I said we… There was no need for us to do this, but this is what they do. And I’m going to conclude with another example by talking about brother Jimmy Carter, because, you know, we… Here we had all of this oil and gas, but you remember under Jimmy, when they get in control of anything, they can foul up a two-car funeral. And they created these gas lines and things. I mean, how do you do that? Well, Donald Trump said we don’t have to. What we need to do is turn out some permits, let the people drill. And in a matter of 18 months, we not only we’re no longer sending our gold abroad to purchase oil from… to finance what was going on in the Middle East, but they were purchasing oil from us and increase… And Europe was doing so as well. Then Donald Trump went to the United Nations. And he said, Germany, you’re very, making a big mistake. If you want to make yourself dependent upon energy from Russia, therefore, we’re going to veto that pipeline. And if you go back and you saw it, because what they wanted… The condition that they’re in right now, they’re going to freeze this winter. I don’t know if you know all… Germany is cutting all the trees. They’re having a real trouble with the Greens, folks, because the Greens have now said they are supportive of keeping the nuclear power plants open, because everybody’s cutting down trees to try to get through the winter because they’ve gotten themselves into this pickle. But when Donald Trump said that in 2017, they cut away to the German delegation, and they’re all sitting there laughing. Well, truth overcomes error, and they are not laughing nearly as much anymore. If you look at what we did, not only there, but to be energy independent, which by the way, just as an aside, in 2021, first time in American history since we began producing oil, first time the United States of America did not give a single permit for the production of energy. Now, you’ll notice that the propaganda folks say, well they have all of these contracts. They have all these leases. A lease is of no value, if you don’t have the permit to get the oil out. You buy a lease, hoping that you might find something. Well when you do it, you have to get a permit to… And they didn’t get a single permit. So they use that in order to… have people not understand what they’re up to. The Abraham accords, just to talk about what happened in Europe, and what happened in the Middle East. A businessman, we elected a president that didn’t… you know, he hadn’t gone through the State Department bed-wetters to ask what they should do. He just said, he said to Secretary of State, he said, how come we’re giving money to the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization. That is a creation of the Soviet Union in the 1970s. And they called it a Palestine Liberation, but there’s no Palestinians involved in it. The head of it was Yasser Arafat, who was a Egyptian, and said, this is just an effort for people to raise money to go around and harass Israel and the United States. And Donald Trump said, I don’t think that makes a whole lot of sense. I’m not real sure, we need to do that. Yasser Arafat been there forever. He was replaced by Abbas who is now in his 16th year of his two year term. And in the course of his his negotiation, Trump told him, he said, you tell those guys that they have a year to make peace with Israel. And if they don’t work something out, then we’re done. We’re finished. We’re out of here. Well they, as you know, that when every president in the last 30 years has tried to make an agreement. And when they get right down to it, whether it be Carter or Obama or any of them, when they get right down to it, the PLO doesn’t make an agreement, because you got to stop and think, why would they? They don’t represent anybody. They’re nobody, they’re just getting billions of dollars for flying around in private jets, buy homes in Paris and elsewhere, get standing ovations from the United Nations. If they made an agreement, they might have to perform or do something. So they never actually did. And Donald Trump said, I’ve had enough. And so at the end of the year, they didn’t do it. And brother, the caterwauling from John Kerry, and that whole crowd about how that the street was going to erupt and how the Arab Street was going to fall apart, and Donald Trump was going to create all this chaos. And so Donald Trump said, No more checks. That’s it. Done. And nothing happened, because Arabs didn’t care about them. I mean, this… they knew what it was. It was a false front in the first place. So the Saudis said, Well, you know, if the Americans aren’t paying them, I don’t… I’m not real sure, we need to pay them either. And so they cut them off. And so then UAE said, well, if the Saudis aren’t paying, and Americans aren’t paying I don’t… and so they all cut money off to the PLO, and they had to live off the fat of the land until the Democrats came back in immediately restored the money. And six days after the money went back to the PLO, they begin shelling Israel once again. So what we do, we can be proud of. We were mentioned about the Lemon decision, which was so good. How did it happen? Because of a man who, appointments to the courts were good. Now just between us girls, you know, some of his other folks, the presidents that we supported, they would make 25 appointments. There’d be two or three good ones and 18 excuses as to why… Donald Trump didn’t know or care. He just wanted people that were going to meet the criteria. He wanted them to be pro life and by the way, a little rule of thumb is- our country was established [to] preserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now it’s in sequence, see? Life is… Liberty is of precious little value if you’re dead, so you have to have a life first. Life, then liberty, then sewer systems and overpasses. And one of the first places you can find out how or where a person stands is just ask him about life. The purpose of the United States government, unlike anyplace else in the history of the world, was to protect life. And any politician who will not protect life will not hesitate to take your liberty. And so it’s the first thing, is easily, you’re going to ask and Dennis Prager says, if you can only ask the person two questions, ask him, where do they stand on life? Then you know, how are they stand on domestic policy. Ask them where they stand on Israel, and you know where they stand on foreign policy, just from… So Donald Trump… I was at a dinner table with him, when he turned to Leonard Leo, who was doing the research, and he said, you know, how we coming on those. He said, well, we got 40 more names ready for you for next week. He said, well stay on them, stay on them. And I thought, he has set out his criteria. You want them to be pro life. Now if they’re pro life, then 90% of this other thing is going to take care of itself. And then he actually appointed them to the Supreme Court and the ramifications that we’ve seen in one decision, that Lemon decision, I went to University of Miami, which was overwhelmingly Jewish at the time, and at Christmas time all of my friends where other than celebrate Christmas, they would get contracts with New York law firm, so they would drive throughout the south and they would take pictures of little towns that have “keep Christ in Christmas or whatever.”

Rick Green
Alright folks, we got a… We’re out of time for today, but we’ve got two more segments to this particular presentation. So Bob McEwen, with us again tomorrow and the next day for this presentation from ProFamily Legislators Conference. Thank you so much for listening, today. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders