My wise and witty father keeps popping up in my head whenever I read a headline.

Once, when I was developing my own political philosophy and doing so out loud, my father said to me: "I don't understand why you Americans worry so much about Russia and socialism. If you wait long enough you'll be just like them and they'll be just like you."

Boy, has that ever come true! I don't know when it all began, but a convenient place to start is World War I, when the federal government got mixed up in fertilizer - literally, not symbolically. The foothold in fertilizer led to other matters and, before too long, we had an income tax and were building dams.

Keep in mind that, prior to World War I, the federal government stayed out of the ownership of tools of production and distribution. Even in the late 19th century, when big business left its imprint and Populism appeared, socialism was a dirty word. Only anarchists used such words.

World War I changed everything. It was the biggest tremor to hit our society. If you don't believe that, take a look at the history of music and fashion, and you'll see that change occurred in 1918 that forever after affected just about everything.

When the government started building dams and operating them, many things fell into line. You can look around and see that public problems have tended to be solved by government as opposed to individuals, which was the case before the war.

There comes a point, however, when the so-called "creeping corruption" of socialism becomes a takeover, and the present times threaten to be that point.

It's a good thing we have wiser heads than mine to sort it all out. (For the record, though, my thoughts are very similar to those of Newt Gingrich.)

The financial crisis of 2008 is not the first the Calumet Region has been wrapped up in. In 1835, Joseph Bailly, the Calumet Region's first settler, was hamstrung in the so-called "bank war." Nicholas Biddle, president of the Bank of the United States, collided with President Andrew Jackson.

One of Bailly's daughters had married into the Biddle family, so she and her father and his constituency were well advised of what was going on. The clash involved "soft money" people and "hard money" people. The former consisted largely of state bankers and their friends, who objected to the Bank of the United States because it restrained state banks from issuing notes as freely as they would have liked.

To preserve the bank, Biddle began to grant favors to influential men. He sought to cultivate Jackson's friends, but then he switched to Jackson's opponents. He extended them loans on easy terms, the new group consisting of newspaper editors, state politicians, about 50 congressmen and senators.

Jackson declared the bank unconstitutional and even un-American. Biddle struck back, claiming that loss of millions in loans required him to call in loans and raise interest rates. He gambled that a short depression would bring about a re-charter of the bank.

Alas, he carried his contraction of credit too far. To appease businessmen, he reversed himself and granted abundant credit. In short, the bank war was over and Jackson had won. But without the Bank of the United States (from 1836), America lost an indispensable financial institution. Big trouble lay ahead. And it changed much of the Calumet Region.