Few Reconstruction figures have faded from public memory as completely as Franklin J. Moses Jr. Moses entered South Carolina history under a cloud of scandal and left it in disgrace. As governor, he accepted bribes, traded favors, and misused public funds. His obscurity, however, conceals a more consequential story. Moses ranked among the most outspoken...

Every Republican is an immigration hawk until the help stops showing up for work. Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV) wants Immigration and Customs Enforcement to change its enforcement tactics in rural America. The West Virginia Republican declared that this is “a very difficult balancing act from the standpoint of our ranchers” because enforcement had left some...

To remember Emanuel Celler only as the congressman behind landmark immigration reform is to miss the wider program he pursued for much of his career. The Jewish congressman was a forceful proponent of foreign intervention, international institutions, refugee admissions, and a more deeply entrenched American commitment to the State of Israel. Those commitments stood behind...

The news of Gloria Steinem’s death on September 2, 2026, at 92, invited the familiar ritual of American remembrance. Obituaries saluted the journalist who became the most recognizable public face of second-wave feminism. Yet a serious account of Steinem’s life must begin where tributes often hesitate. Before she confronted senators, presidents, and the editors who...

For many Americans, Spain in 1898 represented a fading colonial power struggling to hold Cuba. For some Jewish immigrants, it also recalled the empire that expelled Jews in 1492 and became synonymous with centuries of religious persecution. Joseph Pulitzer, the Hungarian-born Jewish immigrant who came to America in 1864 and built the New York World...