I don’t use many pictures in my column, but I thought the photo shown at right would be helpful in explaining the difference between liberals — the kind I had as teachers and mentors when in college and law school — and the modern socialist who will use any means to advance the cause of government.

These books were written by Robert Caro, a genuine old-line liberal, who chronicles the years of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Caro, who is a liberal, appears to give Johnson a passing grade in volumes one, three and four. The liberals of old didn’t give us part of the truth, they gave us the whole truth and volume two is that whole truth. Today’s liberals, who are really socialists, detest volume two and want to keep it away from you. That alone should make you want to read it. In volume two Caro shows how Johnson used every underhanded tactic possible to steal an election — tactics similar to those employed by socialists today.

This photo was taken last week in the stacks on the main floor of the Missouri River Regional Library (MRRL) in Jefferson City. To find the books, you only need to turn left at the front door and there you will find these books in the biography section. For the young and those new to the area, Osage County is part of MRRL. You don’t have to go to Jefferson City to get these books, all you need to do is contact the library at Linn. 

Let me explain what happens when you go to the public library in St. Louis County. I went there on Monday, Sept. 10, with a 40-year veteran of the St. Louis County police. What we were told at the main library is that we could check out and take with us volumes one, three and/or four. But volume two could not leave the building. That book is kept in the reference section and cannot be checked out. The reference librarian actually came to the front desk with volume two. It exists. It’s there. But the public cannot take it out. This decision was made in spite of the fact the book is not rare and is still in print. The man at the front desk, who was very sharp and very nice, was quite surprised. He could not understand what was going on. He obviously does not understand the socialist philosophy. 

We did not go personally to the St. Louis City public library, but I did look at the city library card catalog. (For those who don’t use the library, all libraries keep a catalog of the books on hand. By checking out that catalog you know what books are on the shelves of that library.) In the city, volume two is not even listed. In the county you can see the book, but you can’t read it unless you stay there in the reference room. In the city you can’t read it at all. 

Here’s the difference between St. Louis — an area dominated by socialists — and the rest of the state. Look for the online card catalog of any library in the state, and I suspect you’ll find the Caro books and all four will be available to the public. I didn’t check out the entire state, but I did look at Kansas City, Boone County, Adair County (Kirksville) and several others. It’s only the socialists in St. Louis who behave like the Nazi book-burners of the 1930s. And those folks have the audacity to call Trump a Nazi.

Socialism is horrible. It sounds good but it doesn’t work. Over time people flee from socialist governments. Millions have fled Venezuela in recent years. Venezuela has a population of more than 30 million. When three million leave, that’s 10 percent. When I was a kid the population of the St. Louis City was more than 850,000. Today it’s down to barely over 300,000. That’s a decline of more than 60 percent. This makes the flight of Venezuelans look almost insignificant.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently reported that there are up to 37,000 abandoned homes in the city. That speaks of the quality of life under a socialist regime. 

The government of St. Louis can take much of the credit for the population drop, because it was city hall that created a hostile environment for business. When you run off the businesses, usually workers leave as well. 

There is a company we do business with in St. Louis County. It’s located in a business park south of I-44 in Fenton. By going there, we learned of the dozens of businesses that got tired of being hassled by city hall and moved out of the city.

The St. Louis City court system can also take part of the credit for the demise of the city. Business owners do not like facing both an unfriendly city hall and an unfriendly civil justice system. 

Socialism is a little like cancer in that it metastasizes. It also spreads like leprosy. The U.S. Post Office in St. Louis has become “socialized.” When we send a newspaper to a subscriber in Kansas City it frequently arrives on the Friday following the Wednesday it was mailed. When we send the paper to St. Louis, it frequently arrives on a Friday — not the Friday two days after it was mailed but the Friday nine days after it was mailed, if then. We’ve noticed another thing about the St. Louis post office: they have this interesting habit of delivering two or three papers at the same time.

This lousy service is not limited to St. Louis. It also runs to all states east of us that have the misfortune of having their mail routed through St. Louis.

Socialists are currently having a rough time of it. In spite of record support of the media (Trump was supported by only six newspapers in 2016), the socialists might see Judge Brett Kavanaug approved for a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court. They don’t want that and they surely don’t want you to read Caro’s book on Lyndon Johnson. If you do, you’ll find that it was Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black that stopped an investigation into Johnson’s theft of an election. Socialists do not like honest judges. They want judges they can control.

Let’s hope the socialists don’t win the Kavanaug battle. We can observe the results when they control a city like St. Louis.