SundayReview | Opinion
A Christian Nation? Since When?
By KEVIN M. KRUSEMARCH 14, 2015
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AMERICA may be a nation of believers, but when it comes to this country’s identity as a “Christian nation,” our beliefs are all over the map.
Just a few weeks ago, Public Policy Polling reported that 57 percent of Republicans favored officially making the United States a Christian nation. But in 2007, a survey by the First Amendment Center showed that 55 percent of Americans believed it already was one.
The confusion is understandable. For all our talk about separation of church and state, religious language has been written into our political culture in countless ways. It is inscribed in our pledge of patriotism, marked on our money, carved into the walls of our courts and our Capitol. Perhaps because it is everywhere, we assume it has been from the beginning.
But the founding fathers didn’t create the ceremonies and slogans that come to mind when we consider whether this is a Christian nation. Our grandfathers did.
Back in the 1930s, business leaders found themselves on the defensive. Their public prestige had plummeted with the Great Crash; their private businesses were under attack by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal from above and labor from below. To regain the upper hand, corporate leaders fought back on all fronts. They waged a figurative war in statehouses and, occasionally, a literal one in the streets; their campaigns extended from courts of law to the court of public opinion. But nothing worked particularly well until they began an inspired public relations offensive that cast capitalism as the handmaiden of Christianity.
The two had been described as soul mates before, but in this campaign they were wedded in pointed opposition to the “creeping socialism” of the New Deal. The federal government had never really factored into Americans’ thinking about the relationship between faith and free enterprise, mostly because it had never loomed that large over business interests. But now it cast a long and ominous shadow.
Accordingly, throughout the 1930s and ’40s, corporate leaders marketed a new ideology that combined elements of Christianity with an anti-federal libertarianism. Powerful business lobbies like the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers led the way, promoting this ideology’s appeal in conferences and P.R. campaigns. Generous funding came from prominent businessmen, from household names like Harvey Firestone, Conrad Hilton, E. F. Hutton, Fred Maytag and Henry R. Luce to lesser-known leaders at U.S. Steel, General Motors and DuPont.
In a shrewd decision, these executives made clergymen their spokesmen. As Sun Oil’s J. Howard Pew noted, polls proved that ministers could mold public opinion more than any other profession. And so these businessmen worked to recruit clergy through private meetings and public appeals. Many answered the call, but three deserve special attention.
The Rev. James W. Fifield — known as “the 13th Apostle of Big Business” and “Saint Paul of the Prosperous” — emerged as an early evangelist for the cause. Preaching to pews of millionaires at the elite First Congregational Church in Los Angeles, Mr. Fifield said reading the Bible was “like eating fish — we take the bones out to enjoy the meat. All parts are not of equal value.” He dismissed New Testament warnings about the corrupting nature of wealth. Instead, he paired Christianity and capitalism against the New Deal’s “pagan statism.”
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Through his national organization, Spiritual Mobilization, founded in 1935, Mr. Fifield promoted “freedom under God.” By the late 1940s, his group was spreading the gospel of faith and free enterprise in a mass-circulated monthly magazine and a weekly radio program that eventually aired on more than 800 stations nationwide. It even encouraged ministers to preach sermons on its themes in competitions for cash prizes. Liberals howled at the group’s conflation of God and greed; in 1948, the radical journalist Carey McWilliams denounced it in a withering exposé. But Mr. Fifield exploited such criticism to raise more funds and redouble his efforts.
Meanwhile, the Rev. Abraham Vereide advanced the Christian libertarian cause with a national network of prayer groups. After ministering to industrialists facing huge labor strikes in Seattle and San Francisco in the mid-1930s, Mr. Vereide began building prayer breakfast groups in cities across America to bring business and political elites together in common cause. “The big men and the real leaders in New York and Chicago,” he wrote his wife, “look up to me in an embarrassing way.” In Manhattan alone, James Cash Penney, I.B.M.’s Thomas Watson, Norman Vincent Peale and Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia all sought audiences with him.
In 1942, Mr. Vereide’s influence spread to Washington. He persuaded the House and Senate to start weekly prayer meetings “in order that we might be a God-directed and God-controlled nation.” Mr. Vereide opened headquarters in Washington — “God’s Embassy,” he called it — and became a powerful force in its previously secular institutions. Among other activities, he held “dedication ceremonies” for several justices of the Supreme Court. “No country or civilization can last,” Justice Tom C. Clark announced at his 1949 consecration, “unless it is founded on Christian values.”
The most important clergyman for Christian libertarianism, though, was the Rev. Billy Graham. In his initial ministry, in the early 1950s, Mr. Graham supported corporate interests so zealously that a London paper called him “the Big Business evangelist.” The Garden of Eden, he informed revival attendees, was a paradise with “no union dues, no labor leaders, no snakes, no disease.” In the same spirit, he denounced all “government restrictions” in economic affairs, which he invariably attacked as “socialism.”
In 1952, Mr. Graham went to Washington and made Congress his congregation. He recruited representatives to serve as ushers at packed revival meetings and staged the first formal religious service held on the Capitol steps. That year, at his urging, Congress established an annual National Day of Prayer. “If I would run for president of the United States today on a platform of calling people back to God, back to Christ, back to the Bible,” he predicted, “I’d be elected.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower fulfilled that prediction. With Mr. Graham offering Scripture for Ike’s speeches, the Republican nominee campaigned in what he called a “great crusade for freedom.” His military record made the general a formidable candidate, but on the trail he emphasized spiritual issues over worldly concerns. As the journalist John Temple Graves observed: “America isn’t just a land of the free in Eisenhower’s conception. It is a land of freedom under God.” Elected in a landslide, Eisenhower told Mr. Graham that he had a mandate for a “spiritual renewal.”
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Although Eisenhower relied on Christian libertarian groups in the campaign, he parted ways with their agenda once elected. The movement’s corporate sponsors had seen religious rhetoric as a way to dismantle the New Deal state. But the newly elected president thought that a fool’s errand. “Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs,” he noted privately, “you would not hear of that party again in our political history.” Unlike those who held public spirituality as a means to an end, Eisenhower embraced it as an end unto itself.
Uncoupling the language of “freedom under God” from its Christian libertarian roots, Eisenhower erected a bigger revival tent, welcoming Jews and Catholics alongside Protestants, and Democrats as well as Republicans. Rallying the country, he advanced a revolutionary array of new religious ceremonies and slogans.
The first week of February 1953 set the dizzying pace: On Sunday morning, he was baptized; that night, he broadcast an Oval Office address for the American Legion’s “Back to God” campaign; on Thursday, he appeared with Mr. Vereide at the inaugural National Prayer Breakfast; on Friday, he instituted the first opening prayers at a cabinet meeting.
The rest of Washington consecrated itself, too. The Pentagon, State Department and other executive agencies quickly instituted prayer services of their own. In 1954, Congress added “under God” to the previously secular Pledge of Allegiance. It placed a similar slogan, “In God We Trust,” on postage that year and voted the following year to add it to paper money; in 1956, it became the nation’s official motto.
During these years, Americans were told, time and time again, not just that the country should be a Christian nation, but that it always had been one. They soon came to think of the United States as “one nation under God.” They’ve believed it ever since.
Kevin M. Kruse is a professor of history at Princeton and the author, most recently, of “One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America.”
Kevin Kruse
Department/Program(s):History
Position: Professor
Title: Professor of History.
Area(s): United States
Field: 20th-century U.S.; political; urban/suburban
Office: 215 Dickinson Hall
Phone: 609-258-1734
Email: kkruse@princeton.edu
Office Hours: T 9.00-11.00 & by appointment
Dear H.E. Most Reverend Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano (202)-333-7121);http://apostolicnunciatureunitedstates.webstarts.com/) :
I am an employee of Nassau OTB, a New York public benefit corporation, that closes on Roman Catholic Easter Sunday and Palm Sunday in preference to the same holy days observed by members of the Eastern Orthodox Church on different Sundays. NY Const Art 1, Sec 3 precludes the State of New York from such religious preference. I am not a Christian and believe that people should be able to freely choose their days of work, prayer and/or betting on horses at Nassau OTB, a public benefit corporation. The New York State Lottery is open every day of the year and the slot machines in NY are open every day of the year. I would like to be able to work on days that others may observe as days of prayer. I acknowledge that the US is a Christian nation and the only religious holiday on the US federal calendar is Christmas.
Would the Church express its opinion on this matter to its member Governor Andrew Cuomo who is my Governor and charged with seeing that the laws of the State of NY are "faithfully" executed?
My contact information is set forth below along with a background article. More background material is available upon request.
Sincerely yours,
Nassau OTB Cashier
> LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
HI-
Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.
Claude Solnik
(631) 913-4244
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
even in Shelter Cove, California.
George Maragos joins the crusade and goes straight to to the top, can't get no higher, to see that Nassau OTB, a public benefit corporation, is open on Roman Catholic Palm Sunday and Easters in 2015 and forevermore.
Pope Francis' emissary to the US cannot express an opinion on retroactive raises, but he can tell the faithful what Rome has to say about religious preference and keeping people from doing as they please in NY as a matter of Vatican Law which outranks Republican and Democratic Party Leaders?
Nassau County Comptroller
George Maragos seen on Oct. 8, 2014. Photo Credit: Howard
Schnapp
Nassau Comptroller George Maragos this week squared off against
the county election board over retroactive salary increases --
part of $1.6 million in pay raises and benefits Nassau officials
have awarded to appointees since December.
Maragos, a Republican, moved to recoup more than $30,000 in retroactive raises already paid to five election board workers, who have close ties to top county Republican leaders. He also refused to grant similar retroactive raises to five Democratic appointees.
On Monday, the comptroller mailed certified letters to the five Republicans, whose pay hikes ranged from $3,000 a year to nearly $40,000 annually, saying that because of a "clerical error" his office had approved raises retroactive to July 1.
Data2014 Nassau County raisesDataSearch payroll data on Long Island After the county's financial control board lifted a three-year wage freeze last summer, Maragos had warned that he would not approve retroactive raises for appointees.
Maragos noted in his letters that outside legal counsel had found the state constitution bars retroactive wage increases to appointees as illegal gifts of public money. He directed the five to return the overpayments in a lump sum or in installments.
The letters went to:
Julie Maier, a longtime secretary and assistant to Nassau GOP
chairman Joseph Mondello. Maier's salary jumped from $125,531 to
$165,000, and her title changed from executive assistant to
special assistant to the commissioner. Maier also works at the
Nassau Republican Committee, where she earned $15,220 last year.
Joseph V. Ra, son of Hempstead Town Attorney and Franklin Square Republican leader Joseph Ra. The younger Ra got a $10,000 raise as he was promoted from a $96,328 chief election officer to a $106,238-a-year deputy clerk.
Diane Alleyn, longtime secretary and assistant to Joseph Cairo, the North Valley Stream Republican leader who is Mondello's top lieutenant in the county party. Alleyn, an administrative aide, received a $5,000 raise to $120,409.
Nancy Staab, secretary and assistant to Republican Elections Commissioner Louis Savinetti, received a $7,500 increase as she was promoted from administrative assistant to the $66,566-a-year Republican manager of accounts and special reports.
Administrative aide Wanda Foss, wife of a top Mondello committeemen in his West Levittown Republican club, who received a $3,000 raise, to $78,000 annually.
Foss declined to comment. The other four could not be reached.
Republican Elections Board counsel John Ryan said he will fight Maragos' directive. Ryan said the state constitution gives election commissioners sole discretion on how to spend their approved budgets.
Dear H.E. Most Reverend Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano (202)-333-7121);http://apostolicnunciatureunitedstates.webstarts.com/) :
I am an employee of Nassau OTB, a New York public benefit corporation, that closes on Roman Catholic Easter Sunday and Palm Sunday in preference to the same holy days observed by members of the Eastern Orthodox Church on different Sundays. NY Const Art 1, Sec 3 precludes the State of New York from such religious preference. I am not a Christian and believe that people should be able to freely choose their days of work, prayer and/or betting on horses at Nassau OTB, a public benefit corporation. The New York State Lottery is open every day of the year and the slot machines in NY are open every day of the year. I would like to be able to work on days that others may observe as days of prayer. I acknowledge that the US is a Christian nation and the only religious holiday on the US federal calendar is Christmas.
Would the Church express its opinion on this matter to its member Governor Andrew Cuomo who is my Governor and charged with seeing that the laws of the State of NY are "faithfully" executed?
My contact information is set forth below along with a background article. More background material is available upon request.
Sincerely yours,
Nassau OTB Cashier
> LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
HI-
Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.
Claude Solnik
(631) 913-4244
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
even in Shelter Cove, California.
George Maragos joins the crusade and goes straight to to the top, can't get no higher, to see that Nassau OTB, a public benefit corporation, is open on Roman Catholic Palm Sunday and Easters in 2015 and forevermore.
Pope Francis' emissary to the US cannot express an opinion on retroactive raises, but he can tell the faithful what Rome has to say about religious preference and keeping people from doing as they please in NY as a matter of Vatican Law which outranks Republican and Democratic Party Leaders?
Nassau County Comptroller
George Maragos seen on Oct. 8, 2014. Photo Credit: Howard
Schnapp
Nassau Comptroller George Maragos this week squared off against
the county election board over retroactive salary increases --
part of $1.6 million in pay raises and benefits Nassau officials
have awarded to appointees since December.
Maragos, a Republican, moved to recoup more than $30,000 in retroactive raises already paid to five election board workers, who have close ties to top county Republican leaders. He also refused to grant similar retroactive raises to five Democratic appointees.
On Monday, the comptroller mailed certified letters to the five Republicans, whose pay hikes ranged from $3,000 a year to nearly $40,000 annually, saying that because of a "clerical error" his office had approved raises retroactive to July 1.
Data2014 Nassau County raisesDataSearch payroll data on Long Island After the county's financial control board lifted a three-year wage freeze last summer, Maragos had warned that he would not approve retroactive raises for appointees.
Maragos noted in his letters that outside legal counsel had found the state constitution bars retroactive wage increases to appointees as illegal gifts of public money. He directed the five to return the overpayments in a lump sum or in installments.
The letters went to:
Julie Maier, a longtime secretary and assistant to Nassau GOP
chairman Joseph Mondello. Maier's salary jumped from $125,531 to
$165,000, and her title changed from executive assistant to
special assistant to the commissioner. Maier also works at the
Nassau Republican Committee, where she earned $15,220 last year.
Joseph V. Ra, son of Hempstead Town Attorney and Franklin Square Republican leader Joseph Ra. The younger Ra got a $10,000 raise as he was promoted from a $96,328 chief election officer to a $106,238-a-year deputy clerk.
Diane Alleyn, longtime secretary and assistant to Joseph Cairo, the North Valley Stream Republican leader who is Mondello's top lieutenant in the county party. Alleyn, an administrative aide, received a $5,000 raise to $120,409.
Nancy Staab, secretary and assistant to Republican Elections Commissioner Louis Savinetti, received a $7,500 increase as she was promoted from administrative assistant to the $66,566-a-year Republican manager of accounts and special reports.
Administrative aide Wanda Foss, wife of a top Mondello committeemen in his West Levittown Republican club, who received a $3,000 raise, to $78,000 annually.
Foss declined to comment. The other four could not be reached.
Republican Elections Board counsel John Ryan said he will fight Maragos' directive. Ryan said the state constitution gives election commissioners sole discretion on how to spend their approved budgets.
Dear H.E. Most Reverend Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano (202)-333-7121);http://apostolicnunciatureunitedstates.webstarts.com/) :
I am an employee of Nassau OTB, a New York public benefit corporation, that closes on Roman Catholic Easter Sunday and Palm Sunday in preference to the same holy days observed by members of the Eastern Orthodox Church on different Sundays. NY Const Art 1, Sec 3 precludes the State of New York from such religious preference. I am not a Christian and believe that people should be able to freely choose their days of work, prayer and/or betting on horses at Nassau OTB, a public benefit corporation. The New York State Lottery is open every day of the year and the slot machines in NY are open every day of the year. I would like to be able to work on days that others may observe as days of prayer. I acknowledge that the US is a Christian nation and the only religious holiday on the US federal calendar is Christmas.
Would the Church express its opinion on this matter to its member Governor Andrew Cuomo who is my Governor and charged with seeing that the laws of the State of NY are "faithfully" executed?
My contact information is set forth below along with a background article. More background material is available upon request.
Sincerely yours,
Nassau OTB Cashier
> LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
HI-
Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.
Claude Solnik
(631) 913-4244
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
even in Shelter Cove, California.
George Maragos joins the crusade and goes straight to to the top, can't get no higher, to see that Nassau OTB, a public benefit corporation, is open on Roman Catholic Palm Sunday and Easters in 2015 and forevermore.
Pope Francis' emissary to the US cannot express an opinion on retroactive raises, but he can tell the faithful what Rome has to say about religious preference and keeping people from doing as they please in NY as a matter of Vatican Law which outranks Republican and Democratic Party Leaders?
Nassau County Comptroller
George Maragos seen on Oct. 8, 2014. Photo Credit: Howard
Schnapp Maragos, a Republican, moved to recoup more than $30,000 in retroactive raises already paid to five election board workers, who have close ties to top county Republican leaders. He also refused to grant similar retroactive raises to five Democratic appointees.
On Monday, the comptroller mailed certified letters to the five Republicans, whose pay hikes ranged from $3,000 a year to nearly $40,000 annually, saying that because of a "clerical error" his office had approved raises retroactive to July 1.
Data2014 Nassau County raisesDataSearch payroll data on Long Island After the county's financial control board lifted a three-year wage freeze last summer, Maragos had warned that he would not approve retroactive raises for appointees.
Maragos noted in his letters that outside legal counsel had found the state constitution bars retroactive wage increases to appointees as illegal gifts of public money. He directed the five to return the overpayments in a lump sum or in installments.
The letters went to:
advertisement | advertise on newsday
Joseph V. Ra, son of Hempstead Town Attorney and Franklin Square Republican leader Joseph Ra. The younger Ra got a $10,000 raise as he was promoted from a $96,328 chief election officer to a $106,238-a-year deputy clerk.
Diane Alleyn, longtime secretary and assistant to Joseph Cairo, the North Valley Stream Republican leader who is Mondello's top lieutenant in the county party. Alleyn, an administrative aide, received a $5,000 raise to $120,409.
Nancy Staab, secretary and assistant to Republican Elections Commissioner Louis Savinetti, received a $7,500 increase as she was promoted from administrative assistant to the $66,566-a-year Republican manager of accounts and special reports.
Administrative aide Wanda Foss, wife of a top Mondello committeemen in his West Levittown Republican club, who received a $3,000 raise, to $78,000 annually.
Foss declined to comment. The other four could not be reached.
Republican Elections Board counsel John Ryan said he will fight Maragos' directive. Ryan said the state constitution gives election commissioners sole discretion on how to spend their approved budgets.
Dear H.E. Most Reverend Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano (202)-333-7121);http://apostolicnunciatureunitedstates.webstarts.com/) :
I am an employee of Nassau OTB, a New York public benefit corporation, that closes on Roman Catholic Easter Sunday and Palm Sunday in preference to the same holy days observed by members of the Eastern Orthodox Church on different Sundays. NY Const Art 1, Sec 3 precludes the State of New York from such religious preference. I am not a Christian and believe that people should be able to freely choose their days of work, prayer and/or betting on horses at Nassau OTB, a public benefit corporation. The New York State Lottery is open every day of the year and the slot machines in NY are open every day of the year. I would like to be able to work on days that others may observe as days of prayer. I acknowledge that the US is a Christian nation and the only religious holiday on the US federal calendar is Christmas.
Would the Church express its opinion on this matter to its member Governor Andrew Cuomo who is my Governor and charged with seeing that the laws of the State of NY are "faithfully" executed?
My contact information is set forth below along with a background article. More background material is available upon request.
Sincerely yours,
Nassau OTB Cashier
> LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
HI-
Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.
Claude Solnik
(631) 913-4244
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
even in Shelter Cove, California.
George Maragos joins the crusade and goes straight to to the top, can't get no higher, to see that Nassau OTB, a public benefit corporation, is open on Roman Catholic Palm Sunday and Easters in 2015 and forevermore.
Pope Francis' emissary to the US cannot express an opinion on retroactive raises, but he can tell the faithful what Rome has to say about religious preference and keeping people from doing as they please in NY as a matter of Vatican Law which outranks Republican and Democratic Party Leaders?
Nassau County Comptroller
George Maragos seen on Oct. 8, 2014. Photo Credit: Howard
Schnapp Maragos, a Republican, moved to recoup more than $30,000 in retroactive raises already paid to five election board workers, who have close ties to top county Republican leaders. He also refused to grant similar retroactive raises to five Democratic appointees.
On Monday, the comptroller mailed certified letters to the five Republicans, whose pay hikes ranged from $3,000 a year to nearly $40,000 annually, saying that because of a "clerical error" his office had approved raises retroactive to July 1.
Data2014 Nassau County raisesDataSearch payroll data on Long Island After the county's financial control board lifted a three-year wage freeze last summer, Maragos had warned that he would not approve retroactive raises for appointees.
Maragos noted in his letters that outside legal counsel had found the state constitution bars retroactive wage increases to appointees as illegal gifts of public money. He directed the five to return the overpayments in a lump sum or in installments.
The letters went to:
advertisement | advertise on newsday
Joseph V. Ra, son of Hempstead Town Attorney and Franklin Square Republican leader Joseph Ra. The younger Ra got a $10,000 raise as he was promoted from a $96,328 chief election officer to a $106,238-a-year deputy clerk.
Diane Alleyn, longtime secretary and assistant to Joseph Cairo, the North Valley Stream Republican leader who is Mondello's top lieutenant in the county party. Alleyn, an administrative aide, received a $5,000 raise to $120,409.
Nancy Staab, secretary and assistant to Republican Elections Commissioner Louis Savinetti, received a $7,500 increase as she was promoted from administrative assistant to the $66,566-a-year Republican manager of accounts and special reports.
Administrative aide Wanda Foss, wife of a top Mondello committeemen in his West Levittown Republican club, who received a $3,000 raise, to $78,000 annually.
Foss declined to comment. The other four could not be reached.
Republican Elections Board counsel John Ryan said he will fight Maragos' directive. Ryan said the state constitution gives election commissioners sole discretion on how to spend their approved budgets.
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