1916 Called and It Thinks 2016 Rocks: What a Difference 100 Years Made

What was the life expectancy for the average man 100 years ago? If you had a car, where could you buy gas? How much did the average worker make annually?

"One hundred years ago, if you had a car, the only place you could buy gasoline was at the drugstore. Only 14 percent of all homes in the United States had a bathtub. Only eight percent had a telephone," Glenn read Thursday on his radio program.

In addition, only six percent of Americans graduated from high school. The average worker made between $200 and $400 a year, and substances like marijuana, heroin and morphine were available over-the-counter at local drugstores.

RELATED: American Dream: What Does It Even Mean?

"Back then, your local pharmacist would say, Heroin will clean your complexion, and it gives you buoyancy of the mind," Glenn said.

"Fact," Jeffy chimed in without fact-checking.

Read below or listen to the full segment for answers to these ancient questions:

• What did 90 percent of all doctors not have?

• How often did women wash their hair?

• How many stars did the American flag have?

• What law did Canada pass about poor people?

• How many people lived in Las Vegas?

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: This is how much times have changed in 100 years.

One hundred years ago, the life expectancy for the average man was 47 years. A hundred years ago, in the United States, the average man lived to 47.

PAT: Okay.

GLENN: That's incredible.

PAT: Is it longer than that now?

GLENN: I want to hit you.

(chuckling)

One hundred years ago, if you had a car, the only place you could buy gasoline was at the drugstore. Only 14 percent of all homes in the United States -- one hundred years ago -- had a bathtub. Only eight percent had a telephone. The maximum speed limit in most cities was ten.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: The average wage for a citizen in the US was 22 cents an hour. The average worker made between 200 and $400 a year. A competent accountant could expect to earn $2,000 a year. A dentist could make $2,500 a year. A vet could make between $1,500 and $4,000 a year. A mechanical engineer was making five grand a year.

More than 95 percent of births took place at home, where they never charged you to hold your baby.

Ninety percent of all doctors --

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: -- didn't have this.

What do you think it was?

PAT: Leprosy.

GLENN: Good point. Probably.

STU: Probably in excess of 90. Yeah.

PAT: I would think so. Syphilis?

GLENN: Nope.

JEFFY: A degree.

GLENN: Degree.

JEFFY: Yeah.

PAT: Ninety percent of doctors!

GLENN: Ninety percent of doctors had no college degree.

STU: Wow.

JEFFY: Those were good times.

PAT: How'd they become doctors?

JEFFY: Because you got to say it.

PAT: No.

GLENN: You would go to a so-called --

PAT: A doctor trade school or something?

GLENN: Yeah, you would go to a doctor trade school. You would go to a so-called medical school, but those ended because the medical schools were pretty much a scam.

Sugar at the time cost 4 cents a pound. Eggs were 14 cents a dozen. Coffee, 15 cents a pound. Most women washed their hair how many times a month?

PAT: Once.

GLENN: Once.

JEFFY: Yeah.

GLENN: Most women washed their hair once a month 100 years ago.

JEFFY: They would go down to the stream once a month.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: And what did they use to wash it?

PAT: Soap.

GLENN: Uh-uh.

JEFFY: Lard.

PAT: Brylcreem.

GLENN: Egg yolks or borax.

PAT: Borax?

GLENN: Yep.

JEFFY: Lard would have been better.

GLENN: Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.

The five leading causes of death were pneumonia and the flue, tuberculosis, diarrhea, heart disease, and the stroke.

PAT: You died from diarrhea?

GLENN: Oh, yeah. That's -- what's that called?

PAT: Is that consumption?

GLENN: No, the consumption is tuberculosis.

PAT: Is it?

GLENN: Yeah.

PAT: Okay.

GLENN: Diarrhea was --

PAT: Well, diarrhea, because they called it something else.

GLENN: Yeah, it's -- oh, crap. I mean, excuse the pun. Yeah, what is it? Say it out loud.

(laughter)

JEFFY: Dysentery.

GLENN: Yeah, dysentery. Dysentery. Yep. Dysentery.

The American flag only has 45 stars. The population of Las Vegas was 30 people, one hundred years ago.

PAT: Thirty?

GLENN: Thirty.

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea had not been invented yet. There was neither a Mother's Day nor a Father's Day.

Only 6 percent of all Americans graduated from high school. Marijuana, heroin, morphine, all available over-the-counter at local drugstores.

PAT: Good times. Good times. Good times.

(sighing)

GLENN: Back then, your local pharmacist would say, "Heroin will clean your complexion, and it gives you buoyance of the mind."

JEFFY: Fact.

GLENN: "It regulates the stomach. It regulates the bowels. In fact, heroin is the perfect guardian of health."

JEFFY: Fact.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: Can you imagine? I would have never left my drugstore.

PAT: I know.

(laughter)

GLENN: Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help. And there were how many murders in the entire United States a hundred ago in America? For the entire year, one hundred years ago, 1916, how many murders?

JEFFY: Reported.

GLENN: Yeah, were reported.

STU: Murders usually are a crime that's reported accurately because there's dead people or missing people. That's why the crime stat people like --

PAT: Well, you're leading us to believe that it's really low.

GLENN: Why am I leading you to believe that? Oh, because I'm for Hillary?

PAT: Yes.

GLENN: Does that also lead you to believe I'm for Hillary?

PAT: Yes, yes.

STU: You are?

GLENN: Yeah.

PAT: And gun control.

GLENN: And gun control.

PAT: Fifty.

GLENN: Shut up, Pat.

(chuckling)

PAT: That's too low? Is that too low?

STU: I bet it's right around, what, the area of just what Chicago gets in a year now. Probably the entire country.

GLENN: Entire country of the United States.

PAT: 700.

GLENN: 700. What do you think, Stu?

STU: Yeah, I mean --

GLENN: Chicago --

JEFFY: There were 30 people in Vegas. So 9,225.

GLENN: Thank you, Jeffy. Thank you for playing along. Thank you.

JEFFY: You're welcome. You're welcome.

GLENN: 230.

STU: Wow.

PAT: 230?

GLENN: In the entire country, a hundred years ago.

PAT: That's pretty good.

GLENN: Well, there were no guns. Oh, wait.

PAT: Hold it.

GLENN: Hold it just a second.

JEFFY: What?

PAT: They were probably more prevalent.

GLENN: No, they couldn't have been.

PAT: Per capita.

GLENN: No, I think you're wrong. Don't even look at it. Don't even look at that stat. Because then you're probably wrong. And let's just assume that you are. Okay?

STU: On this front too -- this is kind of interesting in that, you know, capitalism does its work a lot of times in spite of Washington. And a lot of times, we sit here thinking about how bad everything is, but capitalism churns away, while Washington tries to screw it up.

And it's our job to push for Washington to screw it up as little as possible. But as it's churned away over the past 90 years -- in the mid-30s -- last past 80 years, mid-30s, you spent about 62 percent of your disposable income on home, cars, clothing, household furnishings, household and utilities, and gasoline. So, I mean, you look at that, it's pretty much nothing you're like enjoying. It's just stuff you need. Basic necessities of life. Food. How do you get around? It was 62 percent in the mid-30s. It's now 32 percent.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

STU: So you cut that in half, giving us all the rest of that income to do things that we might enjoy or that aren't base necessities of --

GLENN: Why doesn't it feel that way?

JEFFY: It doesn't.

STU: Well, because I think --

PAT: Debt for one thing.

STU: The messaging of the media is that everyone is getting behind. And I think debt is part of it. But, you know, credit card debt is probably part of it.

GLENN: And we're probably spending a lot of money on the things that we don't need. And so that puts us behind. And then we look at -- if it wasn't for our house being so expensive -- because we wouldn't think about cutting --

STU: But the central function of that, I don't think is any of those things. I think it's capitalism improving things.

GLENN: Yes.

STU: It's cutting costs on items that we used to have. It's improving items that we used to have. It's making those things more efficiently produced. And now we're able to afford things -- I mean, you told the story about the 10,000-dollar television recently on the air about how one of your big purchases --

JEFFY: Yeah.

GLENN: My 40th birthday, my wife got me a -- the first Sony flat screen -- I still have it. First Sony flat screen television. It was I don't even know, 32 inches. Pat, do you think, maybe?

PAT: Yeah, maybe a little bigger than that.

GLENN: And it was $10,000.

STU: And that was?

GLENN: Twelve years ago.

STU: Twelve years ago. So mid-Bush administration -- this is not ancient history, right?

I was in Walmart two weeks ago and took a picture of a television display. And it was a brand I hadn't heard of, so it wasn't Sony. But it was a 40-inch -- it was LCD. It was a smart TV. So it had features that your TV couldn't even dream of, right?

GLENN: I know.

STU: $198.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh!

JEFFY: Oh, yeah.

STU: $198.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

STU: And there were just stacks of them. And it's like, how do you account for, to people, that change? Because people will say, well, look, if you look at the incomes, you know, after tax and after health care expenses, we haven't improved things at all for the middle class.

What about that change? The thing that only Mr. Rich Television Personality could even dream of affording -- and if I remember correctly, you opposed the purchase because it was too crazy.

GLENN: Yeah, no. I wouldn't have gotten it -- if it wasn't for my birthday --

STU: It was only a birthday present.

GLENN: She surprised me with it. And I thought it was insane. And it was so insane that I would bring you guys over. You guys came over to my house. And you said, "Can I come over and see it?"

STU: It was a museum piece. Okay?

GLENN: It was. And it was in my bedroom. I said, "Okay." And we would all sit on the bed and go, "Wow."

PAT: We traveled 2,000 miles to see it.

STU: Yeah. It was that amazing.

PAT: I was in Houston at the time.

GLENN: That's right. That's right.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: So this is actually -- I think back before even when you were on TV. But it was a time -- that changed.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: So now a person who makes, you know, $30,000 a year and has a nice job and --

GLENN: Has a flat screen --

STU: Has a flat screen TV of better quality --

GLENN: For 198 -- yes.

STU: Even from some no-name brand, better quality with features that didn't even exist when you bought yours, in about a decade.

GLENN: For $198.

STU: Yeah, for 99 percent off. Or 98 percent off.

GLENN: Unbelievable.

STU: And that stuff happens all the time with products all the time.

GLENN: All the time.

STU: And it's lost because the media focuses on things that make capitalism look evil. Those things are happening to us all the time. And it's the -- it is the miracle of America.

Featured Image: Photograph of three women spinning wool to knit socks for soldiers during World War I, circa 1915. (Wiki Commons)

The great switch: Gates trades climate control for digital dominion

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.