A while back I commented on some Associated Press news stories that presented distorted views and charts of factual information. Now it seems that selective history is being used to further an agenda.

An AP story headlined “Columbus’ dark side emerging in classrooms” ran in your Oct. 11 edition. Overall, the piece wasn’t bad, but as with all politically correct writing, it excoriated Europeans, implying they deliberately brought smallpox to the New World.

It also implied the spread of Europeans through the Americas was something that had never happened anywhere before nor since in history, ignoring the rise and fall of expansionist civilizations such as the Maya and Aztec, not to mention frequent warfare between tribes north of the Rio Grande.

Also in that article, a kindergarten teacher said that Columbus “’...was very, very mean, very bossy.’” We’re sorry, but a ship’s captain in the 15th century could not operate using focus groups and participative management. Even the U.S. Navy didn’t abolish flogging until 1850.

Then today’s (Oct. 18) edition ran an AP story headlined “Marchers follow in John Brown’s footsteps.” The article’s thrust was summarized by a teacher from Brooklyn when she “... called Brown a genius who championed equal opportunity not just for blacks like her but for all Americans.”

There was one mention in the article that some viewed Brown as a terrorist, but there was no mention of the night of May 24-25, 1856, in Franklin County, Kansas. I doubt any of our schools discuss this part of Brown’s life either.

On that night, Brown, four of his sons, and two other men dragged five anti-abolitionist men from their homes. The five men included Joseph P. Doyle and two adult sons. The men were then hacked to death with swords. Reportedly, Brown himself made sure the elder Doyle was dead with a shot to his head.

Look up the definition of terrorist and you will find that John Brown qualifies, so let’s stop deifying him. Then again, these five men deserved what they got. Didn’t they? Where is Paul Harvey when we need the “rest of the story?”

Well, there is a “rest of the story.” Except for a few grammar or spelling corrections, everything written above was based on the printed article of Oct. 18 and written on Oct. 18. Wanting to be thorough, on Oct. 19 I reviewed the same article on the Times-News’ Web site.

Everything was the same — except that one paragraph from the AP article was missing from the Times-News’ print version. You may have guessed it, but the non-published paragraph had to do with the 1856 Kansas massacre. The one fact that could create a negative impression of Brown wasn’t printed.

Sadly, I must go back to the second sentence of the original letter above and ask if there was an agenda to make John Brown, who believed it was God’s will to murder those five men, look better than he truly was.

Patrick Brady

Cumberland