Jan. 2025

In 1949 George Orwell’s novel 1984 predicted a dystopian society in which government agencies had names that suggested the exact opposite of their actual missions. The Ministry of Truth was responsible for censorship and propaganda; the Ministry of Peace promoted war; the Ministry of Plenty was responsible for rationing; and the Ministry of Love oversaw political suppression and torture.

Seventy-five years later The United States has The Inflation Reduction Act, which authorizes the spending of nearly a trillion dollars, with a corresponding increase in the national debt; and a proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is intended to shrink and streamline the federal bureaucracy by adding another layer of government and more bureaucrats. I leave it to alert readers (ARs) to decide for themselves whether The Inflation Reduction Act and DOGE are examples of Orwellian doublespeak.

Before the DOGE (Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency) Caucus was formed in the United States Congress; and before President Trump proposed his DOGE as a federal commission, DOGE was known primarily as a cryptocurrency launched as a joke in 2013. There was a time and place, however, specifically in the Republic of Venice from 697 to 1797, when the DOGE was definitely not a joke. On the contrary, he was a brutally repressive despot, albeit one who was elected with a semblance of democracy.

As some ARs may know, the name Doge is derived from the Latin dux, or leader. Known as “His Serenity”, the Doge was elected for life by a select group of Venetian oligarchs. ARs who have visited Venice and seen The Doge’s Palace can attest to the splendor in which the Doges lived. These same ARs may also have seen the infamous Bridge of Sighs linking the Doge’s Palace and the building containing the Doge’s prisons and torture chambers. The bridge earned its name because it afforded the unfortunate prisoners their last view ever of the outside world.

At its peak the Venetian Empire under the Doge extended along the Adriatic into Turkey and Cyprus. Venice became the richest and most powerful city in Europe as the result of its trade throughout the Arab world and into India. The most famous Venetian merchant was probably Marco Polo, who traveled along the Silk Road as far as present-day Mongolia and China. Upon arriving in Cathay, aka China, he was received by the royal court of Kubla Khan, who appointed him as his foreign emissary, which led to visits throughout Southeast Asia, including to present-day Burma, Vietnam, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

Venetian Department of Government Efficiency?

Perhaps like some ARs, I first heard of Kubla Khan in high school when I read the poem with that name by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which begins with a reference to the stately pleasure dome decreed in Xanadu by Kubla Khan and ends with the lines:

For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Coleridge completed this poem in 1797, which was the same year Napoleon ended the millennium-long regime of Doges in Venice. He later wrote that he had composed it while under the influence of opium, perhaps explaining the full title of the poem, which refers to “A Vision in a Dream”; and also perhaps explaining the “milk of Paradise” to which he refers in the last line.

Coleridge was almost certainly influenced by the poetry of Robert Burns, who had died one year earlier, in 1796, and whose birthday is celebrated around the world, especially in Scotland, on or around January 25th. ARs who yearn for adventure, but not quite on the same scale as Marco Polo, may be inspired to celebrate Burns’s birthday at The Old Forge in Knoydart, which describes itself as the most remote pub in Scotland and is a 20 mile walk from the nearest road. If any AR does in fact visit The Old Forge on Burns Night or at any other time of year for that matter, I would welcome a firsthand report.

ARs who want to celebrate Burns Night closer to home may want to join us at The Schlafly Tap Room on January 23rd. We can toast a poet who was also a tax collector and did his part to promote government efficiency as an exciseman in 18th century Scotland. Ironically, this poet who left such a rich literary legacy was debt-ridden and insolvent when he died. Apparently Robert Burns, like the U.S. Government, had tried to curb inflation by borrowing extensively and spending far more than he earned.

Tom Schlafly
Chairman
Schlafly | The Saint Louis Brewery