About
I developed my conservative values from my maternal grandfather. As I grew older and began to love what history taught us, I learned a lot about my other grandparents and their parents and grandparents. What I admired about them was their self-reliance. Not one of them asked for hand outs. To each, they had their successes and they had their failures; and more importantly, they each experienced moments of happiness and moments of regret. Throughout my life, my father would remind me of his hero and the grandfather who raised him from childhood. His name was Wendell Philucius Hammon and he was at heart an olive farmer. What he did was invent and successfully promote the first continuous line gold dredge. He founded and operated the Yuba Consolidated Gold Fields which owned and operated gold dredges around the world. In the twilight of his gold dredging career he invested in copper mining. When WP invested, he was the consummate gambler and would go all in. At the time, the U.S. was on the gold standard and thus had a fixed price for gold; so WP was not used to a fluctuating market. He lost! The story isn’t full unless you know that he got to California traveling in a box car as a young man with no money delivering olive saplings to the laboratories of Luther Burbank. Burbank’s mother and business manager struck a deal with WP to sell the unacceptable (for the Burbank experiments) on consignment. That got him his start. When he was in his last days he told my dad: “Son, I came out here with a dime in my pocket, I am leaving here with a dime in my pocket; but I had one hell of a good time while I was here.”
It is no wonder why I became an advocate for conservative causes. With an attitude like that as my back bone, I want the government to only provide the essentials to keep the United States of America as a vital country as the rest of the world goes insane. I will stand up for anyone to say what they want to say without interruption; only if they give me the same right in return. I love a good debate and the exchange of ideas. It is through this method we grow as humans and become better people as a result. I am not going to agree with all of the people all of the time; but I will agree with some of the people some of the time.
Scott H. Hendricks
