Hitlers, Stalins and Bushes

There were about fifteen people named Hitler in the 1930 Census of the US, and there are about the same number scattered about the country today. Hitlers served in the Union cause in the War Between the States and in both World Wars. I would have assumed that most Hitlers would have changed their name after WW2, but it does not appear to be the case in the US. There were some 78 Stalins in 1930, and there are still lots of Stalins in America. Stalins fought for the Union and in the World Wars. It does not appear that droves of Stalins petitioned for name changes in this country. Most American Stalins appear to have Swedish roots.

I know these factoids because I was going to write a post that the surname Bush would disappear from America after George’s disastrous regime. But if Hitlers and Stalins are OK with their names, most Bushes probably will be, too.

Before anybody gets all worked up about my comparing Bush to Hitler and Stalin, let me say that I acknowledge that Bush’s career tyrant statistics do not yet stack up to either of these superstars. But it might be fair to compare Bush to Hitler or Stalin at the same point in their sprees, i.e. when they had the same number of state sanctioned murders, disappeared people, people in gulags, and the like. One, particularly one who knows more about the careers of these dictators than I do, might say that Bush is like Hitler 1933 or Stalin 1927 or some such year depending on where they stood in those years as compared to Bush.