What didn’t work in 1925 hasn’t worked in 2011

Rick Perry’s entrance into the presidential race has renewed attention to his ambitious if fruitless prayer for rain  in drought-afflicted Texas.

But Perry certainly isn’t the first governor to seek such divine meteorological intervention. In 1925, reacting to a brutal drought across the South, N.C. Gov. Angus McLean proclaimed “a day of humility and prayer to God who sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. . . . ”

Among those responding was the Rev. A.A. McGeachy of Charlotte’s Second Presbyterian Church, who prayed for rain for 30 minutes before the Sunday service.

Relief was minimal. The summer of 1925 remains the driest on record in many areas of the state.