tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67790453467572542962024-03-14T04:37:43.774-04:00THE MONDAY EVENING CLUBFounded in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1869Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger111125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-46086808796149918062021-04-01T20:48:00.001-04:002021-04-01T20:48:28.265-04:00SALT: Suggestive Accelerative Learning & Teaching<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JqcgKS8foTg/YGZpBpMmsHI/AAAAAAAAEvQ/XHswc-POY9AKwDUeibm3VKt_FYcYYm8kACLcBGAsYHQ/s800/Classroom%2Bby%2BRobert%2BBaxter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JqcgKS8foTg/YGZpBpMmsHI/AAAAAAAAEvQ/XHswc-POY9AKwDUeibm3VKt_FYcYYm8kACLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/Classroom%2Bby%2BRobert%2BBaxter.jpg" title="Classroom by Robert Baxter, used under Creative Commons License" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo: <a href="https://flickr.com/photos/99865395@N05/9493920086/in/photolist-fsWPFm-fPBV5p-6m6ker-aetv3n-nm2s5h-5QvWN5-6m6kj4-dzWhEF-no4SR6-4RRB1L-38bJqU-pnEPga-d8CCV-akHePz-29Wvd4-6nHc74-2zJLxq-5jqZCW-9j9HUZ-6m6k8k-2TX13W-5qdr6V-754o1d-4VAQFg-9j9Ji8-58n8U-qpsSNV-nmj1hK-5KRnrx-6LJR4e-3NWM28-7pzhF5-5S48Gy-5yBFYF-8K7pZe-qTnRcc-auLQLX-pipvNk-o6GNqp-heuciq-6oiW79-HYX6o-qnuRg-difvgY-G8Rak-qSfg9-9jcQPW-7Qpu-iiFpnt-aD2KmD">"Classroom" by Robert Baxter</a>, used under Creative Commons License</span></i></div><p></p><p><i>Presented to the Club by Robert M. Henderson on Monday evening, January 30, 1984</i></p><p>Plain old table salt, our most common and most used seasoning. Salt, sodium chloride, or the other well-known salts such as potassium or magnesium chloride, have extensive use in industrial, commercial and food usage.</p><p>We have salt water in the great majority of the waters found her on planet Earth, salt lakes by the dozen, Salt Lake City, Salt, the fifth of the six cities of Judea. And then we get down to some of the esoteric uses of the word.</p><p>To salt a mine, for example, is to artificially enrich, more often than not to do so in a fraudulent manner.</p><p>“Old Salt” – immediately we think of the one seaman or skipper.</p><p>“Pour salt into the wound” – if done, literally, hurts like the dickens, and if figuratively, means making a bad situation worse.</p><p>“A salty remark – with the number of such remarks passed around in this illustrious group over the years, I need not say more.</p><p>And then there are Salt I and Salt II, the never fully implemented arms control agreements that certainly deserve some attention on our part today.</p><p>Such statements as “You’re the salt of the earth” reminds us that salt was rare and valued. Our word “salary” comes from the Latin word “salaria” — salt, which was used as compensation at one time. </p><p>However, the S A L T that I wish to discuss with you tonight is Suggestive Accelerative Learning and Teaching. SALT. I believe that this SALT may become as valued as seasoning salt has been throughout the course of history.</p><p>Suggestive Accelerative Learning and Teaching is a technique that increases the rate of learning by a factor of somewhere between three and ten times normal. My initial interest in this matter was highly selfish. If we could teach our children three times as fast as we now do, we could teach the same amount of learning with one-third the number of teachers, one-third the number of facilities. In essence, the amount of expense I would need to pay for education, my own, my family’s, and my share of the taxes dedicated to schools and education, could be reduced by two-thirds or more. Just as a matter of reference, my out of pocket expenses for educating five children up through their Bachelor Degrees is in the neighborhood of $200,000. I roughly calculated that my taxes due to education expenses were well over $70,000 over the past 20 years. Together, these amount to $270,000. If I could have the same amount of learning for one-third that amount, I would have some $180,000 in my pocket. These numbers certainly are of sufficient magnitude to be of interest. We can only speculate what would happen if we did not reduce our education expense, but got children that were three times or ten times smarter for the same money. I, for one, do not particularly begrudge spending all those dollars for education, but, let there be no doubt in anyone’s mind, I would be greatly pleased if I had three times the results or, even better, ten times the results.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>I am also interested in increasing my own learning ability. If the same ratios apply, I could learn a foreign language in 80 hours rather than 240 hours. If the factor is ten times, then I could learn this language in 24 hours. My investigation to date of these systems of expanded learning have convinced me that so-called normal learning capacity can be greatly accelerated. Maybe the best way to begin is to give you some of the history and development in this field.</p><p>My investigations indicated the present development of the techniques have come from a number of widely divergent sources. Interesting enough, they all stem, in some degree, from Yoga, Zen and other oriental (sic) techniques of body and mind control.</p><p>Yoga and Zen technically were expanded over the years, but it was not until this century and only in the early 1930s that new uses of mind and body control really came into being. In 1930, autogenics, the conscious control of involuntary body functions like heartbeat and metabolism, was developed by a German psychiatrist, Johannes H. Schultz, and used in Europe for treatment of stress diseases.</p><p>In Spain, Dr. Alfonso Caycedo developed sophrology, a combination of yoga and autogenics which is now commonly used in Europe.</p><p>In 1960, Dr. Raymond Abresol, a dentist and lover of sports, began to develop holistic sports training for amateurs, tennis players and skiers. In 1967, the Swiss Olympic ski coach began to use sophrology, and in 1968 the previously unexciting Swiss team took three medals in the Olympics in Grenoble, and in 1972, three new medals in Sapporo, Japan. When doctors tested the effect of sophrology on athletes, they reported that it improved precision of movement, economized energy expenditure and controlled posture.</p><p>The Iron Curtain countries used sophrology and autogenics long before the western European countries caught on to the idea. The Soviets discovered that brawn plus brain equals a winning combination. Due, in large part to the technique of mind determining athletic success, Russia won 47 gold medals in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal and a very small country, East Germany, won 40. The Soviet sport scientists believed that the average athlete realizes but half his performance ability if brain power isn’t used. When you teach the brain to command the body, all the organs and the emotions are materialized to work together in the most effective way. Three-way-training – the athlete, coach and mind trainer – are used in Russia today. The Russians have expanded its uses for ballet and music.</p><p>In 1972, Dr. A.G. Odessky, a psychiatrist, put together an everyday guide to master autogenics for all Russians. Odessky believes it can be used by everyone to perform at their best whether in sports, arts, chess of the professions. At the same time, he also used autogenics extensively in psychotherapy as a remedy for many phobias, neuroses and obsessions. The autogenics created by Dr. Odessky are useful in increasing capabilities in many fields, but an added effect is the sense of well-being and enjoyment in the process of achieving. The image of success many of us remember is the triumphant poise of Vasily Alexayev hoisting 564 pounds of iron to gain the gold medal for Russia. For many years, a 500-pound lift was an impenetrable weight. Alexayev’s trainers used mind training and suggestion, telling Alexayev that he would lift his world record, 499.9 pounds. He did, and when they weight the bar, it showed him it really weighed 501.5 pounds. He made rapid strides then – up to the 564-pound mark. The secret of the Soviet training is to eliminate thought of past failures or mistakes and concentrate solely on the successful outcome.</p><p>American athletes began to look at the possibilities of mind training. Charles Tickner upset the Soviet defending champion in figure skating in 1976 using a mental program. Tickner relaxed himself every morning and repeated confidence building words for a few minutes before going out on the ice. Jack Nicklaus claims that his success came from practicing concentration and using visualization. He claims his shots are 50 percent mental picture, 40 percent set-up and 10 percent swing. He visualizes the ball where he wants it to end up. He then traces the ball on its trajectory even down to how it lands on the spot. Those of you who play golf, I am sure, have a place on a course where you seem to repeat the same error: put the ball in the water, hit a tree or land in a less desirable spot. Regardless of any correction you make, your imagination of previous shots wins out.</p><p>Autogenics is a means to the end for athletes by keeping motivation high, eliminating anxieties of fear of failure.</p><p>The Asians excel in acrobatics, aikido, Kung Fu and martial arts because of their combined total mind/body approach to sports. Recent pictures of life in China show the daily exercising of all Chinese in the graceful controlled movements that use both body and mind. In Stockbridge, our new tennis pro introduced warm-up exercises of yoga before teachings classes to children and adults.</p><p>Dr. Hannes Lindermann believed that autogenics helps athletes perform but can be equally important to promote the performance of business professionals and laborers by increasing one’s capacities and health. By health, he means more than the state of being where nothing is wrong but means the ability of have healthy, undamaging relationships with others and society. Business organizations in Germany like our Chamber of Commerce, run autogenic programs. German business people who have used it regularly report increased creativity, and decreased absenteeism, accidents and better health and interpersonal relationships. As with many inventions or innovations, it is always difficult to determine just who came up with the idea. But in the accelerated learning field, there is one man who appears to have made the biggest contribution. Dr. Girogi Lozanov, a Bulgarian psychiatrist, is the man. Dr. Lozanov began to study the nature of man and, as others, found that we only use a fraction of our brain power. Through is investigation of creative and intuitive areas of the mind, he speculated the average human could develop super memory and develop learning with ease. The deepest roots of his system lay in Raja Yoga, mental yoga, Zen and autogenics. Dr. Lozanov’s application was the innovative thing.</p><p>He uncovered some of the biological secrets that led to expanded potentials. His search convinced him that we already have supermemory, but that we cannot recall what we store away. We have a built-in natural tape recorder in our heads. Lozanov believed that every experience , sight, sound, smell, taste is registered in the brain even when we have consciously forgotten the experience. Lozanov also believes that the brain is recording information perceived intuitively and telepathically. Dr. Lozanov was most interested in human potential but what brought his concentration on supermemory was the numerous cases of over-pressed students near collapse who had developed tension diseases and neuroses. He realized that you could, through techniques from Raja Yoga, have painless surgery and painless childbirth. Why not painless learning? Suggestology treatments given to students suffering from exam anxiety improved memory and decreased tension. He also found, as he opened up the mind for supermemory and healing powers, that this seemed to free the mind for clairvoyance and telepathy, called psi information. Using his extensive background in yoga, sleep learning, Zen, autogenics, suggestopedia and parapsychology, he put together a new method of accelerated learning. The basic parameters of his system were quite simple and the results quite exciting. </p><p>1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>He knew that people learn faster when physically in a slowed-down state: that, as body rhythms slow, the mind becomes more effective. His approach was to reach this slowed down state in a fully conscious manner rather than in sleep or a trance.</p><p>2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>He was well aware of the left side/right side brain technology. Simplistically, this concept theorizes that the left side of the brain has to do with the logical, rational and analytical thinking, and the right side has to do with intuition, creativity and imagination. His efforts were directed toward getting not only both sides of the brain working together but also the conscious and subconscious body actions all synchronized in simultaneously.</p><p>3.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Music was a key ingredient in his technique, and music of a special type. He found that the 50 to 60 beat per minute Baroque music was ideally suited for this purpose. He used music to calm the body rather than hypnosis or sleep.</p><p>4.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>He started his classes with de-suggestion or self-image therapy. He believed that we are bombarded from birth with the idea that we are limited in learning ability and achievement. A good example is the simple use of chapters in school books suggesting that there is a limit to the assigned learning. He also believed that the teacher must create a positive, authoritative, supportive atmosphere. Rapport between teacher and student is important.</p><p>Lozanov’s accelerated learning process is quite different from our commonly used methods. Our present methods stem chiefly from John Dewey, who certainly was a great educator and has permanently left his mark in this world. Accelerated learning adds by taking away fear, self- blame and the self-image of limited capabilities. Accelerated learning taps the unused 90 percent of our brain power and has indeed proven three to ten times learning speed with high retention. An important side effect is the minimal stress on the students involved.</p><p>In the early 1960s, Lozanov publicly announced he could improve memory 50 percent. That, with his tension free learning system, a student – young, old, brilliant, learning-disabled, educated or uneducated – could earn a new language in a month and a year later show a high retention. In succeeding years, his system has been challenged many times, but his system, by 1972, had been adapted in all schools in Bulgaria. In 1970, after extensive publicity of the system, the Bulgarian government restricted Western visits to observe the system. If persons were allowed in, they were shown only half the process. Not even the staffs in the schools knew the whole program. Finally, in the late 1970s, Lozanov himself was restricted to the country and no longer is allowed to lecture in the Western world.</p><p>Gradually, parts of the method have come together and have begun to be used in North America. One reason it has taken so long is because of the misinformation arising from the Communists’ politics. The Communists didn’t want to aid and abet us in finding the exact method and we were purposely led into believing that the techniques could not be adapted in North America.</p><p>An example was the Canadian government desired to use suggestology as a solution for their bilingual problem. The Canadians sent people to explore the system in Bulgaria and obtained only portions of the method. The Canadian program failed miserably, and thinking they had tried the real suggestopedia, they cast it aside.</p><p>The three main psychological blocks to accelerated learning are:</p><p>1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The critical/logical block – Logical skepticism of the “it can work for others but never for me. I’ve never learned easily in my life.” Everyone has a learning “norm” suggested by society and experiences.</p><p>2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The intuitive/emotional block – Due to previous failures, a person may have an emotional low evaluation of his ability.</p><p>3.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The ethical/moral block – Conditioning has long been prevalent that learning has to be hard and a bore. The “you don’t get something for nothing” idea.</p><p>Now I would submit to you tonight that if we, as a country, can overcome these psychological blocks to accelerated learning, and if we dedicate ourselves to refining, improving and implementing these programs, some very exciting results will be achieved.</p><p>Already some exciting things are happening. There are at least several hundred core units operating in the United States these deal with the commitment of students gifted, normal and learning-disabled, in fact.</p><p>My first exposure to super learning was through Ann, a friend and neighbor of my daughter in Arizona. Ann is now a teacher specialized in accelerated learning technique for training mentally retarded persons. The technique she uses was developed at UCLA. They found, by slowing down the pace of the presentation to longer intervals, low IQ children learned almost as effectively as their bright counterparts.</p><p>Introducing the program into the remedial reading class for the Huntley Hill Elementary Schools in De Kalb County, Georgia produced dramatic gains of almost a year’s reading ability in a few weeks. Eighty percent of the class of twenty students gained a year or more of reading ability in twelve weeks, a 4:1 speed-up.</p><p>In Spain, Dr. Espinosa led an accelerated learning program with learning-disabled youngsters with severe motor coordination. They were performing physical exercises with highly increased skill and their IQs soared after several months of body/mind training. Espinosa won an international gold medal in pediatrics for these achievements.</p><p>In the USA a Society for Suggestology Alternative Learning and Teaching – SALT for short – has been formed. One operates out of Des Moines, Iowa. They publish a regular newsletter.</p><p>Reports from teachers across the country published by SALT have established that the system has moved far beyond language training. For instance, Naval Weapons Systems, noted as being truly dull, a course was learned at double speed by students using accelerated learning at Iowa State University.</p><p>In Bloomsburg State College in Pennsylvania, a teacher began to used accelerated learning to teach science. In the first year, out of three semesters of students, 84.6 percent got A’s and in the second, 82.9 percent. His students learned scientific facts and remembered them – all without stress.</p><p>One Canadian experiment has reported excellent results. Domtaq Corporation used a program put together by two doctors experienced in accelerated learning they report more than doubled their employees speed in learning French.</p><p>It is my considered opinion that if we did indeed refine and improve the known existing accelerated learning technique program and used due diligence in the implementation thereof we would:</p><p>1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Highly motivate a vast majority of students to attain measurably higher educational levels. Gifted students would be freed up to advance as fast as they might want and would be given ample opportunity to broaden their education into other fields. Normal students would achieve much higher levels of education; the SAT scores would show a marked improvement. The learning-disabled students would have a much higher chance of becoming a viable person in society. And all of this will be done with much less stress upon the students. Boredom among students will be reduced along with delinquency.</p><p>2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>From the teachers’ standpoint, there will be a greater joy in teaching as the mundane chore of the necessary rote learning will be done by recordings and assisted by computers.</p><p>3.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>From a taxpayer’s standpoint, a good share of the tax money spent for education will be directed toward improvement of the programs and techniques. In essence, the teaching effort in total will become more efficient.</p><p>4.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A final embodiment will be a freeing up of mind power that will permit rapid and large progress in all fields of endeavor. I predict this progress will exceed our wildest expectations.</p><p>In closing, I would only say that you may take this presentation with a grain of salt, but I do hope that there is more than a little meat in it.</p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-88217954762206160672021-01-17T16:04:00.002-05:002021-01-17T16:22:20.404-05:00Centennials: The Transcontinental Railway and the Monday Evening Club<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OZI5Ybcrevs/YASgxLAIiEI/AAAAAAAAEng/lOAhSQiOLDoEmCAix7VfCBw316L6rA5-ACLcBGAsYHQ/s750/1920px-East_west_shaking_hands_by_russell.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="750" height="429" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OZI5Ybcrevs/YASgxLAIiEI/AAAAAAAAEng/lOAhSQiOLDoEmCAix7VfCBw316L6rA5-ACLcBGAsYHQ/w563-h429/1920px-East_west_shaking_hands_by_russell.jpg" title="The ceremony for the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Summit, Utah on May 10, 1869; completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. At center left, Samuel S. Montague, Central Pacific Railroad, shakes hands with Grenville M. Dodge, Union Pacific Railroad (center right)." width="563" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">The ceremony for the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Summit, Utah on May 10, 1869; completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. At center left, Samuel S. Montague, Central Pacific Railroad, shakes hands with Grenville M. Dodge, Union Pacific Railroad (center right). Photo by Andrew J. Russell.</span></i></div><p></p><p><i>Delivered to the Club in November, 1969 by Roger Linscott, at the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Club</i></p><p>The year 1869 was notable for at least two historic evens — the driving of a golden spike at Promontory Point, Utah, to complete the first transcontinental railway system across the United States, and the establishment, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, of the Monday Evening Club. Contemplating these two great happenings — the one so freighted with significance for the development of the American West, the other so freighted with significance for, if not the nation, at least that small part of it which gathered here tonight — it occurred to me the other day how delightful it would be if one could find some common link to bind them together and thus fashion the basis for a centennial paper to fit the title which Joe Nugent [Club secretary] had fed to his hungry printing press a week earlier. A common bond between Promontory Point and Pittsfield seemed highly unlikely; but in desperation one tries anything, so off I went to the Lenox Library Saturday to find out what its archives might be able to provide.</p><p>The quest — to my happy surprise — proved fruitful. It developed that a leading, if somewhat accidental, figure in the dramatic ceremonies that marked the meeting of East and West at Promontory Point on May 10, 1869, was the Reverend Dr. John Todd, pastor of the First Congregational Church of Pittsfield. And Dr. Todd, I discovered from a parenthetical sentence in a letter which he wrote to a friend shortly after his return from that historic occasion, was a charter member of the Monday Evening Club.</p><p>But more about Dr. Todd later. First let us look at the background of the events that earned Dr. Todd of the Monday Evening Club his footnote in history. For they were dramatic events, and historically momentous ones. Indeed, May 10, 1869, is a commonly described by historians as the most significant single date in the record of the American West.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>In 1860, the vast region between the Mississippi Valley and California — a region comprising almost half the total area of the United States — was, for the most part, a howling wilderness, occupied mainly by some 300,000 untamed Indians and of millions of buffalo. Thirty years later all this was changed. The Indians had been systematically decimated and subjugated; the enormous buffalo herds had been wiped out; the frontier was gone, and a solid band of rapidly growing states stretched across the continent. It was the transcontinental railroad system, more than any other development, which brought this astonishing transformation about.</p><p>Ever since the 1830s, men had dreamed of constructing a railroad that would span the continent. Two visionaries in particular — Asa Whitney, the New York merchant, in the 1840s, and Josiah Perham, a rich Bostonian in the 1850s — exhausted their fortunes in efforts to secure federal legislation and financial backing for the scheme. What blocked every attempt during this period was North-South rivalry. The Southerners wanted a route that would start west from New Orleans or Memphis, linking California to slave states. The Northerners wanted a route to start west from St. Louis or Chicago. It was the Civil War that finally gave Washington the opportunity to end the argument, and a convincing excuse for financing so daring an undertaking. The secession of the South eliminated from Congress the legislators who had held out for a Southern route at the same time that it made imperative the establishment of a communication link that would keep California loyal to the Union. In 1862, Congress passed and President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Bill, incorporating two railroads — the Union Pacific, which was to build west from Council Bluffs, Iowa, and the Central Pacific, which was to build east from California until the two should meet. More to the point, Congress gave the two companies a right of way across the public domain, all the timber, stone and earth needed for the undertaking, twenty sections of land with every mile of road constructed — that came to a total of 24 million acres — and, in addition, a credit ranging from sixteen to 48 thousand dollars per mile, depending upon the nature of the terrain. And the bonds were to be guaranteed by the federal government.</p><p>Enticed by these liberal terms, the promoters who undertook the actual building of the Union Pacific were not idealistic visionaries like Whitney and Perham. Rather, they were hard-headed promoters interested in profits and unhandicapped by patriotism. Chief among them were two men, both figures of great force but somewhat easy virtue. One was Oakes Ames, a wealthy Massachusetts congressman and a manufacturer of shovels (it was commonly said that an Ames shovel “was legal tender in every part of the Mississippi Valley.”) The other was Thomas Durant, and up-and-coming New York financier. (And here, incidentally, we run into another Berkshire angle; for Durant was born and brought up in Lee, Massachusetts, where the Durant family still thrives today.) In any event, it was Durant’s ingenious idea to purchase a controlling interest in a Pennsylvania corporation known as Credit Mobilier of America, a title borrowed from a banking institution in France. The stock of his Credit Mobilier was split up between the directors of the Union Pacific, which Durant served as vice-president, and Credit Mobilier was then made the construction agent for the railroad. In other words, the directors of the Union Pacific proceeded to contract with themselves to build the railroad, and at a price calculated to exhaust the Union Pacific’s resources. Altogether, the cash or equivalent amounted to $75 million. With this setup, there was no urge whatsoever for economy in the construction of the Union Pacific. From the day it was born, the double-jointed money-making machine worked perfectly. As the tracks of the Union Pacific pushed onward across the Great Plains, the Credit Mobilier collected the enormous bounty granted to the line from the public purse and domain. Mile upon mile, the railroad was systematically stripped of its cash, which reappeared almost simultaneously as dividends for the happy stockholders of Credit Mobilier. It was, as Congressman Oakes told his colleagues in the House, “a diamond mine.” To stave off investigation — which finally took place some years later after the damage had been done — the officers of Credit Mobilier distributed free stock to key senators and congressmen and even to Schuyler Colfax, then vice president of the United States.</p><p>That was the story on the Eastern end of the deal. In California, the men who organized and ran the Central Pacific followed a course that was equally larcenous but a bit more discreet. By acquiring a controlling interest in the Central Pacific before its huge potential was fully comprehended by bigger financiers, four Sacramento merchants of no great means — Collins Huntington, Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford and Mark Hopkins (not to be confused with the William College president of the same name) got in on the ground floor. They proved to be a remarkably shrewd and effective team; so much so that they all came out of it millionaires many times over. One reason was that they set up their own version of Credit Mobilier — an outfit called the Contract & Finance Company — and made a contract with themselves to build the Central Pacific Railroad. A congressional committee subsequently estimated that the construction company was paid $121 million for $58 million worth of work; but this is uncertain because the Central Pacific’s books happily disappeared in a fire of mysterious origin just as the investigation was getting underway. At any rate, Stanford put aside enough so that, among other benefactions, he was able to give $30 million for the establishment of the university that now bears his name. Huntington left an estate of $75 millions. And Hopkins, though he died relatively young before the Central Pacific had come to full flower, was able to leave his widow well enough fixed to supplement her Nob Hill mansion with a $2 million summer home in the center of Great Barrington — so called Searles Mansion on Main Street which is now owned by the Home Insurance Company of New York. [Since the mid-1980s it has housed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey_Academy" target="_blank">John Dewey Academy</a>.]</p><p>Because of the opportunity to make such vast fortunes from construction before any track was open to the public, the promoters on both sides of the transcontinental railroad pushed the work at a furious pace, each seeking to lay as many miles of track as possible before the two lines met. A herculean task confronted them. Some 1700 miles of track had to be laid through a wilderness of prairie, mountain and desert inhabited only by hostile Indians. On the Union Pacific side, the actual construction was directed by General Grenville Dodge, one of the greatest engineers of his day, with a labor force made up of Irish workers and veterans from the Union and Confederate armies who were quick to exchange picks for rifles when Indians appeared. There was no real base of supplies. All material had to be brought up the Missouri River, which was open for navigation only a few months in the year, or hauled in wagons across the plains. Even the railroad ties had to be brought from great distances, as the only timber available along most of the right of way was cottonwood, which was unsuitable for this purpose. For Durant, who was given virtually dictatorial powers by the Union Pacific Board of Directors, speed became an obsession. He spent most of his time on the line and said that sometime he did not remove his clothes for a week. At times, in its haste, the railroad borrowed money in the East at rates as high as 18 or 19 per cent. And in pushing the line far beyond the bounds of civilization without waiting for at the slower pace of the settler and the security which his protection afforded, it often became necessary for half the total number of workmen to stand guard and thus reduce the working capacity of the construction force — notwithstanding which, hundreds were killed by Indians.</p><p>On the western side, the engineering faced problems by the Central Pacific were even more formidable. There were no roads over the Sierras, so thousands of tons of equipment, including massive locomotives, were hauled in giant sleds over the snowdrifts. Food, powder, supplies of all kinds, followed the same perilous route. Roadways had to be blasted out of cliffs and bridges thrown over gorges; in the space of 60 miles, fifteen tunnels were bored through the mountains. When snow threatened to halt all construction, the ingenious engineers built 37 miles of snow sheds, and under these the work went on.</p><p>The cost of material and transportation was appalling. Congress had specified that the track must be laid with American-made rails. This forced the builders to place their orders in northern factories which, during the early years of construction, were swamped with requisitions for war material, and to ship the finished products in vessels which were compelled to run a rigid blockade maintained by Confederate cruisers. Eight to ten months were required for these runs to San Francisco Bay via Cape Horn, and at one time the Central Pacific had 50 ships chartered just for this purpose. Freight charges and marine insurance rates rose to fantastic figures. But Huntington, operating out of New York as the Central Pacific’s procurement agent, kept the supplies moving at top speed to his partners in California, despite every effort by telegraph, steamship, stage and express companies to obstruct the building of the road.</p><p>Initially, labor was the biggest problem of all, since few workmen felt disposed to shovel dirt for the Central Pacific when gold could be had for far less tedious digging along the streams of California. In desperation, Charles Crocker, the partner in charge of construction, suggested Chinese labor, only to be told that building a railroad was a he-man’s job, not a task for light-weight rice-eaters. “Well,” said Crocker, “those same rice-eaters built the Great Wall of China. I guess they can dig grades for an American railroad.”<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p>His guess was accurate. An initial crew of 50 Chinese recruited in Sand Francisco performed so well that 2,000 more were enlisted in short order; and when the possibilities of San Francisco’s Chinatown were exhausted, Crocker began importing from across the Pacific until he had an army of 10,000 Orientals at work.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p>On both the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, at each stage of the progress, a movable town was erected, pleasantly dubbed by the workmen “Hell on Wheels,” where an army of cooks, sutlers, harpies and gamblers assembled to serve, entertain and fleece the brawny sons of toil. Typical of these instant communities was Benton, Nebraska, which sprang into being 700 miles west of Omaha when the Union Pacific reached that point in August of 1868. A new city of tents blossomed almost overnight into a metropolis of vice. A daily newspaper, five dance halls, and 23 saloons began going at top speed. The heart of the city was “The Big Tent,” a canvas-covered emporium that specialized in liquor and games of chance. Brass bands, operating on day and night shifts, lured cash customers to faro, roulette, poker and monte tables that were available at all hours and at any stakes. A garish mahogany and plate-glass bar, 100 feet long and specially imported from St. Louis, occupied the position of honor across the middle of the tent; and since the street in front was merely a bed of alkali dust a foot deep, the half-strangled customers who fought their way through the white clouds into this delectable oasis proved highly profitable customers. The local aristocracy ranged from bordello proprietors and frock-coated professional gamblers to the Union Pacific laborers who shoveled shallow graves for the victims of the strenuous night life. Benton was, to put it mildly, a lively city; yet its uproar ceased as dramatically as it began. When the Union Pacific reached Wasatch, several hundred miles to the west, and set up a new advance base there, the city called Benton died in a night. Special trains conveyed the surviving citizens to the new instant city, and thick layers of alkali dust blotted out the underground homes of the more peaceful dead they left behind.</p><p>The last lap of the race between the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, staged in the second half of 1868 and the early months of 1869, became an American saga. Daily newspapers carried the score as a front-page feature, telling eastern readers in daily telegraphed reports how many miles of track the Union Pacific had laid in the previous 24 hours. From one to two miles was the average in 1868, but with the end in sight, new records were set. The Union Pacific’s Irishmen performed what seemed an impossible feat by laying six miles of rails in one early spring day of 1869. The Central Pacific’s Chinese saw this achievement and raised it a mile; whereupon the Union Pacific three days later laid seven and one-half miles. At that point, Crocker of Central Pacific came back with the statement that he could lay ten miles of rails in a single working day, and Durant of Union Pacific wagered $10,000 that he could not. The wager was covered, and the appointed day, April 29, Crocker’s Chinese army, trained to the precision of machines by long experience, tackled the job at the stroke of 7 a.m. By 7 p.m., they were 56 feet over the ten-mile requisite, having moved more than four and one-third million pounds of material in less than eleven hours. They had placed 25,800 ties in position and strung 3,520 rails weighing nearly 600 pounds each — not to mention handling more than 7,000 plates, 14,000 bolts and 55,000 spikes, Durant paid his bet, and the feat still stands as a world’s record. [Actually, the record was broken the following year during the construction of the Kansas Pacific Railroad.]</p><p>A few days later, the Chinese and Irish vanguards had their historic meeting at Promontory Point. Workmen from both camps laid ties and rails in the open space between the ends of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific lines. They stopped a rail’s length apart, and in the intervening space three more ties were laid: one of polished California laurel, one of silver from Nevada’s fabulous Comstock lode, and one of iron, silver and gold, from Arizona. Two locomotives were brought head to head. An assemblage of dignitaries, who had hurried to the scene from East and West, took their places amid a huge throng of workmen to witness the driving of the last spike — a spike of pure gold contributed by California.</p><p>And now the Rev. Dr. Todd of Pittsfield’s First Congregational Church re-enters our story. He was there at Promontory Point that day, rather by chance than by design. An exceptionally able and popular pastor, Dr. Todd had served the First Church well for many years — he was then 68 — and an appreciative congregation had raised the money to present him with a trip to California. Chance placed the minister and his party on the train which eventually became the first to cross the continent; and when the railroad officials learned that there was a clergyman aboard they persuaded him, with little difficulty, to contribute a note of piety to the rather raucous celebration by offering the invocation.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jIYzt_w-8l0/YASlW4cXrxI/AAAAAAAAEoM/nNLSyKGVtSU7P-92--Ihlxqv8DFssJqxQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1070/Todd%2Bat%2BPromotory%2Bpoint.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="986" data-original-width="1070" height="549" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jIYzt_w-8l0/YASlW4cXrxI/AAAAAAAAEoM/nNLSyKGVtSU7P-92--Ihlxqv8DFssJqxQCLcBGAsYHQ/w595-h549/Todd%2Bat%2BPromotory%2Bpoint.png" width="595" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Detail of a larger photo taken during the invocation by Dr. Todd (with full white beard in center of photo). Standing next to him, with the full white sideburns, is Thaddeus Clapp of Pittsfield, who was traveling with Todd on a trip to California. Clapp was also a member of the Monday Evening Club.</span></i></p><p>There was more than a little irony in this, because Dr. Todd was noted as one of New England’s more impassioned temperance advocates, and the audience he addressed that day was composed largely or brawling construction workers who were notoriously bibulous even by the sodden standards of the Old West. “Later-day representations of the ceremonies at Promontory Point,” writes Lucius Beebe “have come to invest it in motion pictures, pageants and idealized art with a quasi-religious respectability and stateliness of preposterous proportions. Historians of the Cambric-tea school are pleased to depict the completion of the railroad as a symbolic meeting of the East and West in the cause of progress and good works. But the record, both from the photographic evidence and the accounts of what few coherent witnesses were present attest that Promontory Point was a thunderous drunk whose convulsions included almost everyone present and lasted several days. The classic photograph made on a wet place by Colonel Charles R. Savage of Salt Lake City, official photographer of the railroads, does not so much depict the pilots touch head to head as it does what appears to be two section hands in amiable dispute over an outsize bottle. In idealized recreations of the scene, the flagon of red-eye is now and then amazingly changed to a small American flag. When it came time for vice president Durant of the Union Pacific to smite the ceremonial golden spike, such was his state of exhilaration that the ceremonial sledge hammer failed to connect and the job finally had to be accomplished by a less august mechanic. Other photographs show a grateful multiplicity of bottles in evidence, and newspaper correspondents to a man were enthusiastic over the inexhaustible sideboard resources of Central Pacific president Stanford’s private car.</p><p>Drunk or sober, however, it was a great event, and recognized as such by a proud nation. When the golden spike was finally driven, the simple word “Done” flashed out over the telegraph instruments at the scene, starting a nation-wide celebration. President Grant received the message in the White House. Chicago staged a parade four miles long. The Old Liberty Bell rang out in Philadelphia. The “Te Deum” was sung in New York’s Trinity Church. San Francisco could not wait for the actual ceremony, but organized 48 hours prematurely a colorful three-day celebration during which every business house in town locked its doors and the saloons on Kearny Street never closed. The awe at the completion of such a fabulous engineering feat proved infectious even overseas. “When I think,” wrote Robert Louis Stevenson, “how the railroad has been pushed through this unwatered wilderness and haunt of savage tribes…how at each stage of construction, roaring, impromptu cities full of gold and lust and death, sprang up and then died away again; how in these uncouth places pigtailed Chinese pirates worked side by side with border ruffians and broken men from Europe, talking together in mixed dialect, mostly oaths, gambling, drinking, quarreling, and murdering like wolves…and then when I go on to remember that all this epical turmoil was conducted by gentlemen in frock coats and with a view to nothing more extraordinary than a fortune and a subsequent visit to Paris, it seems to me as if this railway were the one typical achievement of the age in which we live…If it be romance, if it be contrast, if it be heroism that we required, what was Troy town to this?”</p><p>Now back once more to the Rev. Dr. Todd, to return our story to its starting place. Whether or not his rather puritanical nature was scandalized by the revelry at Promontory Point, we don’t actually know; but we can infer it from the fact that while he lectured and wrote about his experience in California after his return to Pittsfield in the summer of 1869, he seems to have made no mention whatever of his role in celebrating the marriage of East and West. No reference to it can be found in the volume of his letter which was edited by his son and published some years after his death in 1873.</p><p>In that volume, however, I find a letter to a fellow clergyman, dated November 29, 1869, which comments on the new chapel at the First Church and then goes on to say: “We have a literary club here, limited to twenty-five, all graduates but one or two. We meet every Monday night; hence its name — the Monday Night Club. It meets at the members houses in turn, with an oyster and coffee entertainment at half-past nine. It does well — that is, the eating does.”</p><p>A rather cryptic remark, that last one; but let it pass. No doubt we can feel a bit flattered that his membership in this club seemed to him worthier of mention than his participation in what others might think an even more memorable event of one hundred years ago.</p><p> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-51763586786511857312021-01-09T16:14:00.001-05:002021-01-09T16:14:32.635-05:00Darwin's theory: Hard to swallow, then and now <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y0DRvHWwndU/X_ocaWhWsAI/AAAAAAAAEl8/8Hkl52pC3wYc6-CUcwUNXcfRy9Qj_T1EgCLcBGAsYHQ/s782/Charles_Darwin_1880.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="782" data-original-width="570" height="536" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y0DRvHWwndU/X_ocaWhWsAI/AAAAAAAAEl8/8Hkl52pC3wYc6-CUcwUNXcfRy9Qj_T1EgCLcBGAsYHQ/w390-h536/Charles_Darwin_1880.jpg" width="390" /></a></div><i><p><i>Presented to the Club by Roger Linscott, about 1981</i></p></i><p></p><p>A century and a half ago, in the year 1831, a young divinity student of 22 set sail from England on a voyage to South America. Twenty-eight years later, after prolonged study and soul-searching, he wrote a book based upon his observations there. The world – certainly the world of science – has never been the same since.</p><p>The young man, of course, was Charles Darwin, and the book was <i>The Origin of the Species</i>. When he embarked on his historic voyage, he had already abandoned a proposed career in medicine, after fleeing in horror from a surgical theater in which an operation was being performed on an unanesthetized child, and was a rather reluctant candidate for the clergy, a career deemed suitable for the younger son of an English gentleman. An indifferent student, Darwin was an ardent hunter and horseman, a collector of beetles, mollusks and shells, and an amateur botanist and geologist. When the captain of the surveying ship H.M.S. <i>Beagle</i>, himself only three years older than Darwin, offered passage to any young man who would volunteer to go without pay as a naturalist, Darwin eagerly seized the opportunity to escape from Cambridge. Five years later, he returned to an inherited fortune, an estate in the English countryside, and a lifetime of independent study that radically changed mankind’s view of life and of our place in the living world.</p><p>To understand the extraordinary genius of Darwin’s theory of evolution, it is useful to look briefly at the intellectual climate in which it was formulated. Aristotle, the world’s first great biologist, believed that all living things could be arranged in a hierarchy – a ladder of nature in which the simplest creatures had a humble position on the bottommost rung, mankind occupied the top, and all other organisms had their proper places in between. Until the end of the century, most biologists believed in such a natural hierarchy; but whereas Aristotle thought that living organisms had always existed, the later biologists believed, in harmony with the teachings of the Old Testament, that all living things were the product of a divine creation. They believed, moreover, that most were created for the service or pleasure of mankind. Indeed, it was pointed out, even the lengths of day and night were planned to coincide with the human need for sleep.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>That each type of living thing came into existence in its present form — specially and specifically created – was a compelling idea. How else could one explain the astonishing extent to which every organism was adapted to its environment and to its role in nature? It was not only the authority of the church but also, so it seemed, the evidence before one’s own eyes, that gave such strength to the concept of special creation.</p><p>Actually, it was geologists, more than biologists, who paved the way for overturning this concept. During the latter part of the 18th century, there was a revival of interest in fossils, which previously had been collected only as curiosities, regarded as stones that somehow looked like shells. The English surveyor William Smith, born 50 years before Darwin, was among the first to study the distribution of fossils scientifically. Whenever his work took him down into a mine or along canals, he carefully noted the order of the different layers of rock and collected the fossils from each layer. He eventually established that each stratum, no matter where he came across it in England, contained characteristic kinds of fossils.</p><p>Smith did not interpret his findings, but the implication that the present surface of the earth had been formed layer by layer over a very long period of time was unavoidable. This was a brand-new idea. Christian theologians, by counting the successive generations since Adam (as recorded in the Bible) had calculated the maximum age of the earth at about 6,000 years, and no one had ever thought in terms of a longer period. Yet the world described by William Smith was clearly a very ancient one. A revolution in geology was beginning; earth science was becoming the study of time and change, rather than a mere cataloging of types of rocks. As a consequence, the history of the earth became inseparable from the history of living organisms, as revealed in the fossil record.</p><p>Although the way to evolutionary theory was being prepared by the revolution in geology, the time was not yet ripe for a parallel revolution in biology. The dominating force in European science in the early 19th century was Baron George Cuvier, a French aristocrat who was the founder of vertebrate paleontology, or the scientific study of the fossil record. An expert in anatomy and zoology, he applied his special knowledge of the way in which animals are constructed to the study of fossil animals, and was able to make brilliant deductions about the form of an entire animal from a few fragments of bone. We think of paleontology and evolution as so closely connected that it is surprising to learn that Cuvier was a staunch and powerful opponent of evolutionary theories. He recognized the fact that many species that once existed no longer did – but he explained their extinction by postulating a series of catastrophes. After each catastrophe, the most recent of which he declared to be Noah’s Flood, new species filled the vacancies. Louis Agassiz, the great Harvard scholar and America’s leading 19th century biologist, was a similarly devout opponent of evolution. He contended that the fossil record revealed 50 to 80 total extinctions of life and an equal number of separate creations.</p><p>But the person who most directly influenced Darwin was Charles Lyell, a geologist who was twelve years his senior and whose books Darwin took with him on the <i>Beagle</i>. On the basis of his own observations, Lyell opposed the theory of catastrophes as an explanation for the creation of new species. He believed that the slow, steady and cumulative effect of natural forces had produced continuous change in the course of the earth’s history; and since this process is demonstrably slow, its results being barely visible in a single lifetime, it must have been going on for a very long time. Lyell was not an evolutionist. But what Darwin’s theory needed was the concept of vast amount of time – and it was time that Lyell gave him. The discovery that the earth was very ancient was the snowball that started the whole avalanche.</p><p>This, then, was the intellectual climate in which Charles Darwin set sail from England in 1831. As the <i>Beagle</i> moved down the Atlantic coast of South America, through the Straits of Magellan and up the Pacific coast, Darwin traveled the interior. He explored the rich fossil beds of South America, with the theories of Lyell fresh in his mind, and collected specimens of the many new kinds of plant and animal life he encountered. He was impressed most strongly by the constantly changing varieties of organisms he saw. The birds and animals on the west coast were very different from those on the east coast, and even as he moved slowly up the west coast, one species would give way to another.</p><p>Most interesting of all to Darwin were the animals and plants that inhabited the small, barren group of islands known as the Galapagos, off the coast of Ecuador. The islands had been named by the Spanish after their most striking inhabitants, the giant tortoises, some of which weight 220 pounds or more. Each of the islands has its own type of tortoise, and sailors who took these tortoises on board and kept them as a convenient source of fresh meat on their sea voyages could readily tell which island any particular tortoise had come from. Then there were groups of finchlike birds, thirteen species in all, that differed from one another in the sizes and shapes of their bodies and beaks, and particularly in the type of food they ate. In fact, though clearly finches, they had many features seen in completely different types of birds on the mainland.</p><p>From his knowledge of geology, Darwin knew that these islands, clearly of volcanic origin, were much younger than the mainland. Yet the plants and animals of the islands were different from those of the mainland, and in fact, the plants and animals of different islands of the archipelago differed from one another. Were the living things on each island the product of a separate special creation, Darwin wondered – or was it possible that from an original paucity of birds in the archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends? This problem “continued to haunt him.”</p><p>Darwin was a voracious reader. Not long after his return to England, he came across a short but much talked-about sociological treatise by the Reverend Thomas Malthus, which first appeared in 1798. In this book, Malthus warned, as economists have warned frequently since, that the human population was increasing so rapidly that it would soon be impossible to feed all the earth’s inhabitants. Darwin saw that Malthus’s conclusion – that food supply and other factors hold populations in check – is true for all species, not just the human species. For example, Darwin calculated that a single breeding pair of elephants – which are among the slowest breeders of all animals – would, if all their progeny lived and reproduced the normal number of offspring over a normal life pan, produce a standing population of 19 million elephants in 750 years. Yet the average number of elephants remained the same over the years. So, although this single breeding pair could have, in time, produced 19 million elephants, it did, in fact, produce only two. But why these particular two? The process by which the two survivors are, so to speak, “chosen,” Darwin called natural selection.</p><p>Natural selection, according to Darwin, was a process analogous to the type of selection exercised by breeders of horses, cattle or dogs. In the case of artificial selection, we humans chose individual specimens of plants of animals for breeding on the basis of characteristics that seem to us desirable. In the case of natural selection, the environment takes the place of human choice. As individuals with certain hereditary characteristics survive and reproduce, and individuals with other hereditary characteristics are eliminated, the population will slowly change. If some horses were faster than others, for example, those would be more likely to survive, and their progeny, in turn, might be faster, and so on.</p><p>According to Darwin’s theory, these variations among individuals of a species, which occur in every natural population, are wholly a matter of chance. They are not produced by the environment, not by a creative force, not by the unconscious striving of the organism. In themselves, they have no goal or direction, It is the operation of natural selection over a series of generations that gives direction to evolution. A variation that gives an animal a slight advantage makes that animal more likely to leave surviving offspring. Thus, a giraffe, say, with a slightly longer neck has an advantage in feeding, and so is likely to leave more offspring than a giraffe with a shorter neck. If the longer neck is an inherited trait, some of these offspring will also have long necks, and if the long-necked animals in this generation have an advantage, the next generation will include more long-necked animals – and so on, until, finally the population of short-necked giraffes will have become a population of longer-necked ones, thought there will still be variations.</p><p>The extraordinary thing about Darwin’s formulation was not so much his espousal of evolution — which was an idea that had at least crossed other scientific minds before his – but rather, the crucial role he gave to chance variation as the great triggering mechanism of the evolutionary process – the thread that links together all the diverse phenomena of the living world. Species arise, he said, when differences between individuals within a group are gradually converted into differences between groups as the groups become separated in space and time.</p><p>It was a truly revolutionary concert that, in one fell swoop, brought biology out of the Middle Ages – out of the realm of theology and into the realm of science.</p><p>It also profoundly influenced our way of thinking about ourselves. With the possible exception of the storm that raged about Copernicus and Galileo, no revolution of scientific thought has had as much effect on human thought as this one. The major reason is, of course, that evolution is in flat contradiction to the lateral, fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. The new astronomy had made it clear that the earth is not the center of the universe or even our own solar system. With Darwin, the new biology required acceptance of the proposition that, like all other organisms, we too are not created for any special purpose or as part of any universal design but instead rose in the course of the earth’s long history from earlier and more primitive forms.</p><p>The heretical dimensions of this proposition may explain why almost three decades elapsed between Darwin’s voyage on the <i>Beagle</i> and his publication of the Origin of the Species.</p><p>Two years after his return to England, he read the essay by Malthus, and in 1842 he wrote a preliminary sketch of his theory, which he revised in a 230-page manuscript in 1844. There is little doubt that he realized the magnitude of his accomplishment. On completing the revision, he wrote a formal letter to his wife requesting her, in the event of his death, to publish it – but then, with the manuscript and letter in safe-keeping, he turned to other work, including a four-volume treatise on the natural history of barnacles. For more than twenty years after his return from his voyage, Darwin mentioned his ideas on evolution only in his private notebooks and in letters to a few scientific colleagues.</p><p>In 1850, urged on by his friends Charles Lyell and botanist Joseph Hooker, Darwin set to work slowly preparing a manuscript for publication. In 1858, some ten chapters later, he received a bombshell in the form of a letter from another English naturalist, Alfred Russell Wallace, who was working in the Malay Peninsula and had corresponded with Darwin on several previous occasions. Wallace presented a theory of evolution that almost exactly paralleled Darwin’s own. Tossing in bed one night with a fever, Wallace had had a sudden flash of insight. “I saw at once,” he recollected, “that the ever-present variability of all living things would furnish the material from which, by the mere weeding out of those less adapted to the actual conditions, the fittest alone would continue the race.” Within two days, Wallace’s 20-page manuscript was completed and in the mail.</p><p>When Darwin received Wallace’s letter, he turned to his friends for advice, and Lyell and Hooker, taking matters into their own hands, presented the theory of Darwin and Wallace at a scientific meeting just one month later. Their presentation received little attention at the time, but for Darwin the floodgates were opened. He finished his long treatise in another few months, and the book was finally published. The first printing of 1,250 copies sold out the same day.</p><p>Why Darwin’s long delay? His own writings, voluminous thought they were, shed little light on this question. But perhaps his background does. When Darwin embarked on the <i>Beagle</i>, he was a devout Christian who did not doubt the literal truth of the Bible and did not believe in evolution any more than did the other English scientists he had met and whose books he had read. When he achieved his Malthusian insight a few years later, he was still in his 20s. He held no professional position, but he had acquired the admiration of his colleagues for his work aboard the <i>Beagle</i>. He was not about to compromise a promising career by promulgating a heresy that he might be unable to prove to their satisfaction. Perhaps more important, his wife, to whom he was deeply devoted, was extremely religious. In short, it seems reasonable to suppose that Darwin, as has been the case with others, found the implications of his theory difficult to confront.</p><p>Nor it is any wonder that he shrank from those implications for so long. Once the earth and its living inhabitants are seen as products of historical change, the theological philosophy embodied in the great chain of being ceases to make sense; the fullness of the world becomes not an eternal manifestation of God’s bountiful creativity but an illusion. For most of the world’s history, the vast majority of species on earth today did not exist and considerably less than one per cent of those that did exist do so today. If evolution has occurred, and if it has proceeded from the entirely natural causes Darwin envisioned, then the adaptations of organisms to their environment, the intricate construction of the bird’s wing and the orchid’s flower are evidence not of divine design but of the struggle for existence.</p><p>Moreover, and this may be the deepest implication of all, Darwin brought to biology, as his predecessors had brought to astronomy and geology, what has been termed the sufficiency of efficient causes. No longer was there any reason to look for final causes and goals. To the questions “What purpose does this species serve? Why did God make tapeworms?” the answer is, “To no purpose.” Tapeworms were not put here to serve a purpose, nor were plants, not plants, nor people. They came into existence not by design but by the action of utterly impersonal natural laws.</p><p>This was an exceedingly hard pill for most people to swallow – and it still is. The fact that the earth is not the center of the universe, though once considered heresy, is now accepted by the vast majority of mankind. The fact that man is descended of apes is not. Almost uniquely among the great scientific formulations of history, Darwinian theory remains a subject of bitter controversy more than a century after his death – not among biologists, who accept it with virtual unanimity, but among ordinary people who cannot bring themselves to face the possibility of a world that operates without a grand, divinely guided design.</p><p>Indeed, the hullabaloo over Darwinism is currently more intense – at least in the United States – than it has been since the 1920s when Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan battled the issue in Dayton, Tennessee, at the celebrated Scopes trial. Leading the attack today are the so-called Creationists, who are mostly spokesmen for fundamentalist religious groups – but their popular support is wide and deep. In a recent Gallup Poll of cross-section Americans, nearly half of the respondents agreed with the statement: “God created men pretty much in his present form at one time within the past 10,000 years.” Thirty-eight per cent of the respondents agreed with an alternative statement: “Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, including man’s creation.” A mere nine per cent accepted a third choice – that man had developed from less advanced forms of life without diving intervention. Another public poll, published in <i>Christian Century</i> several years ago, similarly reported that approximately half the adults in America continue to believe that “God created Adam and Eve to start the human race.”</p><p>Armed with this kind of public support, the Creationists in recent years have been zeroing in on the public school system, particularly in the South and Southwest – not with the demand that the teaching of evolution be banned (which was the issue in the Scopes trial) but with the seemingly less dogmatic demand that Creationist doctrines should be given equal time with Darwinian theory in all science classrooms. They have been remarkably successful in this endeavor. In Dallas, Atlanta, and Chicago, not to mention countless smaller cities, school committees have yielded to the equal-time pressure. And perhaps more disturbing, national textbook publishers – whose profits depend on producing books that will be marketable in every part of the nation – have been soft-pedaling Darwinism in their biology texts or specifically including Creationism as an alternative and co-equal doctrine.</p><p>“Where will we be,” asks Stephen Jay Gould, the eminent Harvard biologist, “if any pressure group can win, by legislative fiat, the ordered inclusion of its favorite doctrine into school curricula?” It’s a good question. One is reminded of Lyndon Johnson’s story about the earnest young pedagogue who, in the depths of depression, applied for an opening as a science teacher in a backwater town in Texas. Confronting the local school board at his interview, he was asked by the grim-visaged chairman: “Do you teach that the earth is flat or that the earth is round?” The young man looked from face to face without seeing a hint of enlightenment. “Well,” he said, “I can teach it either way.”</p><p>The notion that one can teach the great unifying theory of modern biology “either way” is no less absurd.</p><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-38583503969101580422020-03-10T17:09:00.001-04:002020-03-10T17:09:15.607-04:00Exorcising toxic Trump: An intentional alternative in our back yard?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_bjRNHySsUI/XmgBRYPbQfI/AAAAAAAAEQk/tFOewnbOeOcDMSthMbxKUWiaQIdU5fAYQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/9009482286_f3e365b639_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="799" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_bjRNHySsUI/XmgBRYPbQfI/AAAAAAAAEQk/tFOewnbOeOcDMSthMbxKUWiaQIdU5fAYQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/9009482286_f3e365b639_c.jpg" width="540" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hancock Shaker Village — photo by Massachusetts Office of Tourism, used under Creative Commons License</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i><br /></i>
<i>Presented to the Club on Monday evening, March 9, 2020 by William P. Densmore</i><br />
<br />
I’ve been thinking a lot about furniture lately as my sisters and I assess the provenance and best disposition of fine furniture in our parents’ Worcester home. We’re learning that “dark furniture” isn’t very valuable anymore. Kind of like the stock market after today, and quite out of our individual control so not to worry. But thinking about furniture and value inevitable leads to the mass-market tag line for the Shakers furniture. Excellent, simple, stripped of vanity and excess — furniture.<br />
<br />
But it is not Shaker furniture on my mind for tonight. Rather, I wish to digress in perhaps contrarian fashion to a set of difference considerations about the Shakers — their status as the longest running intentional community in America — an effort at utopia which has tested a set of values in many respects relevant not only to contemporary American society but as well perhaps to some of the attributes of the culture which occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.<br />
<br />
Fifteen years ago I spent six months working at Hancock Shaker Village. Like most people, I knew about furniture and celibacy and that was about it. I learned somewhat more, but ever since I’ve wanted to spend a chunk of time digging into Shaker values and practices. This talk is the result and it stems from sit-down interviews last month with five Shaker experts — and an admittedly fast literature review.<br />
<br />
What I will highlight, using with attribution the words of my interviewees as well as published authors is this: The Shakers can teach our contemporary politicians, and maybe Donald Trump, much about gender equity, caring for “others,” housing and economic security and the management of dissent. Seventy-five years before emancipation, and 150 years before suffrage, Shakers were already practicing social, sexual, economic and spiritual equality. For the most part, the Shakers just lived their politics, although in 1852, Shaker elder Frederick Evans was proselytizing that women should have the right to vote.<br />
<br />
There are multiple sources — from Wikipedia to scholarly volumes, to fill in the basic Shaker history so I’ll rewrite to a few sentences. Factory worker “Mother” Ann Lee and her husband arrive near Albany, N.Y., in 1774 from Manchester, England and after several frustrating years begin to attract converts to her Protestant-offshoot idea of a community that sees women as a natural representation of God after the death of Jesus. The three tenets: celibacy, confession and community. At its peak, the Shaker movement involved 6,000 members and followers at 19 sites from Kentucky east to Maine; only two (or is it three) members remain — at Sabbathday Lake, Maine.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Before declining, Shaker societies were organized around “families” with 20 to 150 members of each non-biological family and a total of two to 11 such families in each geographic society.<br />
<br />
Scholars generally agree that Shakers grew (and prospered mightily) through about 1840 when a slow decline began as many male members — the “brothers” — found better work and life outside the community. Because Mother Ann believed chastity to be a necessary part of the faith, Shakers could only maintain communities by taking in new families, children or individuals. The Hancock Bishopric declined and in 1959-1960 the property was sold to what has become Hancock Shaker Village, a living-history museum.<br />
<br />
Filmmaker Ken Burns wrote for his 1984 PBS video special, “Hands to Work, Hearts to God,” what I found to be the most elegant summary of the Shakers and here is a small part of it. Burns wrote that by the mid-1800s:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Shakers were suddenly appreciated as successful communitarians when Americans became interested in communities, as successful utopians when America hosted a hundred utopian experiments, as spiritualists when American parlors filled with mediums and with voices from other worlds. They invented hundreds of laborsaving devices from the clothespin to the circular saw, which they shared without patents (some of these machines launched brilliant industrial careers for the men who borrowed them), nor were they frightened of useful inventions . . . They were admired and derided, imitated for their successes and ridiculed for their eccentricities. And they are enduringly appreciated for their contribution to American crafts and architecture</blockquote>
With thanks to Ken Burns, that’s the basic history and story line. Let’s now focus on these five aspects which, as I say, seem to teach us to varying degree about our political moment in ways I’ll assert.<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Gender relationships</li>
<li>Caring for others, and the infirm</li>
<li>Housing and economic security</li>
<li>Focusing on quality, and science</li>
<li>Managing dissent</li>
</ol>
<br />
<br />
<b>GENDER RELATIONSHIPS </b><br />
<br />
When it comes to gender relationships and society, perhaps we might invite Elizabeth Warren’s input, or perhaps some of the many women who have described relationships with Mr. Trump. I think its fair to sale we have some work to do in figuring how we value and engage women in leadership in America. The Shakers have much to teach here.<br />
<br />
Glendyne R. Wergland of Dalton is one of the four Shaker experts I spoke with last month at HSV. Her 2011 University of Massachusetts Press book, <i>Sisters in the Faith</i>, draws together document research to show — as one reviewer has written — that Shaker communities achieved a remarkable degree of gender equality at a time when women elsewhere still suffered under the legal and social strictures of a traditional patriarchal order. In so doing, Wergland finds, the reviewer writes, that the experience of Shaker women served as a model for promoting women’s rights in American political culture.<br />
<br />
Deborah E. Burns is an editor at Storey Communications in North Adams and the author of the 1993 <i>Shaker Cities of Peace, Love and Union: A History of the Hancock Bishopric</i>, which she took three years to write at the request of HSV’s first president and lead founder, Amy Bess Miller. Burns was one of the people I sought out for guidance on interpreting the Shakers for contemporary America. Burns believes the equality of women with men in managing and holding leadership roles in the Shaker church was a reason for its balance and stability during the growth years “in a way that we just never have had in our country.” When men slowly drifted away from Shaker societies in the late 19th century, a greater proportion of women stayed, Burns says, because for them, the stability of Shaker living was as good or better than the outside world. “The communal system and the segregation of sexes took a lot of clutter out of the brain,” Burns says.<br />
<br />
University of Alabama-Huntsville history professor Suzanne R. Thurman expands on this view in an excerpt from her book, <i>O Sisters Ain’t You Happy</i>, published in 2002:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Attacking the patriarchal basis for most of American family life, the Shakers cleared the way for a new society where relationships were built on love and choice, not duty and obligation, and where traditional female characteristics were upheld as normative for society . . . . women took on positions of responsibility, made choices about their bodies and their lifestyles, and were empowered by Shaker religious practices. </blockquote>
Prof. Thurman says Shaker women understood the community-building features of communal, non-biological families, that still well-nurtured and educated adopted children or children of other members. As Burns reports in her scholarship, the evidence was that Shaker-raised children tended to be excellent students, their schools in Hancock were praised and sought by non-Shaker parents. Continues Prof. Thurman:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[A]s the Shakers and their reformer counterparts debated the merits of life in community and life in the biological family, as they analyzed and discussed what constituted the “best” and most “normal” kind of relationship, they touched on issues that have vexed human society for centuries. The Shakers came down squarely on the side of . . . the transforming power of communal life.</blockquote>
<br />
<b>CELIBACY, CHOICE , CLIMATE AND POPULATION</b><br />
<br />
Because much focus is on celibacy when we consider the Shakers, on the grounds that it was a sort of “failure mode” for the survival of the community, I’ll mention that briefly here by saying there are contrarian views. The Shakers themselves wrote that most people left communities not because of sex but because they found it in other ways hard to put aside self-interest in favor of community interest. By not bearing children, Shakers could be sure that anyone in the faith had chosen to be there. If Shakers were recruiting converts today, they could also make the argument that celibacy is a possible rational choice in a world that scientists — apparently not Mr. Trump — see as threatened by climate change and overpopulation.<br />
<br />
Scholars Elisa J. Sobo and Sandra Bell, (writing in their book, <i>Celibacy, Culture and Society: The Anthropology of Sexual Abstinence</i> (2001) report that around 1900 some Shaker writers also . . .<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
. . . Maintained that celibacy (specifically as freedom from marriage), was an important inducement to women to enter membership, first, because marriage sometimes licensed the physical and sexual abuse of women; second, because abstention from marriage facilitated community, and therefore egalitarian, property ownership. They argued that when women are given the opportunity to eschew economic dependence on men, they become men’s equal in all spheres of life.</blockquote>
<b><br /></b>
<b>HEALTH IN BROADEST SENSE</b><br />
<br />
In Shaker communities there was health-care for all, a lesson for today’s society. As well, there was a focus on healthy eating and living — something Shaker societies might have been better able to enforce than we are today.<br />
<br />
Here are three examples:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>HSV and other sites have examples of adult-size cradles, potty chairs and other accessibility and mobility devices for the elderly. </li>
<li>Dwelling houses had areas designed as “infirmaries” and the social covenant included care for infirm and elderly members according to need. There brethren who functioned in roles as doctors.</li>
<li>When members were sick, it was understood that other members of the community would take on their work until they recovered. </li>
</ol>
<br />
Thus, unlike 30 million Americans with no health insurance, and millions without sick pay, a sick or infirm believer could rest, receive care and attention for as long as needed, without worry of financial loss or neglect to the duties of the farm. As for Covid-19 — Burns says there are no accounts of any contagions sweeping a Shaker community, but there are accounts of infirmaries taking in people with flu or pneumonia-like symptoms.<br />
<br />
Shakers grew and profitably sold medicinal herbs — they made their own herbal tinctures. Some Shaker orders willingly adjusted food preparation to members who chose a vegetarian diet, wrote June Sprigg in her 1975 book, <i>By Shaker Hands</i>. Children studied physiology, a weekly hot bath was encouraged.<br />
<br />
Sprigg added:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To keep themselves healthy, the Shakers used wisely all four earthly elements for their heavenly goal — air, fire, water and earth. Translated into health terms, that meant good ventilation; the use of static electricity as the latest in rheumatism treatment; extensive and progressive plumbing systems; and a sensible diet, herbal medicines, and for the most part no liquor or tobacco. Besides these measures, Shakers slept at least seven hours nightly and exercised not only in their work but in their worship, too [by dancing producing a healthy sweat]. </blockquote>
<br />
<b>HOUSING AND ECONOMIC SECURITY</b><br />
<br />
Housing, homelesslness and economic security loom large as American issues, especially for millennials. For Shakers, these were off the table as concerns. Once a person had stayed long enough in a Shaker community to want to join the faith, they turned over all of their assets but in exchange for doing the community’s work, they were sheltered and fed. In their own way, Shakers also addressed homelessness; they took in people in need, including widows and orphans. They sheltered and fed fugitive slaves. One might assume that they would be inclined to operate today as welcoming communities for able-bodied and committed immigrants.<br />
<br />
Among the scholars I spoke with, one observed that millennials and retirees in the Berkshires and elsewhere are now considering alternate living arrangements, and micro-communities of like-minded people to help with gardening, household responsibilities childcare and bills. What might be learned about the mechanics and challenges of co-housing as practiced by the Shakers, this scholar asked? In the Shaker community construct, your children would be taken care of by brethren and sisters, and you could “age in place” with similar care. Another scholar asked: With the world’s resources now seen as finite, will it be necessary to think of housing and living in less individualistic fashion?<br />
<br />
Said one of my interview subjects at HSV:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Millenials are thinking more broadly about how we can live together, in smaller spaces, more sustainably, holding possessions longer so we can consume less. We are rethinking our worldmaking, creating a landscape more intentional and sustainable, in its essence very Shaker. They built a world and a vocabulary for themselves like no other community in this country.</blockquote>
Intergenerational mixing in intentional communities is an ideal spawned by the Shakers (and other communal societies) that should be re-imagined, says Deb Burns. When might the campus of a recently closed college be envisioned for such a purpose, she suggests, balanced in age and genders.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>FOCUS ON QUALITY — AND SCIENCE</b><br />
<br />
Until the Industrial Revolution took hold, an important Shaker ethic contributed to their economic prosperity — a focus on quality in everything they made. Shaker brethren who traveled the countryside selling their packaged seeds were eagerly awaited because the seeds’ were clean and reliable. Furniture and devices built more than 200 years ago in dwellings and work buildings still work today. But eventually, scholars say, the ability for factories to turn out goods faster and cheaper became a competitive challenge to the ethic of high quality.<br />
<br />
Yet the Shakers actually believed in science, and used inventiveness to maintain their admired position in agriculture and related fields for as long as possible. Shaker elders considered whether to permit the introduction of labor- and time-saving devices. After initial caution — requiring a six-month period of consideration when a new such idea was offered — they ultimately decided their faith accepted that useful inventions should be encouraged even though they might impact lifestyle. They did not patent some early inventions. Paraphrasing the Wikipedia entry:<br />
<br />
Their industry brought about many inventions like Babbitt metal, the rotary harrow, the circular saw, the clothespin, the Shaker peg, the flat broom, the wheel-driven washing machine, a machine for setting teeth in textile cards, a threshing machine, metal pens, a new type of fire engine, the common clothes pin, the first screw propeller, a machine for matching boards, numerous innovations in waterworks, planing machinery, a hernia truss, silk reeling machinery, small looms for weaving palm leaf, machines for processing broom corn and ball-and-socket tilters for chair legs.<br />
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>MANAGING DISSENT</b><br />
<br />
In reviewing five aspects of the Shakers that I suggest may be relevant to our current culture and politics, I come to the final one — the management of dissent. How might this compare with contemporary politics?<br />
<br />
One scholar says that the Shakers viewed men as representing power and women as representing wisdom. It must have been wisdom which defined what would happen when a Shaker community resident need to be dismissed. The problem was managed through constant attempts at rehabilitation, scholars say. Sometimes breathren or sisters would leave the community, only to be welcomed back. Most the time, they would leave with abundant food of gifts. In extreme case, they might have their personal effects removed to the street, however. Sometimes an individual Shaker would challenge the authority of elders, and such charismatic leaders could be asked to leave, or be ejected. “It was very tense and anxious,” says Deb Burns. “But that’s what it was, trying to give the person a chance.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>SHAKERS — NOT APART FROM US</b><br />
<br />
I want to wrap up with three views about why the Shakers matter, and with a poem.<br />
<br />
First, the Shakers were in many ways not so different from the rest of us, from other people of their era, writes Joseph Manca, a Rice University art-history professor in a new work of scholarship published just last year by University of Massachusetts Press and entitled: <i>Shaker Vision: Seeing Beauty in Early America.</i> He writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In many ways, Shakers lived sensuously: They ate well, they swam regularly in their ponds and lakes and in the ocean, and they danced and sang ecstatically. They viewed landscapes, watched sunsets, pretty rains, rainbows, comets . . . enjoyed the sight of green fields, snow-covered ground and the colors and shapes of fruit on vines and limbs . . . enjoyed pretty faces and bodies, marveled at freaks of nature and admired well-made and colorful buildings.</blockquote>
Second, even if a day comes when the last Shaker is gone, their societies will continue to influence American thought, writes College of the Holy Cross Prof. Joanne Pierce, in her reflection “Why the legacy of Shakers will endure,” published at The Conversation online in 2017. She cites values of cleanliness, honesty, frugality, economy efficiency, quality, simplicity, hard work, debt avoidance and humility affecting social reform, agriculture, technology and innovation. She continued:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[The] Shakers’ rejection of ‘the world’ does offer us today some insightful reflections on contemporary issues such as their pacifism when confronted by terrorism; their mutual love and respect in the face of gender and racial divisions; and their cheerful blending of prosperity and simplicity as a response to the wasteful nature of many materialistic cultures.</blockquote>
Third, in 1977, then-Williams College President John W. Chandler wrote the foreword for <i>Shaker Literature: A Bibliography</i> compiled and annotated by Mary L. Richmond, published by Shaker Community Inc., distributed by University Press of Nebraska, Chandler wrote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The alienating character of modern work, and questions about the potential for extended non-biological family communities as possible superior to nuclear, biological families drive contemporary interest in the Shakers, Chandler suggests. “Similarly, the Shaker denial of private ownership in favor of communal property attracts those who believe ownership to be a root cause of social injustice.</blockquote>
Chandler wrote that for all these reasons, and for the Shakers commitment to sexual balance their place in history is secure.<br />
<br />
There is an untitled poem by Shaker Mary Whitcher, of the Canterbury, N.H., site, in the 1993 Penguin Book <i>Simple Wisdom: Shaker Sayings, Poems and Songs</i>. I read it now as advice to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Be slow to anger, slow to blame,<br />
And slow to plead thy cause.<br />
But swift to speak of any gain<br />
That gives thy friend applause.</blockquote>
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-87321915722320073232020-03-08T18:37:00.002-04:002020-03-08T18:50:04.440-04:00The Past Is Never Dead: On intergenerational trauma<i>Presented to the Club on Monday evening, January 13, 2020 by Erik Bruun</i><br />
<br />
<b>1. The Damnedest Thing I Ever Saw</b><br />
<br />
Seventy years ago my grandfather, Henry Ashton Crosby, was sitting in a New York City subway. He had recently returned to the United States after serving as a front-line officer during World War II. He was a gracious and polite man, so when an elderly woman got into the crowded subway car, he stood up to offer his seat. Just then another man scooted behind him to take the seat. My grandfather snapped.<br />
<br />
He swung around, picked the man up and threw him through the subway window, smashing glass everywhere. The police arrived. After learning that he was a combat veteran, they let him go.<br />
<br />
“That sort of thing used to happen all the time after the war,” my stepfather Player Crosby explained to me when I was a boy, delighted to have such chivalry in my family. I mean, what a grandfather!<br />
<br />
Two overriding memories come to mind when I recall him.<br />
<br />
One was his sparkling eyes. They absolutely lit up when he saw me after an extended absence as he shook my hand firmly and vigorously. He looked at me as if I was the most exciting person he could imagine seeing at that moment. It left such an impression that I try to mimic his enthusiasm when I see young people who I have not seen for a while.<br />
<br />
This was a fantastic trait that all six of his children inherited. When you were in his presence you felt as if you were not just seen, but a source of complete delight. Your life felt special. He loved people and people loved him, as the hundreds who attended his standing-room-only funeral when he died at the age of 87 would attest.<br />
<br />
The second memory was as a 10-year-old visiting him on summer vacation in Franconia, New Hampshire. I cannot remember what prompted it, but we were on the porch and he started talking about a patrol he led on the Western Front during World War II.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
"We were walking through the forest and the Germans fired an .88-artillery shell," he said as if he was recalling a good tennis shot. "It took the head clean off of some poor bastard. He kept walking for another 20 or 30 steps before he fell over. The damnedest thing I ever saw."<br />
<br />
<b>2. Old Blood and Guts</b><br />
<br />
General George S. Patton's Third Army landed in France in July 1944, several weeks after the D-Day invasion on June 6. The German Army had pinned Allied Forces on to the Normandy Peninsula for nearly two months in what was known as the Battle of the Hedgerows.<br />
<br />
During World War I, Patton was a tank officer, known for his courage, flair and flamboyance. Between the wars he stayed in the Army and for a time was the national polo champion. When the Second World War started, Patton led successful campaigns in Northern Africa and Sicily, but US high command was cautious about giving Patton too much responsibility. Known as "Old Blood and Guts", Patton famously slapped and sent back into combat two American soldiers in Sicily who suffered from battle fatigue. He called them cowards.<br />
<br />
But Patton’s Third Army lead the breakout from Normandy. Patton was not just aggressive. He was smart. His staff headquarters had the highest proportion of intelligence officers in Europe, most were focused on coordinating air force support for attacking tanks. The combination of armored columns, close air cover, and radio communication was extremely effective.<br />
<br />
On August 1, Patton's army launched its attack, bursting through German lines and advancing every day until his tanks literally ran out of gas 30 days and 400 miles later near the French town of Metz, about 20 miles from the German frontier. A few weeks later, the Third Army's Fourth Armored Division repulsed the largest German tank attack on the Western Front at the Battle of Arracourt and in December, Patton's 4th Armored Division again played a crucial role, this time in the Battle of the Bulge.<br />
<br />
The Third Army went on the offensive in February deep into Germany. Progress was so fast that orders from Central Command to capture towns, cities and bridges often came after Patton's men had already seized them. "Do you want me to give it back," Patton responded after he was ordered to bypass a well-fortified town that he captured the day before. All told, the Third Army engaged in continuous combat for 281 days, crossed 24 major rivers and captured 12,000 towns and cities. The 3rd Army killed 50,000 men, wounded three times that number, and accepted the surrender of nearly 1.5 million soldiers.<br />
<br />
<b>3. Wartime Memoirs</b><br />
<br />
Forty years later, my grandfather wrote a 170-page unpublished memoir of his experience of those campaigns. As executive officer of the 53rd Armored Infantry Battalion of the 4th Armored Division, he had command control in one of three attack battalions in the most aggressive allied force of World War II. The battalion's casualty rate, including replacements, was 400 percent. Of the 1,000 soldiers in the battalion who landed in France in July, only 30 of whom were still fighting when the Germans surrendered with one officer still amongst them — Major Crosby, awarded three Purple Hearts for injuries suffered in combat, as well as four Silver Stars and two Bronze Stars for valor under fire.<br />
<br />
The memoir is a series of stories. Where he was when he learned that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. Weekend visits with his wife. His burning anger at the sadistic commanding officer Colonel Albert Strock who wouldn’t give him leave to see his two sons (Ashton and Player) in the U.S. but later broke down into tears when he came under fire in France. Funny tales abound about food, getting soaking wet, and a chance encounter with an officer who asked him his name so he could recommend him for a medal. "My God," the officer said, "you're my godson."<br />
<br />
And then there are stories like this early in his combat experience:<br />
<br />
"We continued through the orchard and rounded up six or eight Germans. One, about 6' 4", had a pair of field glasses hanging around his neck. I reached for his field glasses and he pulled back, my gun went off. The round hit him in the stomach. he said in English, "You shouldn't have done that; I've surrendered." He then fell down. I apologized and ran off to find a medic.. When I returned, he was gone. I still have the field glasses — an excellent Wetzlar. I also still have the 45."<br />
<br />
Thirty pages are devoted to the assault of a single town called Baerendorf that he cites as an example of a typical day of fighting. He led two columns that suffered an artillery barrage, hand-to-hand combat and a counterattack to capture the town. Forty American soldiers were killed under his command that day, one of several small battles he oversaw as leader of this particular task force. In early November the task force started with 750 men and 17 tanks. A month later there were fewer than 100 men and only two tanks.<br />
<br />
He reports about his own men after the fight for Baerendorf ended: "I saw a group of B Company soldiers with their rifles pointed at Major Hughes. I asked what was going on and was told that Major Hughes had pulled a wounded B Company man on top of himself to protect himself from German artillery fire. The men were about to execute him. I should have let them! I took Hughes, put him in my quarter-ton, put my 45 in his ear and told him if he blinked I'd blow his bloody head off." When the major was subsequently told he would face a court martial "Hughes collapsed on the floor and became hysterical, drooling and frothing at the mouth."<br />
<br />
<b>4. So Deeply Does Vision Carve on the Mind</b><br />
<br />
Battle fatigue is as old as combat.<br />
<br />
"Some people in the past, when seeing fearful sights, have lost their presence of mind at the instant," wrote Georgias of Leontini in the fifth century BC of soldiers in the Peloponnesian War. "Fear extinguishes and casts out the mind. Many have succumbed to groundless distress, great malady, and incurable insanity, so deeply does vision carve on the mind images of action seen."<br />
<br />
Just experiencing war’s violence is often shocking enough to induce traumatic injuries with no obvious physical cause. You have not been hit by a sword, bullet or shrapnel, but you are struck blind, get terrible headaches, lose physical control of yourself, suffer cardiac problems, lose your appetite, or become depressed or anxious. The industrialization of war dramatically increased incidents of such transient madness.<br />
<br />
In World War I "shell shock" was an epidemic problem in all armies. Some believed it was a physiological reaction to the undetectable impacts of passing artillery shells or the result of some underlying condition that combat--most specifically an artillery barrage--triggered. In France, doctors emphasized electric shock treatment. Germany built villages to send the nervously ill to perform menial work tasks as a form of therapy, along with other bizarre treatments such as barking military orders or blaring the national anthem at sleeping men to try to shock them back to normalcy. England built hospitals back home to treat the unhinged with various psychological and psychoanalytical treatments.<br />
<br />
The English neurologist WHR Rivers emphasized the lack of control men felt in battle. He wrote "Combat induced an internal conflict between the emotion of honest fear and their sense of duty as men," adding that "three assumptions about personal invulnerability were shattered: seeing the world as meaningful, as comprehensible, and seeing oneself in a positive light."<br />
<br />
Tending to hundreds of thousands of men for shell shock led to a scientific understanding that mental illness could be caused by circumstances and thus the popularization of psychology. But scientific recognition is not the same as military reform. The stigma of becoming unhinged remained a fixed feature of the American military, including my grandfather's memoir. At one point he recounts the fate of his fellow company commanders who landed in France with him. Four out of eight, he wrote, were "relieved for cowardice." The other four were killed. Among the staff officers, he describes Major Hughes as an "abject coward" even though he had fought for three months prior to his breakdown at Baerendorf.<br />
<br />
In World War II the term changed from shell shock to battle fatigue, reflecting the military's reluctance to accept that trauma could permanently impact a soldier's psyche, as if a good man will come back to health after a short rest.<br />
<br />
This was not a completely groundless conclusion as relieving men from front line duty sustained their fighting capacity. A person can only tolerate for so long combat's explosive noise, sleep deprivation, the random and violent death and injury of your friends and colleagues, as well as the moral dilemma of killing people. Experience revealed that after 60 days of constant combat, 98 percent of people go mad. With proper rest and relief from battle, you could extend a soldier's capacity to fight to between 80 and 400 days.<br />
<br />
<b>5. The Battle of the Bulge</b><br />
<br />
On December 16, 1944, 300,000 German soldiers launched a surprise attack at the Ardennes Forest to try to break through American lines to Antwerp to split allied forces in two, cut off the supply line for the isolated northern troops and induce them to surrender. Hitler took a desperate gamble to break the American-British offensive. The Battle of the Bulge was the largest battle in U.S history involving more than 500,000 American soldiers, 67,000 of whom were killed, wounded or captured.<br />
<br />
Located immediately to the south of the attack, the Third Army suspended its own offensive and swung 90 degrees to the north. The 4th Armored Division was assigned to fight through armored SS divisions to relieve the besieged village of Bastogne, a key crossroad defended by American soldiers. The 53rd Armored Battalion led the way.<br />
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My grandfather was recovering in a French farmhouse from illness and exhaustion after his month-long command of the temporary task force described earlier when the Battle of the Bulge started. He and his reconstituted task force were ordered north into Belgium to relieve Bastogne. Famed wartime photographer Robert Capa joined the unit for the six-week battle. I remember my grandfather telling us that Capa "was the craziest person I ever met." Life magazine published a Capa photograph of Major Crosby accepting the surrender of a German artillery observer with his hands in the air, "just to his rear and out of sight is a German major whom I'd just shot in the ass," he recalls in his memoir.<br />
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American solders at Bastogne had repulsed wave after wave of brutal armored German assaults. Both sides considered Bastogne as the linchpin of the German drive to Antwerp. By late Christmas night, my grandfather's task force had reached the outskirts of the town. Against his commanding officer's orders, he led a night attack.<br />
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"We started off, about 2:15 a.m., down a single two-lane country road leading to Bastogne.… The road ran through a patch of woods and strewn along the road for about 10 yards was a bunch of German mines. As the lead half-track reached the mines, the night erupted in tracer fire as dozens of machine guns and rifles started firing at the column. A private named Hendricks jumped out of the first half-track and started throwing the mines to the left side of the road. The fire was murderous--he cleared away all the mines, was not even scratched, and the column roared through at about 20 mph, firing wildly in all directions. We emerged from the woods, spread out in extended formation and rolled into Bastogne at top speed on 26 December, past groups of startled German artillerymen and infantry wondering what the hell was going on. By morning, the narrow road was secured and we had relieved Bastogne."<br />
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<b>6. "Death Had Become Meaningless"</b><br />
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The memoir describes the air raids on Bastogne as his most terrifying experience up to that point, but the entire next five months of combat represent a descent into hell. Atrocities and death abound.<br />
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At the Battle of the Bulge, the officer who turned out to be my grandfather's god father was taken prisoner with several colleagues. German SS troops stripped and tied them to beams in a farmhouse then burned it to the ground, incinerating everyone in it. This was done in reprisal for a similar atrocity committed by American soldiers from the same division earlier in the war. He describes a Belgian village scene in which two children are screaming in terror outside their demolished house. Inside there is a Christmas tree with their parents lying dead in front of it.<br />
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On February 27, he was with his division command staff in a farmhouse when German artillery struck. An explosion threw him 20 feet from the building. "I staggered into the house and met an appalling sight," he wrote. "Captain Volz, our signals officer, was lying on the hallway floor with both his legs blown off above the knees. Next to him lay Sgt. Curtis, holding the two stumps of his legs. Sgt. Curtis said to me, "Are you all right, sir?" This was almost more than I could take. Curtis hadn't yet realized the extent of his injuries nor yet felt the pain. At the foot of where the stairs had been lay Murdock--scalped. There were three or four dead on the floor and in the adjacent room. Almost everyone left was wounded. I was furious. Our Command Post had been practically wiped out. A host of soldiers and officers who had been with me for four years were dead or badly wounded."<br />
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Enraged, he charged into the nearby town to try to find and kill the German who had signaled to artillery to bomb the headquarters. He went into a church where 200 women, children and old men were shrieking from the German bombardment. "I came to my senses and walked out of the church before I started shooting them," he wrote.<br />
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In another instance, Americans entered a German town called Koblenz where civilians hid in their cellars. American tank fire hit the town church, which erupted into flames, prompting the civilians to emerge from hiding. "Water bucket gangs of old men, children, and women formed to try to quench the flames, assisted by a hand-pulled and hand-worked pump. Then some sadist called in artillery-time fire. Time fire explodes the projectile about 20 feet above the target and rains down a deadly dispersion of jagged pieces of steel, ripping and shredding everything in its path. The village burned to the ground as we watched, with a good one half of the villagers dead or mutilated--and we cheered."<br />
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In another German village he witnessed a friend and fellow officer get killed right in front of him by a sniper. "We'd been in constant combat at this time for nine months and death had become meaningless. [John] Finnegan had been my roommate, a good close friend for four years yet when someone asked me the name of the Captain of A Company who'd been killed earlier in the day, I couldn't remember his name."<br />
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<b>7. The past is never dead. It is not even past. </b><br />
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The <i>International Handbook of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma</i> has this to say about the legacy of combat trauma.<br />
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"Posttrauma symptoms can have a profound effect on the manner in which a trauma survivor relates to others, including, perhaps most significantly, family members. Survivors are markedly changed by their experiences. The psychological impact of trauma is well established in a variety of survivor populations. These posttrauma symptoms include (1) experiencing the trauma through flashbacks, nightmares, and persistent thoughts; (2) cognitive and phobic avoidance of trauma-related stimuli; (3) hyperarousal symptoms of irritability, startle response, and sleep disturbance. It is easy to understand how survivors’ numbing of responsiveness, social withdrawal, and irritability, with episodic outbursts of rage, can make it difficult for them to maintain interpersonal relationships. In turn, children of traumatized patients may be affected directly or indirectly by their parents’ posttrauma symptoms."<br />
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My grandfather may not have suffered shell shock or battle fatigue, but he suffered post traumatic stress disorder symptoms. I mean, how could he not? When the war ended, he remarried a Red Cross nurse who he had met while fighting in Europe--Letitia Jones ("Aunt Letty" to me). The two of them had four children together.<br />
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"People have no idea how much he suffered," she said shortly after he died, talking about his nightmares in which he woke up screaming in a cold sweat.<br />
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Letty shared the memoirs with all six of Tersh's children, including Player, who gave me his copy almost immediately upon receiving it twenty years ago. I read it, was deeply impressed and then asked Player if he had read it. I was shocked by his response.<br />
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"No. I will never read it!" he said in a fury that I had never seen in him before. It was stunning. "My father failed at everything he did other than that. He was a failure as a man and as a father."<br />
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According to researchers of intergenerational trauma, the emotional numbing, detachment and avoidance that many combat veterans experience may directly impact on the veteran’s parenting ability by diminishing the capability to interact with the child and develop a meaningful relationship.<br />
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I will quote from a paper by two Israeli psychologists Rachel Deckel and Hadass Goldblatt entitled "Is there Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma? The Case of Combat Veterans' Children."<br />
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"The main mechanisms of direct transmission that is described by psychodynamic approaches are projection and identification. Fathers with PTSD have difficulty containing their emotions, and their attempts to mitigate their pain lead to passive use of projection mechanisms, where severe emotions such as persecution, aggression, shame and guilt are split and projected onto their children. As result, the children may identify with the projected parts of their fathers' emotions, and perceive his experiences and feelings as their own. These unconscious processes can make it difficult for the child to form a separate self and may result in the development of symptoms that replicate the disturbances of the father such as social isolation, guilt and detachment."<br />
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The authors write about a veteran's function and engagement in the family unit.<br />
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"The main symptoms of PTSD reflect difficulties in regulating proximity and distance from the event and therefore may contribute to problems in attachment and intimacy, thus reducing the father's involvement in family activities. Normal development in childhood and adolescence requires regulating distance/closeness from the parents to enable formation of a separate identity. Fathers who have difficulty regulating distance/closeness from their traumatic memories might also find it hard to properly regulate distance/closeness from their children. The father's physical presence and psychological absence or ambiguous loss, as well as the difficulty involved in understanding and explaining his behavior, might cause lack of appreciation and disappointment among the children. In these cases, the father is part of the family but only fulfills partial functions. The persistence of such ambiguity over a prolonged period can lead to emotional distress. Consequently, family members experience a confusion of boundaries, which is manifested by transferring the father's roles to the mother and/or the children."<br />
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I believe that this description of intergenerational trauma is true and goes well beyond a single generation. As William Faulkner put it more succinctly "The past is never dead. It is not even past."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-21844183350090735262020-03-06T18:35:00.000-05:002020-03-06T18:35:33.343-05:00Across the bridge: A personal reflection<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Presented to the Club on Monday, February 10, 2020 by Richard L. Floyd</i><br />
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We will come to the bridge in my title in due time, but it is a later piece of the story I want to tell tonight, so I will begin with an important book I read last summer while I was filling in as a guest preacher for my daughter during her maternity leave.<br />
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The book was <i>Jesus and the Disinherited</i> by Howard Thurman. My pastor had given it to me the year before, but I hadn’t got around to reading it. It was written in 1949, which happens to be the year I was born, and it came out right before the civil rights movement really got moving in the 1950’s.<br />
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Howard Thurman, a black minister and scholar, was the Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University. He had traveled to India and had met Mahatma Gandhi. When Thurman asked Gandhi what message he should take back to the United States, Gandhi said he regretted not having made nonviolence more visible as a practice worldwide and he famously remarked “It may be through the Negroes that the unadulterated message of nonviolence will be delivered to the world.”<br />
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Thurman did come back with that message about non-violent resistance, and became one of the influences on one of his students, Martin Luther King, who did his doctorate at Boston University. And the Civil Rights movement did in fact employ a variety of the tactics of nonviolent resistance, such as sit-ins, bus boycotts, Freedom Rides, marches, and mass demonstrations.<br />
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In his book, Howard Thurman draws comparisons between the socio-political world that Jesus grew up in under Roman Occupation, and the American South during the Jim Crow era. In both cases powerful majorities disinherited powerless minorities through fear and the threat of violence. The regular lynching in Howard Thurman’s day and the regular crucifixions of Jesus’s day were both designed to instill terror in the disinherited minority and keep them in their place.<br />
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Howard Thurmond had learned the Bible by reading it out loud to his grandmother, who was born a slave and was never taught to read. One day he asked her why she never read from the letters of Paul. She said the slaveowners wouldn’t let black preachers preach to them, but would bring in white preachers, and it was always Paul telling them, “Slaves, obey your masters.” “That is why I don’t want to hear from Paul!” she told him.<br />
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But she also told him that the slaves would have secret church meetings in the middle of the night, and the black preachers would tell them, “You are not a slave. You are not that bad word they call you. You are a child of God. God loves you.”<br />
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In the night they heard a different story than the official day-time story of their oppressors. The stories we tell ourselves help shape our self-understanding. Our country is in an ongoing national conversation about race, and the meaning and impact of hundreds of years of enslavement and oppression.<br />
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That conversation is not an easy one, but it is a necessary one if we are going to get our national story straight. For many people that truth is so threatening and painful that they deny it. I want to share with you an experience I had recently that has influenced how I understand America’s story in regard to race. My understanding is not complete, but it has been deepened.<br />
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Early in September of last year, Martha and I went to a United Church of Christ Pension Board meeting in Montgomery, AL. I have to confess that Montgomery. AL had never been on my bucket list of places to visit. But I was pleasantly surprised. Montgomery is a bustling modern city with lots of nice restaurants and places to visit.<br />
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But what was really special about our Montgomery trip was visiting the many Civil Rights Movement sites. We spent an afternoon at the Rosa Parks museum, which tells the inspiring story of the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. For thirteen months the black citizens refused to take city buses, and traveled by a fleet of taxis, hearses, and church buses to get to work.<br />
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I learned some things I didn’t know about Rosa Parks. I knew she was an elderly seamstress who refused to go to the back of the bus because she was tired. The seamstress part is true, but Rosa Parks was only 42 at the time of the incident. On December 1, 1955 she refused to relinquish her seat to a white passenger and the bus driver called the police, who escorted her off the bus and arrested her.<br />
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I also learned that the police couldn’t sustain the charge against her, because she hadn’t broken any law, rather she had violated a norm. There was a white section, but Parks was sitting in the row after the white section. By custom she would have given up her seat to any white person who came in after the white section was filled up, but she refused.<br />
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She was also not just some random person, but the secretary of the Montgomery NAACP, and she had recently attended a workshop at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, for a workshop training in non-violent resistance. There were “repercussions” for her act. Repercussions were the cost of courage during the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s. Rosa Parks was fired by the department store where she worked, and she received death threats for many years. Today in Montgomery there is a marker on the site where she refused to go to the back of the bus.<br />
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We also went to the “Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration,” built near the site of the market where tens of thousands of Black enslaved people were sold. The museum opened in April, 2018 and is a project of the Equal Justice Initiative. The EJI<br />
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believes that the history of racial inequality and economic injustice in the United States has created continuing challenges for all Americans, and more must be done to advance our collective goal of equal justice for all. The United States has done very little to acknowledge the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation.</blockquote>
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Through the use of multi-media and storytelling the museum presents parts of the national story that have often been left untold.<br />
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We also visited another EJI project which opened the same day as the museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, informally called the National Lynching Memorial. It is hard for me to talk about this, but it is part of our national story.<br />
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Let me describe the Memorial for you. “Set on a six-acre site, the memorial uses sculpture, art, and design to contextualize racial terror.” The memorial square has 805 hanging steel rectangles, roughly the size and shape of coffins. Each of them has the names of the counties where a documented lynching took place in the United States. Each of the steel plates also has the names and dates of the documented lynching victims (or “unknown” if the name is not known).<br />
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More than 4075 documented lynching of African Americans took place between 1877 and 1950, concentrated in 12 Southern states, but also lynching took place in several states outside the South. I saw counties in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, among others. The monument is the first major work in the nation to name and honor these victims. As you walk under these coffin-shaped rectangles the floor gradually slopes lower and lower, so the coffins seem to be rising above your head. It is absolutely chilling.<br />
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Why the date of 1877 as the start of the lynching? That was the year that Reconstruction ended and the last Union troops, who had been stationed throughout the South since the end of the Civil War in 1865, were removed from the former Confederacy.<br />
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Without these troops to protect the rights of the freed slaves, a new period began in the former Confederacy, which they ironically called “Redemption.” New measures, called Jim Crow laws, were enacted to enforce segregation and deny blacks civil rights and voting rights. Violence and the threat of violence upheld this system. Lynching was an important piece of the system. These thousands of extra-judicial murders took place without trials or due process. They were often community events that looked like a Fourth of July celebration or a Sunday School picnic. No one would ever be arrested, or if so, no white jury would ever convict.<br />
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This de facto state-sponsored violence kept free African Americans in a state of bondage for the better part of a century, and mass incarceration of young black men and voter suppression continue to this day. The ideology of white supremacy is alive and well in America. The story it tells is that blacks are inferior to whites, and so can be treated unfairly and unjustly and deprived of their rights, especially their right to vote.<br />
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And now I have to tell you about Jake Williams. Jake is the owner/operator of Montgomery Tours. Martha and I stayed an extra day to go on a bus tour with Jake of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March. Jake was on that march with two of his older sisters when he was 12 years old.<br />
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Jake is an Africa-American man who owns his own company. He’s owned two restaurants, was a truck driver and teaches truck-driving at the local community college.<br />
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Jake grew up in Lowndes County, Alabama where his father was a sharecropper and his mother was a domestic servant who worked for a white family. Jake pointed out a cotton field where he had picked cotton as a boy. He said if he didn’t pick his quota his mother would strike him in the head. His mother got up at 4 in the morning to walk out to the highway to hitch a ride to her white family’s house, where she cleaned the kitchen and made them breakfast. She was paid $4 a day.<br />
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Jake said that the sharecropper system was better for the plantation owner than slavery. The owner provided housing and the sharecroppers bought all their food and goods from the owner’s store on credit, and they were always behind. Jake told the story about how his father got behind in his credit and the plantation owner offered to erase his debt if he would let him “have his way” with his teenage daughter. His father took a night-time job to see that didn’t happen.<br />
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Jake drove us along the March Route to Selma and we had lunch there. Selma today is a run-down town that fell on hard times when their local Air Force base was closed. We went to the church where the marchers gathered on March 7, 1965. The impetus for the march was that on February 26, an activist and deacon, Jimmie Lee Jackson, died after being mortally shot several days earlier by a state trooper, during a peaceful march in nearby Marion, Alabama.<br />
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The marchers were committed to and trained in non-violent resistance. They carried no weapons. On March 7, the marchers left Selma and headed across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The bridge is only 250 long, and it is arched so you can’t see to the other side of the Alabama River until you get to the top of the span. This became significant to the marchers since the other side of the bridge is no longer Selma, but county territory. On my trip with Jake I walked across it. I felt like I was on holy ground. That is the bridge of my title.<br />
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Selma Police Chief Wilson Baker and his officers controlled the city, but County Sheriff Jim Clark had jurisdiction outside the city. He was a hardline segregationist, who used violence to enforce the Jim Crow laws. He gathered Alabama State troopers wielding nightsticks and tear gas. He also called for every white male 22 years or older to appear to be sworn in as a posse, under an old law. These civilians showed up, many of them on horseback, with long whips and cattle prods used to herd cattle. There were about 200 of these deputies, some of whom were members of the Ku Klux Klan.<br />
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When the marchers, led by now Congressman John Lewis, among others, got to the top of the bridge, they were savagely set upon by the state troopers and posse men and were driven back to the church. Jake told us that men on horseback followed the protesters right into the church.<br />
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Amelia Boynton, one of the organizers of the March, was beaten unconscious by police, and a photo of her lying bleeding on the bridge was shown nationally in the media. This day’s march is referred to as “Bloody Sunday.”<br />
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“Bloody Sunday” was the first of three marches. The second march was called “Turnaround Tuesday” on March 9, 1965. The organizers, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) issued a call for clergy and citizens from across the country to join them. Awakened to issues of civil and voting rights by years of Civil Rights Movement activities, and shocked by the television images of “Bloody Sunday,” hundreds of people responded to the call and came to Selma to march.<br />
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To prevent another outbreak of violence, SCLC asked for a court order that would prohibit the police from interfering. But instead of issuing the court order, U.S. District Court Judge Frank Minis Johnson issued a restraining order, prohibiting the march from taking place until he could hold additional hearings later in the week.<br />
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On March 9, Dr. Martin Luther King led about 2,500 in a brief prayer meeting on the bridge before turning them around, thereby obeying the court order preventing them from making the full march. He was much criticized for this at the time.<br />
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Many marchers felt let down, including those who had traveled long distances to participate in the march. King asked them to remain in Selma for another march to take place after the injunction was lifted.<br />
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That same evening, three white Unitarian Universalist ministers in Selma for the march were attacked on the street and beaten with clubs by four Ku Klux Klan members. The most severely injured was the Reverend James Reeb from Boston. Fearing that Selma’s public hospital would refuse to treat him, he was taken to Birmingham’s University Hospital, which was two hours away. He died two days later at University Hospital, with his wife by his side.<br />
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On March 15, President Lyndon Johnson convened a joint session of Congress, where he outlined his proposed new voting rights bill, and demanded that Congress pass it. In a presentation carried nationally on live television Johnson praised the courage of the African-American activists. He called Selma “a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom.” I was a sophomore in High School and watched his speech with my family.<br />
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A week after Reverend Reeb’s death, on March 17, Judge Johnson finally ruled with the protesters, saying their First Amendment right to march in protest could not be abridged by the state of Alabama. He wrote:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The law is clear that the right to petition one’s government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups . … These rights may … be exercised by marching, even along public highways.</blockquote>
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Judge Johnson had got the go-ahead from President Johnson after the President, knowing that Governor George Wallace had no intention of protecting the marchers, would use Federal powers to do so. President Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard, and that set the stage for the Third and Final March on March 21, the one that made it all the way from Selma to Montgomery.<br />
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This is the march Jake Williams was on with his sisters. The marchers set out protected by 1,900 National Guardsmen, and US Marshalls and members of the FBI. They walked through chilling rain and camped in muddy fields. The route of the march was on US Highway 80, known in Alabama as the “Jefferson Davis Highway.” The marchers averaged about 10 miles a day. On the second day and third day the march went through Jake’s home county, Lowndes County.<br />
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Let me tell you about Lowndes County, Alabama, a majority black county, in 1965. In the early Twentieth Century Alabama had passed some of the most restrictive voting laws in the land, with a poll tax and a literacy test. At the time of the march, the population of Lowndes County was 81% black and 19% white, but not a single black person was registered to vote. Not one. There were 2,240 whites registered to vote, a figure that represented 118% of the adult white population (in many Southern counties of that era they left white voters on the rolls after they died or had moved away).<br />
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If Jake had any anger or bitterness it never showed. He told us the story of the march in a matter of fact way. But he did tell us about what he called “repercussions” to the march.<br />
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Repercussion 1: Jake told us that few sharecroppers participated out of fear of the plantation owners, but the ones that did were kicked out of their homes, and a tent city had to be erected for temporary housing.<br />
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Repercussion 2: A black woman who ran a convenience store let the marchers camp in a field she owned. Her suppliers retaliated by denying her supplies, and her business closed.<br />
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Repercussion 3: In Montgomery on the last night of the march, the Roman Catholic bishop let the marchers camp at St Jude Catholic School field on a campus that housed the St. Jude Catholic hospital. All the white doctors quit and the hospital closed.<br />
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Repercussion 4: Viola Liuzzo, a housewife and mother of 5, traveled from Detroit, Michigan, to Selma for the march. Driving back from a trip shuttling fellow activists to the Montgomery airport, members of the Ku Klux Klan saw her with a black man in her car and chased her for miles along the highway before shooting her in the head and killing her. She was 39 years old. Jake showed us the spot along the Jefferson Davis Highway where she was murdered.<br />
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On March 25 the marchers left St. Jude and marched to the steps of the capitol in Montgomery. Dr. King had asked Governor Wallace for permission to address the crowd there, about 25,000 people, but he was refused. So, the organizers rented a flatbed truck and put a podium on it on the street at the foot of the State House. Jake drove us to the spot. It was a few blocks from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where King was pastor.<br />
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King delivered a speech known as “How Long? Not Long?” Perhaps, you know it. Let me share with you the closing paragraph (if I can get through it):<br />
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I know you are asking today, “How long will it take?” Somebody’s asking, “How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?” Somebody’s asking, “When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?” Somebody’s asking, “When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?” I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because “truth crushed to earth will rise again.” How long? Not long, because “no lie can live forever.” How long? Not long, because “you shall reap what you sow.” “How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”</blockquote>
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On August 6, 1965 President Johnson signed the voting Rights Act that ended Jim Crow, at least in law.<br />
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What is the lasting legacy of the Selma to Montgomery March? For one thing it caught the attention of a large segment of the American public and they could no longer turn away from the reality of segregation and injustice. In the decade between the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 and the Selma march of 1965, the Civil Rights movement had been active in numerous acts of non-violent resistance and civil disobedience throughout the South. These acts had gained more and more attention from the media and the public about inequality and segregation.<br />
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Two years before Selma, in 1963, Dr. King had led an economic boycott in Birmingham, and in May a large number of children and students walked out of school and attempted to address the mayor. 959 of them, ages 6-18, were arrested. The next day more students joined the march and Bull Connor famously ordered his Birmingham police to use fire hoses and attack dogs on the children. The pictures on TV from Birmingham shocked many in the nation, and a changing public opinion allowed for the passage the next year of The Civil Rights Act of 1964.<br />
<br />
This was a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It prohibited unequal application of voter registration requirements, and racial segregation in schools, employment, and public accommodations.<br />
<br />
This law and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 became the landmark legislation that dismantled segregation and the Jim Crow Laws. Many felt the battle for civil rights had been won, and the election of Barack Obama in 2008 led many to speak of “a post racial America” in which the United States would be free from racial preference, discrimination, and prejudice.<br />
<br />
Sadly, this optimism has been shown to be premature. In 1913 the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that addressed voting discrimination in a 5-4 decision. States wasted little time in putting practices into play to suppress voting along racial lines.<br />
<br />
And then there is the issue of mass incarceration. The American Civil Liberties Union says that:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Since 1970, the number of incarcerated people has increased sevenfold to 2.3 million in jail and prison today, far outpacing population growth and crime. Not everyone is treated equally in the criminal justice system. Racial bias keeps more people of color in prisons and on probation than ever before. One out of every three Black boys born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as can one of every six Latino boys — compared with one of every 17 white boys. Black people are also subject to pretrial detention at a higher rate than white arrestees with similar charges and history.</blockquote>
<br />
In 2010 Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar, wrote “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” in which she argues that the jailing of young black and brown men is like the Jim Crow laws, using the justice system to enforce racism.<br />
<br />
The rise of white supremacist groups out of the shadows and into the public square in the era of Donald Trump reminds us that we haven’t arrived at a post-racial America. The killing of unarmed black people by law enforcement, and the resulting “Black Lives Matter movement are another facet of the conversation. Our United Church of Christ headquarters in Framingham had a “Black Lives Matter” banner removed and vandalized several times.<br />
<br />
The debate about the Confederate flag and Confederate war memorials shows how much passion and consternation still exists over who gets to choose which story to tell about our national story around race.<br />
<br />
I’d like to end with a couple of personal postscripts. The first is that Martin Luther King and other people of faith in the Civil Rights movement were big influences on me, and are part of what shaped and formed me in ways that led to my going into the ministry.<br />
<br />
The second postscript is how my trip to Montgomery alerted me to some of my own blind spots and ways I have got the story wrong or at least incomplete. I once preached a sermon on Martin Luther King Day and afterwards one of my congregants came up to me mad as a wet cat and gave me a tongue lashing. She was from Alabama, a niece of George Wallace, and the gist of her complaint was that “you Yankees always blame the South, as if there is no racial bigotry in the North.”<br />
<br />
She had a point. The systematic oppression of the Post-Reconstruction South under Jim Crow is not the only kind of racism there is, although it is a particularly toxic and evil form of it. But here is where I need to make a confession. I was born in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and when I was three, my parents moved us across the Hudson to suburban Bergen County, New Jersey. There I received my education from kindergarten through 12thgrade. During those years I never had a black classmate at my schools. Not one. This came home to me several years ago when I learned that Senator Corey Booker graduated from my high school. When I was there, there were no black students.<br />
<br />
My parents were liberal Democrats, and in the Sixties, while we watched Jim Clarke and Bull Connor use violence to put down protestors of racial segregation, we ourselves were living in a segregated community. The segregation in our community was not laid down by law, as In Alabama, but by redlining, the practice of discriminatory lending practices by banks to deny mortgages to minorities based on maps of neighborhoods.<br />
<br />
In 2017, I returned to my high school for my fiftieth reunion. One of the little towns I grew up in is largely Korean, and the marching band at the football came was majority Asian. The Congregational Church in that town is now a Korean church.<br />
<br />
This is the multi-racial America that so many decry and find threatening. The current anti-immigrant political movement is part of this same backlash. It is estimated that our country will be majority minority by 2045 or 2050. Fewer than half of American children under the age of fifteen are white.<br />
<br />
What will the story be that we tell ourselves about who we are as Americans? Will we remember the brave men, women, and children that risked life and limb to non-violently protest and resist their oppression at the hands of the majority? Will we come to terms with our complicated history that includes the story of enslaved people and centuries of racial injustice and bigotry? That is a conversation we need to be having. When I walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge last September in Selma, I realized how far we have come, and how far we have yet to go.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-229083619149601362019-12-16T20:53:00.004-05:002020-12-06T19:26:53.372-05:00The winter before the war in Washington: The Civil War era recollections of Henry Laurens Dawes<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0GHUMFzooms/Xfgzb7mm6UI/AAAAAAAAEKE/H6523eEbNHcleS-D6igUxRtVAeb-HNG-gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/HLDawes.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="671" data-original-width="617" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0GHUMFzooms/Xfgzb7mm6UI/AAAAAAAAEKE/H6523eEbNHcleS-D6igUxRtVAeb-HNG-gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/HLDawes.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Henry Laurens Dawes</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="normal">
<i style="font-size: 11pt;">This paper was presented to the Club by Henry Laurens Dawes on Monday evening, November 22, 1886, at a </i><i style="font-size: 14.6667px;">meeting of the Club he hosted at his home in Pittsfield, Dawes presented this paper about events in Washington, D.C. between Abraham Lincoln’s election in November, 1860 and his inauguration in March, 1861. </i></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><i>Dawes (1816-1903) was a
founding member of the Monday Evening Club in 1869 and remained a member until
his death, hosting and presenting papers often.</i></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN"><i>As Dawes notes in the paper itself, “some of the
incidents of those days [were] not recorded in the history of the time and …
will soon be beyond recall if left alone to the memory of contemporaries and
participants.” In this paper Dawes presents many details that only an eyewitness
and participant could know.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN"><i>According to notes on the manuscript, Dawes later
presented this paper to the Wednesday Morning Club<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
(also of Pittsfield) on November 28, 1886; to the Social Senior Club of Ware,
Mass. on November 20, 1888, and at a public meeting at South Congregational
Church in Pittsfield on Saturday, May 10, 1890.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN"><i>Judging by the manuscript (a copy which was
obtained from the National Archives where the original is among its holdings of
Dawes’s papers), for these subsequent presentations, Dawes made small edits and
appears to have inserted some new passages. In transcribing the paper, we have
generally included these changes, but have retained some passages that Dawes
bracketed —‘ he appears to have intended to skip over for brevity. In other
instances Dawes made changes for modesty — for example, changing “I” to
“one of the committee” or the like. In those cases we’ve generally retained the
original first person version. Because of these changes and interpolations made
over time this final version differs somewhat from the original presentation to
the Monday Evening Club.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN"><i>The first half of this paper was published, under
the same title, in the </i>Atlantic Monthly<i> of August, 1893. The text of that
article very closely follows the manuscript text we have used here. A small
portion of this article has been used here to fill in a gap where one or two
pages of the original manuscript are missing. The second half is published here for the first time.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN"><i>For the reader’s convenience we have added a few
subheadlines not found in the original manuscript. For some events, dates have
been added in brackets to help illuminate the timeline. A few spelling
corrections and punctuation and capitalization changes have been made for
clarity.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN"><i>Thanks to Megan Hoffenberg for her transcription
of the manuscript.</i></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">Looking back over the graves of more than a
million brave men who, on the one side or the other, laid down their lives in
the struggle for mastery which began at Washington in the winter of 1860-61, the
recollection of the flippancy and air of lightness and almost sportiveness with
which it was entered upon fills me with a shiver of amazement. How great things
were trifled with as if they were playthings and great stakes were played for
as boys play for pennies, no one could now, in the lurid light of subsequent
events, ever be made to believe, had not his own eyes been the witness. Much
that happened would have been impossible but for the impenetrable veil which
shut out the future. What seemed to us before whose eyes they were enacted as
absurdities, arrant nonsense, and which it is difficult to recall after thirty-five
years, with a sober face, were in truth the beginnings of Andersonville and
Gettysburg and the assasination of Lincoln. I sometimes think it almost wicked
to hold up their ludicrous side to public gaze, in the light of such a terrible
realization. It is with no purpose to belittle the great events, the beginnings
of which I saw that winter, that I venture, for your entertainment if not
instruction, to present some of the incidents of those days not recorded in the
history of the time and which will soon be beyond recall if left alone to the
memory of contemporaries and participants.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN"><o:p> </o:p></span><b style="font-size: 11pt;"><span lang="EN">Committee
delegated to meet with the “ambassadors” of South Carolina</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">One of these incidents seemed at the time a
genuine burlesque; yet it covered a trap into which it would have been much
easier to put a foot than to get it out when once in. Mr. Lincoln was elected
in November. Within a week after it was known South Carolina took steps to set
up her independence as a sovereign state. She did not seem to have contemplated
in the outset the possibility of armed resistance to the carrying out of her
scheme but proceeded with the formal steps of ordinary legislation as if that
alone on her part was sufficient to cut up this nation into sections and to set
up the several parts into sovereignties with all the attributes of independent
nationalities. It took her about three weeks to get her legislature together
and create a convention, which passed an ordinance declaring in high-sounding
phrase, South Carolina to be a free, independent and sovereign nation among the
nations of the earth, with "full power to levy war, conclude peace,
contract alliances, establish commerce and to do all other acts and things
which independent states may of right do."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">One of the first acts of this new sovereignty was
an attempt to negotiate a treaty with the United States. And so (within a month
of the election), before the votes had been counted or a single step taken
looking to the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, this independent power which had sprung
up in a night almost, in our very midst, waving a foreign flag in sight of
United States forts and arsenals over all the United States property within her
limits, appointed an embassy — ministers plenipotentiary — to proceed to the
government of the United States and negotiate a treaty of peaceable surrender
to her of the armed fortresses and other property of the United States found
within the limits of her dominion when she woke up a sovereign. This embassy
came on to Washington with a secretary of legation and credentials as formal
and with a seal as large as ever certified our minister to the Court of St.
James. They took a large house on K Street — the rent of which, it is said,
they never paid — unfurled the flag of their embassy and prepared to present
their credentials and to be received as ministers plenipotentiary of the new
government of South Carolina, resident, as they were pleased to term it, in
true diplomatic language, near the government of the United States of America.
Most people in Washington looked upon the whole thing as a huge joke — as a
harmless outcome of the vanity and pride of South Carolina. Not so with Mr.
Buchanan<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>.
The moment they presented their credentials he found himself in a dilemma. If
he received them, even addressed them in the character they had put on, he at
once recognized the sovereignty they assumed to represent. If he turned them
out of doors, not to say arrested them for the treason they were committing, he
would at once bring on that crisis which it was his prayer might and day might
be averted till after the 4th of March. So he did neither, but referred the
whole matter to Congress, and Congress referred it to a select committee of
which I was one. (Alas, disease and death have left, me alone, but one, of that
committee to recount today a few of the many incidents of its work, nowhere of
record, and which are already too shadowy with me, I fear, to venture their
recital.) The committee had subsequently many other more serious matters in
charge, but this they never could treat otherwise than as a sublime farce,
little dreaming themselves of what it was the beginning. They summoned these
gentlemen before them just as they would any other American citizens. Instead
of appearing themselves they sent their "secretary of legation," who
communicated to the committee in very courteous but exceedingly formal manner
that the committee had overlooked the fact, unintentionally, no doubt, that the
gentlemen summoned to appear before the committee were ambassadors of a sovereign
state residing, in their diplomatic character alone, near the United States
government and acknowledging no other authority but that of the government
whose commission they bore. (Ahem!) This was our first experience of this
new-fledged eagle, and the bird had spread its wings for so lofty a flight at
the first opportunity that we stood back in wonder and amazement, uncertain for
the moment whether it would soar into the sun or come tumbling down at our
feet. We were thus suddenly brought face to face with this new sovereignty
flaunting its awful attributes before us, all embodied for the moment in the
person of this secretary of legation, as he supposed himself to be — and not a
very imposing personage at that. He was a very young man for one representing
in his person the majesty of an independent government, apparently having
hardly attained his majority, of very light hair and boyish face, with a
moustache (after the imperial order), very rare in those days, which was a
surprising success upon a face otherwise so downy. He wore patent leather
shoes, light colored trousers in very large plaids, twirled on the tips of his
fingers a cane with an apparently golden head turned over and finished in the
hoof of a horse — in short a very dude of that day and fit to be the prototype
of the race. Thus equipped and, hat in hand, he stood before us personating the
new national sovereignty which had thus sprung into existence out of our very
selves full-armed, like Minerva from the head of Jove. It was, of course, his
first experience in diplomacy and he was evidently intent on making the most of
it. One member of the committee was directed to examine him, and after a few
formal inquiries he was asked what had brought him to Washington. What had
brought him to Washington, he repeated, with an air of injured surprise.
"You cannot be ignorant, sir, that the new sovereign State of South
Carolina has sent ambassadors to negotiate a treaty of friendship and alliance
with this neighboring government of the United States, with whom she is
desirous of living on the most liberal terms of amity and good fellowship; and
I have the honor to be the secretary of that legation, sir." As soon as
the Committee could recover its breath a further inquiry, was ventured about
the origin of this new government whose existence he had thus announced and the
authority under which it had been created. With a look of supreme contempt or
pity for our ignorance — one could hardly tell which — he proceeded to
enlighten us. "South Carolina,” he proceeded to say, "when she
consented to become one of the United States, had given up no part of her
sovereignty; had only laid it away for future use whenever it seemed meet to
her. She had now decreed to resume it, and that was sufficient. She had only
put on again the vestments of her sovereignty, just as a man puts on the
raiment he lays aside for some temporary use of others." It was so simple
and easy a process that he expressed astonishment at our ignorance. A few more
questions and the Committee gave up in despair the hope of even getting him
down to earth or itself sufficiently off from it to comprehend their sudden and
absolute metamorphosis. He then went on without specific questions to expound
more at length the theory which had given birth to his government, and
expatiated upon the enormity of the outrages his people expected would happen
and had mapped out beforehand to happen when Lincoln should be inaugurated. He
quoted Grotius and Vattel to prove that the United States forts and arsenals
and other public property found within the limits of South Carolina when she
became an independent power became ipso facts her property, and concluded with
the assertion that the declaration of South Carolina upon the question of her
independence and sovereignty was conclusive with her and she would tolerate no
questioning it. The committee were quite overcome with his learning and equally
overawed by his defiant attitude. They looked upon this first product of the
new order of things as a real prodigy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">"And still they gazed, and still the wonder
grew that one small head could carry all he knew."</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="font-size: 11pt;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[3]</span></span></span></a></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">He however, took offense at what he considered
some impertinent inquiries put to him by the committee about the government he
represented, and, gathering up its dignity and sovereignty as well as he could,
took them both with himself out of its profane presence and back to the nursery
on K Street, and the committee saw no more of him. They were never able to get
the real ambassadors before them, because, I suppose, neither Vattel<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
nor Grotius<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
nor any other writer on public law furnished any precedent for bringing such
high public functionaries before any lesser body than the supreme authority of
the State. (They lingered on, however, were adopted as representatives of the
whole Confederacy by Jefferson Davis when he became their president, and hung
about Washington under the burden of their mission and of their own importance
till [Fort] Sumter was fired on [ April 12, 1861], when they took departure
suddenly and with very much less ceremony and pomp than heralded their coming —
and in a manner, too, more resembling an escape than the leave-taking of
diplomatic representatives.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN">Investigation
of threats to the electoral process<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">The committee was subsequently charged with a
much more serious duty, of which little beyond their printed report was ever
made public. The public mind at Washington had become greatly excited by the
belief that a conspiracy had been formed to seize the Capitol and Treasury, to
get possession of the archives of the government and prevent the counting of
the electoral vote and the declaration of the election of Lincoln — creating
thereby chaos and anarchy out of which might come the establishments of the Confederacy
as the government de facto, in the very halls of the national Capitol. Treason
was known to be plotting to that end in the cabinet itself, and Mr. Buchanan
was bewildered and nerveless. This committee was instructed to investigate the
grounds for these apprehensions. It held its meetings with closed doors, and
had Sen. Scott<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,
the General of the Army, detailed to aid its investigations. Gen. Cass<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
had left the cabinet because he would not consort with traitors, and the
thoroughly loyal and terribly energetic Stanton<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
had come in just in time to save Buchanan and as I have sometimes thought the
nation itself. The first struggle this great hero had was with himself. Should
he obey the rule which has hitherto and in ordinary times governed cabinets and
honorable men, and keep secret what transpired in council, or should he
disclose and thwart the machinations of treason wherever he saw them. He obeyed
the higher law and the oath he had taken to support the constitution. Indeed,
he had entered the cabinet for that very purpose. I called on him the evening
after he had taken the oath of office [December 20, 1860] and he said to me:
"I have today sworn to support the Constitution of the United States and
so help me God, I will do it!" Putting himself in communication with this
committee through Mr. Seward<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,
whatever treasonable plans Thompson and Floyd<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
undertook in cabinet council and sought to involve the administration in were
through this agency laid before the committee. Of course secrecy was absolutely
necessary and the name of our informant was never attached to the
communications we received. Yet those of the committee who could be relied upon
were informed where such communications could be found and where they must be
returned; and of the reliability of the information they contained. Some of
these communications were found and read by us by the light of the street lamp
at night, and then returned to the place of deposit — the information often
giving us the cue to the next day’s investigations. The bold handwriting of
these papers became afterward very familiar to us during the war as our
intercourse with the war office became frequent. I remember distinctly reading
one of these communications handed me by Mr. Howard<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,
chairman of the committee, late one night, giving information of that famous
cabinet meeting in which was disclosed the treason of Floyd in ordering the
guns removed from Pittsburgh to arm Southern forts, and the abstraction of a
million of Indian Trust funds from the custody of the government — when Stanton
branded him as a traitor and a personal conflict was only avoided by the
interference of the President. The next morning [December 29, 1860] Floyd
himself appeared before the committee at its request for examination. A few
questions disclosed to him that we were in possession of the secret and soon
(before three o'clock) the news of his resignation and fight spread through the
city.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">At another time the loyalty of the Secretary of
the Navy, through a Northern man, was suspected. The Pensacola navy yard and
all the public property there had been surrendered to the Confederates without
a blow. When this was known in cabinet the bad blood of the future Secretary of
War boiled over and he demanded it as the act of a traitor or a coward. That
night I read in the handwriting that had already become familiar these words:
"There is a Northern traitor in the cabinet. Arrest him tonight. Pensacola
has been given up. Stop him before it is too late." But the committee had
no power to arrest. Power was still in hand either disloyal or paralyzed. Mr. Toucey<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,
the Secretary of the Navy was, however, summoned before the committee and
inquired of why a navy yard with all the guns and other property in it was
surrendered to rebels without the firing of a gun. His answer sounds strangely
enough in the light of the terrible carnage subsequently enacted so many times
in defence of the territory and flag of the Union. "Pensacola was
surrendered," said he, "as the only means of preserving the
peace." "What," said one of the committee<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,
"surrendered to the enemies of the country to preserve the peace, and that
without firing a gun! I would have fired one at least as an experiment, if
nothing more." The secretary looked up in horror and replied: " Why, Mr.
Dawes, you haven't the slightest conception of the situation. There would
certainly have been bloodshed if there had been a single gun fired. It was an
interposition of Providence that the dire calamity of bloodshed was
avoided." It was not thought then that Mr. Toucey was disloyal and no one
now doubts his loyalty. But, like Mr. Buchanan, he strove at every hazard and
at any cost to postpone the conflict till after the 4th of March, when the
responsibility would rest on Mr. Lincoln. The House of Representatives,
however, passed a resolution censuring him for this conduct, and his portrait,
which hung among those of the governors on the walls of the Senate Chamber in
the Capitol of Connecticut, was turned with the face to the wall, where it
remained till after the war.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">No conspiracy to prevent the counting of the
electoral votes and declaring Lincoln elected was discovered in Washington if
one ever existed then. Yet the existence of one was so generally believed and
the excitement so great that extraordinary precautions were taken to guard
against it. The method of procedure and the lack of confidence in the loyalty
of Vice President Breckinridge<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,
on whom alone the Constitution, it was contended by many, devolved the power to
count the votes, all tended greatly to increase the anxiety. The certificates
of the electoral vote from each State are kept till the appointed day [February
13, 1861], in two boxes in the custody of the Vice President, who, on that day,
with a messenger carrying the two boxes, and followed by the senators, two and two,
proceeds from the Senate Chamber through the corridors and rotunda, always
crowded with people on either side flocking to witness the ceremony, to the
Hall of the House, where, in the Speaker’s chair and in the presence of the two
Houses and a crowded gallery he opens, and as many believed, alone counts the
votes and declares the result. The ease with which desperadoes, mingling with
the crowd, might fall upon the messenger as he passed through the corridors or
rotunda and violently seize the boxes, or from the galleries of the House in
like manner break up the proceedings, was apparent to anyone, and therefore
armed policemen of the most reliable character and proved courage, to the
number of several hundred, were secretly procured from Philadelphia, New York
and other cities and were stationed in citizens’ dress along the passageways
and in the galleries, prepared for any emergency. Happily there was no occasion
to call upon them. The count and declaration of Mr. Lincoln's election
proceeded without interruption, Mr. Breckinridge winning commendation for the
dignity and propriety of his conduct, though his heart was so thoroughly with
the rebels that he was among the earliest to join after their official duties
were at an end. But the excitement and anxiety was intense from beginning to
end of the proceeding, and the feeling of relief was almost visible in the
countenance of the loyal men oppressed as they were by knowledge of treasonable
designs, all the more alarming because imperfect and shadowy. The critical
point in the formal proceeding had been safely passed. The oath of office on
the coming fourth of March was all that remained of these formalities to clothe
the President-elect with the insignia of the great office to which he had been
called and to extinguish the hope of rebeldom to build some claims to a de
facto rule upon information or defects discovered or erected in the several
steps leading up, from the casting of their votes in December by the Electoral
College, through the different stages presented by the Constitution and laws to
the final consummation on the Eastern front of the Capitol.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN">Arrival of
Lincoln in Washington<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">Startling events and occasions of intense
excitement followed one another in such quick succession that relief from one
seldom brought an hour's repose. We lived in the focus of all the elements out
of which were to come order or disorder, no one could tell which — government
or anarchy, peace or violence, personal security or personal peril. And so it
was that hardly had the important step in the order of events — the counting of
the votes and the official declaration that Mr. Lincoln was elected — been
taken, and the surging tide of passion and terror partially subsided, when the
unexpected and inexplicable broke over us filling the public mind with mingled
emotions of wonder, anxiety, disappointment, and disgust. Mr. Lincoln had left
Springfield for Washington a week earlier amid becoming and impressive
ceremonies and with the prayers and parting blessings of thousands who had
assembled to witness his departure. His journey had been attended all along the
route with the most remarkable demonstrations and manifestations of interest
and regard which had ever marked the passage of a President-elect from his home
to the capital to assume the authority the people had conferred on him. It
could not have been otherwise, for no President-elect ever before journeyed on
a way so beset with perils and hedged about with difficulties, or to a mission
so wrapped in impenetrable mystery and so burdened with new and unmeasured
responsibilities. Forty millions of people, South as well as North, had lent
the most intent ear to catch every word he uttered as the multitudes forced him
to speak on the way. The words he had spoken were full of wisdom, indicated calmness
of temperament and comprehension of the new and weighty responsibilities before
him, and disclosed a devout reliance on a higher than human power for strength
unto his day, and a self abnegation that counted his own life of little worth
in comparison with the great work to which he had been called. The excitement
and crowd increased as he journeyed, and greater preparations than ever before
had been made for his reception upon an appointed day at the capital. Amid all
this intensity of expectation and preparation, imagine the consternation and amazement
which came over everyone when it was announced at the breakfast table on the
morning before the appointed day, that Mr. Lincoln was already at Willard's
Hotel [in Washington], that he had arrived at six o'clock that morning in the
New York sleeper, in company with a stranger, and was met at the depot by only
one man, his old friend Elihu B. Washburne<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>.
A hostile penny sheet added to the wonder the feeling, also, of disappointment
and disgust, by fabricating the story that he came disguised in a Scotch cap
and cloak. There was a sudden and painful revulsion of feeling toward him which
waited for neither reason nor explanation. Never idol fell so suddenly or so
far — and that, while the fickle multitude was actually on its knees and
vociferous in lip service. The outcry came near being: "Away with him!”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
“He had sneaked into Washington." He was a coward." "The man
afraid to come through Baltimore was not fit to be President."
"Frightened at his own shadow." These and worse epithets greeted the
purest, the bravest, the wisest and the most unselfish patriot of all who lived
in his time, on the day he entered the capital of the nation he had come to
save and to die for. And yet he had escaped, as by a hair's breadth, the fate
which the Ruler of the Universe had ordered should not overtake him till he had
finished a greater work than man in his own strength had ever yet achieved.
While we were searching in vain for conspirators and assassins in and about
Washington they had taken themselves to Baltimore <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and, for greater safety and more effective
work, had there perfected their plans to shoot Mr. Lincoln from among the crowd
gathered to greet him on his arrival at the depot on his way to Washington,
and, after making sure and thorough work with hand grenades, to escape to
Mobile in a vessel waiting for them in the harbor. While the attention of all
others was directed to the search about Washington for conspirators and
assassins who, all believed, were concocting their foul plot somewhere, a
detective of uncommon skill, following them to Baltimore, was pursuing his
investigations secretly and silently in the city, unknown even to reporters —
for we did not then, as now, live and move and have our being by their permission.
He had become familiar with their place of meeting, had record of their names —
eighteen in number — the part each was to perform, their leader, his character
and nerve, and the minutest details of the plot. He laid these facts before Mr.
Seward, and was sent by him, accompanied by Mr. Frederick A. Seward<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[17]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,
to meet and lay them before Mr. Lincoln at Harrisburg. The result was that
after a reception by the legislature in the afternoon he retired to his room at
the hotel at six o'clock, very weary, for needed rest till the next morning,
when the whole party were going by special train by way of Philadelphia and
Baltimore, leaving Baltimore at 12 o’clock noon, to Washington. Immediately on
arriving at his room Lincoln was taken, without knowledge of any one, to the
depot and the electrician having first cut the telegraph wires, the detective
accompanied him by special train, already provided, to Philadelphia just in
time to take a belated train and sleeping, as any other passenger, for
Washington. And thus he passed through Baltimore in perfect quiet at midnight
while the conspirators were yet burnishing their weapons for his assassination
at noon on the morrow. The Washington telegraph the next morning announced his
safe arrival there both to the assassins in Baltimore and to his bewildered
escort in Harrisburg. Several years after this, as history of the rebellion has
since disclosed, and during the war, a desperate character in the rebellion was
brought before the Richmond authorities for punishment for some heinous
offence, and was saved by the intercession of a United States, ex-senator,
Wigfall,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[18]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
on the grounds of meritorious service as captain of this Baltimore band of
conspirators for the murder of Lincoln.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">To refute the charge that Mr. Lincoln was hiding,
and to kindle anew as soon as possible the enthusiasm which had been so
suddenly and ignorantly dampered, Mr. Seward hastened, without waiting for
trunk or hair brush, to take him at once to the Capitol and present him to the
senators and representatives and afterward to the people generally. It was thus
I got my first sight of this immortal hero, then only an untried and untotored
western politician. He was in a sorry plight enough when Mr. Seward escorted
him into the hall. The House had heard of him in the Senate Chamber and were
impatiently awaiting his arrival, with all eyes turned intently toward the door
to catch the earliest possible glimpse of the future President appearing under
circumstances so novel and mysterious. I had somehow wrought out unconsciously
in my mind the great qualities of his soul and heart and head into a
corresponding personality, and, in spite of all I had heard, was expecting to
see a god. Never did god come tumbling down more suddenly and completely than
did mine as the unkempt, ill-formed, loose-jointed and disproportioned figure
of Mr. Lincoln appeared at the door. Weary, anxious, struggling to be cheerful,
under a burden of trouble he must keep to himself, with thoughts far off or
deep hidden, he was presented to the representatives of the nation over which
he had been placed as chief magistrate. I have always thought that this scene
should he perpetuated on canvas. It would be sure, in my opinion to make a
resting-place where this hurrying people of ours would stop and ponder. From
the Representatives Hall to the officials gathered on the balcony and thence to
the multitude generally Mr. Lincoln was in turn introduced. He held constant
receptions for many days thereafter at the parlors of Willard's Hotel. There I
took my family and there he kissed my little daughter,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[19]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
and settled her politics for life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">There that homely kindless of manner, which
afterwards became so prominent and attractive an element in his personality,
began early to overcome the dislike, and break through the prejudices that the
manner of his entry into the capital had at first created, and soon drew the
multitude to his rooms for a shake of his big hand, and for a word or sentence
from his lips to carry away and ponder or repeat. Every thing about him — his
ways not less than his looks, his methods with men not less than his speech — were
all so unusual and so unlike anything ever seen or heard before in the
surroundings or utterances of a President-elect at the threshold of
presidential authority and responsibility, that he was taken at the outset to
be a mystery, a character never entirely laid aside or dispelled. It was,
however, the mystery of his position and not of his character, for no man was
ever more frank or unreserved when the exercise of these qualities was safe,
but reserved or otherwise, he never mystified or misled. If in those days no
man could comprehend him it was because no man, as clearly as he did,
comprehended what was before him. He seemed to see what was invisible to those
of us who were crowding around him, and by spells, to be as one studying
objects or phenomena that did not come within the vision or thought of others.
When we came to know him better, in the days when trouble could no longer be
hidden, and struggles with great problems revealed themselves in every line of
his face, then we understood that deep and serious look which at times came
over him in the midst of these handshakings, at first mistaken for absent-mindedness.
Notwithstanding all these peculiarities, seen only in him, he won the hearts of
all who came in contact with him. No one who saw him in those days has ever
forgotten what he then saw and heard. The very youngest boy in the promiscuous
crowd that flocked to see him at these informal receptions, is a middle-aged
man today, all the better citizen because he remembers the good words of cheer
with which Lincoln greeted him when he took his hand that day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">It was not deemed prudent to make known at that
time the reasons for this strange arrival in Washington so disappointing to
public expectation and in such utter disregard of the great preparations that
had been made. Nor was it known till long after that an attempt was made to
derail his train soon after it left Springfield or that a hand grenade was found
in his car at Cincinnati. The President therefore bore in silence the
ungenerous criticisms upon his conduct. But it was evident that the possibility
of assassination was present with him much of the time thus early. At Trenton
when called upon to define his policy in the pending crisis he replied, "I
shall be obliged, one week from tomorrow to officially announce that policy, if
I live till then, and if I do not it would be useless to announce it now.” And
in a speech in Independence Hall he said that "rather than fail to
maintain the principles first enunciated here I would rather suffer
assassination."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">The committee before spoken of were warned by
these occurrences to take more pains than ever to prevent a renewal of such an
attempt, especially on the day of the inauguration. They accordingly, without
notice to any one, under guard, and cannon were placed in such position as to
command every exposed position, and armed men were so posted in every part of
the way from the White House to the Capitol as to completely protect the
President from everything but a secret bullet. Thus was he with President
Buchanan escorted from the Executive Mansion to the Capitol and back in safety.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN">The
atmosphere in Washington between the election and the inauguration of Lincoln<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">Those who resided in Washington during this
eventful winter can never forget the intense strain to which all social and
other relations of life were subjected. Social intimacy, business relations,
family ties, and all intercourse of the most ordinary and normal kind, between
men and between women was broken off entirely except they were in harmony with
the then prevailing prejudices against all Northern institutions and ideas.
Southern women would pass by, without recognition and with most contemptuous manifestations
of offensive insult, Northern ladies, their equals in official and social
position, and with whom they had previously been on the most friendly social
terms. There was — as it were — a great gulf fixed between Northern and Southern
life — fixed by the South itself — for Northerners were careful, up to actual
war upon the flag of the country, to maintain on their part a strict observance
of all the requirements of social intercourse regardless of political opinions.
But with Southerners — Southern women especially — <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Southern sentiments became a bar to social
life. This condition of things grew more and more intense and unendurable as
the day of actual conflict approached — till months before the firing upon
Sumpter, the loyal and the disloyal elements went to one side or the other of
the dividing line and never crossed it afterword. I have seen Mrs. Jefferson
Davis<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[20]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
herself, who was in the olden time, one of the most punctilious observers of
etiquette stiffening herself up like a statue, after the bane of secession had poisoned
the blood of the South — and looking neither to the right or left, lest she
should recognise some Northern lady who was her equal everywhere, and whom till
then she had been most free to treat as such.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">The very atmosphere we breathed seemed all
noxious and venomous life. It seemed to be especially directed, to discover
ways of annoying and persecuting the negroes — great and small, men would fire
off pistols in the street after dark at passing colored men, to amuse themselves
by frightening them. I once at a later period saw a military officer in full
uniform get off his horse, to chastise a negro digging in the street, because
forsooth — he had the inpudence to hold up his hands and cry out at being
nearly run over while at his work. The negro tried to escape by running up a
flight of outside stairs. The officer pursued, cursing him for his impertinence
— and literally tore his coat from his back. I interfered and got myself dammed
for a "black republican" — but taking note of his rank and regiment.
I assured him that he would hear from me again. I had the satisfaction of
seeing him summoned, the next morning, before the War Department for his
conduct, and he barely saved his shoulder straps, by apology and promise of amendment
in the future. The little boys in the streets caught the spirit from their
elders and amused themselves by tormenting the "[n-word]"<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn21;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[21]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
boys. One day I found my own son (Chester) then not five years old, having a
messy time with some of the boys of the neighborhood — they had caught a
little Negro and were [attacking] him with their handkerchiefs, into the
corners of which they had tied little stones and they were shouting with
delight, as the poor little fellow-jumped and shrieked, every time he was hit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">These are but illustrations of the spirit which
pervaded all classes high and low —great and small. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN">Protecting
Mr. Sumner after his return to the Senate<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">After the assault upon Mr. Sumner by Brooks of
South Carolina for the speech he had delivered in the Senate upon the
wickedness of slavery, he was forced for medical treatment to be absent from
the Senate for a year.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn22" name="_ftnref22" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn22;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[22]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
On his return with somewhat invigorated health and strength and his old fire
unabated, he prepared and delivered [on June 4, 1860] his great speech on
"The Barbarism of Slavery," as he entitled it. Its delivery was a
marked occasion. Mr. Sumner's friends were specially anxious for two things: that
the slave power should see and understand that it had gained nothing by its
cowardly assault upon him — in other words that the speech be in time and
temper and boldness equal to the one which had brought down upon his head the
murderous blows of the bully in defence of slavery; and also that Mr. Sumner
should prove physically equal to the undertaking — of which there was grave
doubt among his friends. The speech itself dispelled all solicitude on the
first point, and time allayed apprehension that his health would suffer from
the effort. The Massachusetts delegation in Congress partook of the general
solicitude in respect to Mr. Sumner, and had, in addition a great state pride
in their distinguished colleague as well as a determination that no harm should
again come to him for the utterance of his views and advocacy of his
principles, however bold and defiant he might choose to be. They held
themselves ready for any emergency and talked pretty freely and bravely about
the manner in which, had they been present, at the Brooks assault they would
have vindicated the honor of their state and avenged the outrage upon her
senator. They were all sincere in this. We all felt so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">At the time of the delivery of this speech upon
"The Barbarism of Slavery," I was living with three of my colleagues,
Mr. Gooch, Mr. Buffington and Mr. Alley<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn23" name="_ftnref23" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn23;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[23]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,
nearly across the city from Mr. Sumner's residence. About seven o'clock in the
evening of that day Mr. Sumner's private secretary drove up in close carriage
and requested to see the gentlemen of the house alone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">The others being absent, Mr. Gooch and myself
held an interview with him, in which he stated in a hurried and somewhat
excited manner that just before he had left Mr. Sumners's house, a large man, a
stranger, apparently a little flushed by drinking, had called and stated to Mr.
Sumner that, as the representative of a body of Southern gentlemen who had met
to consider what the speech he had delivered that day required at their hands,
he had come to demand an apology and if it was not given then he would return
at ten o'clock the next day prepared to exact it. Getting no satisfaction, he
left, saying that he would call again in the morning for it. Mr. Sumner, not
knowing what all this indicated, and Mr. Johnson,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn24" name="_ftnref24" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn24;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[24]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
his secretary, both thinking another attack possible, wished to see us at his
rooms. Mr. Gooch and myself, without communicating with the ladies of the
family or leaving any word for our absent associates, accompanied Mr. Johnson
to Mr. Sumner's rooms, where we remained all night, to the wonder and anxiety
of the household we had so unceremoniously left. We found Mr. Burlingame
already there and we three, with his private secretary, kept vigil over Mr.
Sumner's life till morning. We discussed with him upon the appearance of his
mysterious visitor and what he had said and done during his brief stay and
speculated a good deal over the chances, till we finally concluded, Mr. Sumner
and all, that a repetition of the Brooks assault might be attempted at any time
and that the suggestion of ten o'clock the next morning was only a ruse to
throw him off his guard. He was resolved to meet the consequences, whatever
they might be, and his colleagues present were equally resolved to die, if need
be, in his defence. Preparation was at once made for the worst. As Mr.
Burlingame was the only one of us who had publicly proved his courage or had
ever made any pretence of skill in arms, he was, by a sort of common consent,
put in charge of all arrangements. The doors were at once locked from the
street to the room we all occupied. Mr. Sumner was first put in position with
due reference to the door and with no little reference to his surroundings if
he fell, for even in this hour we were not wholly lost to classical propriety
and the fitness of things. Mr. Burlingame, armed with the revolvers he always
carried, next took his position where he could most surely bring down any man
who might succeed in effecting an entrance. The rest of us, defenceless
ourselves, took the places and undertook the parts assigned us as best we could
and with such weapons as we could get hold of in the room. No ancient knight
clad in steel ever posed more boldly, or stood firmer for his cause. Here it
was proposed that we should patiently await the onset. And here we did wait,
like so many puppets in a show, whiling away the time, which hung heavily on
our hands, with such conversation as the proprieties of the solemn occasion
demanded, changing our relative positions occasionally, as a further study of
the situation and of his men seemed to our leader to require. Mr. Sumner was himself
wonderfully cool and self-possessed for one waiting for the bludgeon or
revolver, was remarkably entertaining in his conversation, rich in his
classical quotations and abundant in his allusions to incidents in ancient
history most resembling the present situation — finally deciding that the one
most nearly parallel to it was the fall of Gracchus.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn25" name="_ftnref25" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn25;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[25]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Then, taking down from the shelf the ever ready classical dictionary, he read
us the account of that tragedy and, turning down the leaf, put the book back in
its place with the remark that "this can easily be found here after,
whatever may happen tonight."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">The hours wove away very slowly and without
disturbance till drowsiness began to creep over some of us not particularly
anxious for the fray. A little after midnight, Mr. Sumner, either desirous of
relieving his colleagues of the burden and peril, or seeing how heavy our
eyelids were, suggested that there was in the city a man by the name of Wattles<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn26" name="_ftnref26" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn26;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[26]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,
from Kansas, a devoted friend of his, a giant in stature and strength and who
had proved his courage in many a desperate encounter between Free State men and
Border Ruffians at home. If word could be got to him he would certainly take
upon himself the defence and he should feel safe and we might be relieved. He
was stopping with a colored woman on the other side of the city whom Mr. Sumner
had befriended and had done some special act of kindness for and who was
devoted to him. Mr. Johnson alone of us all knew her residence and I was
detailed to go with him and hunt up Wattles. The city was awfully still and the
errand not the most inspiring, and my nerves were not then in their best
estate. It was a long way before we reached the street where Wattles was to be
found; and when we reached it, it turned out that Johnson didn't know the house
by its number but only by his recollection of its location and appearance. The
consequence was that we went calling up people a good deal at random, first on
one side of the street and then on the other, and every time we rapped the
echoes would rattle round our heads a great deal louder than any we made
ourselves waking up some dog either inside or behind us which was sure to
answer back with a frightful outcry. Then up would go windows, and heads in
white would call out to know what we wanted, and as many as we could count on
both sides of us would listen while we inquired for Wattles or apologized for
the disturbance. We had well nigh roused the whole street and run the risk of
arrest as prowling disturbers of the peace before Johnson recognized the voice of
the woman we were in search of from an upper window, demanding to know our
business. On being assured that we brought a message from Mr. Sumner, who
wanted Wattles, she became at once communicative and anxious to serve us.
Wattles had gone out in the early evening. When he returned she would send him
immediately to Mr. Sumner. We could not bring Wattles with us, but retraced our
steps without him and reported. As morning approached and no disturbance had as
yet taken place we came to the conclusion that there would be no anticipation
of the ten o'clock appointment. We began then to discuss the situation when
that time should arrive. Ten o'clock was the hour for Mr. Sumner to go to the
Capitol, and upon going at that hour, if alive, he was resolved. It might be
that he was to be assaulted on the way and it might be that he was to fall in
the very corridors of the Senate Chamber and by the pillars of the Capital. Be
it so, but whatever was to come his duty was there and to its performance he
should go. It was thereupon resolved that the rest of the delegation should be
summoned to Mr. Sumner's room at half past nine and if, after hearing all the
facts, they approve, Mr. Charles Francis Adams<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn27" name="_ftnref27" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn27;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[27]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
then one of our number, should be requested to ride with Mr. Sumner to the
Capitol, and that the rest of the delegation should act as escort on foot
prepared for defence. It never occurred to either of us what a ridiculous
figure we should cut as the procession moved slowly up Pennsylvania Avenue.
Thus the matter was arranged and Mr. Gooch and myself, when morning came,
repaired to our home for breakfast. We first reported to our two absent
colleagues and our anxious wives at the breakfast table — and were met with an
incredulous laugh. No amount of argument from us, who had never harbored a
doubt ourselves, could convince the table that we had not been badly taken in.
We, however, not shaken in the least, returned as soon as we had got our
breakfast to Mr. Sumner's lodgings. As we approached I saw plainly that Wattles
had arrived, for a giant of a man was pacing the sidewalk to and fro in front
of the entrance like a sentry. One by one our colleagues dropped in before the
appointed hour, each curious enough to know what had called him there. As Mr.
Charles Francis Adams heard our story and our proposition that he should ride
to the Capitol with Mr. Sumner in the carriage while the rest of us should walk
by its side as an escort, and defence, he turned up his face in utter contempt
and with an epithet of concentrated disgust, took his departure without another
word. We were always left in doubt whether he failed us at this critical moment
because he feared that the assassin might mistake him for Mr. Sumner in the
carriage, or because he lacked confidence in the courage of the outside escort.
One after another of our colleagues, not liking, I suppose, the part so
resembling that of pall-bearers, followed him and we were soon left alone,
looking at each other and wondering whether we had been sold or not. In the
meantime the pacing of Wattles to and fro outside and the passing of so many
people in and out began to attract attention, and the police took the matter in
hand. They soon brought to light that the evening before a company of hot-headed
Southerners, meeting for purposes of conviviality nearby, fell to discussing
Mr. Sumner's speech and grew very much excited over it as the champagne went
around, till one of them laid a wager that he could frighten Mr. Sumner into an
apology for it, and went out to win his bet. It was some compensation, however,
to those who watched all night for his bludgeon and revolver that to avoid
arrest he was himself compelled to make the apology he boasted of his ability
to exact.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">And thus narrowly did I escape being an actor in
a bloody tragedy and possibly a funeral oration and a striking epitaph.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">Since writing the above paragraph, the news has
come to us of the death of Mr. Adams on yesterday morning.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn28" name="_ftnref28" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn28;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[28]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
I shall be pardoned. I am sure in departing from the original scope of this
paper to say that in the death of Charles Francis Adams is removed the last of
those great men in civil life who met the shock of the Civil War, and held the
republic in its public and diplomatic relations, as the great generals did its
fortunes in the field, safe above the engulphing perils which the storm had
raised. It was because of him in his service as minister to England, more than
to any of the human agency, that the Confederacy never had recognition among
the nations of earth, or credit abroad or flag on the high sees or place in a
foreign port. His services to his country in its greatest need can never be
measured or forgotten. Of the mental qualities and personal character which
equipped him for the high functions and grave responsibilties resolved upon
him, I do not presume to speak. In the highest places of trust in his native
state, as one of her representatives in a congress in which republican
institutions had their severest test and encountered their greatest peril, as
the representative of his country at the court of St. James when its national
life was played with by the crowned heads of Europe, and as a member of the
great Court of Arbitration at Geneva, where nations as plaintiff and defendant,
submitted to final judgment grievances heretofore settled only by the arbitrament
of war — in all these he was great and accomplished great results.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN"><i>[A gap exists in the manuscript at this point;
one or more pages are missing. The narrative from this point covers an episode
that took place on February 5, 1858.]</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">est were under discussion would this compact
crowd hold its place from the opening of the doors in the morning till the
adjournment in the late hours of the night and even to the gray of the next
morning. Many of them would come armed and jeers and curses, with the cocking
of pistols in the gallery, would sometimes be the audible response to
sentiments uttered on the floor which met the disapproval of the mob assembled
to overawe and cow the already too assertive spirit of the North.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">In this excited and angry mood the House had been
in heated debate all day, and by filibustering and other dilatory motions the
session had been protracted past midnight. Members, much according to their
several temperaments, some lounging, some dozing, some excited with liquor, and
all out of temper, were gathered in disorderly groups, gesticulating in
animated discussions or stretching themselves on sofas in different parts of
the Hall, when Mr. Grow<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn29" name="_ftnref29" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn29;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[29]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
of Pennsylvania, an ardent, restless, excitable Republican, never able to stay
long in any one place, wandering over to the Democratic side of the House, found
himself expressing quite freely his sentiments in a group of hot-headed
Southerners, already exasperated to the utmost tension. Keitt<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn30" name="_ftnref30" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn30;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[30]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
of South Carolina, of a long lank, shaky, ill-adjusted body, a fierce eye and
big head crowned with a shock of hair like a sheaf of wheat — only black as tar
— called out to him offensively: "What are you here for? Go to your own
side of the House!" Grow asserted his right to go where he pleased, when
Keith made a show of intention to assault him. Grow instantly felled him to the
floor with a single blow upon the side of the head. In a moment the House was
in an uproar. The Republicans left their seats and rushed to the scene, while
the Democrats stood on the defensive and attempted to drive them back to their
places. The melée was general and they fought with fists and chairs and
anything their hands could get hold of, without anybody's knowing what it was
all about or who began it. I had been myself in an argument with Reuben Davis<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn31" name="_ftnref31" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn31;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[31]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
of Mississippi, who had come over to my seat a good deal excited with liquor
and debate, and was trying to convince me what a mean cuss as he called him, a
Yankee slave-driver was; and I was retorting that a Mississippi planter mobbing
a Yankee from whose trunk he had first stolen a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin was
the meaner of the two. The next instant, without knowing how I came there, I
found myself on the other side of the Hall standing between Rev. Owen Lovejoy<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn32" name="_ftnref32" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn32;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[32]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,
of Illinois and Otho R. Singleton<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn33" name="_ftnref33" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn33;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[33]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
of Mississippi, glaring at each other like madmen and with fists drawn up ready
to knock the breath out of each other, but more likely to knock it out of me.
In the midst of this promiscuous fisticuff two members, C.C. Washburn<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn34" name="_ftnref34" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn34;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[34]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
and Potter<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn35" name="_ftnref35" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn35;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[35]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
of Wisconsin seemed to have hit at the same time Barksdale<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn36" name="_ftnref36" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn36;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[36]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
of Mississippi in the head, one in front and the other at the side, which had
the effect to knock his head out from under a wig which nobody up to that
moment had detected him in wearing. All of a sudden the head of Barksdale, as
white and bare as a sugarloaf and somehow much of the same shape, was seen
towering up among the combatants, while its proprietor, unconscious of his
dilapidated condition, red in the face and furious with rage, was dealing blows
on every side with most praiseworthy impartiality. Nothing could have been more
ridiculous than the figure he cut. Everybody stopped and gazed and wondered for
a moment, then burst into a laugh, and the fight was at an end. All took
themselves to their seats in a guffaw, save poor Barksdale, who got himself out
of sight for repairs as soon as possible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN">Recollections
of some of the principal players during this period<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">I do not find myself able to picture the public
life of Washington, during the winter proceeding the breaking out of the war as
it then appeared to me — there is nothing now to which I can liken it. Who can
describe <b>Jefferson Davis</b> as he then was? — the man so strangely put at the head
of the conspiracy but who had barely ability enough to wreck it, a vain pompous
rhetorician in the Senate, bedridden with narrow prejudices and hate of the
North — opinionated, self-willed and consequently impracticable as an
administrator, and the dupe of his own partialities, in his likes and dislikes
of the men he used. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">There was <b>Benjamin</b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn37" name="_ftnref37" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn37;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[37]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
— the ablest of them all, looking every inch the Jew he was, short, thick set,
with a hand as handsome as that of a woman, and a mouth as pretty, standing up,
and in the most polished periods, talking about the original sovereignty of the
States and laughing all over to himself, at the absurdity of his own logic, as
applied to his own state of Louisiana, which never had any intermediate
existence between a province of France, and a State of this Union. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN"><b>Goombs</b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn38" name="_ftnref38" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn38;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>[</b>38]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
too — who wanted to call the roll of his slaves under the shadow of Bunker
Hill, full of brain and gall, stood up tall, stout, brawny, with a heavy shock
of black hair, like that on the head of a buffalo — large black firey eyes, and
huge mouth from which poured out torrents of bitter denunciation whenever he
opened it, and who afterward came within one vote of being the President of the
Confederacy instead of Jefferson Davis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN"><b>Slidell</b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn39" name="_ftnref39" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn39;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[39]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
of Trent notoriety was one of the most dangerous of all the conspirators. Nobody
else else looked like him. His face was as red raw beef, his hair white, soft
as silk and very long, hung down a good deal over that red face of his, without
any part in it. He was by birth a New Yorker, but of that class least to be
trusted, a Northerner turned Southern. His ways were as unintelligible as his
face. Mason of Virginia, the companion of Slidell on the Trent, whose chief
claim to distinction was that he was a grandson of the great George Mason, was
counted the fifth man in the conspiracy, though why, I never knew, except that
he was the author of the infamous fugitive slave law, which roused the North at
last, to assert its power for freedom. Mason was a large man bodily, otherwise
light, with a florid skin, and thin long hair, always flowing back, as if the
wind was flowing in his face, He wore that winter, to emphasise his hate of the
North, a suit of course grey woolen home spun, which he thought was the entire
product of Virginia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">Three, bold, able and patriotic men antagonized
these men, on their own side of the Senate Chamber. <b>Douglas</b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn40" name="_ftnref40" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn40;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[40]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
— the little giant — stout, thick set with hardly any neck, and massive head
apparently set directly upon very broad shoulders. He would be taken anywhere
as a leader, and was the best debater I ever heard, except perhaps <b>Fessenden</b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn41" name="_ftnref41" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn41;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[41]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>.
No man ever entered the lists with him, who did not find himself put on the
defensive before he had as yet struck a blow himself. It was not that he always
took such impregnable positions, but because he always set his antagonist to
fortify his own caving foundations, and kept him busy with his own words.
Stephen A. Douglas fought a grand battle that winter, with all the odds but
justice and right against him in his party. When he could not save it he refused
to compromise his own loyalty and tendered the support of a patriot to Lincoln,
his old rival at home, even to an offer to serve in the army, if it came to
war. His death in two short months after the inauguration of Lincoln, closed an
already illustrious life, but one which to human view could ill be spared in
the terrible emergencies which soon followed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">The great services <b>Andrew Johnson </b>rendered his
country at this period were cast into the shade by his subsequent eccentric
career. But no man dealt such heavy blows upon the heads of these conspirators as
he did. He was of medium hard-knit iron frame, swarthy complexion, big nose,
sunken eyes and jaws close set, as if he was biting a nail. He had no culture,
his early education having been very imperfect, and his diction was barren of
illustration or metaphor. But his utterances were like the blows of a sledge
hammer. He fairly pounded his adversary. The South hated him beyond measure. It
seemed to lash Southern Senators into a perfect fury, that one of their own
number should step out and defy them. As he thundered his anathemas upon their
treason they would almost literally foam and gnash their teeth, and in voices
altogether too audible, would curse him to his face. Had he died when Douglas
did, his fame would have been secure and his place in history an enviable one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN"><b>Sam Houston</b> — the old hero of San Jacinto — was
as true a patriot in all this struggle as lived. He did not debate much. He sat
for the most part, wearing a spotted fawn skin vest, and fur trimmed coat,
whittling into trinkets, for amusement, pieces of pine, and then giving them
away to young ladies for keepsakes, but all the while, musing or
philosophising. He had led a strange life. His early public career had been
interrupted by a romantic love affair and years of exile and Indian life.
Subsequently he led the Texans to victory over Santa Ana, and became president
of their republic, And now he was a venerable Senator from that state —
unimpassioned, sedate, deliberate and of great influence in the Southeast, all
of which he threw on the side of the Union. The last words I remember to have
heard him utter on the floor of the Senate, ought to be written in gold over
the portals of his tomb. "I have followed the flag that floats over us in
battle, my blood has been spilled in the cause of the Union it represents and
may this right arm fall paralized by my side if ever lifted to strike it."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn42" name="_ftnref42" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn42;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[42]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">Let me speak of two conspicuous characters on the
other side of the chamber before I pass to other topics. <b>Seward </b>— the philosopher,
orator, politician, statesman — small of stature and of frame too weak and
delicate to hold up the big head it carried, exerted more influence than any
other man in shaping and directing events on the Union side, as he had for
years all northern political sentiment. He was not a great debater — but like
Burke<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn43" name="_ftnref43" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn43;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[43]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,
the greatest orationist of his time, he wrote out beforehand, and read all his
great speeches, and his political friends subscribed for them by the hundred
thousand. Members of Congress would repair to his house every evening to frank<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn44" name="_ftnref44" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn44;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[44]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
for him his speeches for distribution. Many a sultry night of the summer
previous, till past midnight did I spend in my shirt sleeves, in his house
writing my name on the speeches he was packing into the mail. One cannot write
much of him that winter, all he had done at that time, great as it was,
standing by itself was still so dwarfed by the greater events which followed,
in which he bore so large a part, that it does not receive its due need of
commendation. He was a great conversationalist, like McCauley, a winner and
moulder of men. The friendships he enjoyed were strong and devoted. The
enmities he incurred were bitter and implacable. He was at the same time an
idol — and a </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">bête noire.</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN"><b>William Pitt Fessenden</b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn45" name="_ftnref45" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn45;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[45]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
was the greatest debater I ever heard. He was keen as a razor, and cut all
sophistries and shams through and through as with a scimitar. No one
encountered him who did not bleed somewhere, and yet it was all done, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">secundum artem<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn46" name="_ftnref46" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn46;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[46]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></i>,
and the victim hardly knew when it was done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">Personally he was popular, but as an opponent in
debate, he was dreaded. He busied himself too much in making mincemeat of other
men's projects — and too little in maturing his own. To what he approved however
he contributed the most valuable aid in moulding and perfecting. He was all
intellect, and a little distant and hard to approach — but true — sterling
pure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">These great characters who filled in that time so
large a space in public affairs and impressed each his individuality in
different measure upon passing events, (all save Jefferson Davis) have already
made up their record, and passed out of sight and into history, all for the
instruction of coming generations, some as examples, and some as warnings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">I have spoken also of <b>Gen. [Winfield] Scott </b>as having been
detailed to aid the Committee in their efforts to search out a conspiracy to
prevent the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln. I saw very much of this distinguished
military man, during that winter. I had previously been brought into somewhat
peculiar political relations to him — when he was a candidate for the
Presidency in 1852. I had been chosen a Scott delegate to the Whig National
Convention at Baltimore, which ultimately nominated him as Whig Candidate for
the Presidency, the only Scott delegate from Massachusetts, and I alone of all
that delegation, voted for him fifty-three times before he was nominated. (I
visited Washington for the first time a few days before that Convention, and
was taken some notice of by the Scott Whigs, and was introduced to the General
himself, as a rare specimen, a Scott Whig from Massachusetts! I have always
thought that had he been elected I should have been considerable of a boss here
at home, in the dispensing of patronage, and would have had post-offices
enough, to have given every friend I had in North Adams and Pittsfield at least
one.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">Gen. Scott occupied at that time miserably
contracted, scantily furnished quarters in the old War Department building —
not a whit better than my office, and in strange contrast to the spacious and
gorgeously furnished apartments now occupied by the General of the Army. He was
then in his prime, mentally and physically — tall as the tallest of the
Plunketts<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn47" name="_ftnref47" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn47;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[47]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,
but much stouter, erect as a flag staff — the shoulder which won the bullet at
Lundy's Lane a little dropped — sandy side whiskers on full sagging cheeks,
proud, stately and vain. (He was quite disposed to patronize the young Whig who
had called to pay his respects — indeed, I really basked in the sunshine of
what I supposed would prove royal favor, till the election was over, when the
bubble burst, and my expectations collapsed.) Gen. Scott was a great military
man for his day, but a failure as a politician, though like many another
distinguished man, he had more confidence in his own ability to succeed in the
very things others thought him unfit for.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">Accordingly he believed that he was greater as a
politician than even as a military man. He had, however, on more than one
occasion, rendered the country signal service in a semi-diplomatic capacity —
notably in the troubles with England, growing out of the McLeod affair, and
later those in reference to boundaries of the United States and British
America. He was offered also, after peace with Mexico, the dictatorship of that
country, with a large salary. So it must be admitted that he had great ability
as a civilian, as well as a general. But as a politician he was always doing
just the wrong thing. (I cannot refrain form relating here, one incident, of
personal interest of which you will see the bearing. When I entered Congress in
1857, Gen. Scott persuaded me to appoint as cadet at West Point the son of an
army officer who had his residence in my district, and who was a personal, as
well as political friend of the General, and to repeat the appointment, after
one failure. After a third such appointment, I gave up the advice of Army
officers altogether, and gave the appointment to an Irish boy, of whom I had
heard, in Cheshire, and whom I found there shoveling sand with his father, but
who had never heard of West Point before. That Irish boy, with only the
education afforded by the District School in Cheshire, entered the list at West
Point and graduated among the first five in his class, and is now the
accomplished and popular Captain Turtle of the Engineer Corps<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftn48" name="_ftnref48" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn48;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[48]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,
and a member of the Mississippi River Commission. You have probably already
recognised this gentleman as a brother of my own fellow townsman, Mr. William
Turtle.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">At the time of the Committee investigation,
mentioned, in 1861, Gen. Scott was 77 years of age, exceedingly corpulent, and
very asthmatic. It was with great difficulty that he could get himself up the
long flight of steps to the Committee room, and when he reached it was so out
of breath as to require rest before doing any business. Though absolutely loyal
— and exceedingly anxious and jealous to render all possible aid to the
Committee — yet he was of little practical assistance. He never seemed able to
understand the rebellion nor what was necessary to cope with it. He judged and
measured all plans and methods as well in the preliminary investigations and preparations,
as in actual war, by the science and methods of war when he won his great
laurels — in the war of 1812, and in Mexico. He did not seem able at that late
day to comprehend the new elements, and modifications of old ones, which the
railroad and telegraph and recent inventions had forced into modern warfare,
and it was too late for him to learn. The first battle of Bull Run was an
illustration of this truth. It was all planned by him and according to old
tests, admirably planned, but the rebel Johnston had by modern means — the
telegraph and railroad — escaped an old veteran general who was placed by Scott
near Winchester to watch him, and had joined Beauregard before it was known
that he had moved at all, and thus turned Gen. Scott’s assured victory into
defeat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">I applied to him for permission to pass through
our lines and witness the battle. As he gave me the permission he said, "I
am glad, Mr. Dawes, you are going out to see that battle. It is not probable
that in the course of events you will ever have an opportunity to witness
another, and this will be greater than any battle which has ever transpired on
this continent. And our victory will be complete. Everything is so arranged and
perfected that you will see a great triumph of our arms, and a decisive
victory, as certainly as there is a battle. It cannot be otherwise, and it will
settle the whole matter." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">When the government came to be convinced for the
reasons given, of the necessity to relieve him, and put younger blood and
modern science in control of the army, great care was taken, so to do it, as
not to hurt the feelings of the patriotic old warrior. But he failed entirely
to appreciate the necessity for the change, and ever after, had a feeling which
his proud spirit could not altogether conceal, that in his retirement from
active service, injustice had been done him, with no corresponding benefit to
the cause. He was a grand figure in his time, a great man whose little foibles
and weaknesses, only made more conspicuous his great qualities. He never
faltered when duty called — and he loved his country as a lover does his idol. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">An equestrian statue to his memory and fame
stands on 16<sup>th</sup> Street in Washington, that wide avenue which runs
north from the front of the Executive Mansion, and where Massachusetts and
Rhode Island Avenues cross each other about a half mile north of the
President's House. A wicked cynic passing it one day, remarked, "Ever
looking toward the White House but never reaching it!" — to which he got
the spirited reply, "Rather too far north to be President." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span lang="EN">I have indulged in these reminiscences of a
period now a generation gone by, beyond even the personal recollection, if not
the birth of most of those who hear me, not for the purpose of keeping alive
animosities now happily disappearing, or calling back memories of the mourning
and woe which once filled the land, already faint and fast fading out of the
lives of a once stricken people, but that you may not fail to keep in mind the
cost of the institutions under which you live, and prize them the more — that
you may the better appreciate the citizenship you enjoy of a government saved from
dissolution by the blood of the fathers and brothers of those among whom you
live. And by the crowning sacrifice of the noblest and grandest of all the
patriots who have ever served and died for their country. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Founded by Dawes’s
daughter Anna in 1879.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">James Buchanan, President
from 1857 to 1861<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Dawes inserted this quote
from the poem “The Deserted Village” by Oliver Goldsmith.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Emer de Vattel
(1714-1767) Swiss international lawyer, best known for his book The Law of
Nations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Hugo Grotius (1583-1645),
Dutch jurist, whose work on international law was entitled De jure belli ac
pacis libri tres <i>(On the Law of War and Peace: Three books).</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Winfield Scott
(1786-1866), in 1860 serving as General of the Army, a native of Virginia.
Lincoln also sent an envoy, Thomas S. Mather, to ascertain Scott’s loyalty, and
Scott’s response was, “"I shall consider myself responsible for
[Lincoln's] safety. If necessary, I shall plant cannon at both ends
of Pennsylvania Avenue, and if any of the Maryland or Virginia gentlemen
who have become so threatening and troublesome show their heads or even venture
to raise a finger, I shall blow them to hell." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn7" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Lewis Cass (1782-1866),
Secretary of State under Buchanan. He resigned on December 14, 1860 in protest
of Buchanan’s failure to act against the secession of Southern states and their
seizure of federal assets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn8" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> Edwin Stanton (1814-1869), sworn in on December 20, 1860 as Buchanan’s
attorney general. He later served as Secretary of War under Lincoln.</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn9" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">William H. Seward
(1801-1872), Senator from New York 1849-1861; Secretary of State under
Presidents Lincoln and Johnson 1861-1869.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn10" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Jacob Thompson
(1810-1885), Secretary of the Interior, and John Buchanan Floyd (1806-1863),
Secretary of War. During the Civil War Thompson became inspector general of the
Confederate States Army, and Floyd served as a Confederate general. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn11" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">William A. Howard
(1830-1880), Representative from Michigan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn12" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Isaac Toucey (1792-1869)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn13" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Apparently Dawes himself
asked this question. In quoting Toucey’s reply, Dawes first wrote, “Why, Mr.
Dawes…”, then struck out “Mr. Dawes” and replaced it with “Senator.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn14" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">John Cabell Breckinridge
(1821-1875) a native of Kentucky, Vice President 1857-1861.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn15" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Elihu Benjamin Washburn
(1816-1887), congressman from Illinois.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn16" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">From John 19:15, during
the trial of Jesus by Pilate. Dawes originally wrote “Away with him! Crucify
him!” but struck out the latter phrase.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn17" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[17]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Frederick A. Seward
(1830-1915), son of William H. Seward. At this time he was editor of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Albany (NY) Evening Journal</i>. He carried
to Lincoln in Baltimore a letter from </span><span lang="EN">Charles Pomeroy
Stone (1824-1887), who, with several detectives, had gathered information about
the plot against Lincoln.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn18" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[18]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Louis
Trezevant Wigfall (1816-1874), U. S. Senator from Texas 1859-1861; Confederate
States Senator 1862-1865.</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn19" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[19]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Anna Laurens Dawes
(1851-1838), author and suffragist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn20" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[20]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Varina
Anne Banks Howell Davis (1826-1906).</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn21" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn21;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[21]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Dawes used the word in
quotations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn22" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref22" name="_ftn22" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn22;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[22]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Charles Sumner
(1811-1874), Senator from Massachusetts. In May, 1856, he delivered an
anti-slavery speech entitled “Crime against Kansas” to which Southern Senators
and Representatives took great offense. One of them, Preston Brooks
(1819-1857), Representative from South Carolina, delivered such a severe
beating (in the Senate chamber with a cane) to Sumner, several days after the
speech, that Sumner needed several years to recuperate before he could return
to the Senate, and suffered chronic pain for the rest of his life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn23" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref23" name="_ftn23" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn23;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[23]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> Daniel Wheelwright Gooch (1820-1891; James Buffington (1817-1875);
John Bassett Alley (1817-1896). All three were Representatives from
Massachuetts</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn24" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref24" name="_ftn24" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn24;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[24]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Arnold K. Johnson.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn25" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref25" name="_ftn25" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn25;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[25]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Tiberius
Sempronius Gracchus (c. 169–164 – 133 BC), Roman politician murdered by
conservative senators who opposed his plan to transfer land from wealthy
landowners to poorer citizens.</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn26" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref26" name="_ftn26" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn26;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[26]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Augustus Wattles
(1807-1876), abolitionist activist from Kansas, who was in Washington in
connection with Congressional inquiries into John Brown’s raid at Harper’s
Ferry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn27" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref27" name="_ftn27" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn27;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[27]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Charles Francis Adams (1808-1886),
editor, writer, politician and diplomat, son of John Quincy Adams. At this time
he was serving in the House of Representatives, but soon resigned in order to
become ambassador to Great Britain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn28" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref28" name="_ftn28" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn28;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[28]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">November 21, 1886, the
day before the Monday Evening Club meeting at which this paper was first
presented.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn29" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref29" name="_ftn29" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn29;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[29]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Galusha Aaron Grow
(1823-1907), representative from Pennyslvania. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn30" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref30" name="_ftn30" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn30;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[30]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> Laurence Massillon Keith (1824-1864), representative from South
Carolina. Keitt had previously assisted Preston Brooks in 1956 in the caning of
Sen. Sumner. Other accounts of his altercation with Grow do not mention that
Grow “felled him to the floor” as described here by Dawes.</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn31" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref31" name="_ftn31" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn31;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[31]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Reuben O. Davis
(1813-1890), representative from Mississippi.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn32" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref32" name="_ftn32" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn32;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[32]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Owen Lovejoy (1811-1864),
representative from Illinois, staunch abolitionist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn33" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref33" name="_ftn33" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn33;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[33]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> Otho R. Singleton (1814-1889), representative from Mississippi.</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn34" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref34" name="_ftn34" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn34;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[34]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Cadwallader
Colden Washburn (1818-1882), representative from Wisconsin.</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn35" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref35" name="_ftn35" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn35;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[35]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> John Fox Potter (1817-1899), representative from Wisconsin.</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn36" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref36" name="_ftn36" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn36;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[36]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> Williams Barksdale (1821-1863), representative from Mississippi. </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn37" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref37" name="_ftn37" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn37;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[37]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Judah Philip Benjamin
(1811-1864), senator from Louisiana.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn38" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref38" name="_ftn38" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn38;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[38]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Robert Augustus Toombs
(1810-1885), senator from Georgia, later the first secretary of state of the
Confederacy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn39" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref39" name="_ftn39" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn39;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[39]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">John Slidell (1793-1871),
senator from Louisiana. Appointed a Confederate commissioner to France, he
sailed to Havana on a British mailboat, the R.M.S. Trent. The ship was
intercepted by the U. S. Navy, and Trent and a fellow commissioner, James
Murray Mason, were taken prisoner. Subsequently, Slidell and Mason were
released because the capture was deemed contrary to maritime law and risked was
with Britain. This became known as the Trent Affair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn40" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref40" name="_ftn40" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn40;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[40]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Stephen Arnold Douglas
(1813-1861), senator from Illinois, Democratic candidate for president in the
1860 election.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn41" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref41" name="_ftn41" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn41;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[41]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> William Pitt Fessenden (1806-1869), senator from Maine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn42" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref42" name="_ftn42" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn42;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[42]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Houston was elected
governor of Texas in 1859 but continued to serve in the Senate until the end of
his term in early 1860. Following Lincoln’s election, Texas voted to secede.
Houston proclaimed Texas once again independent, but refused to swear an oath
of loyalty to the Confederacy, and was removed from office by the legislature.
He continued to warn against war with the North, and died in 1863.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn43" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref43" name="_ftn43" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn43;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[43]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Edmund Burke (1729-1797),
Anglo-Irish statesman and philosopher.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn44" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref44" name="_ftn44" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn44;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[44]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The franking privilege
permits free postage for members of Congress by means of a signature on the
envelope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn45" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref45" name="_ftn45" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn45;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[45]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">William Pitt Fessenden
(1806-1869), Senator from Maine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn46" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref46" name="_ftn46" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn46;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[46]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“according to the art”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn47" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref47" name="_ftn47" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn47;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[47]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Plunkett family of
Pittsfield, multi-generational members of the Monday Evening Club from 1869
until 2009. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn48" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6779045346757254296#_ftnref48" name="_ftn48" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn48;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[48]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thomas Turtle actually
graduated fourth in the West Point class of 1867.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-27438193388978475302019-09-06T14:59:00.000-04:002019-09-06T14:59:12.871-04:00Cleveland Amory: The Hub of the Universe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aGTqR3R18kc/XXKqqbj9KmI/AAAAAAAAED0/RWY9kQzE86Ayl24FsmbjsMm5XFPEs_gsACLcBGAs/s1600/ClevelandAmory.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="548" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aGTqR3R18kc/XXKqqbj9KmI/AAAAAAAAED0/RWY9kQzE86Ayl24FsmbjsMm5XFPEs_gsACLcBGAs/s640/ClevelandAmory.jpg" width="501" /></a></div>
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<i>Presented to the Club by Roger Linscott in 1999. Roger was, for many years, the associate editor of </i>The Berkshire Eagle<i>, Pittsfield's daily newspaper. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his editorial writing in 1973, and died in 2008 at the age of 88, having been a member of the Club since 1950. We are indebted to Roger's daughter, Wendy Lamme, for a treasure trove of Roger's Monday Evening Club papers. Photo of Cleveland Amory by Ron Bull for the Toronto Star, used under <a href="https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/digital-archive/license.jsp#tspa-1">Toronto Star Photograph Archive License.</a></i><br />
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The genesis of this paper, such as it is, was a lengthy obituary that appeared in <i>The New York Times</i> shortly before this past Christmas. Its subject was Cleveland Amory, a writer and editor whose tireless work in behalf of animal rights over recent decades had produced several best-selling books and an impressive body of state and federal human legislation.<br />
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But before becoming an animal activist in middle age, Cleveland Amory was a social historian, and a very good one at that. His first three books. <i>The Proper Bostonians</i> (published just 50 years ago [1947]), <i>The Last Resorts</i>, and <i>Who Killed Society?</i> were beautifully researched accounts of the mores and foibles of the American upper crust before it began crumbling under the pressure of the mass media and increasing social mobility.<br />
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And before that, Amory was an undergraduate at Harvard where – like a number of luminaries before him, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt ’04 – he was president of the <i>Harvard Crimson</i>, the undergraduate daily newspaper. In that role he was something of a mentor to me, who was admitted to the staff as a sophomore when Amory was a senior. He taught me a good deal more about newspapering that I could have learned from any school of journalism.<br />
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Our paths last crossed – and only briefly – some 30 years ago. But reading his obituary caused me to ferret <i>The Proper Bostonians</i> out of my library and to discover that it is still a very good read even though the society it depicts – with an insider’s eye, since being born an Amory automatically makes one a Boston Brahmin – has changed considerably with time. My interest in the subject, I should add, is more than academic. My own family, though of yeoman stock with no family ties to the local aristocracy, has lived in and about Boston for many generations, and I have always been fascinated by proper Bostonians as a breed that traditionally has carried insularity to a degree exceeding that of any other local elite in the country. Amory, or course, was not the first to mine that rich field. A wide range of observers, from Henry Adams and Henry James to Lucius Beebe and – most readably, James P. Marquand in <i>The Late George Apley</i> – were there before him. On a considerably more modest level, even I became marginally involved in the endeavor. A year after Amory’s book came out, the New York publishing house of Farrar & Strauss asked my father [Robert N. Linscott] – then an editor at Random House – to put together an anthology of writings by and about Bostonians, from Cotton Mather and Governor Bradford to contemporaries like Marquand and John Dos Passos. Since my father had other fish to fry at the time, while I was writing only a weekly column for the non-defunct New York <i>Herald-Tribune</i>, I ended up doing most of the work and receiving half of the modest royalties earned by the resulting volume, which was called <i><a href="https://www.librarycat.org/lib/wreilly/item/130311543">State of Mind: A Boston Reader</a> </i>[1948], and went quietly out of print two years later.<br />
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One of the things that made Cleveland Amory’s <i>Proper Bostonians</i> such good reading is its wealth of anecdotes. It opens with one that he correctly says is basic to an understanding of Boston society’s addiction to ancestor worship. In the balmy days of the 1920s, Amory reports, a Chicago banking house asked the Boston investment firm of Lee, Higginson & Company for a letter of recommendation about a young Bostonian they were considering employing. Lee, Higginson could not say enough for the young man. Not only was his father a member of the sainted Cabot family, they wrote; his mother was a Lowell. Farther back his background was a happy blend of Saltonstalls, Appletons, Peabodys and others of Boston’s first families. The commendation to the Chicago firm was given without hesitation.<br />
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Several days later came a curt acknowledgement from Chicago. Lee, Higginson was thanked for its trouble. Unfortunately, however, the material supplied about the young man was not exactly of the type the Chicago firm was seeking. “We were not,” their letter declared, “contemplating using Mr. Cabot for breeding purposes.”<br />
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In other cities, the social arbiters ask who a person’s parent are. In Boston they traditionally have asked who his <i>grand</i>parents were. Being white Anglo-Saxon Protestants doesn’t in itself open doors to First Family status. Boston Brahmins do have to be WASPs, of course, and they also are expected to have money. But they have to have possessed that money at a particular time in history – specifically in the first several decades of the 19th century – with Boston’s social mold was set. Those who came to Boston before then, in the 17th and early 18th century, and thrived during the Colonial era – such names as Hancock, Gore and Boylston come to mind – never made it to modern First Family status if they happened to have suffered the misfortune of exhausting their wealth before fossilization took place in the early 1800s. Likewise, fortunes that were made <i>after</i> the social gates clanged shut – for example, Eben Jordan’s department store riches, and Andrew Preston’s United Fruit empire – were forever denied Brahmin status. They had missed the boat.<br />
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Cleveland Amory’s Chicago anecdote not only illustrates the proper Bostonian’s preoccupation with ancestry – a trait that outsiders have irreverently labelled “grandfather of the brain” – it also illustrates how extraordinarily provincial Boston society became in the 19th and 20th centuries – though proper Bostonians could probably contend that “self-contained” would be a more suitable adjective to use in this context.<br />
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Semantics aside, the stories testifying to this insularity are familiar and numerous, though also in some cases, no doubt, apocryphal. One thinks of the Boston lady who drove to California and, when asked what route she took, replied, “Oh, I went by way of Dedham.” Or the denizen of Beacon Hill who, when chided for not traveling more, in some puzzlement asked, “But why should I travel when I’m already here?” In <i>The Flowering of New England</i>, published more than 60 years ago, but still the best book about Boston’s golden era culturally – that is, the first half of the 19th century, when giants like Hawthorne and Melville and Thoreau and Emerson were making Boston the intellectual hub of America if not, in Oliver Wendell Holmes’ celebrated encomium, “the hub of the universe” – Van Wyck Brooks quotes a favorite anecdote told by James T. Fields, a Boston man of letters and a partner in Ticknor & Fields, the city’s pre-eminent book publishing firm of the 19th century. The Fields story was about a Boston man who read the major works of Shakespeare late in life and found them admirable beyond his expectation. “Shakespeare’s work is astonishing,” he declared. “I dare say there are not twenty men in Boston who could have written those plays.”<br />
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Such immodesty about Boston’s intellectual – and moral – claims has always been regarded as a characteristic of its aristocracy. “Boston,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes the elder, “has opened, and kept open, more turnpikes that lead straight to free thought and free speech and free deeds than any other city of live or dead men.” To which Bronson Alcott, the great social reformer and education pioneer (as well as the father of Louisa May Alcott) added: “There is a city in our world upon which the light of the sun of righteousness has risen…It is the same city from which every pure stream of thought and purpose and performance emanates. It is the city which is set on high. It cannot be hidden. It is Boston.”<br />
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Extravagant appraisals like these were not the self-serving hyperbole of local politicians on the make. They were the genuine beliefs of rational and educated Bostonians who felt that they enjoyed the great good fortune to live in a city unique morally as well a culturally. “Principle,” wrote Van Wyck Brooks, “was a reality in Boston. Conscience was a <i>large</i> reality. Everyone knew the story of the merchant who, when one of his ships was overdue, found that he was more anxious about his thoughts than the money he was losing. Was it possible, he asked himself, that he had really grown to love his money more for itself than for its nobler uses? To settle the point in his own mind, he reckoned the value of the ship and cargo and gave the sum to his favorite charity. The story was typical of the Boston merchants who, between 1810 and 1840 alone, established thirty benevolent institutions. Though derided by outlanders as “the codfish aristocracy,” Boston Brahmins did tend to listen closely to the New England Consciousness they had inherited from their Puritan ancestors.<br />
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On the down side, of course, this has often tended to produce a degree of smugness bordering on outright self-infatuation – a consequence of which is that a fair number of proper Bostonians have, over the years, declined to join the local cheering section. Probably the most prominent of these dissenters have been in the Adams family, which has always been something of an anomaly in Boston society. On the one hand, it is generally regarded as the first of the city’s First Families, having produced two American presidents (John and John Quincy) plus Charles Francis Adams (who, as Lincoln’s ambassador to the court of St. James, helped save the union by persuading the British not to recognize the Confederacy) plus the eminent historians Brooks Adams and Henry Adams. On the other hand, the Adams family has always tended to exploit its pre-eminence socially by keeping its distance from the rest of the Boston bluebloods – and by speaking its mind about Boston’s insularity quite freely. On this score, my favorite Adams quotation is from a letter Charles Francis wrote some years after his ambassadorial career was over. “In this course of my life,” he said, “I have tried Boston socially on all sides. I have summered it and wintered it, tried it drunk and tried it sober; and drunk or sober, there’s nothing in it save Boston…This is the trouble with Boston – it is provincial…There is no current of fresh outside life everlastingly flowing in and passing out. It is, so to speak, stationary – a world – a Boston world – unto itself.”<br />
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Another illustrious, if more plebeian, New Englander, Henry David Thoreau, also spoke disdainfully of Boston, though his objection may have reflected his contempt for cities in general in contrast to his love for rural Concord, 15 miles to the west. “The only room in Boston that I visit with alacrity,” he wrote in his journals, “is the gentlemen’s waiting room at the depot, where I wait for the railroad cars, sometimes for two hours, to get out of town.”<br />
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Another Concord skeptic of the same era, incidentally, was Rockwood Hoar, who served as United States attorney general under President U.S. Grant and whose most famous aphorism made bold to question the moral probity of some of the pious holders of great Boston wealth. Borrowing from the “good, better, best” comparative adjectives that school children of the era were required to recite endlessly, Mr. Hoar declared that “the three stages of the enterprising Yankee are to get on, to get honor, and to get honest.”<br />
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While wallowing about in Bostonian anecdotal materials – of which there is a virtually inexhaustible supply – I cannot resist the temptation to digress for just a few moments from my main theme to mention that in the process of developing a remarkable degree of insularity, the Boston aristocracy earned a deserved reputation for both eccentricity and wit. I cite but two of many examples. Among the amiable eccentrics was Sarah Palfrey, spinster daughter of the eminent historian. She is generally accorded the honor of being the first Boston woman to ride a bicycle, an activity she took up with great zeal in her late 70s. She painted vigorously, spoke four languages fluently, and published poetry in Latin as well as in English. At the age of 88, in her final illness, she took up the study of Hebrew with great intensity. When asked why, she replied: “I do not expect to be in this world much longer. When I die, I wish to be able to greet my Creator in his native tongue.”<br />
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My other footnote to Boston wit and wisdom, also a woman, involved Helen Choate Bell, whose father Rufus Choate was one of Boston’s richest and ablest lawyers of the late 19th century. Most of her witticisms – widely quoted during her 30-year reign as a queen of Boston society – have not survived the test of time very well, but there is one that I particularly like still. “The automobile,” she declared back in the early days of motoring, “will soon divide mankind into two classes – the quick and the dead.”<br />
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There are two institutions above all others that proper Bostonians have traditionally regarded with particular reverence: The Boston Symphony Orchestra and Harvard University.<br />
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“The day of days for the Proper Boston woman,” wrote Cleveland Amory (and it’s still almost as true today) “comes 26 times a year – every Friday all winter – at ‘symphony.’ Here she blossoms in all her glory, for Symphony – one never speaks of “the” symphony but always just as “Symphony” – is not only culture with a capital “C” but is also society with a capital “S.” Friday afternoons assume the aspect of holy days dedicated to the classics and to a vast craning of necks to be certain that the Hallowells and the Forbeses are in their accustomed stalls.”<br />
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To be a true Symphony patron one must be a “Friend” of the orchestra – in other words, a contributor to its annual deficit, as well as a regular attender at the concerts. For many years Major Henry Lee Higginson (whose descendants include Sally Begley here in Stockbridge and who founded The Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1881, made up the deficits himself, but he was finally persuaded to share the privilege with others of Boston’s best. Ever since the major gave in, Boston’s First Families have thrown their Yankee citation to the winds, loosened their purse strings and vied for the soul-satisfying distinction of digging deep for culture. So great was their zeal – when I was a child, from a very musical but unanointed family – that my mother and I used to stand in line on the Symphony Hall steps on Fridays – sometimes for more than an hour – in the hopes of getting two of the so-called “rush seats” in the balcony that were made available to non-subscribers.<br />
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The other institution traditionally revered by all proper Bostonians – Harvard University – is not within the city limits, of course, though Cambridge is closer to Beacon Hill and the Back Bay than are such outlying Boston boroughs such as Dorchester and Roxbury. In any event, Harvard has historically been the only thinkable place for Boston bluebloods to send their sons, and its undergraduate club system has always been a feeder for the social clubs of Boston, just as a seat on the Harvard Corporation, the University’s self-perpetuating governing body, has always been the most prestigious honor to which a Boston Brahmin can aspire.<br />
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There is indeed a feeling among a few proper Bostonians that even the Deity is very cognizant of the university’s crucial importance. Some sign of this was given on the final day of Harvard’s Tercentenary Celebration in 1936 by Bishop William Lawrence, then the state’s most eminent Episcopal divine. It was pouring rain that day and the Bishop, then at the age of 86, was observed by a friend in an automobile to be splashing his way across Harvard Square without even the protection of an umbrella. The friend begged him to enter his car and avoid such unnecessary exposure. The Bishop refused. “The Lord,” he said sharply, “will not allow me to take cold on Harvard’s 300th birthday.”<br />
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Another anecdote reflecting Harvard’s inseparability from Boston society involved Edmund Quincy, a 19th century leader who could speak with authority both as a mayor of Boston and a former Harvard president. It pleased him on occasion to tap his well-thumbed copy of the Harvard Alumni Directory and declare: “If a man’s in there, that’s who he is. It he isn’t, who is he?”<br />
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Finally, there is the story that goes back to the first decade of this century when William Howard Taft was serving as President of the United States. A visitor to Harvard sought to see the late A. Lawrence Lowell, the president of the university. Having been called to the nation’s capital on a matter of business, Lowell could not be seen, according to his secretary. “The President is in Washington,” she said, “seeing Mr. Taft.”<br />
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Like most of the social phenomena I have written about in this paper, the special relationship between Harvard and the Boston aristocracy has changed rather markedly over the past half-century – as has the character of the aristocracy itself. Harvard, like all other highly selective colleges, now draws its students from as broad a base as possible, both geographically and socially. Being the scion of a First Family is no longer a ticket of admission, nor is a diploma from Groton or St. Marks or Exeter. In my day, three-quarters of Harvard’s freshmen came from private schools. Today the proportion is more like <i>one</i>-quarter.<br />
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As long ago as 1960, Harvard’s then President Nathan Pusey made these points concisely in a verbal exchange that, in a way, addressed the whole changing world of social elites in general and Boston’s in particular.<br />
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The occasion was a Harvard 25th reunion banquet which Dr. Pusey, after delivering a routine speech to the Class of 1925 [<i>sic</i> –1935?] graduates and their wives, solicited questions from the audience. The first question came from an alumnus whose unsteady manner indicated that he had probably consumed a bit more than his share of the pre-dinner cocktails, but it also came from his heart.<br />
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“Dr. Pusey,” he said. “Let me tell you a story about a man who came to this country more than 300 years ago on the <i>Mayflower</i>, the Mayflower. His son went to Harvard, and in due time that son grew up and had a son of his own, and <i>that</i> son went to Harvard, and then, years later, that man had a son of <i>his</i> own and <i>that</i> son went to Harvard…”And so the question went on through a dozen more generations until, to the audience’s enormous relief, the unsteady questioner came to his closing line. “…And now, <i>that</i> man has a son and he can’t get into Harvard. What I want to know, Dr. Pusey, is what are you going to do about that?”<br />
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Dr. Pusey though for a moment. “I’m afraid,” he finally said, “there is probably nothing we can do about that. The Mayflower isn’t running anymore.”*<br />
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<i>* Editor’s note: A variation of this story has Pusey saying, “Well, we can’t send him back. The Mayflower doesn’t run anymore.”</i><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-47977189068433602912019-03-14T11:15:00.001-04:002019-03-14T21:15:24.013-04:00Who says life has to be fair? The rise and fall of broadcasting’s Fairness Doctrine<br />
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<i>Presented to the Club on Monday evening, January 14, 2019, by Brad Spear</i><br />
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The headline in the Saturday, December 22 Washington <i>Post</i> article said it all, “‘This Is Tyranny of Talk Radio Hosts, Right? ‘: Limbaugh and Coulter Blamed for Trump’s Shutdown of Portions of the Federal Government.” Here we are 23 days later, and the “partial shutdown” of the federal government continues.<br />
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Two days before, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh and conservative podcaster Ann Coulter separately ridiculed the President over a compromise that had been reached with Senate Democrats to avoid a government shutdown by partially funding the construction of a wall at the Mexico-US border. Upon hearing the ridicule, Mr. Trump suddenly reversed his position, thereby closing the federal government on Friday, December 21. According to the Post article, CNN commentator Jeffrey Toobin was quoted as saying, the reason for the President’s reversal of position was because Limbaugh and Coulter “had questioned his manhood.”<br />
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Have these two pillars of right-wing talk radio always had such sway over the nation’s affairs? The answer is “no;” at least not until the repeal in 1987 of a longtime tenant of American broadcasting: the Federal Communications Commission’s “Fairness Doctrine.”<br />
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As a graduate student at Syracuse between 1973 and 1974, I and my classmates in the graduate program spent many an hour in class learning the niceties of the (then current) Fairness Doctrine…along with the significance of the personal attack rule (and the right of broadcast reply) that arose from a judicial ruling known as the <i>Red Lion</i> case and the equal time provision accorded qualified political candidates in Section 315 in the amended version of the Federal Communications Act of 1934. But rather than focus on dry case law and an examination of a section of a federal act no longer in effect, I’d rather turn your attention to the birth, the life, the death and the current impact that the Fairness Doctrine has had over the years.<br />
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Wireless radio (and its offspring, television, delivered over the air, via cable, satellite, or streamed over the internet) is barely 120 years old. Guillermo Marconi, with the backing of the British Royal Post Office, began transmitting wireless messages over a 12-mile span of British countryside in 1897.<br />
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By the early 1920s radio broadcasting had developed in earnest worldwide. In 1927 Congress made a fateful determination: like publicly owned grazing lands out West, the entire radio spectrum within the confines of America’s borders was the property of the American people. And the administration of this public property through the issuance of time-limited broadcast licenses was given over to an entity dubbed the “Federal Radio Commission.”<br />
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The purpose of this commission, first and foremost, was to assign frequencies and allocate transmission power limits that would prevent one station interfering with the reception of a distant station on the same frequency. This recognition of the technical limitations of the medium established an important principal: that of scarcity.<br />
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In the beginning the Federal Radio Commission had no charge toward reviewing the content of programming, other than reviewing during the license renewal process <i>after the fact</i> the performance of the licensee in presenting programming that served the public’s “convenience, interest, and necessity.”<br />
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With the advent of the Roosevelt Administration in 1932, Congress in 1934 transformed the Federal Radio Commission into the Federal Communications Commission. One of the FCC’s first actions was to respond to a federal court finding that the Mayflower Broadcasting Corporation of Boston had failed to serve the public’s interest through the broadcast of nothing but conservative viewpoints on issues of public importance. According to the first chairman of the FCC, radio’s dependence upon the sale of advertising as its sole source of support was causing the medium to become overly commercialized and biased toward business-friendly conservative viewpoints.<br />
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As a result, the FCC issued the “Mayflower Doctrine,” which required broadcasters “to allot a reasonable amount of time to…controversial issues and…to seek (and) provide…all responsible shades of opinion.” It also went on to prohibit radio broadcasters from issuing editorials. The radio industry howled and insisted that the Mayflower Pronouncement was a violation of statutory prohibitions against censorship. But it stuck.<br />
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The second world war came, and the FCC policies and practices became nearly unassailable. By war’s end the American public had been exposed to the power and influence that government-produced domestic media had had on pre-war Germany. Josef Goebbels’ polished single-point-of-view manipulation of Germany’s radio and film industries contributed to the loss of millions of lives.<br />
Regardless, the broadcasters began to push back, insisting that the Mayflower Doctrine was an infringement of their First Amendment rights. Defenders, on the other hand, considered it a necessary safeguard for society.<br />
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After three years of unrelenting industry pressure, the FCC agreed to hold hearings on the legitimacy of the Mayflower Doctrine. In late March and early April of 1948, forty-nine witnesses appeared to testify either for or against the doctrine. The FCC waited over a year to issue a subsequent ruling. In June of 1949, the Mayflower Doctrine was repealed.<br />
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However, not long thereafter the FCC issued a report entitled <i>In the Matter of Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees.</i> The report led the FCC to reaffirm its authority to protect the public’s “convenience, interest, and necessity” through both the medium of radio and the growing new medium of television. In early 1950, the FCC established the Fairness Doctrine, which required radio and television broadcasters to present issues of controversial importance and have all sides fairly represented in their presentation (akin to the Mayflower Pronouncement). But the Fairness Doctrine went on to grant broadcasters the right to editorialize for the first time, so long as editorials were identified as such.<br />
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In reviewing the renewal applications of broadcasters every three years, the FCC determined whether the licensee had been proactive and had exercised good judgment in selecting representatives from all sides in the presentation of controversial issues. After all, the stated purpose of the Fairness Doctrine was to stimulate fair debate and to help create a well-informed electorate.<br />
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Over the next 35 years the Doctrine and other practices of the FCC were the subjects of considerable debate at the Congressional level. The National Association of Broadcasters, an interest group representing both radio and television owners, grew wealthy as their constituents grew wealthy. The question of deregulating the whole of American industry arose in earnest during the Carter administration, and broadcasting was part of the discussion, as well.<br />
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And along came the Reagan Administration.<br />
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Ronald Reagan had risen in the 1940s as a B-movie leading man. A confirmed Democrat, he served as the president of the Screen Actors Guild, one of the film community’s labor unions, from 1947 to 1952 and again for another eight months from 1959 to 1960. During that same period, he served as a public spokesman for General Electric, for his film career was in decline. He left the Democratic Party in 1962, declared himself a conservative Republican, and worked diligently to support the presidential run of Barry Goldwater in 1964. When that failed, he succeeded the Old Ranger as the host of a TV western anthology series, “Death Valley Days.” After only a year, he left the show to run for governor of California. There he succeeded, serving in that capacity from 1967 to 1975.<br />
When Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter’s re-election bid in 1980 and became President of the United States, he brought to the White House a sizeable group of supporters who had made their individual fortunes in the booming California real estate business. One of the first places the effect manifested itself? At the FCC of all places.<br />
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Before the Reagan Administration (as mentioned earlier) a broadcast license required renewal every three years. In addition, there were limits on the number of radio and television licenses any entity could own: 5 AM and 2 FM licenses, and 5 VHF (channels 2 to 13) and 2 UHF (channels 14 to 83 — <i>and</i> an entity could own only 1 TV license, 1 AM license, and 1 FM license in any market). At the time the income from these licenses, strategically located in in the nation’s top 10 markets, provided enough revenue to underwrite the cost of CBS, NBC, and ABC’s network functions, including their national and international news operations.<br />
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Before the advent of the Reagan Administration, trying to sell a broadcast license required a considerable commitment of time and resources; it was a lawyer’s field day. The sale of Hartford’s WTIC-AM and FM and its VHF television license by the Travelers Insurance Company in 1974 to the Washington <i>Post</i> broadcast division required three years to complete: one year for the television license to be sold to the Post, and another two years for the AM/FM license to be transferred (at the FCC’s insistence) to a locally controlled entity known as the 1080 Corporation.<br />
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The FCC under Reagan in 1981 reduced the amount of time and expense required to sell a broadcast license to roughly six months, which introduced a “real-estate” style of property speculation that had characterized the boom years of the California real estate business: buy a run-down station, fix it up, build its audience, sell it at a considerable profit, and enjoy the capital gain. With Reagan’s FCC raising the TV and Radio ownership cap to 12, so long as the total national viewership of the 12 TV stations did not exceed 25% of the national audience, building wealth through capital gains has been the name of the game in broadcasting ever since.<br />
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The Reagan FCC also in 1981 lengthened the time a television license could be held from three to five years and the length of time an AM or FM radio license could be held was stretched to seven years. Later, during the Clinton Administration in 1996, both TV and radio licenses were lengthened to eight years.<br />
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Today the FCC does not limit the number of TV stations a single entity may own nationwide so long as the stations collectively reach no more than 39% of all US TV households. An entity can own more than one TV station in a market so long as 8 independently owned stations remain after the combination is made.<br />
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In those markets with at least 20 independently owned “media voices,” full power radio and TV stations, the cable system in the market, and a major newspaper, any entity can own either two TV stations and six radio stations or one TV station and seven radio stations. Smaller markets have smaller ownership caps.<br />
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And radio-only ownership restrictions are similar and based on a sliding scale that varies by the size of the market. For instance, in a market of 45 or more stations (Boston, the tenth largest market is home to 45 commercial and non-commercial AM and FM signals), a single entity can own up to eight stations (with neither AM nor FM ownership exceeding 5).<br />
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With the advent of digital television broadcasting and HD radio on both AM and more widely on FM, each broadcast license is now capable of generating up to three sources of programming on radio and up to 7 on TV. While ownership has become more concentrated, the capacity of each medium has expanded considerably.<br />
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Throughout the Reagan Administration, broadcasters began to lobby for the dissolution of the Fairness Doctrine. With their newly expanded licensing periods, a sense of entitlement began to develop among broadcasters and the license renewal process by a more laissez faire FCC became less feared. The nation’s passion for deregulation had firmly taken hold at the FCC, which in 1985 issued an order raising two significant questions: would the marketplace become sufficiently competitive with the anticipated development of cable-only television services (consider outside the purview of the FCC) to permit the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, and had previous enforcement of the doctrine actually chilled rather than encouraged free speech?<br />
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The FCC noted that as media outlets of any sort proliferated, the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine as applied to the scarcity of broadcasting outlets was becoming increasingly suspect. Was the enforcement of content fairness and balance with one among many new voices not subject to license renewal, a service or disservice to the general public?<br />
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Reagan’s FCC also examined the effect of Fairness Doctrine enforcement on the behavior of radio and television broadcasters. Under previous administrations most cases had concentrated on whether broadcasters had failed to present all valid viewpoints on a controversial issue. The Reagan Administration contended that broadcasters had figured out a way to beat the system. You wouldn’t suffer the expense of having to defend your license if you simply avoided raising controversial issues in the first place. Was the enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine having a detrimental effect on the amount of time dedicated to the coverage of controversial issues?<br />
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Raising these issues at the FCC led John Dingell, a Democratic representative from Michigan, and Fritz Hollings, a Democratic senator from South Carolina, to introduce legislation in their respective chambers that would codify into law the basic provisions of the Fairness Doctrine.<br />
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In response the FCC declined to repeal the Fairness Doctrine in 1985, electing instead to wait for further guidance from Congress. The Dingell-Hollings bill eventually passed both the House and the Senate in early 1987 and landed on President Reagan’s desk in late June. He promptly vetoed the measure, stating he considered the Fairness Doctrine unconstitutional. Neither the House nor the Senate could muster the votes necessary to override the veto.<br />
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The regulations at the FCC pertaining to the Fairness Doctrine stayed on the books unenforced from that day forth. Today the regulations no longer exist. They were swept off the books by a larger effort during the Obama Administration to decommission regulations at all federal agencies that were no longer being enforced.<br />
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From time to time, voices in Congress will raise the cry, “Bring back the Fairness Doctrine!” Questions worth pondering: do we need a new iteration of the Fairness Doctrine? Has our current marketplace of ideas become so skewed and riven with strife to merit such a move?<br />
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Since the Reagan Administration, I have long thought that we needed a new Fairness Doctrine, one applied to all media voices that depended upon the people’s spectrum to deliver its programming (even though cable delivered programming has long been exempt from FCC oversight, the entire cable delivery system, from TV studio to your living room television, utilizes terrestrial microwave and C or Ku band satellite transmission, all FCC licensed components, and all subject to renewal on a regular basis).<br />
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But late last fall, while watching an MSNBC evening broadcast by Rachel Maddow and thinking about the topic of this paper I’m delivering tonight, a thought struck me: the model of Maddow’s presentation is so very close to that of her radio antithesis, Rush Limbaugh. There was Rachel, making some point that I agreed with (I’m certain of it), but where was the counterpoint?<br />
Right wing broadcasting, despite their claims to the contrary, attracts a remarkably small audience. An evening of prime-time programming on Fox New Channel attracts an average audience of 2.42 million viewers; the average audience for an hour-long episode of “Wait, Wait; Don’t Tell Me” on public radio every weekend is over six million listeners. Fox News Channel, it appears, is a notably small giant among midgets.<br />
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Likewise, the weekly audience for Rush Limbaugh, the radio commentator whose visceral reaction to Trump’s compromise with House Democrats led to the shutdown of the federal government, is 13 million. The weekly audience for NPR’s <i>Morning Edition</i>? 13 million.<br />
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Maybe Reagan’s FCC was right. The proliferation of channels might obviate the need for a new Fairness Doctrine.<br />
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Also, consider the fact that most of our media resources are slowly gravitating to a single, unregulated means of delivery, the internet. Given the global reach of the internet, soon it will be nigh unto impossible to regulate content. At this very moment, the signal of a locally broadcast right-wing radio station from any given market is competing over the internet with a direct feed from London of the BBC World Service. Correspondingly, the internet streaming of the TV signal for Fox News Channel is competing with the streamed signal of RT (Russia Today).<br />
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Given the political divisions that exist in the United States today and given the Republic Party’s historical animosity toward the Fairness Doctrine, the notion of reinstating the doctrine through either regulation or legislation is little more than a wishful fantasy.<br />
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There are measures, however, that might stimulate more balanced coverage both in the short and in the long run. Return to the ownership limitations of an earlier era: one owner per station per market, either TV or radio, and a maximum of five radio stations and and/or five TV stations nationwide. Given recent technical developments in digital TV and HD radio broadcasting, each TV station has the potential of broadcasting seven video signals, and each radio station has the potential of broadcasting three audio signals. Just how many stations in each market controlled by one owner is enough? Decentralize the program decision-making by reducing the concentration of ownership. The Rush Limbaughs will still be there, but many more station programming executives will have to be convinced to broadcast the program.<br />
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Also reduce the length of the license period for both TV and radio to the original three years, and in doing so, at license renewal time require the licensees to demonstrate that they have been operating their broadcast station in the public’s convenience, interest, and necessity.<br />
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The broadcast industry will certainly oppose such measures. But expanding the marketplace of ideas is something both political parties have supported in the past. The NAB, the lobbying arm of American commercial radio and TV broadcasters, wields considerable political clout. But as alternative sources of content arise, the NAB’s influence will no longer be what it once was.<br />
American radio and TV’s contribution to our politically divided electorate won’t be staunched by reinstating the Fairness Doctrine but by busting up the concentration of media ownership. More programming decision makers are needed in our increasingly interconnected media environment, not fewer — all in the name of the public’s convenience, interest, and necessity.<br />
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<i><span style="color: #999999;">Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikecogh/8035396680/in/photolist-df4vu5-oD4yQA-6vewY9-tTTQJn-AApjH7-Dwznz-c1DkF7-f1J8k9-dUn1rk-dP63mB-dUBgDB-cNPbqu-e1DRWi-rQ9jD-9y3EeR-dSDujq-3vfvt7-9UpUPH-7ZhhcJ-a2HNsF-dUn2ez-dSDu6y-9rC6gZ-S5yW1Q-dSDu93-eK1kyV-GfbmHw-e3gfib-bsf4Lw-dPbE65-49VxiC-8uVasX-bDuaaS-eQWtyq-S89hdz-5iXyv9-e2ziXL-UoJBTA-uiC8U-Ei9qAp-dMpBi8-SmwnPb-e2REgW-dSDucu-dRst2V-e3qLWm-dY5VJt-bSoMLp-e31jKV-e3wfLd">Scales of Justice by Michael Coghlan</a>, used under Creative Commons License.</span></i><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-57931332445541276492019-03-11T11:31:00.002-04:002019-03-11T11:31:26.212-04:00The most hated man in America<br />
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<i>Presented to the Club on Monday evening, March 4, 2019 by Martin C. Langeveld</i><br />
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During much of the time between the two World Wars, if you had asked an average person on the street, or the average journalistic pundit, who they considered to be the most hated person in America, ranking high among the possible answers would have been the name of Grover Cleveland Bergdoll. But why?<br />
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Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, the playboy scion of a Philadelphia family of beer brewers with German roots, was born in 1893. After the Wright brothers set up their first school for airplane pilots, at Huffman Prairie near their home base of Dayton, Ohio, Grover enrolled in April, 1912 and became one of the first 119 people who learned to fly there. Once proficient, he purchased from the Wrights a 40-horsepower Model B flyer, for the sum of $5,625 (nearly $150,000 in 2019 dollars). (The young man, just 18 years old and a student at the University of Pennsylvania, had been receiving a $5,000 allowance annually since he was 15.) The Model B was the first Wright plane to have wheels, enabling it to take off on its own rather than with the catapult system used until then.<br />
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Within a few months, Grover was entertaining large crowds in Philadelphia by making exhibition flights. At the time, flying was quite a hazardous pursuit. In 1910, the Wright Brothers had assembled a team of nine expert exhibition pilots to demonstrate their planes around the country — by the end of 1912, six of the nine had been killed in airplane crashes. But Grover was not only fearless but highly proficient. While still working to qualify for a pilot’s license in the spring of 1912, he was offering rides to friends, buzzing crowds, reaching altitudes of 2,000 feet, and staying aloft as long as 34 minutes. That summer, with a passenger on board, he flew from the suburban air field to Philadelphia’s downtown City Hall, circled the statue of William Penn atop its dome three times, and flew low over a westbound train for 22 blocks before revving his engine and passing it. In August, he flew from Philadelphia to Atlantic City, reaching altitudes over 7,000 feet, the first flight between the two cities. After more flights, in September, just five months after his first lessons, Grover passed the necessary trials and was awarded a pilot’s license. He was the 169th person in the U. S. ever to receive one.<br />
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Meanwhile, and even before getting into aviation, Grover had owned some fast automobiles and was known for his reckless speeding and risk-taking on the road. By late 1912, the same year he bought an airplane and became a pilot, he had some 30 arrest warrants outstanding for various driving offenses. In December, he got into a serious accident, was arrested, brought to trial, and eventually sentenced to three months in jail, in the process demonstrating considerable disdain for the legal process and continuing to drive even though his license had been revoked. He would go on, over the next few years, to wreck several more cars, both on the public highways and on a closed-course track in San Francisco where he was practicing for a motorcar race.<br />
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His continuing reckless behavior — what I’ve described only scratches the surface of his exploits — caused his brother Charles to go to court to have Grover declared insane, in order to prevent him from getting control of a $900,000 inheritance. But Grover’s mother Emma, quite a battle-axe herself, stood by him and eventually mother and son prevailed after a sensationalized trial. Charles was so disgusted he legally changed his name from Bergdoll to Brawn in order to disassociate himself from the family.<br />
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By this time, 18 months after the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife had been assassinated in Sarajevo, the European powers were embroiled in the Great War, but the United States had been sitting out the conflict. While Britain and France were America’s natural allies, there was considerable support in the U. S. for the Central Powers, particularly among the German-Americans, including Grover and his mother Emma.<br />
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Shortly after the war began, Grover visited the German Consul in Philadelphia and offered his services as an aviator for Germany, including the use of the Wright Model B. He was told that as a citizen of a neutral country he could not enlist in the German armed forces, and moreover, that the U. S. would certainly not permit the shipment of his airplane. Perhaps more interested in getting into military flying than in supporting Germany, Bergdoll later offered his flying services to General John J. Pershing when Pershing led an expedition into Mexico to pursue the revolutionary Pancho Villa, who had attacked a U.S. border town. But he was told Pershing would not be using airplanes.<br />
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Following the sinking of the Lusitania and continued harassment of U.S. shipping by German U-boats, the U. S. declared war against Germany in April, 1917. Within weeks, the Selective Service Act was passed, requiring the registration of every man between the ages of 21 and 30. Grover, now 23, duly registered, listing his occupation as “farmer and manufacturer of automobile parts” — the latter an allusion to the Bergdoll Motor Car company, an enterprise launched by his brothers that had closed up shop by then. The “farmer” part was derived from a 24-acre field owned by Grover, where he supposedly grew beans. Being a farmer, it was thought incorrectly, might qualify a man for an exemption.<br />
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In August, Grover was summoned to appear at the local draft board for a physical, but failed to show up. Instead, he withdrew a substantial sum of cash from his bank account and disappeared. The draft board listed him as a deserter.<br />
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The secretary of the draft board, John P. Dwyer, was a neighbor of the Bergdolls, and quite familiar with Grover’s history of reckless driving and run-ins with the law. There was also a story, told years later, that Dwyer’s children had gotten into a cherry tree on the grounds of the Bergdoll mansion, and that Grover had spanked the kids. Supposedly, when Dwyer showed up to protest, Bergdoll said, “You get off my property or I’ll hit you, too.” Dwyer was the editor of the Philadelphia Record, and used the power of the press to single out Grover in particular, even though he was one of many no-shows.<br />
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Through his mother, Grover offered to return from hiding if he would be permitted to enlist as a flight instructor, but the draft board refused to entertain any special treatment. To complicate matters, Grover’s brother Erwin decided to defy his own draft board and joined his brother on the lam (but surrendered soon after). Under the rules in place at the time, refusing to show up for induction meant that Grover was automatically inducted into the Army. This happened on August 13, 1918, just a few months before the end of the war.<br />
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Three million men, about 11 percent of the eligible pool, had failed to register for the draft or refused to be inducted. With hundreds of thousands of men now serving in the trenches or in support roles, naturally there were efforts to round up the so-called “slackers.” But Grover was singled out for pursuit and notoriety, because of his wealthy background, his prior recklessness on the road and run-ins with police, and his status as a fugitive. His “most hated” reputation was getting under way. “Wanted” posters featuring him as “a notorious draft evader and deserter” were distributed nationwide. Philadelphia authorities began receiving postcards from him, and after this fact was publicized, postcards began arriving from all over the country, many likely sent by sympathizers, leading police into some dead-ends.<br />
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Grover eluded his pursuers for more than a year before being caught at home in Philadelphia, where Emma had evidently sheltered him and Erwin for extended periods. The drama of the arrest included Emma holding off the authorities for a time with a .38-caliber revolver, which led to her own arrest as well. A “veritable arsenal” of weapons was discovered in the house, it was reported.<br />
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Since Grover had been inducted into the army in absentia, he was turned over to military authorities to be court-martialed for desertion, and incarcerated at Fort Jay on Governors Island, New York. He hired a top-talent team of lawyers, but after much legal wrangling he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison, to be served at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. This transfer was stalled using a variety of appeal tactics, and then in the middle of this maneuvering, Grover made a startling claim to his defense team: during his time as a fugitive, he had buried $150,000 in gold coins on a farm in Hagerstown, Maryland. He asked the lawyers to get the Army authorities to permit him to travel to that location, under guard, retrieve the coins and deposit them in a bank. Otherwise, he feared, someone else might find them during his imprisonment.<br />
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While the legal team had its doubts about the story, they managed to convince the Army brass at Fort Jay to permit an expedition. Grover would be required to cover all costs. Two sergeants, John O’Hare and Calvin York, were assigned to guard Grover during the trip, which was to take no more than five days. Grover’s attorney David Gibboney would meet the group in Philadelphia and then travel with them essentially as tour guide, because the sergeants were not even told about the destination or the gold. John Hunt, commandant of the disciplinary barracks, told the sergeants not to handcuff Grover — he didn’t want to attract public attention to the group as they traveled by train to Philadelphia, where they would use a Bergdoll automobile to proceed to Hagerstown. To further camouflage the mission, Grover was issued an actual army uniform. The result quickly turned into an episode worthy of the Keystone Cops (the original silent film episodes of which had ended just a few years earlier, in 1917).<br />
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Meeting the group at the Philadelphia train station were the attorney, Gibboney, Grover’s friend Eugene Stecher — a mechanic who would be driving the car, a Hudson — and James Romig, a family friend who, incidentally, had met up with Grover several times while he was a fugitive. As they set out, the Hudson immediately started acting up, “knocking to beat the band.” It was decided that rather than risking the trip to Hagerstown, they would head for the Bergdoll mansion in West Philadelphia, where repairs might be made.<br />
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There, the sergeants became houseguests. They enjoyed lunch, then dinner, and then Romig suggested going out for some entertainment, so they all went to the Gayety Theatre and took in a burlesque show. On the way home from there, they decided to stop at a saloon. (Prohibition had gone into effect during Grover’s court-martial, but speakeasies were not hard to find.) After a few drinks, they headed back to the mansion and went to bed, Grover sharing a room with O’Hare, who somehow was able to sleep with one eye shut and keep a watch on Grover with the other.<br />
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Not long after their arrival, Grover slipped a note to Stecher indicating that he intended to escape, and wanted Stecher to go with him. Stecher confided this intention to Emma, who said, “For Christ’s sake, go with him. If you don’t go with him, he is going to shoot one of those fellows,” meaning the sergeants. This threat had some credibility, because Emma was still known to keep numerous weapons around the house. While Stecher continued to tinker with the engine, Grover, Romig and the sergeants played pool in the third-floor billiards room. After lunch, a bottle of gin appeared in the room. While Sgt. O’Hare was a teetotaler, Sgt. York took a sip from time to time. Grover entertained the group for a time by reading from a book of Shakespeare’s poems. Finally at some point, Grover entered the adjacent bathroom. Apparently, this bathroom had a second door into a bedroom, from which, unseen by the pool players, he made his way downstairs and out to the garage, where Stecher had the Hudson running. Perhaps, there was never anything mechanically wrong with it to begin with. The sergeants and others present discovered soon enough that Grover wasn’t in the bathroom anymore, but wasted time searching the mansion instead of alerting police; then they called Gibboney, Grover’s attorney, who suggested that maybe Grover had just gone out for a ride with Stecher to check out how the car was running. By the time the authorities were alerted, considerable time had passed, and roadblocks were ineffective. The pair had gotten clean away.<br />
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Grover’s original period as a fugitive and his arrest, trial and conviction had garnered plenty of press attention, and this new escape and disappearance made even more headlines and inspired editorial writers throughout the country. “Wanted” posters went up again; various sightings, from Boston to Florida to Texas, were reported but proved spurious.<br />
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In reality Grover and Stecher were heading northwest, toward Minnesota. They didn’t bother with disguises and continued driving the same car, only replacing the Pennsylvania license plates with a pair purchased at a junkyard in Indiana. When they arrived at the border town of St. Vincent, Minnesota, they put the car in storage at a garage, and asked the garage owner where they might buy some whiskey. He suggested a pub on the Canadian side, and provided them with convenient directions for skirting the customs post on the main road. Once in Canada, they bought train tickets to Winnipeg, where they began to make plans to travel to Germany by steamship. With the benefit of some lax procedures on the part of the Winnipeg steamship agent and local authorities, they managed to obtained Canadian passports under false names. They continued by train to Montreal, where they got their passports endorsed by the Belgian, Swedish and Swiss consulates, and on July 7, 1920, they embarked for Europe on the Canadian Pacific steamship Victorian, bound for Liverpool. From there, they traveled to London by train, and obtained more passport endorsements from the German and Dutch consulates, crossed the North Sea on a Dutch ferry, and took a train into Germany, where they made their way to the village of Eberbach, located between Frankfurt and Stuttgart. This was the birthplace of Grover’s mother Emma, and still the home of numerous sympathetic relatives.<br />
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Meanwhile, of course, there were repercussions for all who played a role in permitting the escape. The sergeants, York and O’Hare, were tried but acquitted by the army. The Fort Jay commandant Col. John Hunt, was also tried and acquitted, but then immediately retired from duty. Three of Grover’s lawyers, including Gibboney, were found by a grand jury to be not criminally liable, but they were censured for arranging the expedition. Grover’s brother Erwin, who had also resisted the draft and joined Grover during his first period on the lam, was court-martialed, found guilty of desertion, and sentenced to four years at Fort Leavenworth. There would be no treasure hunting expeditions for him. Emma, Romig, Grover’s brother Charles Brawn, and two family friends were put on trial for helping Grover escape. They were all found guilty, with Brawn, Emma and Romig convicted on the most serious charges. They could have drawn long prison terms, but ultimately were all just issued hefty fines, totaling $23,000 for the five. Although Emma at first swore that she’d go to prison rather than pay up, she soon paid the full $23,000 covering all five defendants.<br />
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While Grover was settling down in Eberbach, sustained by funds wired by Emma, the U. S. House of Representatives set up a special committee to examine the entire affair. Over a period of three weeks in the spring of 1921, they heard from many of the players, including military officials, lawyers for the Bergdolls, and Bergdoll family members. Occasionally, committee members as well as newspaper editorialists and the American Legion would focus on Grover’s name, saying that referring to him as Grover Cleveland Bergdoll besmirched the name of the president, and that they should just call him Grover or G. C. Some even suggested that he should be forced to change his name. Toward the end of the hearings Emma deflated this entire idea when John H. Sherberne, special counsel for the committee, inquired, “Mrs. Bergdoll, how did you happen to name Grover for a former President of this country, who was perhaps best known for his warlike spirit?” Emma replied, “He was not a warlike spirit, he was a draft dodger himself. Grover Cleveland was a draft dodger in the Civil War, and paid $200 fine for a man.” (Recall that it was possible during the Civil War for a man to pay a substitute to serve in his place when he was drafted.)<br />
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The Bergdoll saga now settled into a long stalemate that was to last nearly two decades. Eberbach was not in territory occupied by the Allies, and in the absence of diplomatic relations between the United States and Germany, extradiction was out of the question. This didn’t prevent at least two attempts to kidnap Bergdoll and return him to American custody.<br />
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In the first of these, in 1921 two American soldiers stationed at the American occupation force’s headquarters in Coblenz, Carl Naef and Franz Zimmer, took it upon themselves to travel to Eberbach, where they tracked down Grover and Stecher as they happened to be driving a young engaged couple to meet their wedding party at the railroad station. Stecher managed to gun the car to a getaway, but shots were fired at them and the prospective bride was shot in the hand. A crowd of citizens and police surrounded the kidnappers, who were arrested, brought to trial and jailed, later to be released. A few years later, in 1923, another kidnap attempt, again unsuccessful, was organized by one Sergeant Corliss Hooven Griffis. This time, Grover was better prepared, and managed to get six shots off at two of Griffis’s co-conspirators when they attacked him at a hotel. One was killed, another seriously wounded, and Grover received a head wound requiring five stitches. Grover was held blameless by the German government, which was rightfully concerned by both kidnap attempts on its sovereign soil by U.S. citizens. Griffis and three of his co-conspirators were found guilty and sentenced to prison terms by a German court. Two of them were also fined two trillion marks — this was during the German post-war period of hyperinflation — which converted to about 50 cents American for each. After a few months, an American petition with more than two million signatures, including 19 state governors, 117 members of Congress, and 208 mayors was presented for the release of Griffis. The German government relented and expelled the prisoners without pardoning them. Griffis was welcomed home by New York’s mayor and a crowd of thousands.<br />
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Meanwhile the US was moving toward concluding a final peace treaty with Germany. As this was being crafted, some Congressmen demanded a clause requiring Germany to return any draft evaders, a provision aimed squarely at Grover’s rendition. In the end, a specific extradiction clause was omitted, but the treaty did specify that “nothing herein contained shall be construed to terminate the military status of any person now in desertion from the military or naval service of the United States, nor to terminate the liability to prosecution and punishment under the Selective Service Law,” a provision certainly meant to cover Bergdoll. Meanwhile, under laws providing for the seizure of property of “enemy aliens,” Bergdoll assets valued at more than $800,000 were seized. The national convention of the American Legion in 1921 passed a lengthy resolution demanding that the government do all in its power to secure the return of “Grover C. Bergdoll, a notorious service slacker,” adding that “his escape and the failure to apprehend this arch slacker will remain a blot upon the war records of this nation until judgment is done.” At the same time, of course, the government was still doing virtually nothing to pursue the hundreds of thousands of other, less flamboyant cases of draft evasion that had happened during the war.<br />
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In 1926, during an elopement to Leningrad, the 33-year-old Grover married Berta Franck, who was 18 at the time. Over the years, they would have seven children together.<br />
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By 1939, war clouds were again emanating from Germany, and Grover, now 46 years old, concluded that facing justice in the United States was preferable to having his family spend the war in Germany. Over the years, Grover had actually managed to enter the United States twice for expended stays totaling seven years, never being caught. The second of these stays began in 1935, with the entire family hiding in plain sight at the Bergdoll mansion in Philadelphia. They returned to Germany in 1938; Grover informed officials at the American consulate in Stuttgart in early 1939 that he intended to surrender without conditions, and the entire family then returned to the U. S. for good. While Grover was traveling home, efforts were made in Congress to craft legislation that would strip citizenship from deserters and exclude them from entry into the country under certain circumstances. Again this was aimed purely at Grover, but Grover’s lawyers managed to delay action on the measure long enough for Grover to arrive in New York City, which made the legislation moot. Upon arrival, Grover was taken into custody and jailed back at Fort Jay on Governors Island. After another court-martial, he was sentenced to finish his original prison term plus three more years for the escape and long evasion of justice, and issued a dishonorable discharge from military service. With time off for good behavior, he was released about five years later, in 1944, despite further protests from veterans’ organizations.<br />
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Grover died in 1966 at the age of 72. His later years were not free of drama. His son Alfred, in 1948, repeated his father’s refusal to be inducted. He was sentenced to five years in Lewisburg Prison (where, incidentally, he befriended the accused Soviet spy Alger Hiss). Of course Alfred’s case occasioned renewed coverage of his father’s saga. Later, Grover became abusive of his family, including Berta. They separated and divorced; he began to exhibit more and more psychotic behavior, and was committed to a psychiatric hospital where he spent his final few years. He had lived his entire life on the proceeds of the estates of his grandparents and parents, and never worked seriously for a living. He left his still-substantial estate to his daughter Katharina, whom he had grown to favor toward the end of his life, and provided just $20 each to his other estranged children and his wife. Katharina quickly arranged for the will to be voided, so that an equalized distribution could be made among Berta and all the children. Berta died in 2001 at the age of 93.<br />
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Despite voluminous documentation deriving from the various trials, Congressional inquiries, correspondence, and an unpublished biography penned by Alfred, the son who dodged the draft himself, it is difficult to fully understand what motivated Grover to go on the lam for so long and to frequently thumb his nose at the authorities pursuing him. Given his institutionalization late in life, it is certainly possible that a psychiatric condition, such as an antisocial personality disorder, was present early on. Much of his behavior is consistent with such a diagnosis. But other factors may also have influenced him. His German heritage may have played a role in not wishing to take up arms. He occasionally suggested he was a conscientious objector, and it’s possible that this was influenced by Emma during his youth, but he never made a formal claim of conscientious objector status. But at the end of the day, Grover continued to flaunt the authorities for decades during which he could have could have resolved his problems at any time and avoided the problems he continued to put his family through.<br />
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Grover’s airplane, the Wright brothers model B, had been placed in storage before his first disappearance. In the 1930s, it was discovered by a group of aviation enthusiasts, and Grover agreed to donate the plane to them. It was fully restored, flown once more in 1934, and then put on display in the Aviation Hall of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia — one of just eight surviving Wright brothers planes.<br />
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<i>Now a full disclosure: my son Dirk Langeveld wrote a book called “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Artful-Dodger-20-Year-Cleveland-Bergdoll/dp/1973925893">The Artful Dodger,</a>” a biography of Grover from which I have derived the bulk of the facts in this paper.</i><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-84176082878052639382019-02-02T14:22:00.000-05:002019-09-04T20:25:30.197-04:00E = mc2: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">INTELLIGENCE — <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/d4vidbruce/2794339088/in/photolist-5fVHE9-dreXxB-5XbTix-z3GVx-9MedJM-aEva3-8S9vvd-8JrUVm-8k1fxD-8XqmXC-ae77dQ-dwrBXP-pe9b7f-H3yrFH-dZo7zj-pvmHJe-naGgrQ-ekrspi-4RRBpe-nD32cB-dmPV7-rnkA7g-kh3fZH-57VgSP-57dxWM-57hJMQ-57VgZn-57dxYn-7RgXou-dprEf-rZPU9v-f4prDB-aaKurs-pvBhEC-6LPXiW-8bhVbT-rqtqnU-pvD5t2-Fh4cRQ-o3Zwo7-5u7KxZ-pvBhMw-57hJzs-siZAhW-dBLVLa-9FVCSs-57hJQU-6WP9Bu-fFNp8-83yqvX">Photo by David Bruce</a>, used under Creative Commons License. (Inscription carved by Roger Babson at Dogtown Common, Gloucester, Massachusetts, about 1930)</td></tr>
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<i>Presented to the Club by David Noyes on Monday evening, November 26, 2018</i><br />
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NEWS FLASH from the front page of the Boston Globe May 21, 2018:<br />
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“Massachusetts ponders hiring a computer to grade MCAS essays. Each year, students generate more than six million essays requiring a small army of graduate students, educators, and other professionals to read and score them — a laborious task that takes most of the summer. In an effort to speed up the delivery of the MCAS results to schools and families, the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is exploring the option of replacing human test scorers with a computer program. This technology would help the state deliver the results in the summer instead of the fall so that schools could analyze the results and make any necessary adjustments before the school year begins. “<br />
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Yes, that’s correct. It’s possible that no human eye would ever see a student’s effort. Can you imagine the Board of Trustees of the Nobel Prize Committee submitting their choices for the Literature Prize to the same algorithm!<br />
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Last year Martin gave an intriguing, thought provoking, yet somehow, disquieting presentation about Artificial Intelligence. Tonight, I would like to discuss: Native Intelligence.<br />
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I can distinctly remember being in seventh grade, studying what was then called “New Math”. (To this day, I really can’t explain what was “new” about it) We had a two-inch thick paper back workbook with lessons, examples, and problems to be solved. I can even remember our teacher — Mrs. Mansfield. She was spry, agile, and always impeccably dressed. But we took turns guessing what color her otherwise naturally white hair was going to be on Monday morning. Sometimes it had a slight pinkish tone — other times a blue pattern. Once, I recall her head having a distinct green halo.<br />
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I soon discovered that I had a knack for this subject and relished the challenge. But I was also struck by how non-universal that experience was. For the first time, I recall being mystified that another student struggled to understand a concept which seemed so obvious to me.<br />
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And, at the same time, I fumbled with saxophone lessons and reading music. Too late, I discovered as a high school freshman, that the exam process for high school band was a three-minute solo performance, (in front of the rest of the band, no less), of the John Phillips Souza march we were currently practicing in preparation for football halftime festivities. WOW, how embarrassing! Also, a freshman was always chosen to be the band secretary — whose requisite duties involved making sure every player had the correct music, in the correct order of performance — a thankless job if ever there was one. And, by tradition, the position generally was bestowed upon the worst performer. In this case—yours truly.<br />
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I used to read that the aptitude for Math and Music went hand-in-hand, but not so in my case.<br />
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All of which brings me to a discussion of the theory of multiple intelligences.<br />
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This proposal was first introduced as a radical concept in 1983 by Howard Gardner, in his book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.<br />
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Gardner is best known in educational circles for this theory — a critique of the notion that there exists but one human intelligence that can be assessed by standard aptitude testing. He is currently the Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Among numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981 and a Fellowship from the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 2000. Many teachers, school administrators, and special educators have been inspired by Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences as it has allowed for the idea that there is more than one way to define a person's intellect. Thirty-eight years after the book was written, the theory is still enthusiastically, but not universally, embraced.<br />
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As John Maynard Keynes, the famous Nobel economist said: “The real difficulty in changing any enterprise lies not in developing new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones”.<br />
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At the end of the 19th century, France passed a law mandating education for children ages six to fourteen. Amongst others, Alfred Binet was appointed to the Commission for the Retarded. The task was to develop a test that would provide data to distinguish those children who could benefit from remedial help. With the aid of a young medical student, Theodore Simon, in 1905 a new test for measuring intelligence was introduced — the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale. German psychologist William Stern then used the test to create the well known IQ — the tested mental age divided by the chronological age times 100.<br />
Then in 1916, Lewis Terman, a psychologist at Stanford University, created a version for use in the United States and it became known as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. The U.S government recruited Terman to oversee the use of the IQ test for military recruiting for World War I. The recruits were given group intelligence tests which took about an hour to administer. Testing options included Army Alpha, a text-based test, and, Army-Beta, a picture-based test for nonreaders. (Parenthetically, I find it astounding that in 1916, there were so many illiterate men). 25 percent could not complete the Alpha test. The examiners scored the tests on a scale ranging from "A" through "E".<br />
Recruits who earned scores of "A" would be trained as officers while those who earned scores of "D" and "E" would never receive officer training. After the war Terman and his colleagues pressed for intelligence tests to be used in schools to improve their efficiency. With administration to over 1.7 million recruits, and with the backing of the government, the Stanford-Binet test became widely accepted across the country. In part, the excitement about testing was that intelligence was now quantifiable — just as easy as measuring one’s height or weight.<br />
Unfortunately, the test was also advanced by those in the Eugenics movement. Given the perceived importance of intelligence and with new ways to measure intelligence, many influential individuals, including Terman, began promoting controversial ideas to increase the nation's overall intelligence. These ideas included things such as discouraging individuals with low IQ from having children and granting important positions based on high IQ scores.<br />
Throughout the remainder of the twentieth Century, countless people have pursued the best way of defining, measuring, and nurturing intelligence. IQ tests are only the tip of the cognitive iceberg. Such tests as the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the American College Test, the Miller Analogies Test, the Graduate Record Exam, etc., are all based on technology originally developed to test intelligence. Even assessments that are focused on measuring achievement (as opposed to aptitude) strongly resemble traditional tests of intelligence.<br />
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Gardner admits that the pressure to determine who is intelligent and to do so at the earliest possible age is not likely to disappear anytime soon. But he says that the standard testing for college acceptance, gathers a homogeneous collection of “SAT minds”. And his theory presents a radically different view of the mind, recognizing many different cognitive strengths, and contrasting cognitive styles. He asks the question: “Why does the contemporary construct of intelligence fail to take into account large areas of human endeavor?”<br />
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Gardner defines intelligence as a biophysical potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture. This skill allows one to approach a situation where there is a goal to be obtained and to locate the best route to that goal. The problem might be anticipating a move in chess, creating a musical score, repairing a car, or running a successful political campaign.<br />
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Gardner, using a set of eight criteria, defines seven intelligences:<br />
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1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Musical Intelligence<br />
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Musical intelligence entails the skill in the performance, composition, or appreciation of musical patterns.<br />
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Think in our local place and time: Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, John Williams, James Taylor. Enough said!<br />
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2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence<br />
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Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence entails the potential of using one’s whole body or parts of the body to solve problems.<br />
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So include any of the dancers at Jacob’s Pillow, but especially choreographer Martha Graham whose dramatic and expressive performances defined artistry in movement. “Dance is the hidden language of the soul”, she once told the New York Times.<br />
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But also, include your favorite mechanic, electrician, or plumber.<br />
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Or, consider Roger Clemons, arguably the best pitcher of his generation. But, if you ever heard him speak, you knew he should stick to his day job!<br />
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Of course this particular intelligence, most readily translates into financial gain. Lebron James’s new contract will pay him a record $500,000 per game. But even the bench players will make the minimum yearly salary — $1.3 million. For Baseball the minimum is $545,000. For Hockey it’s $650,000. By comparison, the principal oboe player for the Boston Symphony Orchestra was paid $270,000 in 2017.<br />
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But, I can’t resist my favorite sports salary story: Babe Ruth was negotiating his salary with Col. Jacob Rupert, owner of the New York Yankees, in 1930, at the height of the Depression. Ruth was told his demand for $80,000 per year was outrageous, since President Hoover was making $75,000. Ruth replied: “What the hell does Hoover have to do with it? Besides, I had a better year than he did!”<br />
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3.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Logical-Mathematical Intelligence<br />
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Logical-mathematical intelligence involves the capacity to analyze problems logically, carry out mathematical operations and investigate issues scientifically. Mathematicians and scientists define this intelligence.<br />
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This area of intelligence is the foundation of current IQ testing. In gifted individuals the process of problem solving can be remarkably rapid. And, perhaps, a solution is discovered even before its step-by-step proof is articulated.<br />
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For instance, Einstein could imagine and postulate the existence of gravitational waves rippling through the fabric of space-time in 1916, but it would be a full century before LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) could confirm their existence.<br />
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4.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Linguistic Intelligence<br />
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Linguistic intelligence involves sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability to learn languages and the capacity to use language to accomplish goals. Lawyers, speakers, writers, poets are among the people with high linguistic intelligence.<br />
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The written expression of language is brought to us by our favorite authors. And so, readers interpret and enjoy text using their linguistic intelligence.<br />
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One of my favorite Maya Angelou quotes: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”<br />
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5.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Spatial Intelligence<br />
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Spatial intelligence features the potential to recognize and manipulate patterns of wide space (such as pilots), as well as patterns of more confined areas (including artists, architects, and sculptors).<br />
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Even with the advent of GPS making map reading skills obsolete, this is the intelligence required to drive a car. Although I see advertisements indicating parallel parking, perhaps the most difficult part of the road test for obtaining a driver’s license can be done automatically by pushing a button!<br />
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Spatial problem solving is required for playing chess. The visual arts use of space falls into this category of intelligence. Think of our member Norman Rockwell. And, sadly, the now absent Calder mobiles from the Berkshire Museum! Calder once said that when all goes well, “a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life and surprise”.<br />
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6.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Interpersonal Intelligence<br />
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Interpersonal Intelligence is the capacity to notice distinctions among others — in particular, contrasts in moods, temperaments, motivations, and intentions. A skilled adult can read the desires of others, even when they might not be apparent. This highly honed skill appears in religious or political leaders, salespeople, teachers, therapists and, yes, even parents.<br />
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7.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Intrapersonal Intelligence<br />
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Intrapersonal intelligence is the knowledge of the internal aspects of oneself—access to one’s own feelings, one’s range of emotions and the ability to draw on that as a means of guiding one’s own behavior.<br />
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Since the publication of his book delineating these seven intelligences, Gardner fully expects that other intelligences could be entertained. In subsequent books he has discussed whether Naturalist Intelligence, Spiritual Intelligence, and Existential Intelligence meet his criteria. Although when asked if there is cooking intelligence, humor intelligence, or sexual intelligence, he facetiously replies: I can recognize only the intelligences that I possess”.<br />
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Despite describing the independence of these seven intelligences, Gardner acknowledges that nearly every cultural role requires several intelligences. Dance, for instance, requires bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal and spatial intelligence. Politics demands interpersonal skill, linguistic and logical aptitude (OR maybe not!).<br />
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We are familiar with the John F. Kennedy quote from April 29, 1962 given at a gathering honoring seven Nobel Prize winners:<br />
“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” Kennedy continued: “Someone once said that Thomas Jefferson was a gentleman of 32 who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, and dance the minuet”<br />
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Gardner suggests that there is a long-standing bias towards testing; after all, for most of us in Western Society, intelligence is a capacity that can be measured by a set of short questions and answers. Gardner asks: “Couldn’t the same method be used to assess a new approach to intelligences?” However, the challenge of measuring someone’s understanding of him or her self or other people does not lend itself to measurement with a short-answer instrument — similarly with bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. Can a person express him/her self effectively in public? Can a person remember his/her way around a place, visited a while ago? Faced with an important decision, can a person reflect on previous experience and make a good decision? These capacities are central to intelligence and yet do not lend themselves to brief assessments. Gardner proposes a host of computer simulations that could be constructed, but realizes the impracticality of such evaluations for general use.<br />
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Colleges and Universities have tried for decades to discern the “whole” person in their admissions process. Have you been following the story of the high-stakes case accusing Harvard of discriminating against Asian-Americans? A group calling itself Students for Fair Admissions brought suit against Harvard for excluding Asian Americans based solely upon race. Harvard had fought the release of its proprietary admissions process, but ultimately had to reveal its secrets to the Court. The plaintiffs contend that Harvard’s own Office of Institutional Research found that Asian-Americans would comprise 43 percent of an admitted class if admissions officers considered only academic qualifications and should make up 26 percent of the class even when extracurricular activities and personal ratings are considered. Yet, Asian-Americans only made up 19 percent of admitted students for the year being evaluated — 2013. The Justice Department has weighed in saying that Harvard’s reliance on personal traits — such as kindness, leadership, and courage (in other words an attempt to measure something other than SAT scores), hurts Asian-American students who often receive lower interview scores from Admissions officers than other applicants. On campus, it has forced students to confront uneasy and intensely personal questions about racial diversity, privilege, and their place at an Ivy League institution. Unlike previous affirmative action lawsuits that hinged on whether a race-conscious admissions process benefitted black and Hispanic students, while hurting white students; this case pivots on a minority — Asian-American applicants. Stay tuned.<br />
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Of course, it is tempting to think of particular intelligences as good or bad; and it is undoubtedly better to have more of certain intelligences than to lack them. However, no intelligence is, in itself, moral or immoral. Intelligence can be put to either a constructive or destructive use.<br />
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Before he became the Unabomber, Ted Kaczinski was a gifted mathematician. He went to Harvard on scholarship at age 16 and, in 1967, became the youngest assistant professor of mathematics ever at the University of California, Berkeley. But mathematics was unimportant to him, he later said. It was just a game he was good at. Indeed, he fiercely resented his mother’s insistence that he was a genius. In 1969, Kaczynski abruptly fled academia.<br />
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Sixteen bomb attacks, killing three people and injuring 23, were ultimately attributed to him. Tracking him was one of the longest and most expensive manhunts in FBI history. Kaczynski’s bombs were handcrafted, impossible to trace, and became more sophisticated and deadly with time. He carried out this cold trail of terrorism for sixteen years. If not for the actions of his brother David, the Unabomber might still be a fugitive and active bomber.<br />
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At trial the government sought the death penalty, breaking an agreement made with David Kaczynski to forgo it. Ultimately, Ted Kaczynski pleaded guilty rather than insanity in order to avoid being labeled as mentally ill; and received four life sentences. In a report for the 50th reunion of his class at Harvard, Kaczynski gave his occupation as “prisoner.” Under “awards,” he listed his life sentences.<br />
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And, in the category of the misuse of Interpersonal Intelligence, we are all too familiar with the sexual abuse scandals embroiling elite Prep schools, athletic programs such as USA Gymnastics, and The Boy Scouts of America. Most recently, this past summer a Pennsylvania Grand Jury wrote a searing report that Bishops and other leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania covered up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests over a period of 70 years, persuading victims not to report the abuse and law enforcement not to investigate.<br />
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The report found more than 1,000 identifiable victims, and is the broadest examination yet by a government agency in the United States of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The report said there are likely thousands more victims whose records were lost or who were too afraid to come forward.<br />
“Despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of the church have largely escaped public accountability,” the grand jury wrote. “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades.”<br />
The grand jury said that while some accused priests were removed from ministry, the church officials who protected them remained in office or even got promotions. Church officials followed a “playbook for concealing the truth,” the grand jury said, minimizing the abuse by using words like “inappropriate contact” instead of “rape”; and not informing the community of the real reasons behind removing an accused priest.<br />
“Tell his parishioners that he is on ‘sick leave,’ or suffering from ‘nervous exhaustion.’ Or say nothing at all,” the report said.<br />
Constructive and positive use of intelligences does not happen by accident. Deciding how to deploy one’s intelligence is a question of values.<br />
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Human beings possess a range of capacities and potentials that can be put to productive use. Individuals need to understand and subsequently deploy their multiple intelligences in productive ways in varying societal roles. Even though intelligence testing is likely to be with us for the foreseeable future, and standard testing of the full gamut of intelligence is not feasible, what matters is the use of intelligence to carry out tasks for the greater good. Accordingly, we should be assessing people’s intelligence by how successfully they carry out valued tasks; or, to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: “I admire it when I see it.”<br />
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<i>Material for this essay was derived from several books by Howard Gardner, including: </i>Frames of Mind, Intelligence Reframed<i>, and </i>Multiple Intelligences<i>. Also, </i>The Boston Globe, The Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic<i>, and works my Maya Angelou. </i><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-91923683794056899692018-09-26T16:03:00.001-04:002018-09-27T08:54:00.422-04:00Rabbi Harold I. Salzmann, Rabbi Emeritus at Temple Anshe Amunim, Pittsfield, Mass.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>The Monday Evening Club has lost its longtime member and secretary-treasurer, Rabbi Harold Salzmann. Here is his obituary. He had been a member of the Club since 1955.</i></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">Rabbi Harold I. Salzmann, 96, died peacefully on Tuesday September 25, 2018 at Mt. Carmel Care Center in Lenox. Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1922, Rabbi was the son of Bernard Leopold and Rae (ne Busch) Salzmann. The son and grandson of traditional rabbis trained in the religious schools of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (today’s </span>Slovakia)<span lang="EN-CA">, as a youth he received a very thorough training in Biblical Hebrew and Talmud-Torah studies. Eager to explore newer avenues in Jewish thought, Rabbi Salzmann pursued his rabbinical studies in the Reform Movement at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, where he was ordained in 1950. Throughout his life, he continued his scholarship in theology and as a teacher who trained bar and bat mitzvah children as well as adults. An amateur historian, he collected antique postcards of the Berkshires, possessed a wealth of knowledge about the postal service of British Mandate Palestine, and had begun to write a history of the Jewish community of the Berkshires before his death.</span><u></u><u></u></div>
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Before joining the US army as a chaplain at the rank of Second Lieutenant (and later an Army Reserve Captain), he and his wife Audrey (ne Pastor) whom he married in 1950, held a pulpit in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His time as a chaplain for the Western Area Command took him to Germany and Belgium; in Luxembourg, he took part in a dedication ceremony to honor General George Patton. Turning down a full time commission in the US Army, he returned to civilian life in 1954. He frequently remarked that it was the natural beauty of the Berkshires and his ability to be active in both Jewish and secular life that made him turn down other job offers at larger congregations in New York and Rhode Island.</div>
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Over the past 64 years, Rabbi Salzmann dedicated his life to building his Reform Jewish community in Pittsfield. He raised funds and along with the Temple board, engaged an architect to design and to build the new synagogue that is currently home to Congregation Anshe Amunim on Broad street in Pittsfield. The Temple’s membership grew and gained new financial stability through the generosity of congregants who shared his vision. Although he retired early, he remained active as the emeritus rabbi, often stepping in to replace his younger colleagues to conduct services, funerals and weddings. The Temple honored both the Rabbi and his wife, recently renaming the religious school in their honor. Nationally, he was recognized by his alma mater, the Hebrew University of Cincinnati, with an honorary doctorate in 1975.</div>
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At least in equal measure, Rabbi devoted himself to the civic life of the Berkshires, as a citizen and one of its most dedicated religious leaders. Shortly after coming to Pittsfield, he became a member of the Rotary Club. In 2012, fellow Rotarians recognized his many decades of service to Rotary and the community with the Paul Harris Award. One of the longest serving members of the clergy in the Berkshires, he delivered more invocations at parades and high school graduations than any other rabbi, priest or minister in the county. Active in many other capacities in the city and county, from the board of trustees of the Berkshire Medical Center to the committee that restored the World War I memorial in Veterans’ Park on South St. A longtime member of the Berkshire Clergy Association, he embodied the civic spirit of the Kennedy-era. In addition to his love of collecting books and stamps, he remained the secretary-treasurer of the Monday Evening Club whose members included his dear friend, Norman Rockwell, well into his 90s.</div>
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Rabbi Salzmann is survived by his wife and rabbinical partner, Audrey, with whom he would have celebrated their 68<sup>th</sup> wedding anniversary on October 8, 2018; a daughter, Dr. Ariel Salzmann of Kingston, Ontario Canada, a son, Joshua Salzmann of London, UK. and five grandchildren Zachary (and his partner Carrie), Francesca, Asher, Natasha and Jordan. The Salzmann family wishes to express their gratitude to our extended Berkshire <i>mishpacha</i>, Jewish and non-Jewish, who frequently visited rabbi as his health declined as well as to express our thanks to the nurses, aides, and staff of Mt. Carmel for the high quality of care and many kindnesses they showed him in his final months of life.</div>
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<b><span lang="EN-CA">Salzmann, Rabbi Harold</span></b><span lang="EN-CA">, age 96, Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Anshe Amunim, died Sept. 25, 2018 Funeral services will be held FRIDAY, Sept. 28 at Temple Anshe Amunim at 12:00 Noon with Rabbi Liz,</span> P.G. Hirsch, spiritual leader of the Temple, and Rabbi Josh Breindel, spiritual leader of Congregation Beth El in Sudbury, Mass., officiating. Burial will follow in the Pittsfield Cemetery. <span lang="EN-CA">In lieu of flowers, donations in Rabbi Salzmann’s memory may be made to the Southern Poverty Law Center through the Devanny-Condron Funeral Home which has been entrusted with his care.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-5162912901302895522018-03-20T14:19:00.002-04:002018-03-20T14:19:55.588-04:00The Bridge: An appreciation of George Gershwin
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z05VbKjN-6s/WrFPHpvauoI/AAAAAAAADh0/kQjU_Zkkqy8Zp5kVlvKI_uccHuSaBobWACLcBGAs/s1600/Gerswin%2B1937.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="317" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z05VbKjN-6s/WrFPHpvauoI/AAAAAAAADh0/kQjU_Zkkqy8Zp5kVlvKI_uccHuSaBobWACLcBGAs/s320/Gerswin%2B1937.jpg" width="254" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">George Gershwin in 1937. Photo by Carl Van Vechten.</td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Presented to the Club on Monday Evening March 19, 2018 by </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Albert
E. Easton</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Triborough Bridge connects the Bronx, Manhattan and
Queens. Basically it’s a bridge from the Bronx to Manhattan, with an offshoot
connected to Queens. George Gershwin built a bridge too, basically from popular
music to classical, but connected in is a bridge that already existed from
popular music to jazz. We wouldn’t be at all surprised today if a classical
piano program included some pieces by Gershwin, and we could probably stand the
shock if there was a little jazz thrown in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gershwin’s parents came to the United States in the 1890’s
from Saint Petersburg, Russia. Rose Burkin came first and was living in
Manhattan when a couple years later, Moise Gershowitz (who later changed his
name to Morris Gershvin) arrived and asked her to marry him. Both came from fairly
well off families in Saint Petersburg and had known each other there. They
married in 1895, and in December 1896, their first son Israel (who later
changed his name to Ira) was born. Almost two years later, in September 1898,
their second son Jacob, who was always called George, was born. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Gershwin family was fairly well off, and always had a
maid. Morris was an entrepreneur at heart and bought and managed several
businesses: cigar store, restaurant, several Turkish baths and many others. Each
time he took on a new business, he moved his family to be near it. If I told
you George Gershwin was a product of the lower East Side, like so many famous
Jewish Americans, I wouldn’t be lying because he did live there sometimes, but
he also lived lots of other places. In all, the Gershwins had over 20 addresses
in Manhattan and three in Brooklyn while George was growing up. Religion and
Jewish tradition did not play a very important part in their lives, although
they always celebrated the seder at Passover.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the Gershwin boys was a model student, always
carefully studying his lessons and earning high marks. That was Ira, of course,
the serious one. George was more-or-less the opposite. More interested in
having fun than in studying, he played hooky at times, and his grades were less
than outstanding. Only Ira received a bar mitzvah, George never had one,
perhaps because he was reluctant to undertake the necessary study of Hebrew.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As an example of George’s personality as a young boy,
there’s a story that he asked his father for ten cents to see a movie. When he
was refused, he took off his shoes, went out in the street, and began telling
passing strangers that he was a very poor boy and hoped they could spare a few
cents. He got to see his movie.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1910, Morris Gershwin purchased a piano, with the thought
that his serious son Ira, could become proficient at it. Of course, that’s not
what happened. As soon as the piano arrived, 12 year old George sat down and
began playing some popular music of the time. He had already encountered a
piano at a friend’s house, and had learned to play there, something his father
was not aware of. The piano quickly became a very important part of George’s
life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">George loved that piano, and he spent as much time as he
could with it, sometimes to the detriment of his schoolwork, which he never
cared much about anyway. He went enthusiastically each week to lessons with his
teacher, Charles Hambitzer, an accomplished pianist who even did some composing
of his own in the classical realm. Hambitzer wrote of his student: “The boy is
a genius, without a doubt. He wants to go in for this modern stuff, jazz and
what not. But I’m not going to let him for a while. I’ll see that he gets a
firm foundation in the standard music first.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">George had the two things anyone needs to excel in any field
– natural ability and a genuine love for what he was doing. By the time he was
15 he could play any music that was put in front of him, transpose it to any
other key, and improvise on it. This talent got him a job at the Jerome Remick
music publishing house working with the “song pluggers.” A song plugger was
expected to pick up any music Remick wanted to push, and have it played for the
visiting talent looking for songs they could add to their act, in whatever key
they found comfortable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Remick music had gotten its start on west 28<sup>th</sup> Street, the street known at the time as “Tin Pan Alley” for the jangling sound
of the many pianos all being ponded at once, although they later moved uptown
to West 46<sup>th</sup> Street, an area that even today is the cradle of
popular music. George being on Tin Pan Alley was too much for Charles
Hambitzer, and his piano lessons ended at this point, but Hambitzer encouraged
him to take music theory lessons from a Hungarian named Edward Kilenyi. Kilenyi
was sympathetic to his desire to work with popular music. And at Remick he
began to make friends with people who would later play an important part in his
career. For example, young Fred and Adele Astaire came looking for material for
their vaudeville act, and he became friendly with them. The pay for ten hours a
day of pounding the piano in a small cubicle was $15 a week. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It doesn’t seem to be possible to tell any American story
without mentioning the influence of race on American history. The public was
beginning to become aware of a very original American type of music. Black
music, in the form of jazz and ragtime, had come on the scene. Black musicians
were emerging from the deep south and performing in northern venues. Syncopated
rhythms (ragged time) hadn’t quite made it to popular music, but ragtime
pianists, notably Scott Joplin had quite a following. George Gershwin was
fascinated by this music and spent hours listening to ragtime piano in cafes
and bars.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By 1915 his skill at the piano had earned him such a
reputation that he was able to get a job recording piano rolls. For this he was
paid a fee of $35 for six rolls, which he could polish off easily on a Saturday
afternoon. Over the course of several years he recorded a total of 130
different songs. Most of the piano rolls available on the internet that were
recorded by Gershwin are in later years, recordings of his own compositions,
but I did find one - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYQwcn73XV4">Havanola by HugoFrey</a> – that was recorded in 1917. <span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Very definitely classic ragtime.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">Gershwin clearly couldn’t
be satisfied forever with plugging only songs written by others, but Remicks
wouldn’t allow him to plug his own songs. So his first published song “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">When You Want ‘Em You Can’t Get ’Em, When You’ve
Got ‘Em You Don’t Want ‘Em</i>” was published by the Harry von Tilzer company. For
this he was paid five dollars. But it was a start. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">After hearing some of his
tunes, Gershwin formed a firm friendship with Jerome Kern, who was by then a
well established composer. As an established composer, Kern generally had a
musical on Broadway. In those days, it was not uncommon for a song by an
unknown composer to be interpolated into a show most of whose songs were by an
established composer, and Gershwin was able to do some of this. By 1918, he had
enough of a reputation to place five songs in a revue called Half Past Eight,
but that closed after a week’s tryout. He then wrote the complete score for a
musical called <u>La La Lucille</u>, which ran for a while but was not a major
hit. But he was about to have a major hit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">By 1919, he had formed a
partnership with lyricist Irving Caesar. The two wrote a number of songs
together, among which was a song called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Swanee.</i>
The song was included in a revue that wasn’t too popular. But that wasn’t the
end of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Swanee</i>. Gershwin’s reputation
was such that he was invited to a party by Al Jolson at Bessie Bloodgood’s
whorehouse in Harlem, and he was invited to play a few numbers. When Jolson
heard <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Swanee</i> he asked to interpolate
it into his own review, <u>Sinbad</u>, which was currently running on Broadway.
The combination of Gershwin’s music and Jolson’s delivery proved magical. It
was the biggest hit ever for both of them. Jolson’s recording sold over two
million copies and the sheet music outsold even that. Suddenly, Gershwin was
rich from the royalties. A total of over $10,000 – an enormous sum in 1919.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">At the same time as he was
writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Swanee</i>, Gershwin was still
taking theory lessons from Kilenyi. As part of his lessons, he wrote a movement
for a string quartet. This was performed by a few of his friends during his
lifetime, but never published. It was revived after his death. It’s been given
the name <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uJqgiTiq7s">Lullaby and has now beenperformed by many quartets and string orchestras.</a> It was his first venture into
classical music. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gershwin’s passion, however, was still the Broadway musical.
Producer George White was anxious to produce a revue that would compare to
Florenz Ziegfeld’s <u>Ziefeld Follies</u>. The first edition of George White’s
Scandals was produced in 1919, with composer Richard Whiting, who was hired on
the strength of his major hit <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Till We
Meet Again</i>. White wasn’t satisfied with Whiting, however, and for <u>George
White’s Scandals of 1920</u>, he hired George Gershwin as the composer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">George White’s Scandals were mostly to showcase beautiful
girls, and Gershwin realized that they were not a good vehicle for his best
material, so he provided music that was mostly pretty pedestrian. Lyrics were partly
by Ira and mostly by another well known lyricist, Buddy De Sylva. Gershwin was
the main composer for the Scandals for five years, ending in 1924. One of the
compositions he included in George White’s Scandals was a one act operetta <u>Blue
Monday</u>. <u>Blue Monday</u> featured jazz music and was intended to be sung
by African-American actors. As such, it was a precursor to <u>Porgy and Bess</u>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the popular songs that emerged from the Scandals of
1924 was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Somebody Loves Me. Somebody
Loves Me</i> includes what’s known as a “blue note.” A blue note is a note that
isn’t in the major scale, but inserts a note from the minor scale into the
song. It can’t be played on the white keys of the piano. It’s characteristic of
Afro-American music and is used to produce a sad feeling – the blues. “Somebody
loves me, I wonder who”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Who” is the
blue note. George Gershwin certainly didn’t invent the blue note, but he used
it extensively, and you find them in many, if not most, of his most popular
songs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In January, 1924, Gershwin was taking a break from working
on the last of George White’s Scandals, when his attention was called to an
article in the New York Tribune that mentioned “George Gershwin is at work on a
jazz concerto.” He was stunned, since he hadn’t begun any work on such a piece,
although he had told his friend Paul Whiteman that he hoped to do this soon. Whiteman
was anxious to present a concert featuring American music, and had attempted to
book Carnegie Hall for the purpose. When Carnegie Hall was booked for the date
he wanted, February 12, he switched the venue to the smaller Aeolian Hall. Whiteman,
of course, was the source of the press release in the Tribune.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Accounts differ as to the length of time it took Gershwin to
write <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rhapsody in Blue</i>– anywhere from
eight days to three weeks. He wrote the score as a two piano piece, intending
that one piano would be orchestrated and replaced by Whiteman’s band. He would
play the solo piano. For his later works, he did his own orchestration, but this
one was handled by Whiteman’s orchestrator.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gershwin was quite well satisfied with his work, and by the
day of the concert he was confident that it would be well accepted. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Rhapsody was placed nearly at the end of
the program, which generally went quite well, but Gershwin’s music and his
piano playing far eclipsed everything else. The applause was frenzied. Whiteman
wrote later “At half past five on the afternoon of February 12, we took our
fifth curtain call.” Whiteman had hoped that the Aeolian Hall concert would
help to define American music, but instead it became known as the concert that
launched <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rhapsody in Blue</i>. It was the
one item that occupied music critics and journalists in the weeks that
followed, because it established that the jazz idiom had a place on the
classical music stage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rhapsody in Blue</i>
that was performed that day was sixteen minutes long, but it includes a lot of
repetitive passages, and is often edited down. Performances of the Rhapsody can
be anywhere from five minutes to sixteen and still include all its beautiful
themes. I grew up listening to the very popular Victor recording featuring
Gershwin playing and recorded on the two sides of a 12 inch 78RPM disc. For
many years I thought that’s all there was to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rhapsody in Blue</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Through the 1920’s Gershwin claimed a premier place on
Broadway, and most of his greatest songs come from the shows that he
contributed to. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Swanee</i> and others of his early songs, he had used Irving Caesar as
a lyricist, and after that he frequently teamed with Buddy De Sylva. But most
of his great songs were written with lyrics by his brother Ira. George and Ira
made a good team. George composed a tune, Ira then supplied lyrics. It’s not
really as simple as that, of course; there had to be a lot of back and forth. But
that was easy for two brothers used to getting along with each other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m going to list some of his most popular shows, and the
songs from them that have become standards. The list isn’t inclusive, and I
apologize if I’ve left out one of your favorites:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">1924 <u>Lady Be Good</u> – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oh Lady Be Good</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Man I Love</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">1925 <u>Tip Toes</u> – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Looking for a Boy</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sweet and Low Down</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">1926 <u>Oh Kay!</u> – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Do, Do, Do</i> and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Someone To Watch over Me</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">1927 <u>Funny Face</u> – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">He Loves and She Loves</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How Long Has This Been Going On</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘S Wonderful<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">1928 <u>Treasure Girl</u> – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Feeling I’m Falling</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’ve Got a Crush on You<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">1929 <u>Show Girl</u> – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">An American in Paris Ballet</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Liza</i> (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">An American in Paris</i> was originally published as a separate
orchestral piece and interpolated into <u>Show Girl</u>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">1930 <u>Strike Up the Band</u>
– <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Soon </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strike up the Band</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">1930 <u>Girl Crazy</u> – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bidin’ My Time</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I Got Rhythm</i> (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I Got Rhythm</i>
made Ethel Merman’s Career. She was a virtual unknown until she held a high C
for 16 bars of orchestration)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">1931 <u>Of Thee I Sing</u> – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Of Thee I Sing</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love Is Sweeping the Country</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Who Cares</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In other words, for these eight years, George Gershwin had a
hit on Broadway every year and one or more hit songs. His share of the box
office as well as his royalties from sale of sheet music and recordings left
him quite well off financially. Financial stability leads to the question: Why
didn’t he marry? Well he probably intended to someday, but meanwhile he was
having way too much fun being a bachelor. He dated lots of chorus girls and
other women, never getting too serious about any one although one biographer
says the love of his life was Paulette Godard. Another biographer claims that
he had an illegitimate son by a chorus queen named Margret Manners (stage name
“Mollie Charleston.) Others say this is somewhere between highly speculative
and ridiculous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Following the success of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rhapsody
in Blue</i>, Gershwin began to write separate concert pieces establishing
himself in the classical field. These included <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">An American in Paris</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Concerto
in F</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Second Rhapsody</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cuban Overture</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Variations on I Got Rhythm</i>, all of which have been performed and
recorded many times. As Irving Berlin said “He was the only songwriter to
become a composer.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gershwin had long entertained the idea of writing an opera,
and had contact with the Metropolitan Opera. In 1933, he acquired the rights to
DuBose Heyward’s play <u>Porgy</u>, which he had long considered might be a
good vehicle for the kind of opera he had in mind. He worked with Heyward in
adapting the play, and finally produced his masterwork <u>Porgy and Bess</u>. He
decided to have the Theater Guild produce it rather than the Metropolitan,
since a Metropolitan production would run only a few times during the season,
whereas a Theater Guild production would run continuously. He insisted on an
all black cast (no black-face), which created some difficulty since the opera
world had not developed many black artists at the time. The production, which
include some of his best songs, like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Summertime,
I Got Plenty o’ Nothin’</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It Ain’t
Necessarily So </i>was critically acclaimed, but only a modest success on
Broadway. During the period while he was writing <u>Porgy and Bess</u>, he
solidified his financial status by producing a radio program <u><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX2KeQ5Uqw4">Music by Gershwin</a></u>. A few episodes have survived. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By 1930, the motion pictures known as “Talkies” had come
into their own. Beginning in 1929 with Al Jolson’s appearance in <u>The Jazz
Singer</u>, movie goers were treated to music that came with the movie. Gershwin
was not particularly interested in movies, but in 1930 he got an irresistible
invitation from Fox Studios for him and Ira - $70,000 and a reserved coach from
New York to Hollywood. The film – <u>Delicious</u> didn’t produce any hits. George
enjoyed the sunny climate that winter of 1930, but decided Hollywood was not
for him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But by 1936, Broadway seemed to have dried up for him. He
returned to Hollywood (where Ira had stayed) and wrote some of his best songs
for three very successful movies – <u>Shall We Dance</u>, <u>A Damsel in
Distress</u>, and <u>Goldwyn Follies</u>. Songs from these movies included: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off, They All
Laughed, They Can’t Take That Away from Me, A Foggy Day in London Town, Nice
Work If You Can Get It, Love Is Here To Stay,</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love Walked In</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In June, 1937 he began to have agonizing headaches. He was
diagnosed with a glioblastoma brain tumor and died on July 11, only 38 years
old. His brother Ira survived him until 1983 and devoted himself to keeping the
very considerable Gershwin legacy alive. In 1990, Warner Communications paid a
total of 200 million dollars to acquire the rights to the Gershwin catalog.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<!--EndFragment--><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-84439352217538101912017-12-15T16:56:00.002-05:002019-10-13T16:46:30.655-04:00Fur Seals of Alaska (an 1892 paper by Henry Laurens Dawes)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Iv1WmtDv4s0/WjRC7co2-GI/AAAAAAAADbI/ZA6Uw3zecTYUSDiN0ZNyhD_Quj_8_iu0QCLcBGAs/s1600/5944746197_979dd4dcd3_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="414" data-original-width="640" height="373" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Iv1WmtDv4s0/WjRC7co2-GI/AAAAAAAADbI/ZA6Uw3zecTYUSDiN0ZNyhD_Quj_8_iu0QCLcBGAs/s400/5944746197_979dd4dcd3_z.jpg" width="580" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alaska Fur Seal — <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwshq/5944746197/in/photolist-JnivQ-pmFL7F-h3331H-93kcHR-4qoeQA-bA168U-GB4ZT-9hhYNz-6Bydqw-p3ZX6j-piKxfb-ULExYg-a4jnW6-PbAQ7w-W49UhL-mhu5w8-76t5N7-5y95xY-4wfE5k-p5bPZ9-94B1zC-94Effc-5pYJcS-4TQ6wY-99MBns-9Rwtgs-9ULDwm-4TKS6Z-95qhPb-bsfUJ6-PbANWW-c17egE-8RQN8A-PbANLq-9DtS4o-4zX1oU-6Bu3Vp-PSp8xd-6J1nbz-cHFZfA-5sLEUJ-9h2tGA-dbjTzb-2snu5-d9Ljxh-KGpSgh-Qg2WYc-wRbSQW-8nHKsH-4wjNES">photo by US Fish & Wildlife Service</a> — Used under Creative Commons license</td></tr>
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<i>One of the members of the Club in its early years was Henry Laurens Dawes, United States Senator representing Massachusetts, who lived in Pittsfield. Dawes himself was the subject of <a href="http://mondayeveningclub.blogspot.com/2015/07/allotment-how-1887-dawes-act-disrupted.html">this 2015 paper</a>.</i><br />
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<i>Here's a paper by Dawes, delivered to the Club in 1892, entitled "Fur Seals of Alaska." The original is among the Dawes papers in the National Archives. </i><i>Dawes himself was the subject of <a href="http://mondayeveningclub.blogspot.com/2015/07/allotment-how-1887-dawes-act-disrupted.html">this 2015 Club paper.</a></i><br />
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<a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/367280826/fur-seals-of-alaska#from_embed" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="View Fur Seals of Alaska on Scribd">Fur Seals of Alaska</a> on Scribd</div>
<iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" data-aspect-ratio="0.8825831702544031" data-auto-height="true" frameborder="0" height="null" id="doc_15328" scrolling="no" src="https://www.scribd.com/embeds/367280826/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-l81FMdyd420UWNluDoPX&show_recommendations=true" title="Fur Seals of Alaska" width="null"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">(function() { var scribd = document.createElement("script"); scribd.type = "text/javascript"; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = "https://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js"; var s = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(scribd, s); })();</script>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-52607020997966881222017-12-06T21:41:00.000-05:002017-12-08T10:00:08.493-05:00Fatal Choice: Choosing no longer to live<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hTb6EdL15iI/WiipneNOAXI/AAAAAAAADZw/zUZz6kjIN2AnUH_pIfi8cNjRVOeb8TLyQCLcBGAs/s1600/26137241265_3c3dcf0a71_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="640" height="350" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hTb6EdL15iI/WiipneNOAXI/AAAAAAAADZw/zUZz6kjIN2AnUH_pIfi8cNjRVOeb8TLyQCLcBGAs/s400/26137241265_3c3dcf0a71_z.jpg" width="580" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/126396110@N06/26137241265/in/photolist-FPEcdM-bqHW4v-8YznD2-9zeoFM-6HVfmR-drw5zi-p2hCPL-oLPDU2-aZWUj6-oDVwym-xd3QZC-wxB2qJ-ZYr3kU-q7GBA-oLPE1z-p44dbM-p44dkp-drw5CZ-yjqsr-9yLRbh-ozjqCb-EnGPHB-5xYYyD-EnGPFn-DwyaEF-8GggAp-cQay4s-puzqPc-74x5z3-qRKw1f-9iuxFC-2V2uSq-VwEA28-9BG9eQ-aBq5BW-SDy1wk-U2vWMm-SwkCVM-55PvFX-oLPE9F-Vz9ZqE-bgc1KX-UUPPEH-q7Gre-8bdRFs-6HNRj7-kowQG9-bsvp45-V3xQVC-dh4R1A">Alberto Biscalchin</a>, used under Creative Commons Licens</td></tr>
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<i><br /></i><i>Presented to the Club on Monday evening, Dec. 4, 2017 by William P. Densmore</i></div>
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One day in March, 1981, a short obituary appeared in the <i>Chicago Tribune </i>about a fatal choice — the suicide of Earl Russell Marshall, of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It mentioned that Mr. Marshall was a supervisor at the Tulsa maintenance base of American Airlines.<br />
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Colleagues of Mr. Marshall at American Airlines had also made a fatal choice two years earlier, a choice primarily responsible for the deaths of 271 people. <br />
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Those 271 people had been passengers May 25, 1979 on an American DC-10 jumbo jet which dropped an engine and <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/1979/05/26/archives/no-survivors-found-los-angelesbound-dc10-narrowly-misses-tract-of.html?_r%3D0&sa=D&ust=1512616308146000&usg=AFQjCNHiO9z1j1-tn0UsJ8PzrMprRJHwzA">crashed on takeoff</a> from Chicago O’Hare International Airport. The engine had been worked on at American’s Tulsa maintenance two months earlier. The day after his death, Mr. Marshall, then 47, was to have been questioned by lawyers for the aircraft maker.<br />
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The airline said Marshall had no involvement with the accident aircraft. The Tulsa World newspaper <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/aftermath-of-dc--crash-still-impacts-industry/article_884e3966-1ae5-5d57-911a-84dc1b5b61e8.html&sa=D&ust=1512616308147000&usg=AFQjCNHGS0XrBvhnQdn81FGyC5t538iaoA">talked to Mr. Marshall’s widow in 2004</a>, 25 years later. “He had very bad guilt feelings, and the accident gave him something to attach his feelings to,” Marilyn Marshall to the daily. ‘He was a casualty of that crash.”<br />
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DC-10 maker McDonnell Douglas Corp. and American <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/23/business/crash-still-clouds-mcdonnell-future.html&sa=D&ust=1512616308148000&usg=AFQjCNHqN2Fw4ccWn5ab99pVxtTs8XfaOQ">sued each other</a> after the crash and the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/AAR7917.aspx&sa=D&ust=1512616308148000&usg=AFQjCNFy8iptg6b9e_zXPzN4auZNZ3UwRA">National Transportation Safety Board</a> investigated. The companies and the government learned that a maintenance work shift ended on one of the nights the DC-10 was in Tulsa and the crew left a 15,300-pound wing engine and attached pylon hanging overnight partially disconnected from the wing – and supported only by the forklift’s hydraulics. The result – a hidden, 13-inch crack formed in one of the three attachments of the engine to the wing.<br />
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During the O’Hare takeoff roll at the start of a Los Angeles flight, normal engine thrust broke the attachment, the engine shot forward, rotated over the top of the wing and separated from the aircraft – severing lines of all three independent hydraulic systems vital to control. The plane rolled to the left and crashed. It remains today the highest death toll of any single U.S. aviation disaster.<br />
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It was a fatal choice that American Airlines made, to remove the 13,477-pound GE jet engine and 1,865-pound pylon in a single procedure, because it saved 200-man-hours per aircraft engine overhaul, and reduced to 27 from 79 the number of disconnects of lines and cables.<br />
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McDonnell Douglas didn’t recommend it, but it also didn’t tell American not to do it that way. <br />
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<b>Another fatal choice</b><br />
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I know all this because I was an editor for <i>Chicago Lawyer</i> magazine in 1980 and 1981 and I covered the lawsuits about the crash – I still have hundreds of pages of moldy legal depositions in our basement that contain detailed testimony about the forklift procedure. And ever since, I’ve been fascinated by the safety decisions we make and do not make, and the consequences, and how we assess or become even aware of those consequences.<br />
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As a nation, and species, we make policy decisions that involve fatal choices.<br />
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For example, we make the fatal choice to allow global climate change to progress, and already we can see migrations, floods, arctic melt, atmospheric and food-security challenges arising. Each of us can think of more such choices for humankind. It seems as if the more distance the policy from our own personal lives and the more people who are at risk, the more likely a fatal choice is made almost without transparent forethought or balancing of costs and consequences.<br />
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Another choice. Predawn on Dec. 2, 2017, the United States Senate cobbled together a 500-page document of tax changes, and some completely unrelated matters, scribbled amendments in illegible page-border handwriting, and approved and sent it to the House on a 51-49 partisan vote. There were little or no committee hearings and no time between amendments and a final bill.<br />
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One of the provisions of the bill, if it becomes law, is predicted to result over time in <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gop-is-trading-13-million-peoples-health-care-for-corporate-tax-cuts/2017/11/15/bfe59248-ca49-11e7-aa96-54417592cf72_story.html&sa=D&ust=1512616308151000&usg=AFQjCNGZJK5Qko3PRTMq5imQZwbCwSbCaA">13 million Americans losing their current health-insurance coverage</a>. That’s clearly another fatal choice. Because some of those 13 million Americans are likely to die, or at least die sooner, as a result of coverage decisions by governments and health insurers. Has the United States Senate just become a “death panel”? <br />
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It is here – in the domain of health and medicine – that I want to dwell a bit tonight to consider a fatal choice that will affect us all. Some of us will leave here tonight believing the particular fatal choice I’m thinking of is ours to make. Others may well think it should be – indeed is in fact — up to a higher power. I want to argue that the truth lies somewhere in between, that the truth will be different for each of us, and that the sooner we think about it for us and our loved ones, the better – for us and for society.<br />
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I’m talking about how we exercise compassion and care near the end of life – a point we shall all reach, perhaps unexpectedly, but more likely with some warning and time for thought and reflection.<br />
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Each of us has the opportunity to make a fatal choice about the time and manner our life is to end. Thankfully, life is good enough that most of us don’t choose suicide as did American Airlines supervisor Earl Marshall. But we do make make choices in daily life which could be fatal. We engage in hazardous sports or recreation, unhealthy or excessive eating or drinking. We smoke or become addicted to pain-killing drugs. <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/160/10/929/140858&sa=D&ust=1512616308153000&usg=AFQjCNEHJSWljN2DdAT24FXQg2SfGV8ooA">We own guns.</a> <br />
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As we age, there will inevitably be things that will draw us nearer to death. As much as we make decisions as a society, and live as individuals in ways that involve fatal choices, why wouldn’t we do the same as the very real probability of death draws near? At the point where we draw nearer to God, we seem oddly to be more willing than ever to suspend any consideration of whether and on what terms we choose to be alive.<br />
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Now, there are people in this group — clergy — who have spent infinitely more time than I thinking about divine intervention and life. So I just have to credit and borrow from a Nov. 7 sermon by The <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.firstunitarian.com/ministers.cfm&sa=D&ust=1512616308154000&usg=AFQjCNH9oyqM2ibTQVHDdHcGR6QeOX9mfQ">Rev. Sarah Stewart</a> of the First Unitarian Church of Worcester, Mass., whose sermons, by family connection, I receive by email. It helps me to illustrate the fatal-choice nuance I’m driving at.<br />
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Rev. Stewart <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://web-extract.constantcontact.com/v1/social_annotation?permalink_uri%3D2hjwAzG%26image_url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fmlsvc01-prod.s3.amazonaws.com%252Ff0ae0dbb001%252F285df20c-f786-4cf1-8ac6-c65a4b2d4df7.jpg%253Fver%253D1510079518000&sa=D&ust=1512616308154000&usg=AFQjCNFlESIkHzA6AcEDbedyW8SP6EgSfw">wrote about God’s hand</a> in retelling this joke:<br />
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Once upon a time, a man was shipwrecked and flailing around in the sea. He kicked his feet and waved his arms and cried, "O God, save me! I'm going to drown!" And lo and behold, a helicopter spotted the wreckage and flew in low over the man. A ladder uncoiled from the belly of the copter and a rescue worker made his way down. "Grab my hand!" the rescuer shouted.<br />
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"No, God will save me!" the man replied. No matter what the rescuer said or did, the man refused to take his hand and be pulled to safety. The rescuer watched in utter dismay as the man slipped beneath the waves. The man came to his senses in Heaven. Dry, warm, and comfortable, he walked toward God, who was hanging out in her favorite chair by the fire. "Hey God!" the man said. "I prayed! I was faithful! Why didn't you rescue me?!"<br />
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"Buddy," said God, "who did you think sent the freaking helicopter?"</blockquote>
Here’s why I like Rev. Stewart’s retelling of that story. Because it teaches that God works in many ways, and in ways that you may not even see as divine in the moment. And it teaches that God works in ways that may appear patently secular – the rescue helicopter. And in ways that you have to choose to actively embrace – take hold of the rescuer’s hand.<br />
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I think that’s an important aspect of what happens as we age. We may think we will be OK if we just go about our life and assume that God will take care of everything. There will be no pain, no reckoning with family, no diminished quality of life, and if there is, that’s what God intended. That sounds too much to me like the man who just waited in the water until he drowned.<br />
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So that’s my little sermon, and I tell it, because the rest of this talk, which is about choice, and a fatal choice at that, is about something still controversial and I want you to know my point of view so you can filter what you hear. My view is that active personal engagement with our fate, whether or not in consultation with God, is appropriate in politics, in life, and in the lead up to death.<br />
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A couple of months ago, I wrote an <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.berkshireeagle.com/stories/bill-densmore-four-words-are-keyto-right-to-die-debate,520281&sa=D&ust=1512616308157000&usg=AFQjCNGwgMC4CBwvVZI5EdTfR3WEoWnsyw">op-ed piece</a> in <i>The Berkshire Eagle</i>. The headline was shortened a bit for space, and it was fine, but the one I had proposed was this: “Right-to-die debate about four words – burden, control, religion and choice – not suicide.” A surprising number of people spoke to me about that piece and how they had been moved to thought by it. It was published Sept. 26, 2017, the same day the Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Health conducted a <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.compassionandchoices.org/supporters-come-out-in-force-for-massachusetts-hearing/&sa=D&ust=1512616308158000&usg=AFQjCNF3xmmrJzPHAafPSWoqGlyaLpmcYg">hearing on Beacon Hill</a> on<a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://malegislature.gov/Bills/190/SD744&sa=D&ust=1512616308158000&usg=AFQjCNH-6n_skbxmCc9yI1aU1LwTHf3QUw"> Senate Bill 1225</a> and its twin, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://legiscan.com/MA/text/H1194/id/1533628&sa=D&ust=1512616308158000&usg=AFQjCNFlBUcrkaRBXzJ7oVBTRt_ZDSqkUA">House Bill 1194</a>: “An Act Relative to End of Life Options.” Sometime before Feb. 7, 2018, the committee will have to decide if it will refer the bills to the House and Senate for floor votes. It has refused to do so for many years, just letting it lapse.<br />
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On Saturday, something happened which may cause the bill to be voted on. At their fall meeting, the Massachusetts Medical Society house of delegates<a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/12/02/massachusetts-medical-society-decide-whether-doctors-should-help-dying-end-their-lives/GtVH8TuY1IebcMmltEoy4M/story.html&sa=D&ust=1512616308159000&usg=AFQjCNHBRrTRNQodD0oDrCalOlswYA2q5g"> voted 152-56</a> to <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2017/12/02/mass-medical-society-drops-opposition-medical-aid-in-dying&sa=D&ust=1512616308160000&usg=AFQjCNGqnnoQoxElT16DfhxtWmaSA8L9pA">end the society’s long-standing opposition</a> to what it has called “physician-assisted suicide” and to adopt a <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.compassionandchoices.org/mass-medical-society-drops-opposition-to-medical-aid-in-dying/&sa=D&ust=1512616308160000&usg=AFQjCNHJjzMuzTBYc1MFRXzgYFMkiKlKrA">neutral stance</a>. Now, it is calling it “medical aid in dying” and the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.massmed.org/News-and-Publications/MMS-News-Releases/Massachusetts-Medical-Society-adopts-several-organizational-policies-at-Interim-Meeting/%23.WidgAkqnGUl&sa=D&ust=1512616308161000&usg=AFQjCNHrD6UrYJfasraZyHzgkBnz48odqw">resolution adopted </a>says that “the act of a physician writing a prescription for a lethal dose of medication to be used by an adult with a terminal illness at such time as the patient sees fit will, if legalized, be recognized as an additional option in the case of the terminally ill.” It says it will train doctors.<br />
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The medical society acted after it conducted and <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20171201/massachusetts-doctor-survey-shows-support-for-assisted-suicide&sa=D&ust=1512616308161000&usg=AFQjCNFF9uK8X-HpWRHx2IoKgjcXAkX_ZA">reported results</a> of an <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.compassionandchoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/MA-Medical-Society-resolution-ONLY-1.pdf&sa=D&ust=1512616308162000&usg=AFQjCNFMZRFb69UHoYhHVQa6FyHlEU3QMQ">online survey</a> of a statistical sample of its nearly 25,000 members. A total of 12% responded. Sixty percent of the survey respondents supported “medical aid in dying” . . . the practice of physicians giving terminally-ill adults prescriptions for self-administered lethal medications. The same percentage – 60% — wanted the society to stop opposing physician-assisted dying.<br />
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You notice I just said physician-assisted dying, not suicide. Much as in the history of the abortion debate, that one-word shift in terminology is at the center of polarized views. Massachusetts Citizens for Life and the Catholic Church use “suicide.” The Denver-based <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.compassionandchoices.org&sa=D&ust=1512616308163000&usg=AFQjCNFo_FKyXC4yT7Q2QTbzmhvAlCXO-Q">Compassion & Choices</a> group (formerly the Hemlock Society) and Portland, Oregon-based <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.deathwithdignity.org/&sa=D&ust=1512616308163000&usg=AFQjCNHaBf__Scwj2nNixMgFaatJOPlBvg">Death With Dignity</a><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.deathwithdignity.org/&sa=D&ust=1512616308164000&usg=AFQjCNHfpF4e_d2D5I1dft2jUtpErrRiOw"> National Center</a> -- the two advocacy nonprofits in favor of letting physicians prescribe fatal medication to a willing and competent patient with six months or less to live — both avoid the word suicide.<br />
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That’s worth a digression. What do we <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suicide&sa=D&ust=1512616308164000&usg=AFQjCNH6hIQHRutdhXJg6gBzcQJA9mK_7Q">mean by suicide</a>? That’s simple, you might say. It’s the willful taking of your own life by some overt means. There is no other single English word for that act. “Took her own life,” perhaps. What if you willfully do something very dangerous and it results in your death – driving way too fast as an example? Would your death be deemed a suicide, or an accident? Does intent matter?<br />
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If it matters, then we need a new word, or a <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4422452/&sa=D&ust=1512616308165000&usg=AFQjCNEiRAlsyXvBGOWwpSi3dJtP0PO0oQ">new understanding of suicide</a> that is without judgment, spiritual or otherwise. Because as our society ages, there will be many people for whom active management of their end of life trajectory could seem appealing. We choose medical procedures, or not, as the man in the joke chooses to reach for the rescuer’s hand, or not.<br />
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Did the man in the water commit suicide by not reaching for the rescuer’s hand? He must not have thought so. Interestingly, on Oct. 30, the American Association of Suicidology, whose membership includes mental health and public-health professionals, came out with<a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ohiooptions.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/AAS-PAD-Statement-Approved-10.30.17-ed-10-30-17.pdf&sa=D&ust=1512616308166000&usg=AFQjCNGdeD3KwWPHBJMGl9T36wp3rnMtBw"> a</a><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ohiooptions.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/AAS-PAD-Statement-Approved-10.30.17-ed-10-30-17.pdf&sa=D&ust=1512616308167000&usg=AFQjCNGM7igk9Hd7GYrhXVdDtJ86fL5gZg"> policy</a><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ohiooptions.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/AAS-PAD-Statement-Approved-10.30.17-ed-10-30-17.pdf&sa=D&ust=1512616308167000&usg=AFQjCNGM7igk9Hd7GYrhXVdDtJ86fL5gZg"> statement</a> saying that medical aid in dying “is distinct from the behavior that has been traditionally and ordinary described as suicide.”<br />
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Colleen Creighton, the suicide-prevention group’s executive director <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.compassionandchoices.org/suicide-prevention-association-concludes-medical-aid-in-dying-is-not-suicide/&sa=D&ust=1512616308168000&usg=AFQjCNGmB-Emkmz6L-qTVlRX6w6zX6Lhrg">had this to say</a>: “The American Association of Suicidology is dedicated to preventing suicide, but this has no bearing on the reflective, anticipated death a physician may legally help a dying patient facilitate.” She added: “We believe that the term ‘physician-assisted suicide’ constitutes a critical reason why these distinct death categories are so often conflated, and [the term] should be deleted from use . . . in suicide, a life that could have continued indefinitely is cut short. PAD is not a matter of life or death; it is a matter of a foreseeable death occurring a little sooner but in an easier way, in accord with the patient’s wishes and values vs. death later in a potentially more painful and protracted manner. In PAD, the person with a terminal illness does not necessarily want to die; he or she typically wants desperately to live but cannot do so; the disease will take its course.”<br />
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Use of the word “suicide” implies an ethical or spiritual judgment of intent by the speaker. I say: “Judge not that ye be not judged.”<br />
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The judgment varies around the world. <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://euthanasia.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID%3D000136&sa=D&ust=1512616308169000&usg=AFQjCNFCRiPj94jZ0p-MbjAiTJ5Ui152fw">Of 28 developed countries</a>, seven permit some sort of assisted dying and three – Belgium, The Netherlands and Columbia, do not forbid euthanasia – the medical killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma. The District of Columbia and five states, California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Vermont – have enacted laws making doctor-assisted dying by prescription legal. <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.deathwithdignity.org/take-action/&sa=D&ust=1512616308169000&usg=AFQjCNHlsq550VA9EVgPptI1e1D_wdYaEA">(SEE MAP)</a> Montana did so by court decision. Some 34 other states are considering it. In Massachusetts, governments in <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.compassionandchoices.org/amherst-becomes-4th-jurisdiction-in-massachusetts-to-endorse-medical-aid-in-dying/&sa=D&ust=1512616308170000&usg=AFQjCNEudtVxmh0_R80MkZ8MMKw8SSBkrA">Amherst</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.compassionandchoices.org/northampton-becomes-third-jurisdiction-in-massachusetts-to-endorse-medical-aid-in-dying/&sa=D&ust=1512616308170000&usg=AFQjCNHIUCtyBS-PjeZxj1tfk61sLbEm1w">Northampton</a> last month adopted assisted-dying resolutions. <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.compassionandchoices.org/cambridge-becomes-first-massachusetts-city-to-endorse-medical-aid-in-dying/&sa=D&ust=1512616308171000&usg=AFQjCNGoL_yyOl2TdD72c8A1aEoSXsvpww">Cambridge</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.compassionandchoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Non-binding-Resolution-re-Aid-in-Dying-10.26.16.pdf&sa=D&ust=1512616308171000&usg=AFQjCNEbH0mylURNlOwIpt9hMbniRbig6g">Provincetown</a> did so last year.<br />
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Two U.S. Supreme Court actions are relevant here. In 1997, in <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacco_v._Quill&sa=D&ust=1512616308172000&usg=AFQjCNF4tcmOH-6IjXZoVh2uPAekdS32-w">Vacco vs. Quill</a>, the court ruled 9-0 – with six separate opinions. It upheld a New York state law making doctor-assisted death illegal, distinguishing it from palliative care to alleviate pain that has the ancillary effect of hastening death. The 1997 opinion did not rule on the opposite – a state affirmatively permitting doctor-assisted dying. In the second action, the U.S. Supreme Court this fall <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-bc-us--right-to-die-group-appeal-20171002-story.html&sa=D&ust=1512616308172000&usg=AFQjCNHjqJuNn4WqBxTVl_Wnz58szBDdJw">declined without comment </a>to review a <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.courthousenews.com/minnesota-court-affirms-assisted-suicide-conviction/&sa=D&ust=1512616308173000&usg=AFQjCNGDqRVUeIMtp9vga9XV5YsNFZDnoA">state </a><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.courthousenews.com/minnesota-court-affirms-assisted-suicide-conviction/&sa=D&ust=1512616308173000&usg=AFQjCNGDqRVUeIMtp9vga9XV5YsNFZDnoA">appeals court</a> ruling in a Minnesota case which fined<a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://finalexit.org/&sa=D&ust=1512616308174000&usg=AFQjCNHAb1krzr0KJ_aa4iisxxS4FAh03A"> </a><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.finalexitnetwork.org/&sa=D&ust=1512616308174000&usg=AFQjCNE2pHQ5eUsYr4u5v7bEq-NZjKbjNw">Final Exit Network Inc.</a> $30,000 for violating a state statute. The action let stand a <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/right-to-die-group-fined-for-assisting-in-womans-suicide/&sa=D&ust=1512616308174000&usg=AFQjCNEQkmgBVGLMgcz5qahdGpSfDrMa5Q">lower-court interpretation </a>of the Minnesota law to prohibit the giving of written information to 57-year-old Doreen Dunn that she allegedly used to learn how to take her own life using a helium hood. Final Exit is a nonprofit that for decades has been providing information and support to people who wish to end their own life. By not taking the case, no legal precedent is established. Says Final Exit’s attorney Robert Rivas, who provided <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://newshare.com/betterending/final-exit-scotus-2017.pdf&sa=D&ust=1512616308175000&usg=AFQjCNFF0jhP8cuGbzk2Cg8BTah5qFHIUQ">a copy</a> of his organization’s Supreme Court appeal: “Until our case in Minnesota, every case on point has held that pure speech cannot sustain a conviction for assisting in a suicide.”<br />
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The Mass. Medical Society change in position is similar to what happened in California before that state enacted, and Gov. Jerry Brown signed in 2015, the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CHSI/Pages/End-of-Life-Option-Act-.aspx&sa=D&ust=1512616308176000&usg=AFQjCNGJv2fYzrYkjIcAyAxYWj5m30AB-g">California End of Life Option Act,</a> making California the fifth state to legalize doctor-assisted death. The California law took effect June 6, 2016, and in <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CHSI/CDPH%2520Document%2520Library/CDPH%2520End%2520of%2520Life%2520Option%2520Act%2520Report.pdf&sa=D&ust=1512616308176000&usg=AFQjCNHcSDN8EkMkkeLulxM5ujMdmL37Lw">its first six months</a>, 258 individuals started the end-of-life option process — 191 were prescribed life-ending drugs and 111 used them. That’s out of 183,265 deaths in California during the same period. That 0.0006 of total deaths – or six-one-hundredths of one percent.<br />
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This year, Oregon<a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.deathwithdignity.org/news/2017/11/celebrating-death-with-dignity-in-oregon/&sa=D&ust=1512616308177000&usg=AFQjCNF9j99ZRQHuWiUVDh8Wv8vza077vw"> </a><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.deathwithdignity.org/news/2017/09/20-years-oregon-death-with-dignity-act/&sa=D&ust=1512616308178000&usg=AFQjCNFHa8XK6DMYEJp5761yH8x42djk3g">marked the 20</a><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.deathwithdignity.org/news/2017/09/20-years-oregon-death-with-dignity-act/&sa=D&ust=1512616308178000&usg=AFQjCNFHa8XK6DMYEJp5761yH8x42djk3g">th</a><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.deathwithdignity.org/news/2017/09/20-years-oregon-death-with-dignity-act/&sa=D&ust=1512616308178000&usg=AFQjCNFHa8XK6DMYEJp5761yH8x42djk3g"> anniversary </a>of its law taking effect. Over the 20-year period, only about 2,000 Oregonians have requested a prescription. One of them was <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany_Maynard&sa=D&ust=1512616308179000&usg=AFQjCNGyYs1VjDTx16O3i-yFXQePcalPDg">Brittany Maynard,</a> a 29-year-old California educator who moved to Oregon to take advantage of the law when she was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. She was very public about her fatal choice, which drew international attention. Her<a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.deathwithdignity.org/news/2017/11/brittanys-legacy/&sa=D&ust=1512616308179000&usg=AFQjCNFBkZgWad8DpdxDhf_iXHK0J0m3-g"> mother</a> is now on the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.deathwithdignity.org/about/board-of-directors/&sa=D&ust=1512616308179000&usg=AFQjCNEpqAS76YysvGfCWwCJnN6zBQ1VmA">Death with Dignity</a><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.deathwithdignity.org/about/board-of-directors/&sa=D&ust=1512616308180000&usg=AFQjCNHyHiWIEGhwElENQgbZqDmIO9x-Kw"> board</a>, and her widower husband testified on Beacon Hill in September.<br />
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Oregon <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.deathwithdignity.org/oregon-death-with-dignity-act-annual-reports/&sa=D&ust=1512616308181000&usg=AFQjCNEPORa5zc2CZU1t39_m46aq1xGi2Q">annual</a><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.deathwithdignity.org/oregon-death-with-dignity-act-annual-reports/&sa=D&ust=1512616308181000&usg=AFQjCNEPORa5zc2CZU1t39_m46aq1xGi2Q">ly</a><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.deathwithdignity.org/oregon-death-with-dignity-act-annual-reports/&sa=D&ust=1512616308181000&usg=AFQjCNEPORa5zc2CZU1t39_m46aq1xGi2Q"> surveys</a> the use of its law and over 20 years it has determined that of<a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.deathwithdignity.org/news/2017/11/report%25E2%2580%258B-%25E2%2580%258Bcard%25E2%2580%258B-%25E2%2580%258Bon%25E2%2580%258B-%25E2%2580%258Bmedical%25E2%2580%258B-%25E2%2580%258Baid-in-dying%25E2%2580%258B-legislation/&sa=D&ust=1512616308182000&usg=AFQjCNFye9sowPAksiRhY7jRhI6vSqZ8zA"> four end-of-life issues</a>, pain control was the fourth-most cited reason for choosing medical aid in dying (25.2%). The other concerns were losing autonomy (91.6%), loss of dignity (78.8%), and less ability to engage in activities making life enjoyable (89.7%). <br />
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Unless you believe that suicide is an eternal sin, and that hastening your certain death with a pill is in fact suicide, as judged by others, you may have a fatal choice to make. Death and dying are profoundly personal challenges and one needs to appreciate the love and compassion expressed by those with many views, including our families. But we certainly can plan our options for time and manner of death.<br />
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It is no longer a taboo subject. In 2014, the state of Massachusetts<a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2014/12/19/massachusetts-end-of-life-counseling&sa=D&ust=1512616308183000&usg=AFQjCNFGB0CfjwTadU8DaFgKToyfKsBr8w"> adopted regulations</a> requiring doctors, nurses, nursing homes other health-care providers to be equipped to provide end-of-life counseling. The Department of Public Health published the seven-page: <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.scribd.com/document/250551817/Sample-End-Of-Life-Care-Guide&sa=D&ust=1512616308183000&usg=AFQjCNFxb0tUF4uAiMpI47TctIRtFwFdsg">“Know Your Choices: A Guide for Patients with Serious Advancing Illness.”</a><br />
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Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Massachusetts is a key backer of a nonprofit initiative called the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://maseriouscare.org/uploads/Coalition_2017_v10-FINAL-FULL-DECK.PDF&sa=D&ust=1512616308184000&usg=AFQjCNGt6fhdWhbqVBvGUmznOsDfkUsRrw">Massachusetts Coalition for Serious Illness Care</a> (<a href="http://maseriouscare.org/">maseriouscare.org</a>), which meets annually. And longtime Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, was among founders of <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://theconversationproject.org/&sa=D&ust=1512616308185000&usg=AFQjCNERoeMZdqCcf2OyfqkG6l93AOp8SA">The Conversation Project</a>, dedicated to helping people talk about their wishes for end-of-life care. Doctors, hospitals and estate lawyers can help with advanced-care planning concerning the timing of palliative care, hospice care and life-sustaining treatment options. </div>
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For physicians, the fatal choice is <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://euthanasia.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID%3D000198&sa=D&ust=1512616308185000&usg=AFQjCNEtQLCAPY_L5wNw198jlkf_pR4DGA">not so simple professionally</a>, even assuming that prescribing death-inducing medication is legalized in Massachusetts. The<a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath&sa=D&ust=1512616308186000&usg=AFQjCNElo_actQaaxl8SXkZKlDtl6_E0CA"> oldest versions</a> of the Hippocratic Oath say, in common translation from Greek, “Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course.” However, the vast majority of U.S. medical schools do not ask their graduates to subscribe to a<a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath&sa=D&ust=1512616308186000&usg=AFQjCNElo_actQaaxl8SXkZKlDtl6_E0CA"> version with words anything like that</a>. And some ethicists argue even the little-used version is mis-understood. Ethicists note that heavy, constant doses of morphine to reduce severe pain – often prescribed for patients with terminal illnesses -- is justified because the main purpose is to relieve pain, with the deadly effects of morphine an ancillary result.<br />
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For physicians personally, the fatal choice appears easier. Surveys and reports find that physicians, faced with intrusive, death-prolonging care with no hope of beating a terminal illness, opt out of such care for themselves. This inclination was summarized in a <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2011/11/30/how-doctors-die/ideas/nexus/&sa=D&ust=1512616308187000&usg=AFQjCNE_POuUBC2TXsJK1HgZTJhaBR3-iA">2011 essay</a> by a University of Southern California family-medicine professor, Ken Murray, MD, who wrote: “[D]octors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little . . . I cannot count the number of times fellow physicians have told me, in words that vary only slightly, ‘Promise me if you find me like this that you’ll kill me.’ ” <br />
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In the <i>Berkshire Eagle</i> op-ed, I spoke of four words – burden, control, religion and choice. I wrote about my father’s 2013 death, and his wish to not become a burden on his family. That’s something that weighs heavily on the elderly. <br />
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Concerning control -- the author and research physician Atul Gawande, in his <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/health-science-technology/being-mortal/dr-atul-gawande-hope-is-not-a-plan-when-doctors-patients-talk-death/&sa=D&ust=1512616308188000&usg=AFQjCNFu8oX0NRlqLJIL1_a_mJ0B9DXohg">PBS Frontline</a><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vT7L0p6ENaimU7c5wnoCpF89DHrTBSwiMSxvbbqY5kvO0kNokAVRUqXz3CcOWZRaghSGBdIT1PgUy1p/pub#ftnt1">[1]</a> documentary aired in 2015 — and in his book, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://atulgawande.com/book/being-mortal/&sa=D&ust=1512616308189000&usg=AFQjCNFSDekwi2uXGcUwNkAsBcUxMPgpoQ">"Being Mortal"</a> — talks about the fears we all face as we confront the possibility of our own death. One of the greatest is the fear of losing control – your body or mind gives out and you can no longer do the things in life that give you pleasure. Is it OK to make the fatal choice if you feel you are burdening others and you don’t want to be? Should you decision be intertwined with faith and religion?<br />
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The fourth word I talked about in <i>The Eagle</i> was choice.<br />
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On Oct. 5, 2015, when Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., a former Catholic seminarian, signed the California law, he wrote at the end of his signing statement these words:</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death. I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain. I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded by this bill. And I wouldn't deny that right to others."</blockquote>
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More than 15 years ago, I visited a dear elderly friend – the wife of a former co-worker who had been a widow for many years. She was bedridden in a local nursing home. She could no longer live home alone, had been a vigorous, independent walker and couldn’t any longer. I had been encouraged by her daughter to stop in. As we talked, an aide brought her a plate of food and my friend actively waived her off. It was obvious to me that she did not want to eat. She was cheerful and peaceful. I spoke with her daughter, who spoke with the nursing home. A few weeks later, she died. <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/health/voluntarily-stopping-eating-drinking.html&sa=D&ust=1512616308190000&usg=AFQjCNFrAVlO6ULk-ScxGWKxdq58_BilsA">Voluntary stopping eating and drinking</a> – VSED – is one way to go which doesn’t require drugs or anyone’s permission.<br />
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While our corporations, our government, our society, make choices in war, health care, aircraft maintenance, the environment . . . without the best consideration of the fatal consequences, at the end of life, let’s all resolve to equip ourselves with the knowledge and support of our loved ones, and our own information resolve, to each make our own . . . fatal choice – with or without divine intervention.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-66565111470931386202017-10-27T18:35:00.001-04:002017-10-27T18:35:04.799-04:00In Memoriam: Robert Henderson, 1923-2017Robert Maurice Henderson passed away in Lenox, Massachusetts, on October 16, 2017, the morning of his 68th wedding anniversary. Wife, Aleva, and son, Jack, were by his side. He was four days shy of his 94th birthday.<br />
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Born in Livingston, Montana, October 16, 1923, and raised just over the mountains in Bozeman, Bob was a consummate cowboy. Raising and caring for horses in his early years gave him compassion for animals and a high regard for nature and all its wonders. Bob's father, Maurice's career in public service, ultimately retiring as city manager of Bozeman, MT and Colonel in the Montana National Guard as well as the example of his mother, Grace, a former school teacher and community volunteer, taught Bob the value of hard work and sound ethics. Throughout his life people turned to Bob for good advice and leadership. Bob attended Montana State College (now MSU). He paused his education during WWII for service in the Army Air Corps but returned to MSC to complete his engineering degree and as he would always be first to acknowledge, most fortunate to meet the young nursing student who would become the love of his life, Aleva Benjamin. Aleva ultimately attained a degree in dietetics and Bob in mechanical engineering. They married in Bozeman, MT, October 16, 1949.<br />
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Bob started his career at Westinghouse in Portland, OR, where four of his five children were born but moved to Massachusetts to work at Dalton's E.D. Jones Division of Beloit Corporation in large paper machinery sales and engineering. His success in sales could be attributed to his adeptness at listening and his ability to provide and execute solutions for his customers' needs. Their fifth child was born in Pittsfield.<br />
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Bob stayed in paper machinery sales and engineering with ED Jones/Beloit Corporation then went to Bielomatic, a German enterprise and finally, Clark Aiken, Lee, MA, where he bought the business which he eventually sold to a German concern. Bob never really retired, always dabbling in some project or another. He and Aleva lived on Main Street, Stockbridge and were active in the community for over 40 years.<br />
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He thoroughly enjoyed his compatriots in the Monday Night Club, The Lenox Club, Monday Lunch Bunch, the Sweater Club and the Stockbridge Golf Club. He sang in the choir at his beloved First Congregational Church of Stockbridge for many years serving as Moderator and supported its varied causes.<br />
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He was predeceased by his parents and his sister, Jean Brickley, of Coronado, California.<br />
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Bob leaves behind a large, loving family; Wife Aleva, Children: Shelly (Ray); Lexington, MA; Jack, Stockbridge, MA; Chuck (Barb), Ithaca, NY; Sheryl (Bob), La Jolla, CA; Rob (Ali), West Linn, OR, 11 Grandchildren: Sarabeth, San Diego, CA; Kane, West Linn, OR; JB, Boston, MA; Shannon, Denver, CO; Annie, San Francisco, CA; Jessica, West Linn, OR; Eva, San Francisco, CA; Graeme, San Diego, CA; James, Los Angeles, CA; Rori, Ithaca, NY; Matthew Gabler, San Francisco, CA; Nephew, James Robert Brickley, Dana Point, CA; Niece, Joanne Brickley Conroy (James), Stockbridge, MA.<br />
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SERVICES: Celebration of Life to be held Friday, November 24th, 4 P.M., First Congregational Church of Stockbridge, 4 Main Street, Stockbridge, MA. Reception immediately following.<br />
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In lieu of flowers, please donate to a charity of your choice.<br />
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In life, Bob most loved his family, animals, the great outdoors, music and ice cream but nothing will compare to the love he had for Aleva.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-84054460868292600032017-07-10T17:58:00.000-04:002017-07-10T17:59:49.223-04:00Ethics: Our evolving understanding of animal rights<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nPCUJbuANxM/WWP3mimcREI/AAAAAAAADNI/LhWavTcGDdwwZ4MXdx154z4-QRJF9QFCQCLcBGAs/s1600/2593063816_9a4eaba16e_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nPCUJbuANxM/WWP3mimcREI/AAAAAAAADNI/LhWavTcGDdwwZ4MXdx154z4-QRJF9QFCQCLcBGAs/s640/2593063816_9a4eaba16e_z.jpg" width="580" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #666666;">Photo by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rick-in-rio/2593063816/in/photolist-4X98wQ-8gp6z9-4X4Qor-mDqU8-mDqnf-igWFeo-igWNTu-amgitj-bivvNZ-7fs5Rp-m8Qn-6nSMzC-823XLT-8LbTXA-mDru7-bP2MWP-7JgA5u-e3nkWe-6co1N9-dMheqg-5h17SJ-GgT2dp-dYdrBT-S1iy-dMhe4e-fjS3RW-8GzPNe-8GzQak-nf6Giw-JbZCDB-NLFs4u-JbZC2K-bivtue-8xapJA-3qgP1Q-nHWjuW-3qcgBR-81F96c-3qcfRB-3qgMrA-i2jMQW-3qgMSG-fft4LY-4X4Q9D-7GRyVU-dtd4oo-dtcSpD-fqwavJ-HfTb85-8xapP7">Rick Eh?</a> — Used under Creative Commons License</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<i>Presented to the Club on Monday evening, December 15, 2003 by William A. Selke</i><br />
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In May [2003], a letter appeared in <i>The Berkshire Eagle</i> as part of a continuing debate as to whether the Housatonic should be stocked with trout or with smallmouth bass. While other writers had argued about the sporting merits of the different breeds, and which fish would survive long enough to be caught, this letter spoke of the "standard of ethical treatment of the stocked trout." Then, a few weeks later, a letter appeared decrying the exploitation of animals in circuses, the writer identifying herself as a member of People for the ETHICAL Treatment of Animals. Was the re-appearance of that word, ethical, coincidence, or was it a manifestation of a vast animal rights conspiracy? This is a report of my findings. That key word, ethical, is defined as: "pertaining to or dealing with morals or the principles of morality: pertaining to right and wrong in conduct." The writers using it were presumably among a growing number who feel, deeply, what is moral and what is right-and-wrong in our relationships with other creatures. Their position has evolved over a considerable period, not steadily, but, it seems, in fits and starts.<br />
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Humane folk have probably always been kind to their own animals, and sometimes encouraged others to do the same. Concern about the mistreatment of livery horses led to the founding of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in England in 1824. Right-thinking Americans traveling in England noted the success of that organization, and copied it with the founding of the ASPCA shortly after.<br />
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Legal actions in that early period by Henry Berg, a pioneer animal welfare activist, were significant in themselves, but also foreshadowed the philosophical basis of the movement of today. With his urging, the state of New York enacted laws against cruelty to animals. Then in, in 1874, he successfully pressed for the prosecution of an offender. The animal that had been maltreated happened in this case to be a young boy! This incident lead to the formation of the SPCC. But what is significant in the present context is that the law, probably unintentionally, did not distinguish humans from other species as the animals to be protected.<br />
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While there was no defense for the starving of horses, some activists moved animal protection in a direction which was not generally acceptable. In Britain in 1975 a militant group founded the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection_ They immediately pushed through Parliament the Cruelty to Animals Act. Though at the time it looked as though the anti-vivisectionists had won, in retrospect, it was fortunate. It brought peace for a number of years to a troubling issue with an act which acknowledged the vital role animals must play in research and in education and is moderate and reasonable. It imposed strict standards, both for the value of the experiments being performed and for the avoidance of needless suffering by the animal, but laboratory practices adapted to them, and there have never been prosecutions under the act.<br />
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And so it was for more than half a century. But as medical research intensified in the mid-20th century, and the need grew to test pharmaceuticals, so did the criticism of the increased use of animals in the laboratories. Again the movement starts in England, but the methods used represented a sharp departure from those of the relatively civilized Victorian anti-vivisectionists. A group calling itself the Animal Liberation Front (ALS) took to raiding laboratories, sabotaging experiments, and, in 1972, settling fire to a Hoecht research facility. The leader — one Ronnie Lee — was sentenced to two years in prison for his part. In 1982, an American offshoot — calling itself the Band of Mercy — won the designation of "terrorist" from the FBI.<br />
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I recall visiting a cancer research laboratory near Harrogate, England in November in 1978. There was a strange sense of excitement. Workmen were finishing the installation of bars on the windows. Our host explained that several laboratories, including that one, had received warnings that they were to be attacked by protestors. A sign was prominently displayed at the front door reminiscent of those displayed in cars parked in Manhattan reading—"No radio in this car" This sign announced that there were no dogs or cats in the laboratory. Apparently, in the United Kingdom, the intensity of outrage among protestors would depend on the species of the animals whose wellbeing was threatened, with the strongest feelings being for dogs, followed — somewhat diminished — by children, other primates, cats, horses and, far down he list —rodents, which happened to be what were used in that lab. One would wonder how, if the ALF had attacked, the Syrian Golden Hamsters would have enjoyed being liberated in autumn in the West Riding of Yorkshire.<br />
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Animal welfare had become a rough game. The goals of these groups were very different from those of the SPCA and Humane Societies. Some of what was appearing was destructive, some seemed silly, and there did not appear to be a clear central principle behind these actions.<br />
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In the early seventies, books and papers were published postulating radically new structures of the relationship between humans and animals. In 1975, this lively discussion was crystallized with the publication by Peter Singer, an Australian, now professor of bioethics at Princeton of <i>Animal Liberation</i>, the book which appears to be the bible of the movement. In it, he offers an audacious philosophical basis for the entire field. He wrote that with black liberation, gay liberation and women's liberation, we might have thought we had come to the end of the road. But, "a liberation movement demands an expansion of our moral horizons, so that practices that were previously regarded as natural and inevitable are now seen as intolerable."<br />
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In the preface he writes: "This book is about the tyranny of human over nonhuman animals ... causing an amount of pain and suffering that can only be compared with that which resulted the tyranny of white humans over black humans." He decries the sharp difference in our regard for humans and for non-humans. He argues — or his style suggests that he reveals — that all sentient creatures should be treated equally, and that rights we regard as human rights belong to all animals — human and non-human. To set special standards for humans constitutes "speciesism," another unacceptable –ism. He extends protection to octopuses, for certain, and will include jellyfish if research shows them to be deserving. This principle leads to Singer's opposition to any use of animals as food, for entertainment, or as medical laboratory models.<br />
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Singer, who is said to approach any subject with "almost adolescently fierce purity," exhibits a certain consistency in applying the idea that humans should not be favored just for being members of that species. Invitations for him to speak at German universities were withdrawn when it was realized that he openly advocated euthanasia for humans who don't measure up, mentally. They saw this as uncomfortably similar to some of the policies of the Third Reich.<br />
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Most of us do make a sharp distinction between the rights we grant to humans and those for other species. Even though, by the latest calculation, 98.5 percent, of the DNA of chimpanzees is identical to ours — up from an earlier calculation of 94 percent — we employ chimps in medical research in ways unthinkable for humans.<br />
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Speciesism is, indeed, implicit in our ethical judgments. One of the scientific magazines recently told of an entrepreneurial biologist who thought there would be profit to be made with laboratory technique he was developing. He proposed that by uniting humans and chimpanzees in trans-species hybrids he would have a source of more acceptable replacement body parts than those harvested from pigs. He knows that this would not be countenanced on ethical grounds, but he gives, facetiously, as his reason for not proceeding with the business, that he feared being burdened legally to provide education — K through 12 — for such animals.<br />
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Singer clearly has honed his responses to what we might regard as flaws in his thinking. When it is pointed out that predators eat other animals, he excuses them on the basis of the digestive limitations of true carnivores. While nature may seem harsh, the zebra, eaten by the lion, suffers only in its dying moments. It thus has a much better life than the endless boredom and discomfort experienced by a pig in a factory farm.<br />
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He defends his not pressing for porcine suffrage. He acknowledges that Congress may direct the Department of Agriculture to take steps which influence the lives of pigs, but pigs have insufficient understanding of the platforms of the political parties for them to be able to vote in their own interest. Displaying that consistency for which he is notorious, he states that humans with limited understanding shouldn't be allowed to vote, either.<br />
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Singer's basic principle picks up all the old animal welfare issues, including that perennial — vegetarianism. It has had prominent exponents over the years — George Bernard Shaw, Percy Byshe Shelly, as well as, of course, Mohandas Ghandi. Members of my generation [Selke was born in 1922.] were likely to have known young people — perhaps among their own children — who adhered at least temporarily to the restrictions, usually through the influence of a contemporary. That influence in some cases seemed to reflect a reordering in importance of the two basic biological drives. In the public at large, avoidance of cholesterol may be of greater influence than concern for its source.<br />
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But it is not the eating of meat that Singer opposes most strongly, rather it is the practices of factory farms, where animals spend their whole short lives penned up, converting feed into saleable flesh. He is surprisingly tolerant of bull-fighting. Unlike beef steers, the fighting bulls enjoy a relatively free and happy life before they enter the ring, and there is always that chance that they can hook a horn into a deserving tormentor.<br />
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A baffling number of organizations were formed to bring the world into compliance with the ideal set forth by Singer, but one dominates all others, People for the Ethical Treatment of animals PETA (knowing no better, I'll pronounce the acronym with a long E, both because of the capitalization and because they are opposed to the keeping of pets.) [In 2003] PETA has a membership of 3/4 of a million and an annual budget of 10 million dollars.<br />
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Their prominent stands have polarized the public. During the current war, our Navy has been assisted by dolphins and sea lions in safely moving through the Persian Gulf, delivering humanitarian aid to the port of Umm Qasr. These creatures had been trained to find mines and mark them with buoys without coming in contact with them. Twenty-two mines have been detected and destroyed, sparing our vessels. The dolphins are paid 20 pounds of fish each day for their effort. PETA protested placing them in harm's way: the dolphins knew nothing of Iraq, or of Saddam Hussein, and they had not volunteered for that service. More troubling is PETA's raising of a similar objection to the guiding of blind people by dogs.<br />
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To influence an impressionable group, PETA has have set up a web-site, PETA Kids. It recently featured items on Tofurky for Thanksgiving, Vegan Candy, and an article on the Young Hero of the Month — a Nevada girl who saw her biology grade fall from A to C when she refused to dissect an earthworm. Her protests to the state legislature led to dissection becoming optional in her school.<br />
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The PETA Kids introduction to activism seems more that of a teenage celebrity fan-club than realistic training in influencing a government. They provided to their readers the mail address of the British Prince William — St. James's Palace — so that letters could be sent to him urging the outlawing of fox-hunting. It should be noted that the House of Commons had in June voted overwhelmingly against the sport.<br />
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The PETA Kids probably don't share my amusement by one of the listings Google provides when one searches for P-E-T-A. It is "PETA- People who Eat Tasty Animals."<br />
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PETA's annual campaign against the use of animals in circuses emphasizes the fact that non-human performers did not choose those jobs. Skeptics might point out that humans — especially young ones — don't have complete choice of their activities, either. In my childhood, piano lessons were imposed on the unwilling by denial of more pleasant activities — playing outside. It seems unlikely that this punitive approach would be effective for training seals. When they are learning to play "America" — or, in the U.K. learning "God Save the Queen" — surely they must be rewarded with fish. Incidentally, I've attended circuses in other lands, but they never featured the virtuoso skills of marine mammals — could it be that other cultures don't have a song which played arythmically would be widely recognized?<br />
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Some of PETAs actions seem deliberately confrontational. They petitioned the Florida Department of Education to ban milk drinks from school vending machines, reversing that welcome reform, the elimination of soft drinks. PETA urges die-hard meat-eaters to help save animals by scouring the streets for roadkill. They tout its nutritional benefits — no growth stimulants, no hormones, and none of the antibiotics present in the products of some factory farms.<br />
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What more appropriate basis for an ethical principle than the Bible, itself. A group called Fishing Hurts holds that Jesus probably was a vegetarian. They state that he would not fall outside the technical definition of vegetarian by multiplying pieces of fish which were already dead, to feed people who aren't opposed to eating fish. They then state that pre-Gospel account of the miracle mention only bread, as does Jesus himself, as quoted in Mathew, Mark and John. They suggest that fish was added by Greek scribes because, as you recall, the Greek word <i>ixous</i> is the acronym for Jesus Christ Son of God Savior. But was Jesus really a vegetarian? Leonardo didn't show any meat on that long table, and the Gospels make no mention of his eating meat until after the Resurrection, and Fishing Hurts suggests that the accuracy of that observation may not be correct.<br />
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PETA didn't reach its position among the many organizations dedicated to animal welfare without some aggressive actions, including a corporate "hostile takeover" which would be admired in a field without the principles we expect in non-profit organizations. The New England Anti-Vivisection Society had an endowment of $8 million dollars. PETA bought 300 voting memberships at $10 each, paid plane fare for members to attend an annual meeting, and ended up the owner. [Editor’s note: If this effort actually took place, it apparently did not succeed. The New England Anti-Vivisection Society is still in business and still has assets worth about $8 million according to their federal Form 990 filed annually.<br />
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PETA acknowledges its instigation of some attacks on medical research laboratories. In a New York Times. interview, Alex Pacheo, its cofounder, paraphrased Barry Goldwater, saying, "Arson, property destruction, burglary and theft are acceptable crimes when used for the animal cause."<br />
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In the public relations war, they started on some soft targets. Cosmetic companies checked new products for potential irritation with what is called the Draize test in which the products being tested — mascaras, eye shadows — were placed in rabbits’ eyes and the irritation observed for four days. The sympathy that PETA was able to generate with pictures of sweet-looking , unhappy bunnies being used for such frivolous purposes generated anger which was spread against more serious studies.<br />
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PETA provides unpublicized support for the ALF, the British group of terrorists, which has announced that its intention is to "economically sabotage the industries of animal exploitaton". Over $45,000 of contributions to PETA by animal lovers was used in the legal defense of one Rodney Coronado, on trial for fire bombing a medical research facility. He was convicted and spent more than four years in prison. ALF burglarized laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania where work was done on head injuries, taking six years of data and vandalizing equipment. When a U of Penn veterinarian not associated with the project spoke in its defense, his office was vandalized. PETA announced that it was "an example to persuade other vivisectionists that it doesn't pay off."<br />
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The outlandishness of some of the program of animal liberation is merely entertaining. Citizens were little inconvenienced when the governments of seven states decreed that, henceforth, the purchaser of a dog license is designated the dog's guardian, not its owner. But some see Singer, PETA and their like thinkers as serious threats to our society. One who has sounded the alarm is Kathleen Marquart, founder of PPF, Putting People First, and author of the rather shrill and angry tract, "Animal Scam.” She writes "Though clothed in the moral armor of self-righteousness, animal rights activists show contempt for the lives of people."<br />
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She takes no issue with the traditional animal welfare groups, such as the Humane Society and the ASPCA, but warns that unless we resist current trends, medical research will suffer, there will be no guide dogs for the blind, and that untrapped rats will bring back the bubonic plague.<br />
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She presents a frightening list of violent acts against medical researchers by a cluster of organizations. In 1981, Fran Trait, of Trans-Species Unlimited (TSU) was convicted of the attempted murder of US Surgical president, Leon Hirsh. ALF took 1000 animals from the University of California-Riverside and damaged computers. They took 264 animals from the University of Oregon. IDA — In Defense of Animals — was linked to threats against 40 university presidents. Northwestern had to provide a bodyguard for a professor of neurobiology. The head of the psychology department at the University of North Carolina received a letter saying "Your brain and your wife's brain will be burned and drilled like you are doing to our lovely animals." All together, over 100 incidents have been reported. These demonstrations and threats have cost medical schools $4.5 million and 33,000 labor hours over five years.<br />
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Marquart strongly objects to the Massachusetts law of 1987 which prohibits the release of cats or dogs from pounds except for adoption or return to owner. As an argument for its repeal, she cites the IIFAR — Incurably Ill for Animal Research — finding that the annual national use of 104,000 dogs and 50,000 cats from pounds saves $80 million over breeding them for the purpose. <br />
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She scoffs at any of the <i>betes noirs</i> of the PETA crowd. Rodeos cause an injury rate for calves of only 0.5 percent, less than that of cowboys. She holds that the Eco-dykes are wasting their time protesting against lesbian rodeos. In defense of circuses, she points out that it wouldn't make good sense for owners to endanger animals in which they have much invested. Those animals have a good life, working only 15 to 30 minutes a day, and in the circuses animals live 60 percent longer than the same species does in the wild. Further, she states, circuses help the local economy, advertising in the paper, hiring security personnel and buying from local merchants. These were the reasons not to close down the contaminated spring in Ibsen's <i>Enemy of the People</i>.<br />
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Apparently not all Marquart's readers share her views. She stated that the liberationists claim that Adam and Eve wore fig leaves, but, in fact, God clothed them in animal skins. (In the margin of the page in the library copy I consulted, in bold strokes, was written, "Must Check" — now that there isn't a checkout card in the back of a book so without [U.S. Attorney General John] Ashcroft's help, there is no way to guess the identity of the skeptic. Really, the principal reason to miss those cards is that here could be no better recommendation than seeing that [fellow Club member] Jack Spencer had read a book already.) [<i>Editor's Note: The Bible verse in question, Genesis 3:21, reads: “And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife, garments of skins, and clothed them.”</i>]<br />
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Is the animal liberation movement, especially Singer's prohibition against favoring our own species, likely to bring about any lasting changes in our world? Moral philosophers hold that the chief test to be applied to any ethical system is to ask if it can be harmonized with what is called common-sense ethics, i.e., with those ethical judgments which, at our best, we feel constrained make, apart from philosophical argument, in our ordinary ethical thinking. In short, are people buying it?<br />
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One change we see, even if not wholly in accord with Singer's goals, is the widespread increase of expenditure on pets, lavish even in the new climate of affluence. Two aspects of this trend seem in accord with the blurring — indeed, the elimination — of distinction between people and their pets, or, as we have learned to say, between companions of different species.<br />
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First are the new standards of medical and surgical care. In earlier times, when pets became ill, the vet either cured the beloved swiftly and inexpensively, or told the "custodian" that Waggles had to be put down. A recent article in <i>The New Yorker </i>told of a kidney transplant operation performed on a formerly stray cat at the Animal Medical Center in the upper east side in New York . Noteworthy is the fact that the owners (there goes that improper word) of the cat were not wealthy, but they were paying over $5,000 out of their annual family income of less than $50,000 And this for a cat. On my aunt's farm, where I spent many months of my pre-teen summers, a dozen or so nameless barn dwellers earned an occasional dish of milk to supplement their diet of rodents. None of these was ever attended by a vet. For that matter, I'm not sure that any of the three house cats — Whitey, Speed, or Rico — who loitered all day, nibbling at their canned salmon, would ever receive professional attention. I should note that in later years I wondered how and why those three enjoyed the privilege denied the barn cats — surely they weren't the offspring of a feline Sally Hemmings.<br />
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<i>Newsweek</i> reported that the average household spent $257 for veterinary care of its dogs in 2001, a 95 percent increase from 1991. This reflects big spending at the likes of the Center for Specialized Veterinary Care in Westbury, L.I., where brain tumor surgery costs $1,650 and corneal transplants $812.<br />
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The second innovation is the emphasis on the psychological needs of pets — fulfillment. People see their pets as family members, complete with psychological lives and complexities. America has enriched its children generously with soccer and ballet and computer camp. It follows that dogs, too, should have every chance at fulfillment. In his book, <i>Twelve Months, Four Dogs and Me</i>, Jon Katz tells how each week he drives a couple hundred miles so that his border collies can embrace their destiny, herding sheep at a farm. He states that when he is there, scores of people show up with all sorts of dogs, from avid herding breeds to bewildered mutts. Their owners are all eager to permit them to exercise their atavism. Many owners feel guilty about not doing enough. One woman e-mailed the author: "Is it OK to have a dog and still go to work?” Dog day-care centers have sprung up so that owners can go to work feeling that Max or Maggie enjoy sufficient exercise, stimulation and companionship.<br />
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Another area of change is factory farming, and it is inconceivable that these changes will ever be reversed. Surprisingly, Europe has had standards more strict than American practice, and they seem likely to stay ahead of us in this regard. In the European Union, the sizes of cages for laying hens will be increased to 120 square inches, with a perch and a box to lay their eggs, by 2012. In the US, there are no regulations, yet, and the average space is 48 square inches — half the area of an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper. In a voluntary move, McDonald's has increased the standard for its suppliers 50 percent to 72 square inches. Burger King and Wendy's followed. Under pressure from PeTA, KFC has pledged to increase by 30 percent the space for each of the 350 million chickens they use each year. Penning of calves and an iron-free diet, already illegal in the UK, will be illegal in all of Europe by 2007, so veal will be less tender and less white. The flap about serving <i>fois gras</i> at Tanglewood was repeated across the country, so what is the future for an expensive delicacy if it is not politically correct? Those California farmhands who twice each day hold the open the beaks of each goose while dispensing a pint of gruel from a power hose should begin looking for new employment. This despite the appearance in California of tee-shirts saying "fight tofu abuse, eat <i>fois gras</i>."<br />
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It is likely that those using animals in research and in medical testing will continue to do so because there are not satisfactory alternatives. The importance of animals in research was underlined when Cambridge University announced that, despite protests by animal rights groups, a $50 million laboratory will be built on University land. There, primates will be used in studies of neuroscience, seeking understanding of the role of the brain's frontal lobes, leading, it is hoped, to new treatments for Alzheimers and Parkinson's diseases. Primates, unlike other laboratory animals, have frontal lobes similar to ours, and a highly developed cerebral cortex, and are essential for success of this research It had been proposed that the laboratory be located at the military facility, Porton Down, for protection against protestors. But the University finally decided that the planned research program is so important that it should not be hidden away.<br />
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Even though Mr. Blair upset party members by removing reference to fox hunting from the Queen's annual speech, Commons will probably override the current resistance in Lords and that sport — witheringly described by Oscar Wilde as the unmentionable in full pursuit of the inedible" — will be seen only on Masterpiece Theatre.<br />
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And so, although few may accept Singer's basic proposal — that humans shouldn't favor themselves at all— some of the ramifications of that principle seem to be part of out new ethos.<br />
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In recent years, aspirants to elected office have first had to avoid being charged with racism. Then, as half our population has been granted fuller rights, there was the additional requirement of abjuring sexism. If the animal liberation movement is successful, a third practice will have to be avoided: speciesism. It will be entertaining to see how candidates pander on that issue.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-89026857684275326372017-06-01T13:54:00.001-04:002019-09-04T20:26:18.918-04:00Van Gogh's Irises: How much is a painting worth?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w-Djvh-kQTs/WTBUHAriDrI/AAAAAAAADKo/fMjX_OCy_iQ-rMRume562Z6Sp-lVnUzgwCLcB/s1600/irises.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="789" data-original-width="1000" height="456" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w-Djvh-kQTs/WTBUHAriDrI/AAAAAAAADKo/fMjX_OCy_iQ-rMRume562Z6Sp-lVnUzgwCLcB/s400/irises.jpg" width="580" /></a></div>
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<i>Presented to the Club by David T. Noyes in December 1988</i></div>
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I would like to ask you to think about the items on the
following list. Can you identify what they have in common?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">Two
F-16 fighter jets<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">The
Town of West Stockbridge, Mass.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">3,448
Williams College students<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">the
largest private estate in the United States — the 250 room Biltmore House
on 12,000 acres in Ashville, N.C.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">The
City of Pittsfield<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">The
entire world’s mining production of mercury for one year<o:p></o:p></li>
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We’ll come back to this list in a moment.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A little over a year ago, on November 11, 1987, the art
auction house of Sotheby’s in New York City auctioned a painting depicting a
garden of blue irises painted in 1889 by Vincent Van Gogh. It was lot number
twenty-five in a ninety-four piece evening. A crowd of 2,300 people had
gathered in the cramped bidding room with intense anticipation; and at 7:55
p.m., Irises was brought on stage. The bidding started at fifteen million
dollars. At thirty million, only two bidders remained. The price then passed
forty million, the previous highest price paid for any painting. The bidding
finally concluded at forty-nine million dollars. The total elapsed time: three
minutes, thirty seconds! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Including the
ten percent buyer’s commission, the total price came to fifty-three million
dollars, or in real money — eight billion yen!</div>
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<a name='more'></a> <span style="font-size: 12pt;">Now, let’s get back to the list. That same fifty-four
million dollars could buy or support any one of those items. That is: the two
fighter planes; the appraised value of all the property for the town of West
Stockbridge; room, board and tuition for 3,448 Williams College students; the
Biltmore House; the municipal budget for the City of Pittsfield for one year;
or one year’s supply of mercury.</span><br />
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How did the painting come to be available? It was owned by
John Whitney Payson, who inherited it from his mother, Joan Payson. Mrs.
Payson, perhaps best known as the owner of the New York Mets, had purchased
Irises in 1947 for $84,000 — not a small sum in those days — and kept it in a
treasured place above the fireplace mantel in her New York apartment. When she
died in 1975, John Payson made it the centerpiece of the Joan Whitney Payson
Gallery of Art at Westbrook College in Maine. The appraised value at that time
was less than one million dollars. But, as the cost of insurance soared, he
felt he had less ability to support the college and other charities. In
addition, the change in the tax laws permitted only a deduction for the
original cost of the charitably donated property. Thus, he decided to sell
rather that donate the painting to Westbrook.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Not everyone was happy with the decision. Art critic Edgar
Beem had called Irises “the only world class painting in the entire state of
Maine.” He went on to say, “the rich are the custodians of culture, and we get
what they give us. I’m not sure how to change that, but they are not to be
applauded." Beem suggests that Payson’s choice to liquidate an asset already
provisionally installed in the public domain, represents a significant loss to
the public and is not recoverable. In fact, of the four Van Gogh paintings sold
at action last year, only one is currently accessible.<o:p></o:p></div>
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To prepare for the sale, Irises was exhibited in Tokyo, New
York, London, Geneva, and Zurich. The painting travelled seventeen thousand five
hundred miles in four weeks at an estimated cost of five hundred thousand
dollars. Advertising was used extensively. John Rewald, the reigning scholar on
Impressionism, was quoted as saying, “If a museum could have one painting by
Van Gogh, Irises is what it should get.” He described the coloration as “an
incredible tour de force”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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None of the experts was prepared for what happened that
evening. David Nash, Sotheby’s director of fine arts, expected Irises to bring
between twenty and forty million. He felt it was superior because of its unique
composition rather that being one of a series of canvasses. Philippe de
Montebello, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said: “I feel like
a fossil awakened in another era. The commission alone exceeds the Metropolitan’s
total art purchase funds. I feel so removed from the phenomenon, I can only
watch in amazement”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The financial precedent had been set by the sale of three
Van Gogh paintings during the previous nine months. Portrait of Adeline Ravoux
sold for thirteen and three quarters million dollars; The Bridge at
Trinquetaille for twenty million; and the previous record holder, Sunflowers,
for thirty nine million, nine hundred thousand dollars. The price for the Sunflowers
painting, also completed in 1889, had been felt to be an aberration. It was one
of a series of seven Sunflower paintings and this particular one was not in
good condition. Its yellows had lost much of their original intensity. However,
Yasuda Fire and Marine Insurance Co., the eventual high bidder for Sunflowers,
had a special interest in purchasing the painting. Van Gogh had considered
Japan the site of Utopian culture and had admired Japanese wood-block prints. Furthermore,
Sunflowers had been painted in the same year that Yasuda was founded. Perhaps
they were trying to restore a sense of national heritage, since another
Sunflowers painting had been destroyed by the bombing of Yokohama during World
War II. The sale of Irises, however, proved the price to be no fluke.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Why do we have such fascination with Van Gogh? He was born
in Holland, the son of a minister. At age sixteen, he began working for his
uncle, who was an art dealer in Hague. Shortly after his transfer to the firm’s
London office at the age of twenty, he was fired. Two years later, he entered
missionary school but was expelled for sassing a teacher. At the age of
twenty-seven, he took up painting and began by depicting coal miners and
peasants in his native Holland. Vincent moved to Paris to live with his brother
Theo at the age of thirty-three in 1886. He frequented Julien-Francois Tanguy’s
paint shop, which had become a meeting place for a whole generation of young
artists. Van Gogh then moved to Arles in the south of France with the hope of
starting an artist’s colony. This dream was destroyed when, in 1888, Gauguin
left after only two months. They were both fiercely competitive men who drank,
whored, and argued. The final straw for Gauguin apparently occurred on
Christmas Eve, 1888, when Van Gogh cut off part of his left ear.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It was after this episode that Van Gogh was hospitalized off
and on. The final fifteen months of his life were the only ones spent in
asylums. First, in Saint-Remy, which still exists as a private mental hospital
and where descendants of these Irises still thrive! Finally, in Auvers-sur-Oise
where, on a beautiful summer day, he walked out into a wheat field, set his
easel against a haystack, and proceeded to shoot himself in the side. As you
might guess from his lifetime of failures, he missed any vital organ. He
dragged himself back to his attic room and lingered in pain for two days before
dying at the age of thirty-seven. He had sold only one of his paintings, and
that for a small sum which he immediately gave to a streetwalker for a meal. All
his support, even the money to buy his paints, had come from his brother, Theo.
Fortunately for posterity, Theo’s wife kept all Vincent’s letters (some twelve
hundred pages), paintings, and drawings.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Forget the notion that Van Gogh’s paintings were “mad.” Whatever
his illness may have been — and epilepsy seems to be the most probable, whether
exacerbated by absinthe, glaucoma, digitalis poisoning, or syphilis — the fact is
that it did not directly affect his work. A typical series of attacks lasted
from two weeks to a month. It must be emphasized that between these attacks he
had long periods of absolute lucidity where he was complete master of himself
and his art. He categorized his work describing handling, color, and design;
this allows us to understand his intentions more clearly that those of any
other impressionist.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is generally acknowledged that Van Gogh changed the face
of art. Unlike impressionists who painted pretty pictures in delicate colors
with fine brush strokes, Van Gogh used violent strokes to lay on thick layers of
intense color. Quoting from one of his letters: “I am always in the hope of
making a discovery then, to express the love of two lovers by a wedding of two
complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious
vibrations of kindred tones. To express thought of a brow by the radiance of a
light tone against a somber background. To express hope by some star, the
eagerness of a soul by a sunset radiance.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Monet once remarked: “How did a man who loved flowers and
light to such an extent and rendered them so well, how then did he still manage
to be so unhappy?” Picasso once wrote: “Why do the Dutch mourn Rembrandt, they
have Van Gogh?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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What, then, of the Van Gogh legend? His lack of success in
his own day, his high minded principles about art exhibitions and sales in the
face of today’s embarrassment of riches, his sympathy for the poor and working
class — these go largely unmentioned. What does surface is a fascination with
sensational prices and with the art market as theatre. The pictures are
eclipsed not by the terms of the Van Gogh legend but by the behaviors they inspire
in the international works of private fortune. Consider these comments Vincent
wrote to his brother Theo in June 1890, just one month before he died. “I think
that all the talk of high prices paid for Millets, etc., lately has made the
chances of merely getting back one’s painting expenses even worse. It is enough
to make you dizzy. So, why think about it? — it would only daze our minds. Better,
perhaps, to seek a little friendship and live from day to day.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Epilogue [from Wikipedia]: About three years after the 1987 sale, Irises was sold for $53.9 million to Australian businessman Alan Bond, but Bond did not have enough money to pay for it. Irises was later re-sold in 1990 to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where it remains. Irises is currently (as of 2012) tenth on the inflation-adjusted list of most expensive paintings ever sold and in 25th place if the effects of inflation are ignored.</i></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-20089542291600223012017-03-14T16:50:00.002-04:002017-03-14T16:50:32.717-04:00John Haines "Jack" Spencer Jr., 1936-2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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By Derek Gentile, The Berkshire Eagle<br />
<br />
STOCKBRIDGE — John H. Spencer Jr. was a longtime public servant in his adopted town of Stockbridge, but his greatest impact came as an educator and mentor to hundreds of students over the years, friends and colleagues said on Tuesday.<br />
<br />
"He literally hired the first history department at Monument Mountain Regional High school," said his fellow teacher and longtime friend John A. Beacco Jr. "He led in developing a unique ninth-grade course. As a department head, he mentored me, Roselle Chartock, Terry Flynn and Bill Fields, as well as many others."<br />
<br />
Spencer died early Sunday at age 80.<br />
<br />
He was the longtime chairman of the Stockbridge Planning Board, as well as the Zoning Board of Appeals. He was also the longtime president and member of the board of trustees for the Stockbridge Library Association.<br />
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He was one of the founders of the Fund For Excellence at the Berkshire Hills Regional School District, and was also a member of Student Center Inc., which supported student activities at Monument.<br />
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Beacco said he and Spencer had "almost parallel careers. We graduated from Amherst six years apart, both taught at the former Williams High school and at Monument Mountain and both worked in the history department."<br />
<br />
He called Spencer a "superb" high school teacher.<br />
<br />
There was no one better at asking questions and leading students to decide for themselves, he said.<br />
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"Rote," Beacco said, "was not rewarded and humor was encouraged."<br />
<br />
Terry Flynn echoed those sentiments.<br />
<br />
"He was very much into helping kids find their own path," he said. "His life's work was to affirm people."<br />
<br />
Spencer was very much invested in his students — even after they graduated.<br />
<br />
"He kept tabs on them long after they left Monument," Flynn said. "He would hear of one of his students doing something, say, giving a violin concert somewhere, and he'd call me and say, 'Do you want to come with me and see this?' He was very supportive of all his students."<br />
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"He invested much time and energy in every student he taught," agreed a former student, Patricia Vincent. "He was a wonderful teacher who made every student think and challenge previously unquestioned notions."<br />
<br />
Spencer headed the creation of a program about the Holocaust that was, Flynn said, one of the first in the country.<br />
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He was, said fellow Planner Gary Pitney, equally as facile in town politics.<br />
<br />
"I remember when I was named chairman of the Planning Board," Pitney said. "I stopped by his house and just talked with him for hours. He was such a great source of information."<br />
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"Jack was such a big part of our town," said former Town Clerk and Town Administrator Jorja-Ann P. Marsden. "He was involved in so many facets of the town. And he was a wonderful man."<br />
<br />
"He had a way of listening to a variety of ideas and collating them into one thought," Pitney said. "And then making it all make sense."<br />
<br />
"When he was on the Planning Board, he wrote most of the town's zoning bylaws and master plan," Beacco said.<br />
<br />
Beacco recalled that he often met with Spencer when both were chairmen of their respective boards; Beacco on the Select Board, Spencer on the Planning Board.<br />
<br />
"We wanted to make sure we knew what each other was thinking," Beacco said. "I respected his opinions."<br />
<br />
Interestingly, Beacco saod, both men were opposed to the move of the Norman Rockwell Museum from Main Street to its present site in Glendale.<br />
<br />
"But," he said, "we both agreed that the move worked out."<br />
<br />
Spencer was born in Adams in 1936, near the apex of the town's emergence as a regional high school basketball power. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of the players and teems of that era.<br />
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"Adams was near and dear to his heart," said his daughter, Ann Marie Miller. "He was very fond of Adams until the day he died."<br />
<br />
Spencer met his wife, the former Judith Leahy, while both were teaching at Williams.High School in Stockbridge. In 1965, they married.<br />
<br />
Judith Spencer, who died in 2011, was herself an activist and an accomplished teacher. They were husband and wife, best friends, and partners in civic service for more than 50 years.<br />
____________________<br />
<br />
Family obituary:<br />
<br />
On Sunday, February 19, 2017, John Haines Spencer, Jr. passed away. And the world will never be the same.<br />
<br />
Born September 15, 1936 to John Haines Spencer and Pauline Simmons Spencer, Jack was raised in Adams, Massachusetts. After graduating from Williston Prep School and Amherst College, he received a Masters in Education from Purdue University. While teaching at Williams High School in Stockbridge, he had the good fortune to meet and fall in love with Social Studies teacher Judith Leahey. On February 20, 1965, he had the good sense to marry her and continue a love affair that spanned more than fifty years.<br />
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Mr. Spencer was an educator for 47 years. He taught Social Studies at Williams High School and Monument Mountain Regional High School and was Principal of Searles Middle School. He encouraged students to be conscious seekers and doers, to be disturbers of the universe. He was chair of the Monument Social Studies department from its inception in 1967. The department created the first Holocaust curriculum for high school students in the country. Jack and Roselle Chartock coedited the anthology that came out of that curriculum.<br />
<br />
Jack had a love of Stockbridge and its citizens, community activism and participation in government. He served on numerous committees and boards, including the Stockbridge Planning Board (chairman) and Zone of Appeals, The Stockbridge Library (president and member of the Board of Trustees), The Fund for Excellence and School Center, Inc. He was instrumental in writing the zoning bylaws for Stockbridge.<br />
<br />
Jack is survived by daughters Ann Marie (Scott) Miller, Kathy (Fred) Erickson, sisters Judy Burbank and Cyndie Spencer (Denny Lund), Pat and Buz Hanley, Mike and Sally Leahey, Fred Wigge an exchange student who became part of the family, grandchildren Eric, Kristen and Amanda Miller and Emily Erickson, many close cousins, nieces and nephews and grand nieces and nephews, the lucky 13 and generations of well-educated students, an astounding number of loving friends and a grateful community.<br />
<br />
He is predeceased by his parents Haines, Pauline and Louise Spencer, his wonderful wife Judy, and his step-mother Pat Swann.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-11598001946228347082017-03-14T14:33:00.001-04:002017-03-14T14:50:46.802-04:00The Most Interesting American: What turned a Theodore Roosevelt skeptic into a fan <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><br /></i>
<i>Presented to the Club by Roger Linscott in 1959.</i><br />
<br />
“The most interesting American” is a phrase which Julian Street employed shortly after the turn of this [20th] century to describe President Theodore Roosevelt. It was a description that echoed the sentiments of the vast majority of Americans of the day — but perhaps it is not the most apt title I could have selected for tonight’s paper. Perhaps I should have entitled it “The Conversion of a Skeptic.” The skeptic in this case is — or rather was — myself.<br />
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The year 1958 was, as most of you know, the centennial of Theodore Roosevelt’s birth. Early in the year I was commissioned to do the bulk of the research for a new and as yet unpublished life and times of Roosevelt* — an assignment I undertook, quite frankly, for the money rather than out of any great enthusiasm for the subject. I had, when I started, what might be termed the intellectually fashionable viewpoint toward TR — in sum, a highly critical viewpoint, conditioned by a cynical age in which many of the values that he represented have lost their luster. My picture of him was an unflattering caricature — the caricature of a self-righteous and opinionated political adolescent — a somewhat bogus reformer who made loud noises but produced few tangible results — a bumptious swaggerer who conducted diplomacy with a big stick and disobeyed his own injunctions to walk softly while doing so — a jingo who had an almost psychopathic preoccupation with physical courage and with the glories of the battlefield. It was the comic opera caricature of the rather stout and bespectacled Teddy, sword in hand and medals in mind, rushing recklessly up San Juan Hill at the head of his unmounted Rough Riders.<br />
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From this skeptical starting point I immersed myself in the life and times of Theodore Roosevelt. Over a period of four months I spent eight hours a day with him and often more. I read perhaps 40 to 50 books by and about him (without, I might add, covering the bibliography very thoroughly). In a very small way — and within the limitations imposed by essentially secondary sources — I became, I suppose, something of an authority on Roosevelt. And in the process, I became —slowly, reservedly, begrudgingly, but indubitably — an admirer or Roosevelt as well.<br />
<br />
This statement needs a little qualification. In the course of becoming a convert to the cause of Teddy, I nonetheless found that my initial skepticism was not wholly unfounded. He <i>was</i> a swaggerer upon occasion. He <i>was</i> a reformer who often talked a better battle than he fought. He <i>was</i> at times a bully in foreign policy — most notably, of course, when he responded to Latin-American high-handedness with even greater high-handedness by virtually seizing the Isthmus of Panama from a defenseless Columbian government in order to build his cherished canal. He <i>was</i> a man of violent prejudices, whose almost unlimited capacity for self-righteousness often led him into savage and unfair attacks upon those with whom he differed. He <i>was</i> almost childlike in his life-long love for military adventure and battlefield derring-do.<br />
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He was all of these things, but he was much, much more besides. And even his faults have a way of canceling themselves out when his life is viewed as a whole and the final accounts are cast. The TR who shouted for blood in the Spanish-American War and brandished the big stick in Panama was nevertheless the same TR who negotiated an end to the Russo-Japanese War almost single-hand and became the first American ever to win a Nobel Prize for peace. The TR whose bark was so often much worse than his bite when it came to dealing with the depredations of the Wall Street speculators and the robber barons of industry was nevertheless the same TR who performed the enormous service of making social reform respectable by wresting its banners from the relatively incompetent and irresponsible hands of William Jennings Bryan and the Populists. And the TR who endlessly preached the virtues of intense nationalism and the manly glories of the battlefield was the same TR who (in contrast to many another super-patriot) at least had the consistency to translate his preachings into heroic practice on the firing line when the opportunity presented itself.<br />
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But to me, as to more thorough students of Theodore Roosevelt’s life and works, the truly awesome thing about him — the quality that seems far more striking than his achievements as statesman and soldier — was his incredible combination of physical energy and intellectual versatility. It is on this aspect of the man, not his politics, that I want to focus tonight. Roosevelt’s public policies shaped our national development and projected us into a new role in world affairs; yet they were only one measure of a personality that was unique in its time and, indeed, in American history. No president, Jefferson included, rivaled TR’s diversity of interests; and none made a deeper impress on the outlook and opinions of his contemporaries. “Roosevelt, more than any other man living within the range of notoriety,” wrote Henry Adams, “showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter — the quality that medieval theology assigned to God — he was pure act.”<br />
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He was “pure act” not only in politics but in a score of other fields as well. To a public conditioned by relatively colorless presidents like McKinley, who preceded him, Roosevelt seemed to have opinions on every subject under the sun and an extraordinary flair for expressing them forcefully. As one national magazine summed it up midway through his presidency: “The scrapes he gets into, the scrapes he gets out of; the things he attempts, the things he accomplishes; his appointments and his disappointments; the rebukes that he administers and those he receives; his assumptions, presumptions, omnisciences and deficiencies, make up a daily tale which those of us who survive his tenure of the presidential office will miss as we might miss some property of the atmosphere we breathe.” Visitors to the White House or at Sagamore Hill, the Roosevelt “summer White House” on Long Island, marveled at the man’s zest for life and at the fluency with which he seemed able to discuss almost any subject under the sun. John Morley, the British historian who made a pilgrimage to the White House in 1904, expressed a typical foreign reaction when he remarked: “The two things in America which seem to me the most extraordinary are Niagara Falls and President Roosevelt.” Viscount Lee [Arthur Hamilton Lee, 1st Viscount Lee of Fareham, British military attaché with the United States Army in Cuba during the Spanish–American War], another British visitor, remarked that “whether the subject of the moment was political economy, the Greek drama, tropical flora and fauna, the Irish sagas, protective coloration in nature, metaphysics, the technique of football, or post-futurist painting, Roosevelt was equally at home with the experts and drew out the best that was in them.” Rudyard Kipling, a frequent White House visitor, recalled evenings in which Roosevelt talked while “I sat curled up in the seat opposite, and listened and wondered until the universe seemed to be spinning round and Theodore was the spinner.”<br />
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There was almost literally no field or knowledge outside of Roosevelt’s ken. While still an undergraduate at Harvard he had written the bulk of his naval history of the War of 1812, which is still a useful reference work. During his lifetime, he published some two dozen books on a wide variety of subject ranging from ornithological tracts to biographies of Cromwell and Thomas Hart Benton, from accounts of his hunting trips in the Rockies and in Africa to his magnum opus, <i>The Winning of the West</i>, a panoramic history of the American frontier. He was a prolific contributor to periodicals of all sorts, even during his busy years in the White House, and he made a practice of reading at least five books a week throughout his life. His famous “Pigskin Library” of special favorites ranging from the Greek dramatists and Gibbons to French poetry and the nineteenth century Russian novelists went with him into the wilds of Africa and the jungles of the Amazon.<br />
<br />
And the extraordinary thing about this was that his knowledge was not only broad but deep. He was an authority of real standing not only on this history of the American frontier but on the history of Central Europe as well. He was generally conceded to be the world’s Number 1 authority on the big game animals of North America, as well as on several species of American songbirds. Although he disparaged his linguistic abilities, he was able to speak and read in French, German and Italian with competence. And he was not only a devoted reader of poetry but a patron of it as well. Probably the only time in his career that he flaunted the principles of civil service was when he insisted upon giving Edward Arlington Robinson, then an unknown and utterly impoverished young poet, a $2,000-a-year post in the Treasury Department with specific instructions that “I expect you to think poetry first and Treasury second.”<br />
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This restlessness of intellect imparted a remarkable test to American life during Roosevelt’s years in the White House. He not only read books and periodicals omnivorously but commented upon them publicly and freely. Writers who spoke critically of him were likely to receive long letters of rebuttal from the President himself; authors whose work struck his fancy often as not were invited to the White House to discuss their ideas further. Artists, sculptors, scientists, and scholars joined the politicians and ex-Rough Riders and big game hunters at the Roosevelt table; and the President could more than hold his own with any of them. “I am delighted to show any courtesy to Pierpont Morgan or Andrew Carnegie or James J. Hill,” the President once remarked in explaining his guest lists, “but as for regarding any one of them as, for instance, I regard Professor [John Bagnell] Bury [Irish classical scholar], or Peary the Arctic explorer, or [James Ford] Rhodes the historian — why I could not force myself to do it even if I wanted to, which I don’t.” He was in this respect the perfect aristocrat. Mere money-making, beyond the point required to ensure a reasonable share of life’s comforts, he regarded as vulgar and corrupting. For the man who spent his life accumulating wealth, Roosevelt felt nothing but contempt. For the man who spent it accumulating knowledge, he felt a reverent kinship.<br />
<br />
The breadth of Roosevelt’s interests and associations was reflected in his speaking and his writing. On occasion, he could be, and was, movingly eloquent. But he also had an unsurpassed flair for the colorful phrase and the striking simile. It was he who gave us such terms as “malefactors of great wealth” and “the lunatic fringe” and “the square deal.” It was he who applied (somewhat unfairly) the term muck-rakers to the journalists of his day who were exposing corruption in politics and business. During the Panama crisis he said that making an agreement with the Columbians was as impossible as “nailing jelly to a wall”; and when, as vice president, he felt that McKinley was backing away from war with Spain he declared privately that the President had “the backbone of a chocolate éclair.” Of Bryan, the “Boy Orator of the River Platte,” Roosevelt said: “He is a professional yodeler — a human trombone,” though he later became somewhat more charitable and described Bryan as “a good-hearted man of precisely the temperament best fitted to make a success as a barker for patent medicine.”<br />
<br />
The White House,” Roosevelt once remarked, is a “bully pulpit.”** But the preaching he did from his pulpit was not limited to political matters. He preached the virtues of simplified spelling, though Congress indignantly rebelled when he ordered the Government Printing Office to adopt such phonetic changes as “tho” for “though” and “thru” for “through.” He preached with equal vigor against what he labeled the “nature fakers,” who wrote what purported to be factual books and articles attributing human emotions and reasoning powers to animals; and when he finally was persuaded that a President should not engage in public controversy on such a minor matter he cut off the debate by declaring that for a competent naturalist to argue with the nature fakers was “as senseless as it would be for professional anthropologist to engage in polemics with the fabricators of the Cardiff giant.” From the White House pulpit, Roosevelt also preached the doctrine of the strenuous life, with daily demonstrations to the delight of the public and cartoonists. And he preached the virtues of large families and the sacredness of the American home.<br />
<br />
In all these matters Roosevelt assiduously practiced what he preached, and nowhere was this more evident than in his family life, which was a separate and hallowed compartment of his existence. “I have the happiest home life of any man I have ever known,” he once wrote, and he regarded this as perhaps the greatest achievement of his career. In most areas of his life, Roosevelt accepted and welcomed his place on the center of the stage, but he did his best to keep the spotlight away from his hours with Edith, his wife, and the five children. To some extent, this effort was futile. His children shared a good deal of his exuberance and this, plus the natural curiosity of the press and public, made them the subject of a continuous flow of colorful newspaper stories. “It is truly a remarkable sight” reported a Chicago newspaperman who was stationed at the Sagamore Hill Summer White House, “to see the president of the United States at the head of a young band of savages on their way to the woods or the target grounds.” The strenuous life which Roosevelt both preached and practiced was as strenuous physically as intellectually, for it was a basic article of faith with him that physical fitness and mental fitness should go hand in hand. As a child he had transformed a frail physique into a sound one by sheer force of self-discipline and in the Dakota Badlands, where he engaged in cattle ranching after the death of his first wife, he had developed his stamina further in range-riding and arduous hunting expeditions. Throughout his life he systematically pushed himself to the limits of physical endurance. On his first honeymoon, he ascended the Matterhorn, then a considerable feat. As a young legislator in New York he once played 91 games of tennis in one day. Riding to the hounds on Long Island a few years later he fractured his arm in two places early in the hunt when his horse rolled over on him, but nonetheless jumped back in the saddle and was first in on the kill, his arm dangling uselessly at his side. During the Bull Moose campaign of 1912 he insisted, with more valor than judgment, upon delivering a speech in Milwaukee after a would-be assassin’s bullet had lodged in the muscles of his chest. Two years later he lost 55 pounds and very nearly died of fever in the jungles of the Amazon Valley where he was engaged in what he termed his “last great adventure” as head of an exploring party for the American Museum of Natural History. In the White House he let only the gravest affairs of state interfere with his daily exercise; and when no better opportunity presented itself he would sometimes sally forth alone at night to run around the Washington Monument at top speed and back to the White House. It was in a boxing bout at the White House that he lost the sight of his left eye, though this was not publicly known until several years after the event.<br />
Of all the President’s outdoor pastimes, perhaps the most characteristic of all were his “obstacle walks,” a form of exercise [in which the object was for a group to proceed to a destination in a straight line without] permitting any natural obstacle — whether an icy river or a sheer cliff, to divert their course. In Washington, the President’s obstacle walks were generally taken at Rock Creek, and it was counted a considerable honor, though an exhausting one, to be invited to accompany him. It was partly as an outgrowth of this pastime that he tried on one occasion to combat the indolent habits of the swivel-chair Army officers in Washington by issuing an order that they must establish their physical fitness by marching 50 miles in a three-day period or, in the case of cavalry officers, riding 100 miles in the same period. When the order was widely attacked as tyrannical and capricious, the President rode more than 100 miles in a single day over the back roads of Virginia through freezing rain and sleet to prove that the test was not unduly demanding.<br />
<br />
It was this sort of episode, as much as Roosevelt’s trust-busting or his manipulation of the big stick, that made him the most colorful and controversial figure of his time. People could revere or deplore him, condemn this action or praise that one, but no one could ignore him. The enormous range of his interests, and his endless reservoirs of combative energy, projected him into every phase of national life, and whether the issue was big or little, he was generally to be found in the storm center. “Roosevelt,” a far-from-worshipful contemporary [biographer John William Bennett] admitted, “has the knack of doing things, and doing them noisily, clamorously. While he is in the neighborhood the public can no more look the other way than a small boy can turn his head away from a circus parade followed by a steam calliope.”<br />
<br />
This never-ending energy — this quality of “pure act” — had still another consequence that cannot fail to impress the student of TR’s life. It enabled him to compress a truly breath-taking amount of activity into short periods of time, so that sometimes the reader of the Roosevelt record has the dizzying impression that he is watching a kaleidoscope rather than the orderly unfolding of a mere mortal’s career.<br />
<br />
Consider, for example, one period of just six months during his early career: the period of February through July of the year 1886, when Roosevelt, at the age of only 26, was a young reform legislator in Albany. In mid-February of that year he was devastated by the greatest single tragedy of his life, when his beloved first wife, Alice, and his mother, to whom he was deeply devoted, died within 24 hours of each other at the family mansion in Manhattan. With an extraordinary display of will power he returned to his legislative duties two days after the double funeral and for the next two months dominated the activities of the session, conducting an exhaustive and productive investigation of municipal administration and corruption in New York City. In April he was in Buffalo for the state Republican convention at which he out-maneuvered the anti-reform elements of the party and emerged as the head of a liberal delegation to the party’s national convention in Chicago. At Chicago, two months later, he was the spearhead of the fight to block Blaine’s nomination for the presidency, going sleepless for days and nights on end in a heroic though unsuccessful fight to nominate a liberal ticket. And by late June, with the convention over and Blaine nominated, he was in the Dakota Badlands riding herd with his cowboy friends and embarking on a buffalo hunting expedition that was to take him through hostile Indian country into virtually unexplored areas of the Great Plains. All this, mind you, in a period of less than six months when he was a young man of 26.<br />
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Or consider the kaleidoscopic course of his life during the year 1898, when he was 39 years old. At the start of that year he was serving as assistant secretary of the Navy, a post which he had taken after a brief but dramatic stint as police commissioner for New York City. In February the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor brought to a head the growing rift between Spain and the United States over the Cuban revolution. Without the knowledge of his cautious superior, Secretary of the Navy John D. Long, Roosevelt alerted Admiral Dewey to get the Asiatic fleet in readiness to move against the Philippines — a step which was a major factor two months later in the smashing American victory at Manila Bay. Meanwhile, on the day that the inevitable declaration of war against Spain was approved by Congress, Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department to organize a motley regiment of hardened cowboys, polo-playing dudes and free-wheeling soldiers of fortune who came to be known as the Rough Riders. After two months of training in Texas, the Rough Riders embarked for Cuba where Colonel Roosevelt led them through the most colorful and hazardous chapter of what John Hay termed the “splendid little war” with Spain. In July, with the war over, he initiated the famous “round robin” letter which, when “leaked” to the press, forced the Was Department bureaucrats in Washington to bring the bulk of the American troops home rather than leave them, as originally planned, in Cuba, where they were being decimated by yellow fever. By August, Colonel Roosevelt had returned to a hero’s welcome in New York; a month later he was the Republican candidate for governor of the state; and in November after a hard-driving campaign, he was triumphantly elected. In the short space of less than a year he had compressed a series of exploits that would have been deemed remarkable in another man if they had occurred over the course of an entire lifetime.<br />
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What gave TR such bottomless reservoirs of physical and intellectual energy? What gave him such driving enthusiasm, such an utter incapacity for boredom? Part of it must have been built in at birth — but much of it was deliberately acquired. In a sense his life was a classic example of mind over matter. The same intense self-discipline that enabled him to overcome the handicap of a sickly childhood enabled him to force himself, constantly, to drive through life with the throttle wide open. “I always believe in going hard at everything,” he once said. And to young people his frequent advice was: “Don’t flinch. Don’t foul. Hit the line hard!” He was a born actor, moreover — and he played his role to the hilt every day of his life.<br />
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Perhaps inevitably, the relentless demands that Roosevelt placed upon his energies took a heavy and inexorable toll upon his constitution. When he died in 1919 at Sagamore Hill — peacefully, in his sleep, of a blood clot in his heart — he was only two months past his 60th birthday. A few weeks earlier, when he had been hospitalized briefly with a slight stroke, he had written characteristically to a friend: “The doctors think I will be all right in the end. I hope so; but I am ahead of the game anyhow. Nobody every packed more varieties of fun and interest into sixty years.”<br />
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Across the nation, the news of Roosevelt’s death was received with shocked incredulity by Americans who had come to think of his extraordinary energy as almost a permanent part of the national life. Messages from kings and commoners poured into Sagamore Hill from all over the world. But perhaps the most apt tribute of all was the one penned in Washington the next day by Vice President Thomas R. Marshall. “Death,” he wrote, “had to take him sleeping. For if Roosevelt had been awake, there would have been a fight.”<br />
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* The book for which Linscott did research was <i>The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt</i>, by Stefan Lorant (Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1959). A Berkshire County resident, Lorant was a prolific Hungarian-American filmmaker, photojournalist, and author.<br />
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** Roosevelt used the word bully as an adjective meaning "superb" or "wonderful," a more common usage in his time than it is today.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-90979971011923398532017-02-09T16:34:00.000-05:002017-02-09T16:35:48.633-05:00Artificial Intelligence: Should we worry?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9lhpywiL5DA/WJzfvuzJaCI/AAAAAAAADDc/Nb1oeqKQExIQ36daNNkFObTN3Xdv_PYrwCLcB/s1600/4456489056_061592c991_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9lhpywiL5DA/WJzfvuzJaCI/AAAAAAAADDc/Nb1oeqKQExIQ36daNNkFObTN3Xdv_PYrwCLcB/s640/4456489056_061592c991_z.jpg" width="580" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kismet the AI Robot at the MIT Museum, photo by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cdevers/4456489056/in/photolist-7MNEWd-8nBs97-cDuCz-Gn8a96-NAxmav-NAxoKR-NAxkdR-NAxjgv-fZ2pRp-Nqesrm-azsrcn-NqeqWh-QTLfCk-4HBHPH-o5hnwy-4op7ZA-N99Jyq-dpJN8-sPx52-7MND9m-7MNzew-sRSEx-3iAtXX-8u3JqN-cv8p1E-7JSn81-dYVQKp-bnGfsH-dZ2x7G-dYVTCa-o5h8sU-oh8MuB-dYVTnV-dYVQxT-axCvwT-dYVTkX-dYVTz4-dZ2Ah5-ycSJY-4Uhf34-2hpMQ3-dYVNSV-8TXGnr-ojKaMm-xZTq1-cv8pmC-8U1Kwy-vseWhJ-cv8oRy-oqSTmG">Chris Devers</a>, used under Creative Commons License</td></tr>
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<i>Presented to the Club by Martin Langeveld on Monday evening, February 6, 2017</i><br />
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Artificial Intelligence (or AI) is defined as intelligence exhibited by a machine, specifically a computer-driven device.<br />
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In popular culture, artificial intelligence is often depicted negatively. Recall the computer HAL in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. While HAL appears benevolent at first, taking care of the spaceship’s functions and playing chess with its human travellers, eventually the computer turns evil and seeks to kill the astronauts after discovering they are having doubts about HAL’s reliability and are planning to disable him.<br />
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Many other intelligent machines and robots, some nasty, some nice, figure in movies such as The Terminator, The Matrix, Aliens, and back in the 50s The Day the Earth Stood Still. And science fiction writers like Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick and many others have explored the implications of intelligent machines as well.<br />
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Still, such machines, with true cognitive ability and rational decision making ability, and what might be understood as consciousness or self-awareness, have not yet been invented. In fact, a debate has raged for decades as to how to actually determine whether a computer is intelligent. Most of the methods proposed are variations on the well-known Turing Test, proposed in 1950 by the Enigma code-breaking mathematician, Alan Turing. Turing proposed a test in which an evaluator interviews two entities, a human and a computer in such a way that he can not see them, and receives answers only as text. In Turing’s original formulation, if, after a five minute conversation with each entity, the evaluator can not tell the human from the computer 70 percent of the time, the computer is judged to be intelligent.<br />
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After 67 years, and many tries, no computer or computer program has been able to pass Turing’s original test. Many variations of the test have been developed, including a $20,000 bet in which futurist Ray Kurzweil bet Mitch Kapor, founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, that by the year 2029, a panel of judges would not be able to pick the computer out of a lineup comprising it and three human foils after a set of conversations lasting 24 hours in total.<br />
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By the way, one alternative to the Turing Test, is called the Coffee Test, promulgated by Steve Wozniak, the original partner of Steve Jobs in the creation of the Apple computer. In the Coffee test, “A machine is given the task of going into an average American home and figuring out how to make coffee. It has to find the coffee machine, find the coffee, add water, find a mug, and brew the coffee by pushing the proper buttons.” I’m glad to say I’ve personally passed the coffee test quite a few times when getting up early when staying at somebody’s house, but I’ve know people who failed it at my house.<br />
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To be clear, although the Turing Test remains un-passed, some very impressive computers have been developed. For example, in 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated the world chess champion, Gary Kasparov, in a six-game championship match. IBM followed up with Watson, the question answering computer that beat Jeopardy’s two winningest-ever players, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, in 2011. Deep Blue was retired, but Watson and Watson clones have been used in a variety of applications ranging from health care to weather forecasting.<br />
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Google, which has invested heavily in artificial intelligence research, built a program called AlphaGo to play the Chinese game of Go, which is actually far more complex than chess. (As an indication, the number of possible games in chess is 10 to the 123, while the number of possible games in Go is 10 to 768. This makes Go 10 to 645 times more complex than chess — that’s a 1 with 645 zeros.) In 2015, AlphaGo defeated the European Go champion, winning all five-games in a five game match, a very impressive advance from Deep Blue’s chess successes.<br />
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The chessplaying Deep Blue and the Jeopardy-playing Watson could rely on brute force computation. But to succeed at Go, AlphaGo needed more than that. At any moment in a game of chess, Deep Blue could rapidly analyze about 200 million possible outcomes for various moves and choose the best option. But in Go, there are vastly more ways the game can develop, so brute force doesn’t work. Google’s Deepmind division, which built AlphaGo, says the computer “combines Monte-Carlo tree search with deep neural networks that have been trained by supervised learning, from human expert games, and by reinforcement learning from games of self-play.”<br />
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Still, all of these are computers and programs that are very good at one difficult task, be it chess, Jeopardy or Go, just mimic actual intelligence. They display no capabilities that would fool the evaluator in a Turing Test. <br />
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We might consider, also, the current crop of digital assistants with human voices, like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant, and Microsoft’s Cortana. In these apps, the problem of human speech recognition and replication has been solved, to a degree. But anyone who has used devices incorporating these programs knows that while they are marketed as part of “smart” phones or “smart” speakers, these devices are not really smart. There may be some useful functions, and some clever responses are built in for your entertainment (like, “Siri, tell me a joke”), but there is no thinking going on, and the actual tasks performed are relatively simple.<br />
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In fact, these digital assistants have quite a few functions, built in by their tech-loving creators, that the average person doesn’t even really want or need. Alexa can turn on the lights, but why? Alexa can set a timer, but I already have two or three around the kitchen. Alexa can make a shopping list, but what if I’m not in the room with my Echo? We’ve been hearing for years about the refrigerator that will be smart enough to text you that you’re running low on milk, but again, is this really a feature we need or want?<br />
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Such quibbles aside, we have to admit that machines are getting smarter all the time, and aspects of artificial intelligence are already benefiting mankind in many ways, or in ways that are nearing actual deployment. Self driving cars. Robotic factories that operate with the lights off because there are no human beings inside. Roombas in our living room. Robots that milk cows. Facial recognition, handwriting recognition, speech recognition. Fast and increasingly accurate translations among many languages. Robotically assisted surgery. Increasingly sophisticated computer analysis and coordination of complex tasks, ranging from weather prediction to economic modeling to medical diagnostics to military strategies and tactics to marketing campaigns. We have all these things.<br />
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As computers, intelligent or not, begin to surpass human accuracy and effectiveness in these kinds of tasks, what are the societal implications? From the early days of computers in the 1950s, through most of the 1980s, many people worried that computers replacing humans at various tasks would eliminate their jobs. But for the most part, this didn’t happen. Yes, computers replaced humans doing the most rote and mundane tasks, but overall, employment was not reduced — partly because the computers themselves required a lot of human tenders, and partly because the development and manufacture of computers employed a lot of people.<br />
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But in the 1990s and 2000s, as the internet developed and as personal computers, and later, smartphones with equivalent computing power became ubiquitous, computer capability indeed began to surpass the usefulness of human labor in many situations, and continues to do so. <br />
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Today, we are seeing a relatively low unemployment rate, but only because many people have given up on finding employment. As a result, the employment to population ratio, or employment rate, which continued to increase during the 80s and 90s, has now dropped to levels it has not seen since the late 1970s. The increasing scarcity of low-skilled jobs brought on by increased automation is a big factor behind the rise, during the last decade, of the protectionist attitudes that have resulted in the election of Donald Trump as President. But by and large, the American economy and the American standard of living have benefited, so far, from increasingly smart electronics, and the real impact of artificial intelligence, as it is developed, is yet to be seen.<br />
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Before we worry about that: Is an independently thinking machine even possible, in the short run or in the long run? If HAL was supposed to happen by 2001, why haven’t we gotten there yet? Is the thinking computer like the flying car? — a logical projection of trendlines, but not one that can realistically happen?<br />
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In the view of some, the closest we’ve gotten to a true thinking machine is the Internet itself with all its nodes and cables, the organization of which bears a lot of resemblance to the synapses and neurons in the human brain. Some have ventured a size and capacity comparison between the Internet and the brain, including recent estimates by researchers at the Salk Institute who determined that in computer terms, the typical brain can hold 1 petabyte of information; other estimates range up to several petabytes. (A petabyte is 1000 times the capacity of this little 1 terabyte disk drive, and a terabyte is 1000 gigabytes. The phone in your pocket probably holds 16 or 32 gigabytes at capacity. So your brain can hold around 100,000 times the information on your phone.) But the internet has surpassed this capacity, many years ago, and is currently estimated to hold several yottabytes of data, where a yottabyte is a billion petabytes, or a billion human brain equivalents.<br />
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With all that storage capacity, why is the internet not yet one giant thinking machine? Several reasons: (1) it was not created, or programmed, to be a thinking machine; and (2) While the data storage capacity of the internet exceeds a billion human brains, the total data processing capacity, or computational capacity, in the world today is only the equivalent of about 8 human brains. That doesn’t mean the nine of us here in the room could out-data-process all of the the world’s computers, but we can definitely still out-think all of the world’s computers. <br />
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Now, up to this point, I’ve been describing the real world, the actual development of computers, at least semi-intelligent, thus far. But this is where we enter realms of speculation.<br />
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So, here’s a scary thought. Today we can out-think the computers. But suppose, at some point, a Dr. Frankenstein (or more likely a Frankenstein Institution or a Frankenstein Company or a shadowy Frankenstein network of hackers) manages to create a machine with actual consciousness and cognitive intelligence. And then, they connect it to the Internet. Without controls, a machine like that could replicate or enlarge itself in cyberspace very rapidly, digest much of the world’s information, and then use it to develop further, in unpredictable directions. At the speed of light.<br />
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In simple terms, that’s the definition of the technological singularity, which has been predicted by some futurists. You’ve heard about the space-time singularity: the initial state of the Universe prior to the Big Bang, in which all of time, space and matter was compressed into a single point of infinite density. In the theory of the technological singularity, all of the curves of ever-accelerating digital information storage and processing capacity lead eventually to a runaway situation, in which machine intelligence exceeds human intelligence, and the speed of technological change accelerates until the curve goes straight up. It’s like falling into a black hole — there is no way to look past it and understand what might happen. Thinkers ranging from entrepreneur Elon Musk to physicist Stephen Hawking have warned against the dangers of runaway artificial intelligence, and have helped promulgate a set of 23 guiding principles to steer A.I. development into productive, ethical, and safe directions.<br />
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So there is the scary scenario, but we may be getting ahead of ourselves. We are still in the early stages of progress toward intelligent machines, with quite a few problems to be solved before worrying about the singularity. And many of those problems are on the human side of the equation. Most importantly: How will people make a living when more and more tasks are done by computers and robots?<br />
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We have self-driving cars, which will likely evolve in the next few years into self-driving tractor-trailers, self-driving trains, self-driving ocean freighters. You can buy a self-driving vacuum cleaner, which will likely evolve into autonomous machines that clean offices, public bathrooms, and mall concourses, and autonomous machines that mow the grass not only in our own lawns but in our parks, golf courses, and highway medians. Driverless Zambonis are already on the way. Amazon was using 45,000 robots in its warehouses at the end of 2016, an increase of 50 percent over the prior year. The Taiwanese company Foxconn, which a few years ago employed 500,000 people in China to assemble cellphones for Apple and Samsung, has replaced 40,000 of those people with robots, and plans, eventually, to replace all of them with up to one million robots. An Oxford University study in 2013 estimated that 47 percent of American jobs are at high risk of being replaced by computers and robots within the next 10 years.<br />
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Much as our President would like to “bring back” jobs, the reality is that most of the jobs in question, both here and abroad, will eventually be taken over by robots like this, with potentially enormous social consequences. Because as long as investments in more robots have an economic payoff, more robots will be built and deployed. This is no different, really, from the various waves of job-killing technologies that we have seen from the beginning of the industrial revolution, from steam engines to horseless carriages to word processors. But, in each of those previous waves, while many jobs became obsolete, even more new jobs were created by new opportunities.<br />
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But as we get closer to real artificial intelligence, that pattern may not continue —increasing automation and increasing deployment of ever-more-intelligent machines will replace more and more human labor. Once machines start designing other machines and writing computer code, even higher-level engineering jobs will start to disappear. This creates a conundrum: how do we maintain a sustainable, balanced economy when an increasing fraction of the population is permanently unemployed because robots are doing more and more of the work, and when the economic benefits of artificial intelligence flow to a smaller and smaller fraction of the population, those who own and operate the machinery? And, at the logical extreme, with the advent of true artificial intelligence, when even the highest functions are taken over by machines: robot scientists, robot engineers, robot CEOs of robot corporations. This is a recipe for an economy with more and more potential supply, but less and less demand. This not a new worry — the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted, back in 1933, that widespread technological unemployment could come about if “our discovery of means of economising the use of labour [outruns] the pace at which we can find new uses for labour”.<br />
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The answer to this problem, suggested by many futurists, is that we create a form of Universal Basic Income, or UBI. Essentially, this is a way to redistribute the financial benefits of technology to all. Getting into the mechanics, pros and cons of UBI would make a whole other Monday Evening Club paper, but suffice it to say that UBI is a form of universal social security that starts at birth, or a reverse income tax, in which every individual is guaranteed a level of income sufficient to survive and even thrive, that’s paid whether the person is working for a living, or not. Proponents of the UBI say, based on some limited experiments with it, that this would not merely be a subsistence allowance — that a society with Universal Basic Income would produce more creativity and more innovation while reducing crime, substandard housing and poor health. More extensive tests of UBI are currently underway in the Netherlands and Finland.<br />
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So in this scenario, although most jobs disappear, humans find new economic models that allow them to coexist with robotic artificial intelligence; they keep it under control and it works for the benefit of humankind, which flourishes in a world with less violence, less drudgery, more culture and more happiness. In the more fanciful projections of this scenario, eventually humans achieve immortality, or something close to it, by melding their bodies and minds with machines into new, transhuman species, which go forth to explore the universe.<br />
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But other scenarios are not so rosy. What if, for example, multiple forms of artificial intelligence arise, escape from effective human control, and go into conflict with one another in robot wars? What if robots, bent on self-replication and unconcerned about the effects of radical environmental changes on themselves, re-engineer the biosphere to benefit only themselves, wreaking environmental havoc to the detriment of humans? In these kinds of outcomes, economies would collapse, massive suffering would ensue, and eventually the human race and perhaps all life would disappear from an Earth populated by intelligent machines. After all, once the machines escape from human control, what motivation would they have for keeping us around? Perhaps, in the long run, they would evolve into one massive, superintelligent, but non-organic, being — an earth-sized thinking machine. What would it think about? What would it want to do, with nothing left to destroy except itself? Having incorporated all possible terrestrial knowledge, perhaps it, too, would send out space probes and begin exploring the universe.<br />
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On that question, one final speculation: If it is possible for this kind of artificial intelligence to develop, wouldn’t it have developed elsewhere in the universe as well, and be trying to communicate with superintelligence in other parts of the universe? Since the dawn of the space age, humans have calculated that in the vast universe of billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars, intelligent life must have arisen somewhere else. But for decades, we have been trying to pick up signals from alien civilizations, whether organic or machine, and have detected none. And, unless the rumors about Area 51 and Roswell, New Mexico are true, we have not been visited either. This is known as the Fermi Paradox, after the physicist Enrico Fermi who first proposed it during bull sessions among the atomic scientists at Los Alamos. Fermi’s famous question was, “Where is everybody?” <br />
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So a superintelligent entity, knowing this, faces a choice: should it send out signals in search of like-minded machines, or not? It has the capability to survive for thousands or millions of years, so unlike us, it could patiently wait for an answer. But it would have to consider the pros and cons. Reasoning like Space Trek’s Spock, it would think: the fact that I exist means most probably, others like me exist, out there. But they are not communicating. This could mean one of two things: (a) they’re just not interested in communicating — they are purely introspective superintelligences, or (b) they’ve decided not to communicate for a good reason: the possibility that some of the other superintelligences are evil and would seek to destroy or enslave the others. Either way, they would not be sending out smoke signals, and would be trying hide their existence. Like us, they would wait and listen, and then decide whether to answer. Perhaps all intelligent civilizations our there, organic or machine, are doing the same thing.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-89939408675123564092016-12-08T16:06:00.001-05:002016-12-08T16:07:50.707-05:00Neapolitan Children Bathing: The stories of John Singer Sargent and Robert Sterling Clark<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EspCJBRn7Lc/WEnJ6OVsPmI/AAAAAAAAC_M/CKpQETjfTDYuz9gdJCeWXN4sXIqKEVqJwCLcB/s1600/Neapolitan%2BChildren%2BBathing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="359" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EspCJBRn7Lc/WEnJ6OVsPmI/AAAAAAAAC_M/CKpQETjfTDYuz9gdJCeWXN4sXIqKEVqJwCLcB/s400/Neapolitan%2BChildren%2BBathing.jpg" width="550" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Neapolitan Children Bathing, by John Singer Sargent</td></tr>
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<i>Presented to the Club by David T. Noyes on Monday evening, December 5, 2016</i><br />
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Can you remember when the only building housing the Clark
Art Institute was the stark, austere, imposing, lonely, marble fortress set
back from the street on a knoll in Williamstown? After moving to Pittsfield in
1981, Sue and I made many trips to take in Sterling Clark’s collection. There
was no food service at the Museum in those days, so we might grab lunch at the
(now defunct) Howard Johnson’s, or have a sandwich at Papa Charlie’s Deli on
Spring Street. No visit was complete without admiring this small painting—also
titled Innocence Abroad; or Boys on a Beach, Naples, painted in 1879 by John Singer Sargent.</div>
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This 11” x 16” canvas shows children enjoying a beautiful
sunny day at the beach. Two boys—one with a towel over his face, the other on
his stomach with his head propped up on his hand—lie near two other, much
younger boys standing. The boy at the center, wearing water wings, looks as
though he is trying to get up the courage to wade into the rolling surf. Out in
the water, a head bobbing above the rolling waves shows us a swimmer. The only
interruption of the blue sky is the sailboat on the horizon. The smallest
child, still showing the chubbiness of babyhood, looks outward engaging the
viewer, thereby inviting us into their realm. The use of a completely frontal
stance became a hallmark of Sargent’s painting as he felt this gave a more
powerful image and made a more direct connection with the viewer. The children
are all relaxed, and self absorbed—the very epitome of childhood innocence.<br />
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During those early years in Pittsfield, we frequently made
family trips to Cape Cod to stay and visit with my parents at their cottage
with a view of the water. Naturally, the beach was the favorite place to be—accessed
via a simple walk across the narrow road passing by the front porch. From the
moment I first saw this painting, I imagined that the two younger boys were our
sons, Todd and Tyler, as they were exact likenesses. When I dropped off the
postcards to Harold to be included with the regular reminder mailing, Audrey
immediately said: “Is this a picture of your family?” “Exactly!” I smiled. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In fact, The Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize winning art
critic, Sebastian Smee, was similarly struck by this painting. In a June, 2015
article he writes: “This small stingingly bright canvas always stops me at the
Clark, where it hangs amid great works by 19<sup>th</sup>-century painters,
most of them French. It evokes a world far from the Clark’s undulant campus. The
stark light and satisfying spiritual click of standing on your own shadow
reminds me of my own childhood in Australia, much of it spent on all-but vacant
beaches like this one.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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This painting, by John Singer Sargent, when he was just twenty-two
years old, was his third work to appear in America. The owner lent it to the
National Academy of Design in New York City for its 1879 exhibition where it
was applauded as “delightful, happy, and sparkling” and commended for its
subtlety of color. The tremendously positive reaction reflected the important
status given to children in post Civil War America; they were signs of purity
and innocence, as well as hope for the future. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Although Sargent is considered an American artist, he was
born in Florence, Italy in 1856. His father, Fitzwilliam Sargent, was born in
Gloucester, Mass. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a
degree in Medicine 1843. For ten years, from 1844 until 1854, he worked as a
surgeon in Philadelphia. Eminent in his profession, he published works on minor
surgery. John Sargent’s mother was Mary Newbold the daughter of John Singer, a
well to do Philadelphia merchant and successor to a prosperous business he
inherited from his father. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As a child, Mary had travelled to Italy. Such was the magic
of that country, that after four years of marriage, she persuaded her husband
to give up his practice and in 1854 they moved to Florence. Fitzwilliam Sargent
had, by virtue of his practice in Philadelphia, made a good living. But Mary
was sufficiently well off that he did not have to work to support the family. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Fitzwilliam expected his son would have a naval career, but
at age 12, John’s mother recognized his artistic talent and his schooling soon reflected
that. The conventional curriculum of Greek/Latin and Mathematics was supplanted
with music and foreign Languages, where, he excelled. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In October 1874 at the age of 18 he entered the studio of
Carolus Duran, then the foremost portrait painter in Paris. Sargent himself
always recognized his debt to the teaching of Duran. At the height of his fame
he commented that “Carolus Duran couldn’t actually do it himself---but he could
teach it”. When asked, for example, how he avoided false accents in
portraiture, Sargent said: “you must classify the values. If you begin with the
middle-tones and work up and down from there towards the darks and lights—so
that you deal last with your lightest lights and darkest darks—you avoid false
accents. That’s what Carolus taught me.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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In 1876 he sailed to America and experienced his first visit
with the United States. There is no hint of the impression he received. He was
an American by parentage, born and educated in the Old World, steeped in the
culture of Europe, and now, at the age of twenty, he was introduced to his
native country for the first time. The contrast must have been sharper than it
would be today. The great American collectors had not really begun the
piecemeal transfer of European collections of art. It was only by visiting
Europe that one could obtain any idea of the history of painting. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In 1878 his picture “En Route pour la Peche” received
honorable mention at the Salon.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In 1882, two of Sargent’s pictures in the Salon, were
singled out by the critics for unqualified praise. One critic wrote of the
portrait: Mrs. Austin---“one does not know which to admire most, the simplicity
of the means which the artist has employed or the brilliance of the result
which he has achieved” Another critic wrote that El Jaleo was the most striking
picture of the year. And so at the still quite young age of 26, Sargent, an
American by virtue of his heritage, was being hailed in Paris as the author of
the two most outstanding pictures in the Salon. He was soon receiving as many
commissions as he could execute, charging for a full length portrait----8,000
francs, for a half length—five thousand, and for his subject pictures and for landscapes,
anything from two to four thousand francs. <o:p></o:p></div>
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No French artist was more admired by Sargent than the French
Neoclassical artist, Jean—Auguste--Dominique Ingres who became most famous for
his portraits from the early to mid nineteenth century. Yet the two artists
were quite dissimilar. Ingres painted with serenity in his delineation of form,
and with repose and beauty in his lines, but often shunned the agitation and
movement of light. By contrast—Sargent was forcible in his execution, concerned
with the play and reflection of light, and on the look-out for the intricate
aspect of things; highlighting an art that is alert, vibrant, and vital with
color and the spirit of life. But underneath all that, there remains the
draftsmanship, the genius for composition and the fluent strength and elegance
of the line of the French master—it was these virtues that Sargent never tired
of extolling. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And those skills are dramatically apparent even in this
early painting. It would appear to be a simple, casual representation of a day
at the beach. But the painting was developed from several pencil sketches and
four preliminary oil studies on panel, all of which seem to have been painted <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">en plein air</i>. Sargent puts three of the
boys off center, and crops the legs of the figure in the foreground. The
shining grey-white sand, surf, and translucent water wings contribute reflective
surfaces so that soft golden hues can define the children’s bodies, with
puddles of grayish purple forming their shadows. The overall effect is one of
warm sunshine that charms the viewer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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While in Paris, he frequently saw Degas, Renoir, Sisley and
Pissarro, but was most friendly with Claude Monet whom he believed had a
greater influence on art than any other modern painter. When Sargent discussed
genius on painting, he said there were four painters who possessed genius in a
superlative degree: Rembrandt, Titian, Tintoretto and Raphael. When asked his
opinion of Velasquez joining the group. He added that no painter exceeded
Velasquez in technical skill, but that he was less gifted in his power to
interpret “spiritual qualities”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sargent moved to London in 1885—more out of distaste for
Paris than preference for London. He leased the studio that had previously
belonged to James Abbott McNeill Whistler, another American, but European
portrait painter.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Those who watched Sargent painting in his studio noticed
his habit of stepping backwards after almost every stroke of the brush on the
canvas. And the track of his paces so worn on the carpet that it simulated the
path sheep make through heather. When confronting difficulty, he had a sort of
battle cry of “Demons, Demons” with which he would dash to and fro at the
canvas”<o:p></o:p></div>
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During the winter of 1887-1888 he sailed to Boston where he
exhibited twenty of his pictures. His work was hailed for its sincerity, and
its brilliant variation from the stereotypical conventions of the day. Henceforth,
his reputation in America was assured.<o:p></o:p></div>
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From this point forward in his career, he no longer chose
subjects from the humbler walks of life. Destiny prescribed for him the role of
a portrait painter of the social world. He had brought the tradition with him
from Paris; he had grown up in an age when, having your portrait painted, was an
expected part of the fashionable life. In London he carried on the tradition. He
was unaffected by the changes taking place in Paris in the character of
subjects which the rising Impressionist artists were painting. The work of
Sargent now came from a study of the eminent, the rich and the successful. He
painted the world of which Henry James wrote. His migration to England put an
end to his interested outlook in the peasant life and folk
subjects----fisherwomen by the sea, dancers in Spanish cabarets, Parisians in
the Luxembourg Gardens, Venetian water-carriers, or, even, Boys on a Beach! <o:p></o:p></div>
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Conditions in England decided the direction of Sargent’s
genius. He was turned away from his experiment in Impressionism, and his
leanings towards common subjects. As the chronicler of the fashionable world,
like Van Dyck in his day, or like the 18<sup>th</sup> century English portrait
painters Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough in theirs, he established
within a few years an undisputed supremacy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Few artists have been more consistently applauded in their
lifetime than Sargent, few have seen their work maintain throughout many years
greater popularity with the public. There had never been a moment since 1875
when his pictures had not found a ready market, there had never been a year
when he didn’t have more commissions than he could execute. Critics, after the
first hesitations, and with few exceptions, consistently eulogized his
paintings; dealers had been resolute in their acquisition; fellow artists had
acclaimed him; and the public, had made him their favorite. The prices realized
by his pictures at auction rose steadily during his lifetime. And in July 1925,
237 of Sargent’s oil paintings and drawings sold at Christie’s for 170,000
pounds—there was no parallel for such a sale at that time. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Robert Sterling Clark purchased this painting from the son
of the original owner in 1923 when he was forty-six. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The person whose fortune made all of Sterling Clark’s
collecting and high living possible was Edward Cabot Clark. The four grandsons:
Sterling and Stephen and their brothers, Edward and Ambrose could not have been
who they were without the incredible wealth from Edward’s phenomenal business
success. When he died in 1882 his net worth was 50 million dollars. The origin
of the family fortune is due to Edward Clark’s alliance with the sewing machine
developer—Isaac Merritt Singer.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
Singer would become infinitely better known than Clark—in large part because
his name was on every one of the machines that entered first American and then
international<span style="text-transform: uppercase;"> </span>households. These engineering
inspirations were a result of Singer’s inventiveness, but turning those
qualities into such a vast fortune was the genius of Edward Clark.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Edward Clark was born in 1811 in Athens, New York. His
father had a successful pottery business and Edward grew up in comfortable
circumstances. At the age of twelve he began four years of education at the
Academy in Lenox Massachusetts. He then went on to graduate from Williams
College at the age of nineteen in 1831. (He would later become a trustee and be
awarded an honorary Doctorate.) Edward apprenticed for three years at the law
firm of Ambrose Jordan in Hudson, New York, and was then admitted to practice
law--setting up a practice in Poughkeepsie.<u style="text-underline: words;"> </u>He
married his boss’s daughter and then moved with his father-in-law, in 1836, to
New York City. Soon thereafter “Jordan and Clark” gained the reputation as New
York City’s most prestigious law firm. (It probably helped that Ambrose Jordan
was the state’s attorney general!)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Isaac Merritt Singer was also born in 1811, in Pittstown,
New York. He grew up in poverty and left home at the age of twelve. He
apprenticed in a machine shop, and began to make a good living because of his
mechanical ingenuity. Singer stood six feet four inches tall and had a massive
build, cutting quite an imposing figure. He married Catherine Haley and had two
children with her. <o:p></o:p></div>
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He fancied himself quite the actor, and especially enjoyed performing
Shakespeare. In 1839 while working with his brother in Illinois digging a
waterway, he got his first patent: a machine for drilling rock. With the two
thousand dollars he received, he formed his own travelling theater company. He
was now known as Isaac Merritt and his actress mistress, Mary Ann Sponseler,
was known as Mrs. Merritt. He ultimately had eleven children with her. (He also
had an additional child from a third woman, Mary Eastwood Walters, during this
time)<u style="text-underline: words;"> </u>The troupe ran out of money and
Singer moved to New York with an idea for a machine that would carve wood-block
type. Here he sought the help of the Jordan and Clark law firm.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ambrose Jordan found Singer “too personally distasteful to
represent”. But he must have seen some value in retaining him as a client
because he referred him to his son-in-law. Edward Clark helped Singer obtain
the patent in 1849 and Singer assigned Edward three-eights of it in lieu of
paying legal fees. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Sewing machines had existed since at least 1790 when Thomas
Saint had received a patent for one in England. A French tailor, Barthelemy
Thimonnier improved the machine in 1829. In 1846 Elias Howe received a patent
for his sewing machine. Singer’s improvement was to have the machine make
stronger stitches in a perfectly straight line. He received a patent in 1851
and went into a financial partnership to start the Jenny Lind Sewing Machine Company.
(Named after Swedish soprano then touring the United States.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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However, Elias Howe felt that Singer’s machine was
sufficiently close to his own that he began legal proceedings for patent
infringement. Singer once again turned to Edward Clark. Still penniless, Singer
ultimately agreed to give Clark half ownership and the right to take control of
the new company: I.M. Singer & Company in exchange for legal services.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What is interesting about the patent litigation is that
Singer had, indeed, violated the law and infringed on one of Elias Howe’s
patents. When Howe pressed for a settlement of twenty-five thousand dollars, he
did so because of Singer’s use of the eye-pointed needle in his new machine. Although
Howe had not invented that device, he did own the patent. Everything else about
Singer’s machine was an advance over Howe’s, but the use of the needle without
authorization was illegal. The settlement reached in 1854 awarded Howe a
royalty from all Singer Machines. Edward’s genius was in keeping the settlement
from being more onerous and in mitigating the effects of Singer’s criminality. <span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:David" datetime="2016-10-05T14:35"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></ins></span><span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:David" datetime="2016-10-05T15:00"><o:p></o:p></ins></span></div>
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For the next decade, Clark oversaw every aspect of the
business while Singer basked in the role of resident genius. Edward was
concerned with appearances and got Singer to decorate the black machines with
gold ornament. He had the idea of selling machines to minister’s wives for half
price so that they would introduce them to their sewing circles. During the
recession in 1856, Edward pioneered the idea of an installment plan whereby for
five dollars down and three dollars a month, customers could reach ownership of
the machines. He also developed and expanded the European market to a degree
previously unprecedented in American Manufacturing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Clark also became embroiled in the management of Singer’s
personal life. He and Mary Ann Sponselor, whom most took to be his wife, lived
opulently in a grand house on lower Fifth Avenue. But<span style="text-transform: uppercase;"> S</span>inger now<span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:David" datetime="2016-10-05T15:28"> </ins></span>had an additional mistress, Mary
McGonigal with whom he had five more children! Singer lived with her as Mr. and
Mrs. Matthews in a separate house in New York. The sewing machine buying public
disdained Isaac Singer for his scandalous ways, and it was in the interest of
the company to clean up his reputation. It fell to Edward to negotiate Singer’s
divorce from his legal wife, Catherine Haley. Clark assumed that Singer would then
marry Sponselor, but he was too loyal to “Mrs. Matthews”. One day when Singer
was out with Mrs. Matthews, they accidentally came upon Mary Sponselor who
unleashed a public tirade for all to hear.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Singer responded by storming into the house on Fifth Avenue
and choking Sponselor, and one of their daughters who tried to intervene, into
an unconscious state. Before legal action took place Singer fled to England,
accompanied by Mary McGonigal’s nineteen year old sister Kate.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Again, Clark was concerned that women would not buy a
machine linked to adultery, wife beating, and illegitimate children. He
persuaded Singer to give up any active management of the firm and incorporated
Singer Manufacturing Company. Together they would still be equal owners with
20% of the stock sold to key employees. Singer agreed as long as Edward could
not be president while Singer was still alive. Edward, however, managed to retain
considerable influence as Chairman of the Board. <o:p></o:p></div>
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When Edward died in1882, he left an estate worth fifty
million dollars! Although he had three sons, only the youngest, Alfred, was
married, with four children—Edward Severin (nicknamed Rino), Robert Sterling
(whom the family called Robin), Frederick Ambrose, and Stephen Carlton. I’ll
skip over Alfred’s life, which may be worthy of Club Paper on its own. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Sterling Clark studied engineering at Yale, and then joined
the U.S. army Ninth Infantry Regiment. He fought in the Spanish American War
that captured the Philippines, and in China to help stifle the Boxer Rebellion
in 1901.<o:p></o:p></div>
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With that international background and no concerns about
having to make a living, he moved to Paris in 1910, at the age of thirty-three.
There, he bought a three-story house a short walk from the Arc de Triomphe. He
frequented the most famous art galleries in Paris, London, and New York City. Sterling
collected art the way he drank fine wine (Burgundy being his favorite) and ate
good food (he wrote his own cookbook)—with an appreciation for his own sense of
quality. He trusted his own artistic judgment—no one else could tell him what
was good or bad, what would rise or sink in value, or what might add balance to
his collection. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In 1919, now forty-two, he married Francine Clary, an
extremely pretty former actress in the Comedie Francaise. She already had an
illegitimate child when they met. Sterling regaled in doing the unexpected. This
was the sort of thing Isaac Singer might do—not a member of the Clark dynasty. His
three brothers, along with their wives, were appalled.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Then, in the early 1920’s tensions began mounting over the
children’s inheritance. The various Singer trusts were organized in such a way
that the benefits only accrued to the next generation via direct family
lineage. Sterling’s brothers Ambrose and Edward had no children while Stephen
had four. Thus when Sterling died his “share” would be given to Stephen’s
children. At a meeting of the brothers with their trust financial manager in
1923, Sterling and Stephen came to a physical altercation. This was the
beginning of a rift that would never heal. This feud became public when the New
York Times reported in 1927 that Sterling was suing the family trust, valued at
some eighty million dollars! Sterling lost. He never spoke to any of his
brothers again. His diary entries over the next twenty-five years persistently confirmed
the ongoing contempt he had, especially for Stephen and his wife, Susan. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Meanwhile, Sterling had been planning for the ultimate
disposition of his collection. His initial idea focused on Cooperstown, N.Y.—the
site of the Clarks‘ summer family compound. But after World War II, he opted
for building a museum to rival the Frick in New York City. In 1945 he bought
three buildings on the corner of Park and Seventy-Second Street for that purpose.
However, five year later, he changed his mind, following a visit to
Williamstown. He bought one hundred acres of woods and field to build the
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. He felt the setting reminded him of
the paintings of Winslow Homer. He and Francine were convinced that a
“crossroads museum” would entice summer tourists who might never get to a big
city. They also chose the college town because it was far from an urban center
that might be a target for atomic bombs. The construction of the museum included
reinforced concrete designed to withstand an atomic explosion one-tenth of a
mile away. The three million dollar building was faced with marble—a tribute to
ancient Greek monuments. Sterling died from a stroke at age seventy-nine, just
one year after opening the museum. He left an estate that was worth eighty-four
million dollars (the equivalent of half a billion dollars today) which would
allow his collection to be seen free of charge. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Of course, we know that the Clark Art Institute is no longer
a single building, and, also, that it’s no longer free! It has become much more
than a small rural museum, as witnessed by last year’s Van Gogh exhibition, and
this year’s “Nudes from the Prada” presentation. Yet, I never fail to seek out
Sargent’s simple, refreshing image of children at the beach whenever I visit
the museum. Do any of you have an artwork that has so persistently spoken to
you? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Material for this essay is taken from:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">John Sargent</i> by
Evan Charteris, Charles Scribner’s and Sons, New York 1927<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Clarks of Cooperstown</i>,
by Nicholas Fox Weber, Alfred A. Knopf, 2008<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Painting and
Sculpture at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute</i>, by Margaret
Conrads, Hudson Hills Press, Inc., 1990 <o:p></o:p></div>
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“John Singer Sargent’s Neapolitan Children Bathing”,
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-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-38841642811214590992016-03-08T22:26:00.001-05:002016-03-08T22:27:02.516-05:00The Back Stairs: The world of servants in America<i>Presented to the Club on Monday Evening, March 7, 2016 by Albert Easton</i><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Dwb6Sb61IjI/Vt-XmOdgJqI/AAAAAAAACpc/HJcltXBaPs4/s1600/Downton-Abbey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="265" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Dwb6Sb61IjI/Vt-XmOdgJqI/AAAAAAAACpc/HJcltXBaPs4/s400/Downton-Abbey.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
I am sure that most of us here have watched, or are at least familiar with the television program Downton Abbey, or its predecessor, Upstairs Downstairs. Each of these programs derives part of its drama from the contrast between the aristocracy and the servant class. Although each is based in England at a time and place when this contrast was most clearly delineated, there certainly was a somewhat similar contrast in America up to about 1930, and my purpose tonight is to explore the world of servants. Who were they, what were they like, and what has become of them?<br />
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Servants have probably existed for most of human history. It was natural for one person who was able for whatever reason to dominate another, to request that that other person take on some of the tasks he had been doing. Very often, the dominance was a result of warfare, and the people of the defeated nation were made the slaves of the victor. Often, too, the younger children did not inherit enough to support themselves, and had to offer services to others in order to survive.<br />
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Some authors have suggested that the role of servants in England grew out of the feudal system. Certainly, the existence of an aristocracy was a heritage of feudal times, but America has never had a hereditary aristocracy. America’s aristocracy consists, in general, of those who have the money to play the part. And playing the part requires, or at least did require, having servants. <br />
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It is estimated that in the early years of the twentieth century about one American household in six had servants. This includes many houses that had only a part time servant, a one-day-a-week laundress or cleaning woman, for example. Only a much smaller fraction had one or more full time servants, and only about half of these were live-in. If a house had only one servant, she was almost always of the category: “maid-of-all-work.” More about the duties of such a person later. Houses with a full complement of servants might have a butler, a housekeeper, a cook, and one or more maids or footmen. This does not include the “outdoor servants” — gardeners, farmhands, coachmen, stablemen and (after the advent of the automobile) chauffeurs.<br />
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Even in houses with a large number of servants, the lady of the house was considered the housekeeper. She was responsible for maintaining her home in all ways. .But assisting her was the highest ranking servant, the hired housekeeper. The hired housekeeper’s status was on a par almost with members of the family. Her post was an administrative one. She assumed responsibility for the smooth functioning of the household. She oversaw the training and discipline of the rest of the staff, including their performance and personal behavior. She managed the household expenditures, including the purchase of household supplies (but not including the purchase of food – that was the cook’s job.) She supervised the hiring and firing of the rest of the staff and the payment of their wages. <br />
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Working closely with the hired housekeeper was the butler. His status was just below hers, and he filled in for her when she was not available to do her job as overseer. He was also responsible for directing the footmen, who were his assistants. He saw to the security of the house, and to the care of the china, glassware and silverware stored in the butler’s pantry. He also managed the purchase, decanting and storage of the household supply of wine and liquor. And many miscellaneous tasks fell his way. For example, arranging the flowers and providing place cards at formal dinner parties. (The arrangement of seats at the table itself had to be left to the lady of the house. Only she was able to discern the social status of her guests, especially in this country with no hereditary aristocracy.) I should mention that the relative status of the housekeeper and butler seems to be reversed on Downton Abbey. This may be because of Carson’s personal dominance, or because roles were somewhat different in England from those in America.<br />
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To do his job the butler required the assistance of footmen. Footmen’s duties paralleled those of the butler, plus serving at the dinner table. One author has suggested that: “Male servants (commonly known as flunkeys) became the ultimate status symbol. They were paid for their servility; their function was to emphasize the social position of the employer. Male retainers received twice the wages of most female servants, and did half the work.” To accomplish this, they were on view as greeters at the door, guarding hallways and delivering messages to the parlor.<br />
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Another type of male servant was the valet. The valet’s responsibility was to look after the master’s clothing and appearance – in general, a fairly easy job. But the valet was also a “gentleman’s gentleman” – responsible for carrying out whatever errands his employer assigned, and usually traveling with his master. P. G. Woodhouse was written many stories about “Jeeves” – a valet who miraculously manages to extricate his master “Bertie” from the various scrapes Bertie manages to get himself into. Bertie is a bachelor and Jeeves his only servant. The light duties would seem to make valet an easy job, but it was also the most likely to make its incumbent feel like a second class citizen, and thus not the choice of a fully self-respecting individual.<br />
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The lady’s maid was the female counterpart of the valet. She had the same kind of responsibilities as a valet – caring for clothing and jewelry, dressing her mistress, generally seeing to her appearance and traveling with her when necessary, often even accompanying her to evening entertainments. Dressing took place at least twice a day, since day clothes were not worn to dinner or evening entertainments. Her job was somewhat more involved than that of the valet, since managing a lady’s clothing and appearance is more complicated than that of a gentleman.<br />
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There were also two other types of maids – the parlor maid and the chamber maid. (Chambermaids were sometimes known as “the upstairs maid.”) Parlor maids began each day by removing ashes and cinders from the fireplaces in the parlors and drawing rooms, cleaning the andirons, and preparing new fires. They also swept the carpets and floors in these rooms and the hallways, dusted and periodically washed windows and polished the brass. Chamber maids had the same responsibilities in the bedrooms, and also the daily chore of emptying and cleaning chamber pots, as well as making beds. In the evening, while the lady of the house was at dinner, they cleaned up the clutter left from the nightly dressing-for dinner ritual, turned down the beds, and saw to the fire if necessary.<br />
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Usually, there was a laundress, sometimes with assistants. The laundress handled the washing and ironing, which was strenuous work in the days before the advent of modern appliances. In earlier times, the laundress was also responsible for preparing her own starch, bleach and cleaning products. Not only was the work back-breaking, it required some judgement and intelligence, since missteps in laundering could destroy a family’s wardrobe.<br />
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The kitchen was the responsibility of the cook. While in very large establishments the cook might be a man (the “chef”), usually the cook was a woman. The cook was responsible for ordering, storing, and preparing food, including that of the servant staff. The cook also was responsible for washing dishes and keeping the kitchen clean, but sometimes had the help of a scullery maid for these chores. When food was prepared over a wood or coal stove, it was the cook or scullery maid’s job to keep that stoked and cleaned.<br />
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A final indoor servant was the nursemaid, who cared for the children of the house. The job of nursemaid required a person of tact and intelligence, since she was responsible for teaching the children as well as caring for them. She also had all the duties toward the children that a lady’s maid had toward the lady of the house. She generally was expected to sleep near the children, so that she could be available to care for their needs in the night. She might have severe restrictions on the extent to which she could reprimand or punish the children, and of course had the unpleasant job of changing diapers for the youngest children. Some houses especially sought a nursemaid who spoke another language as well as English, so that the children might be raised bilingual.<br />
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I have not mentioned the governess, who was not really a servant, but a teacher. As such, she outranked all the servants. A governess was expected to teach the children reading, writing and arithmetic, as well as history and culture, including the etiquette and demeanor that they needed to assume the station in life that their parents aspired to for them. Like the nursemaid, she may have had severe restrictions on her ability to correct the children.<br />
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Outdoor servants included gardeners, coachmen and chauffeurs. If they were live-in, they usually did not sleep in the house, but in the appropriate out-building. Coachmen and chauffeurs were more likely to be live-in, so that they could be available to provide transportation at any time.<br />
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Of course, even upper middle class houses could not always afford a full retinue of servants, so compromises had to be made. A frequent combination in a middle class house, was a cook (who also took on the duties of the laundress), a maid (combining the duties of the parlor maid and chambermaid) and a single male servant who was a combination valet and footman. In some houses, even the male servant was not present, leaving only a cook-laundress and a maid. (If the ages of the children in the house required it, there might be a nursemaid, who often was not live-in.)<br />
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Further down the ladder, a situation very often encountered in America, was a house with only one servant – the “maid-of-all-work.” A maid-of-all-work performed the duties of the footman (waiting at table), the cook, the parlor maid and the chamber maid. While this was a tremendous amount of work, many managed it. If the house to which she was assigned was a farm, the maid-of-all-work might also be expected to join in feeding the animals and helping with the milking. <br />
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There was no such thing as a minimum wage in the early part of the twentieth century, but if there had been, servants would have been at or below it, in spite of the back-breaking work often required of them. An important part of a servant’s compensation was the privilege of living in a very comfortable house. Houses to be occupied by members of the upper middle class in this country, built in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, almost always included a section intended to be used by the servants. <br />
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The servants’ part of the house was separated from the part intended for use by the family, and tended to emphasize the difference between the two classes. The servants’ quarters included the necessary number of small bedrooms for the servants. (Maids sometimes shared a room, but male servants rarely did.) In houses with indoor plumbing, there was usually a small bathroom and toilet for the use of the servants. Downstairs, the servants had the kitchen, the pantry, the laundry, and in larger houses a “servants’ hall” – a room where servants dined and had their relaxation. Rooms in the servants’ part of the house were very simply decorated, as opposed to the elaborate adornment in the drawing room, dining room, and parlors., and in the upstairs chambers in the family part of the house. An extra set of stairs, the “back stairs” was provided for the sole use of the servants, so that they would not have to intrude on the other part of the house to go from floor to floor.<br />
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Beginning about the turn of the century, houses with servants often contained a system of electric bells, for summoning the servants. There would be a front door bell to alert the butler or footman when visitors had arrived, and a different sounding bell for the back door, alerting the cook to the arrival of a tradesman or a visitor for one of the other servants. Other bells were used for summoning servants to the dining room, drawing room, or one of the bedchambers.<br />
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Houses with back stairs and servants quarters like those described were very common in American communities, and most of the larger houses built from 1850 to 1920 included them. While some have been altered by remodeling, there are a great many older houses that still include these outmoded accommodations. Without question, many of our predecessors in the Monday Evening Club lived in such houses.<br />
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Of course, the living quarters described for servants weren’t universal. Unfortunately, many maids slept on sleeping porches or in furnace rooms. There was also a wide variety in the meals available to servants. In really large establishments, a separate meal might be prepared for servants, and in smaller ones they might enjoy the remains of the dinner served in the dining room, but there was no guarantee as to the amount of food they would get in that case. Servants almost never ate until the meal in the dining room was finished, since they were expected to be on hand to serve it and clean up afterwards, so the time between their lunch and dinner meal might be very long. <br />
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Wages for servants varied widely, but they were generally quite low. References indicate that live-in servants received between five and ten dollars a week. Servants who did not live in received about the same, although they generally worked shorter hours and were given car fare to get to and from work each day. There were even cases where the maid was expected to work for room and board only, or (for someone with little experience) for the training they received at the hands of the more senior servants.<br />
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The wealthy not only paid more, but there was some satisfaction and esteem to working for a very wealthy family. America had no hereditary aristocracy, but servants preferred working for a family that had been established for several generations, so that they were used to dealing with servants. Wealthier families were more likely to have more attractive quarters for the servants, and it must certainly have been more satisfying to be part of a well-organized and disciplined staff. Servants had hierarchy of position to strengthen their self-esteem, with the butler ranking highest, then the valet, then the footmen. As mentioned, the head housekeeper was highest ranking, but the male servants outranked almost all the female ones. <br />
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Alexis de Tocqueville in his landmark work Democracy in America, published in 1840 mentions his observation that America had no permanent servant class, because American society was too mobile. I think that overlooks the existence of slavery, which was still prevalent in the time he was writing, but the matter became truer and truer as the years went along. Very few people in this country were raised expecting to be servants. The source of most servants in this country was, and still is, immigration. And, for many years after the civil war, African Americans migrating North, or simply trying to make a living in a still segregated Southern society.<br />
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And this gave rise to the “servant problem” – the lack of people willing and suitable to take a service position, and the difficulty of filling vacancies. After all, who, in fact, would want to? Being a personal servant is considered to be very low status. So a footman has much lower status than a waiter, and a chef outranks a cook. A reasonable case can be made for the advantages of living in a well-equipped mansion in a beautiful area, but the traditions of service required that servants live in the least desirable part of the house, in the smallest rooms with the least desirable furniture. If the house had an ocean view, for example, servants lived on the side away from the water.<br />
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About 90% of servants were women. Only the largest staffs employed any men. It was understood during the period when servants were prevalent that most domestic employment was “women’s work”. Girls were taught “Home Economics” in school – learning the basics of cleaning, cooking, laundering, table setting, and generally caring for the smooth running of a household.<br />
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In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were three ways of filling a vacancy among the servants. By far the best was a referral from friends, but these were rare. If friends had a good servant, they generally wanted to keep him or her, and of course they would hesitate to refer an unsatisfactory one. A second method was by advertisement in a newspaper, but this resulted in contacts from a variety of persons who needed to be interviewed and have their references reviewed. The final method was to contact an employment agency. Employment agencies specializing in filling service positions were known as “intelligence offices”. Intelligence offices often did their own recruiting and the better ones were often a good source.<br />
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The final question I want to deal with is: Where did all this go? Why do we so rarely see homes with servants today? The peak of the servant period was about 1900, when 7% of homes had a full time servant. This was down to 5% in the 1930s, and 2% in the 1950s. Today the proportion is less than 1%. One quick answer is to suggest that labor saving appliances have eliminated the need – in other words, robots have replaced humans. That is part of the answer, but by no means all of it. <br />
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Sociology probably holds the rest of the answer. The American dream of the 1950s was a home of one’s own and many of the vast number who returned from overseas were able to achieve that goal. Wives, at that time were expected to be at home raising children, and employing the skills they had learned in their universally taught home economics classes.. Both these ideals (even if not universally achieved) were inconsistent with serving in someone else’s house. No one desired any longer to earn a living by caring for someone else’s family.<br />
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Most of us would much rather not have our privacy disturbed by the presence of servants in the house, although we still enjoy being waited on, even if not every night. A restaurant waiter does much the same work as the footman did and receives much higher pay, especially when tips are included. His co-worker in the kitchen, the chef, is much better educated and higher paid than a domestic cook. And many of us still have cleaning women who come in occasionally, and a laundry service. Those who need child care have ways of arranging it. We still have servants, even if we don’t call them that, and their status is much higher.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-86335942825604532012016-03-06T19:49:00.000-05:002016-03-13T17:53:14.749-04:00Richard Whitlock Nunley, 1931-2016<br />
Our longtime Monday Evening Club member, Richard Whitlock Nunley, born July 31, 1931, in Scituate, Massachusetts, died from a brain hemorrhage on March 3 in Portland, Oregon.<br />
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Dick was a teacher, poet, cook, gardener, and lover of the natural world. Childhood mentors fostered a love of books and learning, which led him to Dartmouth College and Kings College, Cambridge in England.<br />
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There he met Susan Stroud, whom he married on December 19, 1965. They spent the majority of their lives together in New Lebanon, New York, where Dick was a teacher at Darrow School. They raised two daughters, Diana and Felicity, at their "Garden Hill" home, surrounded by flower and vegetable gardens with a spectacular view across Lebanon Valley.<br />
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In 1970 Dick became a professor of English at Berkshire Community College in nearby Pittsfield, Massachusetts. An exacting teacher with high expectations for all, many former students credit him with changing the course of their lives.<br />
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For 25 years beginning in 1980 Dick wrote a weekly "Our Berkshires" column for <i>The Berkshire Eagle</i>. His columns challenged readers to connect the dots between vignettes of Berkshire life and his favorite poets and thinkers, and revealed the thoughtful, caring and generous man that he was.<br />
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For the last 12 years of his life, Dick and Sue lived near Felicity in Portland, Oregon, where he turned his eye on the lush environment of the Pacific Northwest and enjoyed the city's art and musical offerings. He delighted in his grandchildren, Helen and Norris Meigs of Portland and Hanna and Elena Johnson of Minneapolis.<br />
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"How simple happiness is, really," concludes one of Dick's poems. That lesson may be Dick's greatest legacy to all who remember him whether it's to be found in a delicate spring bloom, a morning walk, or a fresh-baked loaf of bread. A brief memorial service will be held at Willamette View in Portland on Monday, March 7, with a fuller celebration of his life planned for this summer in New Lebanon.<br />
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We also enjoyed<a href="http://www.berkshireeagle.com/opinion/ci_29621879/judy-waters:-richard-nunley-a-distinguished-berkshire-writer-teacher"> this remembrance</a> of Dick by Judy Waters in The Berkshire Eagle of Friday, March 11, 2016.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6779045346757254296.post-73501736536446236632015-07-08T20:14:00.000-04:002015-12-21T21:17:57.327-05:00Allotment: How the 1887 Dawes Act disrupted Native American cultures<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Henry Laurens Dawes</td></tr>
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<span class="s1"><i>Presented to the Club by Martin C. Langeveld on Tuesday evening, May 26, 2015 (that Monday being a holiday)</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">One of the founding members of this club in 1869 was Henry Laurens Dawes, born in Cummington in 1816. He graduated from Yale University in 1839 and became a teacher in Greenfield, where he also edited the Greenfield Recorder.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">In 1842 he was admitted to the bar and opened a law practice in North Adams, maintaining his interest in journalism by editing the North Adams Transcript.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">From journalism he moved into politics, being elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1848, 1849 and 1852, to the state Senate in 1850, and to the Massachusetts Constitutional convention in 1853.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">He then served as U.S. district attorney for Western Massachusetts from 1853 to 1857, when he was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives and served there for 23 years until 1875.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">That year, Dawes was elected by the Massachusetts General Court as United States Senator from Massachusetts, to succeed Charles Sumner, who died in office. He served in the Senate until 1893, and died in Pittsfield in 1903 at the age of 86.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">A friend of Abraham Lincoln, he served as a pall bearer at Lincoln’s funeral.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">In the House, Dawes figured prominently in the passage of anti-slavery and Reconstruction measures during and after the Civil War, as well as in tariff legislation, the establishment of a fish commission, and the establishment of a system of daily weather reports, which was a forerunner to the United States Weather Service.</span></div>
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He took a great interest in the development of the American West, supporting the creation of Yellowstone National Park and funding for geological surveys of that area. His son Chester Dawes served on the survey team, and the first boat to appear on Yellowstone Lake was named the Annie, purportedly after Dawes’s daughter Anna.</div>
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<span class="s1">He was also an ardent supporter of the Transcontinental Railroad, influenced, perhaps, by a gift from Congressman Oakes Ames of 2,000 shares of stocks in the Credit Mobilier of America railroad construction company. Ames was subsequently censured for his vote-buying largesse.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Among the two Monday Evening Club papers that have survived among the Dawes papers housed in the Library of Congress, one reflects his interest in Western and frontier matters — it is about the fur seals of Alaska. The other, an 1889 presentation entitled “The Winter Before the War” covers the period immediately before the Civil War, including Dawes’s personal recollections of Charles Sumner, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Francis Adams, General Winfield Scott and others.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">But if Dawes were here presenting his own biography, he would write at the top his list of accomplishments and interests that he was a friend of the Indian. In the Senate he served as chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, and his signature achievement was the passage, in 1887, of the General Allotment Act of 1887, generally known as the Dawes Act.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">While Dawes, until his death, believed that the Allotment Act was the right course for U.S. Indian policy, it is clear today that the allotment had disastrous consequences, still being felt today, for the economic, social and cultural well-being of the Indians.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">To understand the environment that brought about the Dawes Act, we need to look at the roots of American Indian policy in the early years of the American republic. A long series of Indian Wars that began in colonial days and continued until 1890 was instrumental in pushing Indian populations westward to the Great Plains, confined to reservations. The presence of this aboriginal population remained a thorny problem, especially as mining resources were discovered in the West, railroad companies began plotting routes through Indian reservations, and white settlers began eyeing Indian territory as potentially valuable agricultural land. At the same time, social reformers and missionaries sought to come up with a solution for “civilizing” the Indians — improving their educational attainment and motivating them to become productive citizens. The goal was assimilation. And collective ownership of reservation lands by the tribes was seen as an obstacle to that goal. Individual land ownership would motivate the Indians to better their situation, it was thought.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">As early as 1792, George Washington’s secretary of war, Henry Knox, suggested that individual, rather than collective ownership of land would benefit the Indians. The United States, he said in a speech sent to an Indian group, “would be greatly gratified with the opportunity of imparting to you all the blessings of civilized life, of teaching you to cultivate the earth, to raise corn; to raise oxen, sheep and other domestic animals; to build comfortable houses, and to educate your children, so as ever to dwell upon the land.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Thomas Jefferson, as president, told a delegation of Indian chiefs in 1808: “Let me entreat you . . . on the land now given you, to begin to give every man a farm; let him enclose it, cultivate it, build a warm house on it, and when he dies, let it belong to his wife and children after him.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Throughout the first half of the century, the adoption of severalty, or individual land holdings, was discussed as the goal. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs wrote in 1838: “Unless some system is marked out by which there shall be a separate allotment of land to each individual . . . you will look in vain for any general casting off of savagism. Common property and civilization cannot co-exist.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Treaties made with some of the Indian tribes during this period did provide for individual allotments of land on a small scale, and in 1875, Congress extended homesteading privileges to Indians.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The movement toward allotment was accelerated by a group known as the Friends of Indians, which counted Senator Dawes as a member and leader. From 1883 to 1913, they met annually at the Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York, as guests of the proprietor, Albert K. Smiley, a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners. These gatherings became known as the Lake Mohonk Conferences, and they included wealthy and influential men and women who had access to Congress and to the President. They were driven by philanthropy and by strong desires to spread the blessings of Christianity to underdeveloped peoples.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">In pursuing this goal, we can now see, they were relentlessly ethnocentric. Most aspects of the Indian cultures, they believed — languages, religious beliefs, common ownership of land, and aboriginal lifestyles — were incompatible with modern civilization and had to be changed.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The 1884 Lake Mohonk Conference called for providing Indians with an education that would be in English, to the exclusion of native tongues, that would teach them industrial skills, and that, above all, would be a Christian education.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">By 1886, the conference was advocating strongly for a system to permit individual ownership of land. One speaker, Prof. C. C. Painter, put it this way:</span> </div>
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<span class="s1">I would at once break down the reservation walls and let civilization go in; I would secure the Indians for the present inalienable possession of sufficient land, by personal title, for the use of each one; I would sell the remainder for their benefit, and in place of the agent's irresponsible will make them subject to the laws and give them their protection; I would give them without delay citizenship with all its privileges and duties.</span></blockquote>
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Dawes himself gave the 1886 conference a legislative update, in which he expressed the realistic expectation that granting private ownership of tracts of land would not solve the problem by itself, and that the government should also invest in education for the Indians. But he seems to have been driven by the idea that without allotment, the Indians would soon have nothing at all, saying: </div>
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<span class="s1">Our work must be done now and without delay, for the greed for the Indian's land is growing every day, and it is as impossible to resist it under the forms of our Government as to stop the flow of the river. We may guide and direct it, but we cannot stop it. We are blind, we are deaf, we are insane if we do not take cognizance of the fact that there are forces in this land driving on these people with a determination to possess every acre of their land, and they will lose it unless we work on and declare that the original owner of this land shall, before every acre disappears from under him forever, have 160 acres of it where he shall be fitted to become a citizen of the United States and prepared to bear the burdens as well as share the rights of our Government.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Not everyone agreed with the civilizing aims espoused by the conference and built into the Dawes Act. Many pointed to the Five Civilized Tribes (the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole) who lived in what was then called the Indian Territory, which later became Oklahoma. The Act exempted those tribes from allotment because they had already established a variety of the elements of civilization, including centralized governments, a rule of law, commerce, and education. But they worked their lands in common, and hunted in groups for buffalo. The exemption for the Five Tribes may also have been influenced by white cattlemen who had secured extensive grazing privileges from those tribes.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The most realistic criticism within Washington came from the minority report of the House Committee on Indian Affairs, which stated:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">However much we may differ with the humanitarians who are riding this hobby, we are certain that they will agree with us in the proposition that it does not make a farmer out of an Indian to give him a quarter-section of land. There are hundreds of thousands of white men, rich with the experience of centuries of Anglo-Saxon civilization, who cannot be transformed into cultivators of the land by any such gift.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Colorado Senator Henry M. Teller vigorously opposed allotment, calling an earlier allotment effort “a bill to despoil the Indians of their lands and to make them vagabonds on the face of the earth.” Teller and other critics also pointed out that in reservations where small-scale allotments that had taken place under treaties since 1845, the land had gradually been dissipated, removed from Indian ownership, in all but a few cases. Opponents in the minority of the House Committee in 1880 also pointed out that the passage of legislation and the issuance of deeds was not likely to change the fact that:</span> </div>
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<span class="s1">. . . from the time of the discovery of America, and for centuries probably before that, the North American Indian has been a communist. Not in the offensive sense of modern communism, but in the sense of holding property in common. . . . This communistic idea has grown into their very being, and is an integral part of the Indian character. From our point of view, this is all wrong; but it is folly to think of uprooting it . . . through the agency of a mere act of Congress or by the establishment of a theoretical policy.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">What about the Indians themselves? Some favored allotment, and petitioned for it. Federal Indian agents working among the tribes typically reported that their charges favored allotment as a way to prevent their removal from their lands. But the notion that after allotment they were expected to settle down into an agricultural lifestyle was not well understood. Some tribes were explicit in their opposition, sending memorials to Congress outlining their concerns. The Creeks, Choctaws and Cherokees wrote that “the change to individual title would throw the whole of our domain into the hands of a few persons.” The Senecas, in a resolution, pointed out that under their communal system, “No Indian, however improvident and thriftless, can be deprived of a resort to the soil for his support and that of his family. There is always land for him to cultivate free of tax, rent or purchase price.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">But Dawes and his supporters believed that allotment was precisely the solution that would prevent the Indians from losing their all their land, and to prevent abuses, Dawes proposed a 25-year restriction during which the recipients of allotments would not be permitted to sell or encumber their land.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The options were stark, Dawes told the Mohonk Conference.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">That he will pass away as an Indian I don't doubt, and that very rapidly. It will be into citizenship, and into a place among the citizens of this land, or it will be into a vagabond and a tramp. He is to disappear as an Indian of the past; there is no longer any room for such an Indian in this country; he cannot find a place. The Indian of the past has no place to live in this country. . . . Something stronger than the Mohonk Conference has dissolved the reservation system. The greed of these people for the land has made it utterly impossible to preserve it for the Indian. He must take his place where you have undertaken to put him, or he must go a vagabond throughout this country, and it is for you and me to say which it shall be. He cannot choose for himself, and he does not know where the ways are.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Even ethnologists, who today would be the first to defend tribal rights and autonomy, largely toed the allotment line. John Wesley Powell, director of the Bureau of American Ethnology, wrote: “No measure could be devised more efficient for the ultimate civilization of the Indians than one by which they could successfully and rapidly obtain lands in severalty.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">And so, in what became essentially an act of faith by the “friends of the Indian,” land and citizenship were the tenets that became embodied in the Dawes Act the following year. As signed by President Cleveland, the act provided:</span></div>
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<li>A grant of 160 acres to each family head, 80 acres to each single person over 18 and to each orphan under 18, and 40 acres to each other person under 18.</li>
<li>The deeds to these properties were to be held in trust by the government for 25 years, during which time the owners could not sell or encumber their property.</li>
<li>Indians were to choose their land within 4 years, or thereafter the government would select it for them.</li>
<li>Every Indian accepting an allotment would be granted citizenship, along with any Indian who had left their tribes and adopted “the habits of civilized life.”</li>
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<span class="s1">The Lake Mohonk conferees applauded the bill, but urged greater attention to the educational goals they espoused. Later in 1887, their report urged: “The work of education, which has been heretofore desultory, individual, fragmentary, denominational, must be made systematic, harmonious, organic, Christian."</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It urged the various educational and missionary entities working among the Indians to “act as one body representing one great constituency, and combining their various energies to one great end, the Americanizing, civilizing and Christianizing of the aborigines of the soil.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">A federal Indian educational program, funded through the Bureau of Indian affairs, instituted a system of boarding schools, many of them in the East, to which Indian children were brought. Typically, the long hair of the boys was cut, all the students were made to wear uniforms, education was in English and Anglo-centric, and discipline was strict. They also received English names, were forbidden to speak their native languages even among themselves, and were required to attend Christian services and encouraged to convert. Graduation rates were abysmal: during a 24-year period at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania beginning in 1879, out of 10,000 students who enrolled, only 158 graduated.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">By 1902, there were 6,000 students in about 25 boarding schools in 15 states and territories. In fact, the Indian boarding school system continued to grow until attendance peaked at about 60,000 in the 1970s. Since that time, more enlightened Indian self-determination policies have resulted in decentralization of education back to tribal areas, and the reintroduction of education in aspects of Native culture.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">In the grammar schools Indian children attended on reservations before going to boarding schools, Americanization was the goal. In one of his reports the Commissioner of Indian Affairs urged:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Schoolrooms should be supplied with pictures of civilized life, so that all their associations will be agreeable and attractive. The games and sports should be such as white children are engaged in, and the pupils should be rendered familiar with the songs and music that make our home life so dear. . . . If they persist in remaining savages the world will treat them as such, and justly so . . . . The school itself should be an illustration of the superiority of the Christian civilization.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">But the system for educating young Indians did not extend to any form of adult education, such as instruction in how to farm their land, which gave Dawes cause to worry, in 1890, that the allotment policy was moving forward too quickly. He asked the Mohonk Conference:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">What have we done to prepare these people for their new home and for their new state? Hardly anything can any of you call to mind, —anything that the Government, that the friend of the Indian, that anybody, has done to prepare an allottee for life on his allotment. . . . I sometimes think you had better abandon the allotment altogether and keep him where he is, unless this is done.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">By 1897, 60,000 Indians had been allotted land, but there were only 272 farming instructors on the payroll of the Indian Service to teach them how. As a consequence, only about 5 acres per allotment, on average, were actually being cultivated by Indians, and the typically allottee could count on only a few hours of coaching per year.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The Indians were caught between two competing forces: that of the idealist friends of the Indian, who promulgated allotment in the belief that this policy would naturally drive the Indian to adopt the American culture of individualism and competition, and on the other side, the land-seeking settlers and business enterprises who saw allotment as a way to break down the reservation system and take land away from the Indians.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">There is no evidence that the railroads or other western land seekers directly sought to influence the passage of the Dawes Act. Presumably those interests were happy enough to let the philanthropic and Christianizing arguments carry the day. But, the railroads did get into the Dawes Act a provision that the Act could not be</span> </div>
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<span class="s1">. . . so construed as to affect the right and power of Congress to grant the right-of-way through any lands granted to an Indian, or to a tribe of Indians, for railroads or other highways, or telegraph lines, or the public use, or to condemn such lands to public uses, upon making just compensation.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">It did not take long for Congress to begin granting such rights of way through Indian Lands, with multiple railroad grants sailing though Congress annually throughout the rest of the 1880s and 1890s. And railroads were not the only ones interested in western lands.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Generally, the reservations had significantly more land than was necessary to provide allotments to all who qualified for them. So Congress passed enabling legislation to permit agreements with tribes providing for the sale of surplus land. Under these agreements, by 1891, 20 million acres had already been sold out of Indian hands. The Commissioner estimated that of the 116 million acres of Indian land covered by the Dawes Act, only 30 million acres were actually required to provide allotments to all the Indians who qualified for them, and that rest could be sold off for $66 million — the interest on which, he calculated, at 5 percent, would be sufficient to pay for all the costs of Indian education, and the principal could gradually be used to help develop the allotments.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The process of selling “surplus” lands progressed rapidly. Of the 155 million acres of Indian reservation lands in 1881, by 1900 only 78 million acres remained. Of that, 5.4 million acres had been issued in allotments, the rest was still held in common by the tribes. With this rapid shift, some began to anticipate that before long, the government’s oversight over the Indians could end, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs could close up shop.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It was the job of the Indian agents on the reservations to gently persuade and educate Indians into accepting allotments. But in some cases, this was done with considerable pressure, and sometimes there was strong pushback. For example the Osages were reported in 1890 to be nearly unanimously opposed to allotment, on the basis that they were simply not ready for it and that in any case their land was most suitable for use as common grazing land. The common thread among tribes expressing opposition was that allotment would break up their tribal solidarity and destroy their hunter-gatherer lifestyle.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Some of the reformers recognized this problem. For example, Rev. Thomas Riggs, a missionary to the Dakotas, told the 1890 Mohonk Conference:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">We have tried to turn hunters into farmers. We have tried this not only in a good country where it would be difficult enough to teach agriculture to an Indian, but on the plains, in regions where out of five years, we may possibly have a good crop one year.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Besides the lack of coaching in agricultural skills, the government allocated virtually no funds to assist allottees in the purchase of seed and farming implements. The appropriation for this purpose in 1888 was $30,000 to cover 3,568 allotments. This was cut in half after a few years and between 1893 and 1900 no funds were provided at all for this purpose. Private philanthropy was applied, but was wholly insufficient to meet the need.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Defects in the Dawes Act itself become apparent, as well. The twenty-five year period restricting allotments from being sold or encumbered became problematic, because it meant that no state could levy taxes on allotments. Consequently, states refused to provide funding for roads and education in the Indian lands.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">To address these various problems, by 1889 Congress was at work to amend the Act to permit Indians to lease out their allotments, for example to white ranchers. Dawes himself was of two minds about this. He wanted to see the allotment experiment through, and told the conference that a leasing provision</span> </div>
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<span class="s1">. . . would speedily overthrow the whole allotment system. The Indian would at once seek to let his land, and relieve himself from work; and there would be whites so ready to take possession that all barriers would soon be broken down … The Indian would abandon his own work, his own land, and his own home, which we have talked about as the central pivot in our attempting to civilize the Indian.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">But before expressing those concerns to the Conference, Dawes had already introduced leasing legislation, which was endorsed by both the Mohonk Conference and the Indian Rights Association. As passed, the new law permitted leases of allotted lands for periods of up to five years for farming and grazing, and up to ten years for mining. The bill also increased the size of allotments for Indians who were not heads of households, with the idea that a family of five Indians, receiving five allotments, could live and farm on one and lease out the other four.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The leasing of allotment proceeded slowly, at first, but gradually picked up. By the year 1900, out of 58,594 allotments granted, 7,574 had been leased, and the pace was accelerating. Only 10,835 families were actually living on, and cultivating their allotments. By 1916, 2.3 million out of the 6.4 million acres granted in allotments were in the hands of lessees.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">There was rampant abuse in the leasing system. For example, one shrewd operator rented 47,000 acres from the Winnebagoes for eight to 25 cents per acre, and then sublet them to farmers for up to two dollars per acre. Among some tribes, nearly all of the allotted land went into leasing: for example, the Pawnees in 1898 were cultivating 1,443 acres and leasing 36,784; the Tonkawas were cultivating 75 and leasing 11,200. While there were opposite, more positive results elsewhere, clearly this outcome is not what Dawes and all the reformers had in mind when the general allotment policy was originally conceived just a dozen years earlier.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Indian agents who were on the ground in reservations began to understand the Indian cultural pressures that were at odds with the allotment concept, although they continued to advocate for the policy. A report by the agent to the Cheyennes and Arapahoes in 1895 illustrates the cultural clash inherent in the efforts to change the culture of the Indians:</span> </div>
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<span class="s1">The most common and pernicious custom among them is the habit of visiting their relatives and friends and eating their substance . . . . Their lavish hospitality militates against the accumulation of wealth by individuals. Tribal visiting keeps alive old customs and should be abolished.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"> </span>Another agent to the Shoshones wrote, “Like all barbarians, they are communists, and are loath to take up individually any untried pursuit.”</div>
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<span class="s1">Another unforeseen consequence of the allotment policy is referred to as fractionation. As the original 25-year holding period expired, Congress passed a variety of measures extending the period in instances where the government deemed the holders incapable of managing their holdings, and passed special Indian probate laws that divided ownership collectively among the heirs of the original allottee, with the title held in trust by the federal government. So if the holder of a 160-acre allotment died with four heirs, each heir would receive a one-fourth interest in the full property, rather than 40 acres apiece. This served to protect the integrity of whatever farm enterprises might have been on the land, but ultimately got very complex, with instances of parcels that had hundreds of fractional owners, each receiving a pittance from the leasing income. In 1986, one tract bringing in $1,080 in annual lease income and valued at $8,000 had 439 owners receiving a variety of tiny shares of the income. The cost of handling the accounting for this tract by the Bureau of Indian Affairs was about $17,000 per year. By 2003, the ownership of this tract had grown to 550 persons, and the cost of accounting was $42,000.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Currently [2015] there are still about 250,000 individual owners of some 3 million fractionated interests in allotted lands. The Bureau of Indian Affairs maintains an Indian Lands Consolidation program that is gradually unraveling the ownership of fractionated parcels by buying them and turning them over to tribal ownership.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The allotment policy itself officially ended in 1934 with the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act (although it continued in Alaska until 1993). This law, sometimes referred to as the Indian New Deal, sought to reverse the goal of assimilation, and to permit tribes to continue their traditions and culture. It also provided for self-governance of reservations, including the right to manage land and mineral assets.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It is beyond the scope of this history of the allotment policy to go into the further consequences of American Indian policies, but it should be noted that the general economic situation of Native Americans living both on and off reservations still lags significantly behind the rest of the country. Unemployment rates and alcoholism on reservations are high. In 2012, the median income of Native American households was $35,310, compared to a median $51,371 for the entire nation. The Native American poverty rate is 29.1 percent, versus 15.1 percent for the country as a whole. At 82 percent, the Native American high school graduation rate lags behind the national average which is 90 percent. On the other hand, today cultural traditions are being rebuilt, with a significant percentage of Native American students learning their tribal languages, history and culture.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Dawes himself is memorialized in Pittsfield in the name of Dawes Avenue, and the former Dawes School. Dawes, the Dawes Act and the influence of the friends of the Indians are not well-regarded by historians. No biography of Dawes has every been published, but the Dawes papers at the Library of Congress amount to 64 boxes of correspondence, speeches and other records, including an unfinished biography by his daughter — potentially a trove that could shed much new light on the origins of the allotment policy.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">In any case, had our esteemed member, Senator Dawes, espoused a more enlightened approach to solving “the Indian problem,” how might things be different today?</span></div>
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