Summary

October 1994

A teacher for thirty-two years, Harold Dunn, collected some of the intriguing answers of his pupils. This caught my eye:

“Australia is located in the Pacific Ocean.
It is presently still floating.”

So with me – still floating and brash enough to share my observations for the fifth year.

Books are still my major time-sharer. For brain-jogging, and, often enough, good writing and plot construction, I still devour “mystery” novels. I enjoy finding authors I had not previously known: Sprinkle, Kelley, Carter, Sue Grafton, others, as well as old favorites. My journals include The Nation, Harper’s, Liberal Weekly, American Scholar, Spy, Church and State, Extra, and (of course) The New Yorker.

But I am still engrossed and entertained by biography and history. New 1994 books (new to me, anyway) include:

THE GREAT DEPRESSION, T. H. Watkins

C. S. LEWIS – A BIOGRAPHY, A. N. Wilson

WITHOUT SIN – THE LIFE AND DEATH OF THE ONEIDA COMMUNITY, Spencer Klaw/Allen Lane

BERTRAND RUSSELL – A LIFE, Caroline Moorehead

ALBION’S SEED (Four British Folkways in America), David Hackett Fisher

BLASPHEMY, Leonard Levy

IN THE BEGINNING (THE ADVENT OF THE MODERN AGE – EUROPE IN THE 1840s), Jerome Blum

SHAKESPEARE (Because ALWAYS there are new and profound insights into the human condition when re-reading. Thus his plays, particularly the tragedies, are ever new.)

All of these books are worth the reading if the subjects touch on your areas of interest.

Grandson Carl sent me Bertrand Russell’s “Liberal Decalogue” and as parting words of advice which I have tried to embrace, I quote numbers 1, 3, and 6 because they are succinct and wise:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
3. Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do, the opinions will suppress you.

Oh, by the way, my reference book used constantly is SHAKESPEARE, by Charles Boyce, to which I was steered by Clarke Wells. Visiting John and Renee in Phoenix last month I found that they used Isaac Asimov’s GUIDE TO SHAKESPEARE. After scanning it, I know that I will acquire a copy when resettled.

As I have no editor (and could use one), please forgive errors, grammatical and otherwise. But as Mark Twain once noted:

“If you find a mistake in this paper, please consider that it was put there on purpose. We publish something for everyone, including those who are always looking for mistakes.”

That barbed statement does not apply here, because I know my audience is both forgiving and affectionate.

BLESS YOU ALL

Crimes (Of The Young) And Punishment

October 4, 1994

A young man from Ohio was caned in Singapore for breaking the law. As administered there, caning is a bloody, scarring whipping of the bare buttocks with a thin, flexible bamboo cane wielded with all the strength of the assigned punisher.

In Alaska, two young men of the Tlingit tribe were sentenced to be banished for a year for beating and robbing a pizza delivery man in Washington State. The State court referred punishment to the tribe. Simon Roberts and Adrian Guthrie were ordered by the tribal court to spend a year to eighteen months on separate, isolated islands.

In Florida, there is political push, particularly led by some county sheriffs, to establish “boot camps” for juvenile offenders. Supervisors trained in tough drill sergeant methods would enforce hard-line disciplines: hours, daily, of marching drills, obstacle courses, rigid behavior, and dress standards for all hours of the working day.

Will such varieties of punishment and rehabilitation be effective? No one knows. The young man who was caned in Asia returned to his father's home in Ohio; and, I read, is now in a drug rehab program.

The two young men of the Tlingit tribe are going to be exiled on separate islands in Alaska, although there seem to be hitches. The tribal elders were apparently confused about enforcement. There are no tribal precedents; these are first cases, which makes one speculate why the Washington State judge turned the case over to the Tlingits. Each of the offenders will be given help in building a one-room house and be supplied with a wood-stove, sleeping bag, tools, fishing poles and some basic food stuffs such as rice and beans. They will be taught Tlingit skills for survival. Whether such teaching and supplies will be sufficient to enable each to survive an Alaskan winter alone, remains to be seen; as well as the question whether they will be reformed or changed if they do survive.

“Boot camps” in Florida are few and have not existed long enough to acquire statistics establishing whether the “graduates” choose a crime-free life or are just physically tougher lawless boys and men. Furthermore, there is the reluctance on the part of the Florida populace (taxes!) to vote to support any crime prevention program except the building of more and more prison cells (the costliest way in construction, maintenance and inmate costs).

Dealing with young offenders is not a new problem. The Massachusetts law in 1648 called for the DEATH PENALTY for rebellious sons over the age of sixteen who refused to obey their mother or father; or if they struck or cursed a parent. How about that!! There is no record of any executions under this law, but as the historian notes, “but several were fined or whipped for being rude or abusive to parents, some of these ‘children’ were in their forties and parents were of an advanced age.” (David Hackett Fischer, ALBION’S SEED.)

Are there proposed solutions that have authentic promise? I don't know, but I hope there will be continuing, realistic discussion and appropriate testing of suggested ways to deal with the immense problems of juvenile crimes crimes and misdemeanors.

Years ago I heard a story, not guaranteed to be true; it is illustrative: “After reading a letter from the camp director stating her son needed discipline, a mother replied, ‘Please don’t slap Irvin; he is very sensitive. It would be much better to slap the boy next to him; that will scare Irvin.’” Well, are parents too willing to seek easy ways to overlook, to tolerate, to excuse their reluctance to exert “tough love?” But I guess no easy generalizations will fit the abundant varied circumstances.

Contrasted to that doting mother, is the “melancholy Dane”, who when scolding his mother for her marriage to Claudius, Hamlet says to her he “must be cruel only to be kind.”

How tough, even cruel, must society be to juvenile offenders? There are some who are murderers before their mid-teens. Even pre-teens are bringing guns to school. Many kids who commit crimes or misdemeanors are arrested and released immediately because there is no place to keep them. So there is the attitude among some teen-agers: Go ahead – rob, steal, mug, deal drugs. Even if arrested you'll be back on the street within 24 hours. Is that an exaggeration? Not according to what I read, almost almost daily.

On this, my 83rd birthday, I am wary of being naively autobiographical. Times have changed too much and there has been a large increase in population and the inner cities are even more densely populated. I could go on at length – the cop on the corner kept us kids in line; no parent objected to his manhandling us a bit to teach us lawful ways. (It did). Whatever the teacher said in a note sent home was reinforced unquestioningly by the parents.

What happened? Talking recently with my older son, for whose intelligence and experience I have great respect, he said the big change happened in the 1960s. (Would you believe that in the early 1950s, when taking some evening graduate courses at Teachers College, Columbia University, after the second class, about 10 PM, I would walk through Harlem to get to the 125th St. railroad station; and I was never bothered. Try that today!)

Beyond doubt many things have worsened – the large number of one-parent families (for reasons sometimes good as well as bad), the failure of densely-grouped public housing; the strange attitude on the part of so many parents that the teacher in the public school is responsible for the learning, discipline, values, hygiene, morals, not the parents. There are other cultural factors too, which I am not qualified to assess the effect on children and young people:

The insatiable thirst for consumer goods of all kinds, cultivated by the skilled and subtle ads on TV, in the news supplements, all media. We have “bought” a cultural norm that it is better “to have” than “to be”. So, get the goods, the TV, the car stereo, rip them off if you lack the money to buy. There is also huge distrust of government, both elected and appointed, which must have some effect on attitudes toward the law. How does one cope with the belief held by so many young people that there are no “good” jobs for them, now or in the future? How much ruin is the consequence of “hard” drugs, along with the chance of getting rich by dealing in drugs?

Have all the “liberal” (so-called) programs of the last sixty years or so had as an unintended consequence of fixing in stone an extensive “underclass” who have few hopes for survival except for entitlements or illegal activities? That’s a difficult question for a life-long New Deal Democrat to raise, even with himself. But I hear of no alternatives that are realistic, feasible, or humane.

What can sustain us? There is no sense in blinking away the nature and depth of our problems and unease. Perhaps there soon will be some answers that will address the issues with some authenticity. Otherwise, the troubles accumulate, until, to use a metaphor from physics, there is a “critical mass.” Then there will be an explosion, perhaps a 21st century variety of “New Deal”; or the worst case would be violent, bloody uprisings. I won’t be around, but I predict it will be a series of catastrophic events for some persons, but possibly a beacon of hope for many others. Send me a fax, I’d sure like to know.

The Problem of Disposal

August 13, 1994

Engaged as I am in the seemingly never-ending task of disposing of accumulations, I found it relatively easy to toss a great many of my own “creations”. However, it is more difficult to get rid of the “texts,” quotes, and quips which may have been the inspiration for my effort. Consequently, this Musing is to preserve the varieties of wisdom which turned me on at one time or another.

If you like some of these “thought-starters”, ponder how you would develop the wisdom into an essay, commentary or “op-ed.”

“Lives based on having are less free than lives based on doing or being.” William James

“The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There’s far less competition.” Dwight Morrow

“There is no one alive today who knows enough to say with confidence whether one religion has been greater than all the others.” Arnold Toynbee

“Do not search for answers to be given you; if given they would be of no use, for you could not live them. For the present live in the questions and little by little and almost unconsciously you will enter the answers and live them also.” Rainer Maria Rilke

“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.” William James

“It ain’t so much the ignorance of mankind that makes them ridiculous as the knowing so many things that ain’t so.” Josh Billings

“It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one’s neighbor.” Eric Hoffer

“Meeting:
Mind alone is without hone
Dialogue is whetstone.” Elaine Sommers Rich

Enough for now, although there s more. But I want to end this Musing by re-telling one of the best sports stories I have read or heard (seems rather fitting in these days when millionaire ball players are on strike against millionaire owners). Jim Thorpe (1888-1953) was arguably the greatest athlete in our nation’s history. His college was Carlisle, a school for American Indians. As Clifton Fadiman wrote the story,

“When word got around that the Carlisle Indians had an outstanding track team, Harold Anson Bruce, coach of the powerful Lafayette College team, invited “Pop” Warner’s athletes to a dual meet on Alumni Day. Reluctantly he agreed to pay a large guarantee. But when Bruce went to greet the visitors, he was disconcerted to find only a few young men getting off the train with Warner.

“Where are your Indians?” Bruce demanded.

“I’ve got enough,” answered Warner.

“'How many?”

“Five.”

“But Pop, I’ve got a team of forty-six; it’s an eleven event program. This is a disaster. You haven’t a chance.”

“Wanna bet?” asked Warner.

“Thorpe won the high jump, the broad jump, the pole vault, the shot put, and the low hurdles, and was second in the 100. Two others ran first and second in the half-mile, the mile, and the two-mile, another won the quarter-mile, and the fifth the high hurdles. Carlisle won 71-31.”

No TV – No Supermarket Tabloids – No “Talk” Radio

July 21, 1994


(No TV – No Supermarket Tabloids – No “Talk” Radio - How nice for sister Ida and brother-in-law William)

I’ll wager that few of you know about George Saxton. Reviewing some of the details in Margaret Leech’s excellent biography/history, IN THE DAYS OF MCKINLEY, the story of the murder of George Saxton popped before my eyes just when the murders of Nicole, divorced wife of O.J. Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman were the overwhelming focus of TV, the tabloids, and even the usually more circumspect news media.

George Saxton was murdered in Canton, Ohio in October, 1898. This was nation-wide news because George Saxton was the brother of Ida Saxton McKinley, wife of President William McKinley.

George Saxton, described as a “libertine” because of several notorious affairs, rode his bicycle to visit Mrs. Eva Althouse, a widow. As Saxton approached her house, shots rang out, Saxton fell, fatally wounded. Neighbors reported seeing a tall woman, dressed in black, hiding in the shrubbery.

The Canton police soon arrested Mrs. Anita George and charged her with the murder. She had been rejected by George Saxton after their affair had ruined her marriage and reputation. Her husband had sued Saxton for alienation of affection. Saxton had even appealed to the police for protection from Anita George. The scandal had been little noticed nationally, although big news in Canton, Ohio.

In the White House Ida Saxton McKinley was cruelly shocked, but never then or afterward made any public comment, although she must have known her brother’s reputation. Her health had been poor for years. President McKinley made it known that he was not George Saxton’s avenger; that he (the President) would abstain from any interference and that justice should take its usual course.

Anita George was indicted in January, 1899 and the trial was in April. She maintained her innocence. The prosecution had built a strong case for her guilt. Margaret Leech wrote, (p. 454), “The fate of Anita George hung in suspense until nearly the end of April. For Canton it was a month of titillating entertainment. Spectators packed the courtroom to gaze at the accused, and admire the modesty of her bearing; to hear the Saxton name smeared by the defense in testimony too salty to be printed in the newspapers; ...It was generally admitted that her guilt was solidly established; but the jury, after more than twenty-four hours, found otherwise. The verdict of not guilty was cheered by the spectators and by the crowd that had assembled in the street outside. A free woman, Anita left the courtroom, and vanished forever from public view.”

Now imagine, if you can, “Time Travel” to 1994 and have the murdered man the brother of our present First Lady. Can you picture the malicious glee of a Rush Limbaugh broadcast? Or the unctuous (money-raising) sermon of a Jerry Falwell? Or the political hay being baled by the two self-serving Pats, Robertson and Buchanan?

Then, too, consider the large tabloid headlines facing you as you checked out your goods at the supermarket bar code sensor and cash register!

After the trial, Anita George disappeared from view. Can you guess at the big $$$$$$ bucks she would have been offered today by the tabloids and TV? How many intrusive TV cameras and rude interviewers would have been infesting Canton during the trial?

President and Ida McKinley were spared that kind of cruel publicity because there was no TV, no radio, few telephones. The telegraph was main system for transmitting news. The later McKinley story was, of course, tragic. President William McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo, N.Y. by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist. Czolgosz simply waited in a long line of people to be greeted by the President. When he reached the President, he shot him with a short-barreled 38 he had in his hand, covered by a handkerchief.

There is a dark “underside” to much progress. One cannot wish that there were no TV, radio, fax machines, E mail and Internet (whatever that is). But so many persons seem to have a voracious appetite for sensation and sleaze. Can we learn to discriminate the sensational and seamy from plain fact reporting?

One fears that trial by TV and tabloid will undermine the presumption of innocence and trial by jury. Will all the profits reaped by the media corporations be any compensation whatever for serious distortions of the legal justice system?

Let’s hope that my fears are groundless.

Feeling No Pain

July 1, 1994

“Feeling no pain” was an idiomatic way of expressing that one was merrily tipsy, not raucously pie-eyed because of consumption of alcoholic beverages. I don’t know if this is still a common expression. This is a musing on “feeling no pain,” or more accurately, LESS pain.

I won’t blame you, if upon reading this, you conclude that the ol’ feller is weighing in at less than 16 ounces to the pound; or is 10 cents short of a dollar (upstairs); or in some fashion is losing his marbles. But this is my story; I stick to it, for the time being at least.

As most of you know, arthritis is one of the burdens incumbent on the great privilege of living to be old. My lower back can ache considerably under a variety of conditions; my knees are both painful and awkward, particularly climbing stairs; my right thumb is no longer a strong twister. This is not to complain about such annoyances, particularly when one considers the alternative, but to set the stage.

Last Saturday or Sunday, somewhere in my reading, I came across a formula for mitigating the pain of arthritis. I cannot locate where I came across the alleged remedy, but here it is:

Empty a box of raisins in a bowl. Cover the raisins with gin. When the raisins have absorbed all the gin, refrigerate. Then eat 11 raisins a day for relief from arthritic pain.

So, I says to myself, let’s try it (although I didn’t see any need for the intermediate step of raisins). So, instead of Scotch, I substituted two ounces of gin per day. This practice has been in effect for almost a week – AND MY ARTHRITIS HURTS LESS.

Chuckle all you want – it’s OK to say “it’s the placebo effect,” “it’s the power of suggestion,” “it’s all in his head” - BUT, I don’t hurt so much! Remember Hamlet said to Rosencrantz, “for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

If you know that booze gives you much more tsouris than arthritis, don’t even think about this alleged remedy. However, I shall continue this liquid therapy. If I am helped by a very cheap Lake Alfred gin (raw spirits with a berry flavor) maybe I’ll do even better with my next purchase, a “high-rent” gin such as Boodles or Bombay. We shall see.

September 1: No need to take back one word. Whatever the reason, it is still working.

October 1: Ditto.

A Wake-Up Call

June 7, 1994

Moving to Florida in 1976, I lived in Clermont, in Lake County. A couple of weeks ago, Lake County made the national as well as state and local media because of an action by the Lake County Board of Education.

Florida, through the State Office of Education, encourages an understanding of multi-cultural patterns: the ways other peoples live, their ways of governance, the distinctive cultural ways, etc. The Lake County Board Board of Education, by a three to two vote, added a requirement that their teachers must also teach that OUR nation’s culture is superior to all other nations and cultures. Lake County has been experiencing intense political activity in recent years on the part of right-wing Christian fundamentalists, including electing a majority to the County Board of Education. Thus, the 3 to 2 vote.

I was reminded of a parallel in religious studies: In earlier times, most theological schools and seminaries taught “Comparative Religion.” Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and other major religions of the world were compared to Christianity. The virtues and truths of Christianity were emphasized, and attention directed to the inadequacies and short-comings of other religions.

There came a change. Whether originally sparked by the World Parliament of Religions in 1893, or came as an unintended consequence of the encountering of cultures in World Wars I and II, and later the large increase in world travel, I’m not sure. But when I attended St. Lawrence University Theological School (S.L.U.T.S.) in the 1940s, we were taught “World Religions”, not “Comparative Religion.”

I do not have the documentation, just my recollection of a lecture at S.L.U.T.S. indicating that Universalist and Unitarian theological schools were among the first to teach World Religions rather than Comparative Religion.

One could say that the change was just an innocuous difference in wording, but I believe it represented deeper meaning and more generous acceptance. To put it one way: I do not have to put you down in order to demonstrate my virtues. If I have any, they will be self-evident in my character and behavior. Furthermore I’d like to know more about you and the best things about you.

Similarly with organized religions. They all have virtues; they all have flaws. The student of religion who honestly seeks wisdom from many sources will appreciate the ways other faiths seek truth and understanding. There is no one religion, which if everyone in the world believed, would solve all the problems of bigotry, cruelty, deceit, greed. All these failings are found within each particular religious structure. What Viola said to the Duke applies: (TWELFTH NIGHT, Act II, Sc. 1)

“We men say more, swear more;
but indeed
Our shows are more than will;
for still we prove much
in our vows,
but little in our love.”

Much more to be desired is appreciation: the inner religious life of the Hindu Brahman, the indivisible nature of theology and morality in Judaism, the mind-challenge of Zen Buddhism, the prayer life of the Moslem, the superb aesthetic pageantry of music, color, art, [and] procession of Christianity, particularly found in Anglican and Roman Catholicism. (And these observations are just a short list). The search for truth, beauty, goodness is not the possession of any one religion.

I believe the same to be true of other nations, cultures, political systems. If we are superior it will be self-evident, no windy boasting is needed. Rather, let us try to understand and appreciate other nations and cultures. Let’s look at ourselves, too. Do you remember the old father/son chestnut:

Father: “Get up, son. When Lincoln was your age, do you know what he was doing?”

Son: “No, Dad, I don’t. But I know what he was doing when he was your age.”

I began with Lake County, so let me conclude with that. The narrow (3/2) decision to indoctrinate our “superiority” in multi-cultural studies has, I have been informed, caused a “wake-up” call to many who did not know or care about the political organizing and zeal of right-wing fundamentalists to achieve political controls in order to impose their particular version of Christianity. A great many more people should remember our Constitutional separation of Church and State. How effective this wake-up call will be remains to be seen.

SUPPLEMENTAL TO A WAKEUP CALL
October 7, 1994

Once in a while there occurs events that are heartening rather than discouraging. The news story below illustrates that. No further comment at this time – just be alert to the alarm bells!!

AP article – 10/6/94 – Losses spell end of ‘superior’ school policy

CJW underlined: “voters ... cast ballots against three Christian Coalition candidates for board vacancies by 2 to 1 margins.”

The Vanishing Americans

April 4, 1994

I’m not referring to that 1920s movie, “The Vanishing American” about the sad history of American Indians, starring then screen idol, Richard Dix – who did not look much like an Apache, Cheyenne, Navajo or member of any other tribe (he did wear a headband).

The theme of this “Musing” is the vanishing Americans of which I am one. My 18th birthday occurred in October, 1929, about three weeks prior to the catastrophic stock market crash which was the specific signal and forerunner of the Great Depression of the 1930s. “WALL STREET LAYS AN EGG” was the full-page headline of the show business newspaper, “Variety.” We vanishing Americans are those who had direct experience and have personal memories of those years of fear, deprivation, and social turbulence. Those who are ten or so years younger than I am have childhood memories and the tales of their elders. Those my age and older are regularly checking out of this earthly sphere. By the dawn of the 21st century, our ranks will be thin indeed.

One of the more difficult tasks of living is to appreciate fully and understand past events of which one has had no personal experience. I do not believe I can communicate the pervasive feelings of despair and insecurity when millions could not find a job. These were not untrained persons – they were educated, trained chemists, engineers, managers as well as skilled craftsmen – carpenters, electricians, shipwrights, all the trades.

Aristides, in his column in “The American Scholar” (Summer, 1993) writes how the famed music conductor, Herbert von Karajan, “who, when asked where he wanted to go by a Paris cabbie into whose cab he had just stepped, is said to have remarked, ‘It doesn't matter. They want me everywhere.’” In the Great Depression, millions were gripped by dread, “It doesn’t matter. Nobody wants me anywhere.”

Relatively, I was well off – [I] had a job. But I knew many not so fortunate. And, while the newspapers and radio could not keep up or deliberately ignored some of the worst events, there were enough communications, rumor and anecdote to create nation-wide insecurity and also to make thousands, if not millions of Americans ask, seriously, if we wouldn't be better off under a Socialist or Communist economic system.

Recognizing that there is no authentic substitute for personal experience, nevertheless I hope that some might read of those tough times to better understand both their own times and “old-timers” such as I am. For starters consider:

REDEEMING THE TIME, Volume 8, Page Smith

THE POLITICS OF UPHEAVAL, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

THE GREAT DEPRESSION, T. H. Watkins

Or assemble your own bibliography.

How bad were things? Just a few citations:

“One vivid, gruesome moment of those dark days we shall never forget. We saw a crowd of some fifty men fighting over a barrel of garbage which had been set outside the back door of a restaurant. Americans fighting for scraps of food like animals.” (Louise V. Armstrong, WE, TOO, ARE THE PEOPLE.)

“At England, Arkansas, a band of 500 farmers armed with shotguns and rifles asked a Red Cross administrator for food. When he told them he had no more requisition blanks, they invaded the town’s stores and the alarmed merchants gave them $900 worth of groceries....” ‘Paul Revere just woke up Concord. Those birds woke up America,’ Will Rogers wrote in his column.” (Page Smith, p. 288.)

A western rancher who lost everything when beef dropped to four cents a pound and the mortgage was foreclosed on cattle and land, said, “Now I’m cleaned out, and by God I won’t stand for it. I’ve played the game according to the rules. I knew cows. I saved my money.... I didn’t booze, gamble, or run around with whores, and still I’m cleaned out and by God I won’t stand for it.” When asked what he intended to do, the rancher answered, “‘That’s what I want to talk to you about. What we’ve got to do is to have this revolution you used to preach about.’ The rancher’s plan was to destroy the bridges over the Mississippi, cutting the East off from the food-producing West, ‘until those damned Eastern high-binders are starved to death.’” (Page Smith, p. 290)

The same historian tells the story of John B. Nichols, head of the Oklahoma Gas Utilities Company, “who proposed having all food left on plates in restaurants scraped into five-gallon containers to be passed out to the unemployed who could qualify for it by chopping wood contributed by farmers (it was not clear what the farmers were going to do for wood, or for food, either, for that matter). Nichols added, ‘We expect a little trouble now and then from those who are not worthy of the support of the citizens, but we must contend with such cases in order to take care of those who are worthy.’”

In an Appalachian mountains school, a child who looked sick was told by her teacher to go home and get something to eat. “I can’t,” the girl replied, “It’s my sister's turn to eat.” (Watkins p. 57)

Some statistics: Arkansas – unemployment rate in 1933: 39%. Missouri, Texas and Oklahoma ranged from 29 to 32%. Oklahoma had a net loss of more than 440,000 in the 1930s. (If you have never read THE GRAPES OF WRATH or seen the classic movie you missed the striking portrayals of the Dust Bowl and the human misery experienced by the so-called “Okies” and other displaced migrants.)

Robert Frost’s “A Question” encompassed the the despair:

A voice said, look me in the stars
And tell me, men of earth
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth.

Radical remedies were proposed and acquired considerable support:

Huey P. Long proclaimed a SHARE THE WEALTH program. The slogan: “Every Man a King.” Income taxes were to be so progressively graduated that no person could have a fortune of more than $5 million. What would the plan provide:

Every family in the country would have five thousand dollars plus an auto, radio, a guaranteed income of two to three thousand dollars – old age pensions, college education for all deserving students, a thirty-hour week, a month paid vacation. By the end of 1933, SHARE THE WEALTH claimed a membership of 4 – 6 million, with 27,431 clubs representing every state in the union.

Did you ever hear of Dr. Francis Townsend? He proposed a system, called of course, THE TOWNSEND PLAN. Every person 60 years or older would receive $200 a month – provided that they did no other paid work and also spend the entire $200 the same month it was received. How [was it to be financed]? By the assessing of a 2% on all goods at each stage of production. Did people like the Townsend Plan? By the end of 1934, there would be more than 5,000 Townsend Clubs with a membership of 2 million.

(These amounts were 1930s dollars – one could support a family on $1,200 to $1,500 a year.)

Then there was EPIC (End Poverty in California). Led by author Upton Sinclair – again, graduated income tax, heavy taxes on corporations, insurance companies, banks. Unused land taxed at 10%. Trade agricultural surplus for goods manufactured in state-owned factories – whole program coordinated by credits and scrip. Sounds weird today – but Sinclair and his running mate captured the Democratic nominations for Governor and Lieutenant Governor. The Republican Party mounted an enormous media effort, heavily financed. Sinclair lost election by only 260,000 votes: Republican Merriam received 1,138,000, Sinclair. 879,000, and a third candidate, running against both, received 302,000 votes.

FDR and the New Deal, in my view and that of many others, prevented some variety of substantial revolution. I have always been both amused and teed off that FDR saved the economic scalps – incomes and fortunes of those who hated and reviled FDR and Mrs. Roosevelt the most.

The Public Works Administration, the WPA, and the CCC may have had their administrative flaws, but [they] quieted substantial amounts of social unrest.

The Social Security Act of 1935 was in some aspects a response to and compromise with the TOWNSEND PLAN. Incidentally, the Social Security Act originally included National Health Insurance! But pressure from the AMA succeeded in eliminating such provision from the Act. (Now, 59 years later, we are again futzing around with National Health Insurance. I’m extremely doubtful that anything much will happen. The profits of the large insurance companies and (again) the pressures of the AMA are Golden Calves still worshiped.)

So what advice does this member of the vanishing Americans offer? Not much. The human family has always had to endure pain, grief and hunger in the midst of plenty. Will Durant, the famous historian, when asked if history has any irrefutable lessons, he replied with three sayings:

The mills of the gods grind slowly but grind exceeding small.

The bee fertilizes the flower it robs.

It is in the darkest night that the stars shine brightest.

And, I would add Pogo's profound insight, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

The Good Old Days Were Not That Good!

March 1, 1994

To solve the problems of crime, corruption, and education, we are frequently exhorted to return to a time when Christian religion prevailed because that was the faith that was the foundation of our nation. A paragraph from a letter to the Editor is representative of the attitude many fundamentalist Christians proclaim:

“Our nation was founded by godly people seeking to further their Christian faith, and God wondrously blessed and sustained their efforts, and those of succeeding generations. We must realize that we compromise and reject our founding values at great peril to our nation.”

Somehow many people seem to think our problems can be solved by returning to a world that never was. The ancient Greeks believed in a Golden Age. Hesiod wrote “They lived like Gods, free from worry and fatigue; old age did not afflict them; they rejoiced in continual festivity.” They were not immortal, but they died as “though overcome by sweet slumber. All the blessings of the world were theirs, the fruitful earth gave forth its treasures unbidden. At their death they became guardians and teachers of the living.”

The Golden Age never existed. There never was a “pre-sin” Paradise in a Garden of Eden either. Such beliefs were never founded in historical fact, but on dissatisfaction with given circumstances, frustration with social problems that seemed unsolvable, or, perhaps as methods of social control.

We face massive problems with crime, poverty, education, unemployment, dealing with how to pay for doctors, hospitals, prescriptions, insurance premiums, (whether you call it a “crisis” or not.) It is a PROBLEM when YOU face it; it is a CRISIS when I face it. However to believe that today’s vexing, frustrating issues would be solved by a return to the beliefs and actions of the “Founding Fathers” is to lend credence to a nostalgic glow which is artificially lighted.

For example, in the book, BOSTON OBSERVED, written by my old friend, Carl Seaburg, he quotes a letter by a visitor from England, Edward Ward, in the year, 1699:

“...(Boston) is the metropolis of all New-England. The Houses in some parts joyn as in London. The buildings, like their Women, being neat and handsome. And the streets, like the hearts of the male inhabitants, are paved with pebble.

“The inhabitants seem very Religious, showing many outward and visible signs of an inward and Spiritual Grace. But tho’ they wear in their Faces the Innocence of Doves, you will find them in their dealings, as Subtile as Serpents. Interest is their Faith, Money their God, and Large Possessions the only Heaven they covet.

“Election, Commencement, and Training-days, are their only Holy-days; they keep no Saints Days, nor will they allow the Apostles to be Saints, yet they assume that Sacred Dignity to themselves; and say, in the Title Page of their Psalm-Book, Printed for the Edification of the Saints in Old and New-England.

“They have been very severe against Adultery, which they punish’d with Death; yet, notwithstanding the Harshness of their Law, the Women are of such noble souls, and undaunted Resolutions, that they will run the hazard of being Hang’d, rather than not be reveng’d on Matrimony, or forbear to discover the Corruption of their own Natures.”

Edward Ward observed the Bostonians’ widespread religious hypocrisy and greed for money and possessions. (“Money was their God.”) His paragraph on adultery was a gentle but candid observation of sexual promiscuity. Typical, however, is his implicit condemnation of women but not their necessary male partners. Would we really solve our problems by such materialism, morals, and manners?

In the same 17th century, a Quaker, Mary Dyer, was executed, hanged on Boston Common for religious heresy and protest. Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams were expelled from the colony because they were religious dissenters. The late 17th century also witnessed the hysterical, infamous Salem witch trials when 20 women and one man were executed.

I don’t know about you, but I would NOT want a return of such cruelty, malice, intolerance, and ignorance. Certainly, NONE of our problems would be solved.

Furthermore, I believe that the last thing the Christian right-wing would want is a return to the religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Monroe, Tom Paine were Deists. Deism represented a substantially different and heretical theology from the Christian gospel of the Trinity, Atonement, and Resurrection. You can look it up, as they say.

One more observation: Who do you think said this: “How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.”

Was that Rush Limbaugh? Senator Bob Dole? The Republican National Chairman? Pat Buchanan? Ross Perot?

None of these. It was Henry David Thoreau in 1848.

We learn from history if we are aware of it and are not beguiled by nostalgic falsehoods or non-historical myths. Our social problems are mammoth. We must recognize that we are no longer sparsely populated colonies, with unlimited natural resources, but a nation of nearly three hundred million people. There is no “going West” anymore. We know that crowded, polluted cities contribute toward the complexity of problems to be solved. To mention just one, there is a vast, illogical conclusion to the continuous building of more prison cells. Are we to become a nation comprised of the jailed and the jailers?

I do not have answers. But I do believe that confronting the issues of today with the resources of today, political and economic, will be far more constructive than litanies of past “virtues”, particularly when they are engulfed in a haze of wishful thinking.

I’ve Never Missed It!

February 19, 1994

I am referring to lutefisk. Twice in the last six days, I've had occasion to remember it. At Sunday lunch, Ruth and Karl Schwebke and I were talking pronunciation. My Swedish family pronounced the word lute-fisk (two syllables). However, some persons, including my son-in-law Ron, pronounce it lute-eh-fisk (three syllables). Ruth cleared that up for me by informing me that lute-eh-fisk (three syllables) was the Norwegian pronunciation and lute-fisk (two syllables) was the Swedish pronunciation.

Through the years I have gathered there was (is?) some hostility between Norway and Sweden, even though in historical terms they were one country until 1905 when Norway became an independent constitutional monarchy. I remember a friend of more than fifty years ago, Bill Driver, who would tease me, “ten thousand Swedes ran through the weeds pursued by one Norwegian.” Bill was wrong. Actually there were only nine thousand Swedes and there were three Norwegians.

The second time lutefisk swam into my consciousness was today in [the column by] Dave Barry, the witty humor writer, who is in Norway for the Winter Olympic Games. He described his experience of a lutefisk meal. Apparently there was some difficulty in procuring the codfish. When it [is] served, he notes, “it (lutefisk) has a jelly-like texture and is served in quivering white slabs which contain bones. It has a distinct aroma. Not quite as distinct as wolf urine, but definitely headed that way.”

Barry concludes, “Maybe it was all a prank. Maybe the Norwegians are just pretending that there’s such a dish as ‘lutefisk’ to see if any American journalists are stupid enough to believe them.”

No, Mr. Barry, there is such a dish; I’ve eaten it as a child and as a young adult.

Just about Thanksgiving time each year, my Aunt Florence would start preparing the codfish for Yule serving. The codfish was heavily salted and hard as a board – about the shape of a ½” x 12” x 2’ board as I recall. The salt cod was soaked in lye (that astonished Dave Barry). After repeated soakings in lye and rinsings in cold water, the fish was ready for cooking and serving. Dave Barry was correct in his description – it was jelly-like and served with a cream sauce (not bacon grease as Barry indicates). The taste quite bland as I remember it. My then wife, experiencing lutefisk for the first time, labeled it “disgusting.”

I have no memory of how much or how little the lutefisk was appreciated by the numerous Swedish relatives who gathered at Aunt Florence and Uncle John’s for Yule feasting. But I have NEVER missed lutefisk or had the slightest hunger for it; and I surmise Dave Barry will never order it again.

P.S. In today’s (February 20) Tampa Tribune, there was a feature article by J. D. Considine, dealing with Norwegian and Swedish humor. Of course he has several paragraphs dealing with lutefisk. For example, “Lutefisk’s qualities are hard to describe in mere words,” writes John Louis Anderson in “Scandinavian humor and other myths.” “At least in decent words. It’s surprising that the word ‘lutefisk’ hasn’t become an expletive itself.... Some have compared lutefisk to dish towels soaked in fish sweat, while others have suggested that it’s more like lumpy, cod-liver-oil flavored Jello. Nearly everybody agrees that it stinks.”

On Martin Luther King Day

January 16, 1994
Location Unspecified

Yesterday was the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Tomorrow will be observed as Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, remembering the great contributions he made, not only for achievements in the civil rights struggle, but also for his unqualified commitment to peace and non-violence. Our assigned theme today is “Universalism”, but it is not inconsistent to especially honor MLK because there is a connection.

In his belief in peace and non-violence, MLK often attributed much to the influence of Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi said that his philosophy of peace and non-violence was strongly influenced by Leo Tolstoy and Adin Ballou.

Adin Ballou was not only a pacifist and also the founder of the Hopedale community, but a Universalist minister who served Universalist churches in New York and Massachusetts. He also wrote the words for the hymn with which we will close our service today.

There is another connection. Among the 31 men and 30 women who signed the Charter of Compact of the 1st organized Universalist Church (pict.) was Gloster Dalton, a Black man. When he died and his funeral was held in the church, the minister, Thomas Jones (who succeeded John Murray) officiated and entered this in the church records, “April 11, 1813, Gloster Dalton, an African. In this country from a youth, Supposed to be 90 years old. Gloster Dalton was an honest, industrious man. He had been infirm about two or three years ... belonged to the Independent Christian Society for many years. He was a native of Africa and brought away as a slave (so-called). For there are no slaves! All men are born free. T. Jones”

In tribute and memory of MLK and a reminder from our Universalist roots that tasks are not completed until all persons are free, let us sing 149, sometimes known as the Negro National Anthem.

Janus – One Way

January 9, 1994

[The title is] “Janus - One Way” because I am writing about a look backward, but not looking ahead. (That’s for another occasion.) Janus, for whom January is named, is the two-faced God, but he has been slandered when “two-faced” is equated with deceit and hypocrisy.

In Latin mythology, Janus was a guardian of the household. One face checked out those who entered; the face watched visitors as they left the domicile. This monitoring of comings and goings by the household God led, as the centuries rolled by, to the interpretation of Janus as the symbol of looking back at the year that has passed and looking forward to the new year.

My Janus look at the past has been triggered by, 1) the death of Tip O’Neill, Jr; and 2) by an extended book review by George V. Higgins of a new biography by Jack Beatty, THE RASCAL KING; THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES MICHAEL CURLEY (1874-1958).

Tip O’Neill; a consummate, winsome Irish Catholic politician, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1912, the year after I was born in Boston. Irish politicians in Boston and environs acquired wonderful nicknames. What other nickname could accrue to one whose first name and middle initial were Thomas P. = TP = “TIP.” There is another veteran Boston politician also named O’Neill (no relation to Tip): “Dapper” O'Neill (he was christened Albert).

Then there was “Knocko” McCormack, who owned a bar in South Boston (“Southey”). His more dignified brother, John, was majority leader in the House of Representatives in the Franklin D. Roosevelt years. In the early thirties, I heard it said more than once that if some political appointment, favor, license or permit was needed in Boston, it was much more likely to be a “done deal” if Knocko knew about it and approved. I can also hazard a guess how an Irish bar owner in Southey acquired the nickname, “Knocko.”

Can you top “Up Up” Kelley as a nickname? In the Higgins review, he quotes Dapper O’Neill: “We’d go to rallies and we’d have Up Up Kelley whose task it was to rise as Curley appeared in the hall and order: ‘Everybody up for the Governor....’”

Two Cardinal Archbishops of Boston were strong personalities whose abilities led organized Roman Catholicism in Massachusetts to new levels of membership, churches, schools, colleges, and influence. Although they seldom were candid and specific in political elections, inferences from their guarded statements could win or lose an election for an Irish politician. In one of the Boston mayoralty young Maurice (“MO”) Tobin beat Curley; many attributed the political upset to a remark by Cardinal O’Connell, somewhat ambiguous and naming no names, that voting for a grafter was a sin.

William Cardinal O’Connell and his successor, Richard Cardinal Cushing made the Boston Archdiocese a national, if not world power among Roman Catholics. Cardinal O’Connell was sometimes (not in his presence) called “Bull.”

Sometime in the 1950s on one of many trips to Boston, after a long meeting in connection with Unitarian Universalist merger plans, I was having a taste of the “creature” in the Parker House bar. I struck up a conversation with three newspaper men sitting at the next table. (The Parker House is about midway on the short walk from the State House to Boston City Hall.) The talk got around to the Cardinals. They told me that both had nicknames which were not published but commonly used in the editorial and press rooms.

William Cardinal O’Connell was “Gangplank Bill.” Why? Because so many newspaper pictures showed him\ boarding or coming back from the cruise ship to Bermuda.

Richard Cardinal Cushing: “Flashbulb Dick”, because almost every day on page 1 or page 3 of the Boston Globe there was a newsphoto of Cushing engaged in one of his many activities.

In fairness, however, I must add that these reporters used the nicknames affectionately because they admired the two Cardinals for their strong leadership, pastoral caring, and unquestioned integrity. And only one of the scribes was Roman Catholic.

John F. Kennedy’s maternal grandfather was “Honey Fitz” - John F. Fitzgerald, one of the early Irish Catholic mayors of Boston. I’m not sure it can be verified, so don’t sue me, but it’s possible that Honey Fitz got his label because in early days, the garbage wagons were also called “honey-wagons” for obvious satirical reasons. Fitzgerald may have had something to do with giving or getting a garbage contract.

There was something in Boston's political and cultural atmosphere that created such charming nicknames for its politicians and public figures. Is there any other city that can match such a history of delightful nicknames?

But I cannot end this trip of nostalgia without some paragraphs about James Michael Curley – the “Skeffington” of the book and movie, “The Last Hurrah.”

The review summarizes that Curley ran for political office:

Alderman
Five times for Congress
Ten times for Mayor of Boston
Three times for Governor
Once for the U. S. Senate

He was mayor four times, governor once, three times won a seat in U.S. Congress.

In the quote in Higgins’ review, Dapper O’Neill went on “...and Jack Murphy in the front row in this ragged coat, holes in the sleeves, and all, and after Curley begun to speak, you’d see Jack start to wave his right hand, you know? Just a little at first, but then he’d keep at it, and pretty soon he’d catch Curley’s eye, and and Curley’d stop and say, in his mighty Wurlitzer of a voice, ‘My good man, I’ll take your question when I’ve finished this.’ And Jack’d start to cry and whimper, and he’d say, ‘No, no, Mister Curley. I just want them all to know what you did for my poor mother.’ Well, after a while, however long it was that Jack was supposed to cry, somebody in the back’d holler to get back to the speech, and after a while you’d see Jack get up and head for door, going off to the next rally to do it all again.”

I have some personal memories of Jim Curley. During the campaigns, I sometimes tuned the radio to a Curley campaign speech. He had a magnificent speaking voice and that talent without doubt won him many votes. I haven’t the foggiest notion of anything he said, but but I do recall that in every radio speech I heard, Curley ended it with a poem dedicated to Mother or Motherhood. I once said to a friend, “Curley has the gall of a burglar.” My friend rejoined, “that’s because he IS a burglar.” Well, not technically in the criminal code sense, but he was a grafter. My Uncle John had personal experience of that. Curley was twice jailed (in the “sneezer” as we sometimes said in those days). Once in 1904, when he impersonated an illiterate friend in a civil service exam for a Post Office job; and in 1947 for financial shenanigans on a government contract. When he left office in 1949, Boston had more public employees than any comparable city in the country.

I do recall how the Yankee aristocracy resented Curley’s twenty-one room mansion on the Jamaicaway, with shamrocks carved into every window blind. I have wondered whether these starched-collared descendants of the Puritans hated more, that this Irish Catholic rascal politician had moved into their affluent neighborhood or that the mansion was built by city contractors for Curley at no cost to him.

Curley was no slouch at public relations. I clearly remember when living in Whitman that I saw him operate at first-hand. On a Saturday afternoon, just at the time the movie was letting out the hordes of children, suddenly the police appeared, shouting at the children, stopping them from crossing the street because a limousine with license plates S1 was approaching. Governor Curley was on his way to the nearby Toll House, where Kenneth and Ruth Wakefield had created one of the most famous eating places in New England, not to speak of her recipe for Toll House Cookies which became nationally famous.

Instead of motoring through as the children were held back, suddenly the limo stopped and out came Governor Curley. He stepped in front of the limo and with grand and graceful gestures motioned the children across in front of him. The “Gov” smilingly patted little heads and charmed the onlookers. When all the children had crossed, he re-entered the limo and went on his way, with applause erupting on the sidewalks. If you think that Curley did not pick up some votes from the mothers calling for their children, you just do not know politics, or at least Massachusetts politics. I was there.

That’s my “Janus One Way,” looking back at Boston days. As I have been writing this, there comes to mind other memories (some of which I may muse on – others I certainly will not):

The Elevated – although it dipped into the subway following the North Station stop, and did not emerge into light until the South End, it was still called the “Elevated.”

Braves Field – Rabbit Maranville, Wally Berger, Spahn and Sain and two days of rain, the Knothole Gang.

Fenway Park – Ira Flagstead, Ike Boone, Bobby Doerr, Walt Dropo, Tex Hughson, Mel Parnell, Ted Williams, Carl Yastremski.

The Old Howard – Lily St. Cyr, Ann Corio, Gypsy Rose Lee.

Cleo’s speakeasy on the back side of Beacon Hill. The Crawford House and Scollay Square.

The Silver Dollar Bar in the Combat Zone, and that good Chinese restaurant nearby, Hong Far Low (no kidding, cross my heart, that was its name.)

Symphony Hall

The Metropolitan Theater

Jake Worth’s

The Boston Marathon on Patriot’s Day

The band shell on the Charles with the great al fresco Pops concerts.

The Boston Garden

Hayes-Bickford restaurants where for 25 cents one could get a filling meal. Not gourmet – one counterman, if you ordered corn-beef hash, he’d yell to the kitchen, “sweep the floor.”

How could there have been a more fascinating and less boring place for the green years!!!

Ah me! Alas! Nostalgia is never going to be what is used to was. (that grammar is my last touch of the old days – at least for now.)

Introduction To Musings V

October 1994

Nowadays the department stores and specialty stores begin their Christmas shopping displays and lures not only before Thanksgiving, but also it seems, immediately after Labor Day.

As one who has grumbled at times about such commercial over-kill, here I am doing somewhat the same. I am concluding this year’s ramblings (Musings V) more than a month before Thanksgiving.

Because of plans to be in San Francisco for five weeks, house-sitting 1231 Page St., the material must be at the copy shop, reproduced and collated before departure, late October. I can’t think of a happier, more exciting reason for an early sign-off. However, mailing will be about December 1. Thus, I will be somewhat timely in wishing you

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Carl Westman