Author Archives: bpriddy

One word changes understanding of the past

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—and could change the future.

The scenario is a familiar one.  A tumultuous time.  A government in chaos. The prospect of internal conflict intensifying.  A crucial meeting to forestall collapse and civil war dissolves in anger.  The federal army takes control of the capital city hours after the leader of the government flees. An interim government, backed by the military, is installed. Popular elections are suspended. Imagine that you live in the capital. Imagine that you see the federal troops marching through your city and seizing the capitol.

That’s Jefferson City, Missouri in 1861 and for the first time in American history the United States Army has invaded the capital city of a state of the union and made it an occupied town.  An amphibious landing, no less.

But where did they land?  Not an important question then.  But it is now.

Conventional wisdom has held that the landing was at the foot of Lafayette Street, the street that is between the federal courthouse and the front of the old penitentiary.

I’ve been looking at some historic images of part of the area now known as the “Missouri State Penitentiary Redevelopment” project. The state has agreed to transfer thirty-two acres of the old pen to the city, which hopes to develop the area for hotels, office buildings, entertainment venues, auditoriums, museums, boat landings and marinas, and other uses.

In the process it has occurred to your faithful observer of this past and present that one word has been misunderstood for decades in the history of Jefferson City.  Herewith we will explain how the correct interpretation creates an important historic site of state and perhaps national significance within that redevelopment project.

I call it “Lyon’s Landing.”

Negotiations to restrict federal troop movements in Missouri as the nation plummeted toward the Civil War broke down in St. Louis between Union General Nathaniel Lyon and Governor Claiborne F. Jackson with Lyon proclaiming, “This means war.” Jackson and his entourage hurried back to Jefferson City by train, burning the Gasconade River bridge behind them and ordering loyalist troops guarding the Osage River bridge to disable it. The legislature was called into an overnight session, and the governor, lieutenant governor and some lawmakers fled to Boonville.

Lyon, in St. Louis, had quickly started loading two-thousand troops on four steamboats—the Iatan, the City of Louisiana, the A. McDowell, and the J.C. Swon.  Within forty-eight hours, some of those troops were pitching camp at the Capitol.

Harper’s Weekly of July 6, 1861 recounted the arrival:

“On the morning of the 15th, ten miles below Jefferson City, General Lyon transferred his regulars to the IATAN, and proceeded with that boat, leaving the SWAN to follow in his wake. As we approached the city crowds gathered on the levee and saluted us with prolonged and oft-repeated cheering. Colonel Thomas L. Price (no relative to the rebel, Sterling Price), a prominent Unionist of Jefferson City, was the first to greet General Lyon as he stepped on shore. A bar has formed at the regular landing, and we were obliged to run out our gang plank below the penitentiary, at a point where the railroad company has placed a large quantity of loose stone, preparatory to forming a landing of its own.The steep, rough bank prevented the debarkation of our artillery, but the infantry scrambled up in fine style. First was the company of regulars formerly commanded by General Lyon, but now led by Lieutenant Hare. These were sent to occupy a high hill or bluff near the railroad depot and commanding the town. They went forward in fine style, ascending the steep acclivity at the ‘double-quick step.’ In one minute from the time of reaching the summit they were formed in a hollow square, ready to repel all attacks from foes, whether real or imaginary. Next came the left wing of the First Volunteer regiment, under Lieutenant-Colonel Andrews, five hundred strong. These soldiers were formed by sections and marched to the tune of ‘Yankee Doodle,’ with the Stars and stripes conspicuous, through the principal streets to the State House, of which they took possession amidst the cheers of the people of the town.

“After some delay in finding the keys, which had not been very carefully hid, Lieutenant-Colonel Andrews with a band, color bearer, and guard, ascended to the cupola and displayed the American flag, while the band played the ‘Star Spangled Banner,’ and the populace and troops below gave round after round of enthusiastic applause. Thus was the ‘sacred soil’ of Missouri’s capital invaded by Federal troops, and the bosom of ‘the pride of the Big Muddy’ desecrated by the footprints of the volunteer soldiers of St. Louis. She rather seemed to like it.”

A disgruntled apparent Jefferson City resident later complained in a letter to the St.Louis Daily State Journal about conditions in the city under the occupation, “They landed below the town at the State Prison….”    He signed his letter “American.”

It is that word “below” that has led to a misunderstanding of this historic event.  The usual assumption has been that “below the penitentiary” and the note that the troops “went up the road fronting the penitentiary” means the landing was at the foot of Lafayette Street from a location geographically lower than the penitentiary location.

But the word “below” meant something different to river travelers then. It meant downstream from.

For example, the steamboat Timour No. 2, blew up near Jefferson City August 26, 1854. A contemporary newspaper account said, “The boat was wooding at the time she blew up, at Edwards’ wood-yard, a short distance below Jefferson City.” (The original Timour  had been one of twenty-one steamboats destroyed in the Great St. Louis Fire of 1849.)

A study of some illustrations from Harper’s Weekly of July 6 and October 19, 1861 indicates the most likely place for the invasion was to the east of the penitentiary, in the cut between the present penitentiary property and the bluff known as Miner’s Hill where the Department of Natural Resources has its headquarters, at the end of a continuation of the present Chestnut Street, which a map (below) shows did not exist at the time of the war.

The illustration showing the Iatan unloading troops (above) with the penitentiary up and to the right of the boat, places the boat in the cut to the east. The troops are shown marching ashore and curving to the right, heading to the end of Lafayette Street.

The October illustration (right) shows troops unloading from a train (the eastern bridges having been repaired by then) with soldiers standing atop Miner’s Hill to the east of the penitentiary.  The drawing shows a building in the lower area west of the bluff that also shows in the image of the Iatan’s unloading.

So it appears the landing/unloading site was at the foot of what is now Chestnut Street. Two other images tend to confirm that.

An 1865 map of Jefferson City’s defenses done by the War Department’s Office of Chief of Engineers shows Lafayette Street curving behind the penitentiary and its brickyard to a place that approximately matches where soldiers are shown marching up the hill in the July 6  Harper’s drawing.  In this map, Chestnut Street does not yet exist. Today, it continues down the hill toward the river.  Had it existed in 1861, there would have been no need for the troops to follow the path they are going in the Iatan picture.

Confirming the location of that path is an 1869 “Bird’s eye view” of Jefferson City, then a town of about 3,100 residents (not counting the soldiers).

At the far left edge of the city is seen the penitentiary. The draw that is the continuation of Chestnut Street today is visible.  And the path also can be seen connecting the end of Lafayette Street with the area shown in the Harper’s drawing as the disembarkation point for the troops.

Chestnut street exists in the 1869 illustration, but only as a link between High Street and the city cemetery.

Understanding that “below the penitentiary” or “below the town” means downstream changes the understanding of that historic event.

Why is this discovery important to the city’s redevelopment of the penitentiary area?  Because it now adds a possibly important historic element to the redevelopment area.  The entire riverfront of the site from the extension of Chestnut to Lafayette is now the invasion path followed in the first takeover in national history by the United States  Army of a state capital.

Lyon’s Landing Historic Site. Could it make a difference in how the site is redeveloped?  Could it mean new funding for part of that redevelopment?   Could the designation have an impact on the ultimate development of the rest of the area to the east where DNR now has its headquarters?

Others have those answers.  We’ve just corrected the historical record—because for a reason we cannot explain, a new understanding of the word “below” popped into our mind a few days ago.

 

 

 

 

It is what it is

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And what it is, is the last week of the second session of the 99th General Assembly of Missouri. This week had been a two-fer until Monday afternoon when the invasion of privacy case against the governor was dismissed.  Reporters until then had to try to keep one eye on the legislature’s actions and the other on the court actions in St. Louis.

This session seems to have had less pointed—and tiring—partisanship than some sessions in the past, perhaps because both parties have focused on a governor who has few friends among lawmakers instead of on the politics of each other.  Legislative leaders, particularly Speaker Todd Richardson and Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard, have worked hard to keep the general assembly focused on its job, even when its job in the House of Representatives has included an investigation of the governor.

Both Richard and Richardson are leaving the legislature early next year when their successors are sworn in.  Richard has had his eight years in the House and his eight years in the Senate and the people in his district will never again have a chance to let him represent them again because of term limits.  Richardson could run for the Senate someday. But he has not filed for any office for this year’s elections.

Their jobs won’t really be done as of 6 p.m., Friday, though. The special session that can focus entirely on the governor begins half an hour later.  Lawmakers will have a month to decide if he should be impeached—and the attention of an investigating committee is increasingly focused on the governor’s dark money operations, some of which have produced attacks on legislators who have not forgotten or forgiven. And new revelations keep accumulating about the governor and dark money.

This has turned into a legislative session nobody signed up for.  Events since opening day and the later State of the State message from the governor have scrambled whatever the legacy this session leaves. Maybe that legacy will include a bequest for the 100th General Assembly to handle.

One of the densest shadows over this session is that of dark money.  Lawmakers have talked of doing something about it for years but haven’t done it.  It has become, regretfully, oxygen to too much of the political system.

Memory tells us that the best time to change a poor status quo is the year after an election when the pressure of winning another term is lessened for a few months.  Perhaps 2019 will be a good time to recall a couple of memorable things attributed to the colorful former Speaker of the California Assembly, Jesse M. Unruh, who said, “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”

But his more important observation is, “If you can’t take their money, drink their booze, eat their food, (have sex with) their women and vote against them, you don’t belong here.”

Maybe next year’s lawmakers will be the ones to do more than complain about dark money.  Trouble is, many of them will have benefitted from it.

The Missouri Capitol has many mottos that were carved into its walls more than a century ago to inspire the public and its public officials to noble actions.  Maybe it’s time for a new one, starting with, “If you can’t take their money…..”

 

 

 

Getting an earful

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Among the greatest inventions in world history is the ability to record sound and movement. Until Thomas Edison came along with a waxed cylinder that preserved sound, there was no way to hear the great singers, orators, preachers, reformers—or others who shaped cultures unless you were where they were.  And until the motion picture, there was no way to preserve moving images of those who made those sounds.

Part of President Benjamin Harrison’s speech in 1889 is the oldest known surviving recording of a President’s voice. The oldest moving image of a President dates to 1897, a film of the inaugural procession of William McKinley.

The combination of sound and film appears to have been demonstrated in 1900 in Paris but it was more than twenty years before motion pictures with sound became commercially affordable to produce.

This around-the-barn-and-through-the-back-door kind of story-telling in which we sometimes indulge brings us to the story of the death of Judge Harry Stone on April 16.

Judge Stone was the fictional judge of a Manhattan night court, played by comedian and magician Harry Anderson.  A video of Anderson’s “Hello Sucker” night club act is available on YouTube.  At the end, Anderson passes along some advice from famed New York newspaper columnist Damon Runyon.

The advice is useful to heed during campaign years.

If you are a fan of great Broadway musical theatre or Hollywood musicals based on Broadway musicals, you recognize the names of Nathan Detroit and Sky Masterson as being creations of Runyon and main characters in Guys and Dolls.

The advice comes when Detroit bets Masterson one-thousand dollars that Mindy’s delicatessen sold more strudel than cheesecake a day earlier. Masterson refuses to take the bet and explains:

“When I was a young man about to go out into the world, my father says to me a very valuable thing.  ‘Son,’ the old guy says, ‘I’m sorry that I am not able to bankroll you a very large start.  But not having any potatoes to give you, I am going to give you some very valuable advice.  One of these days in your travels, you are going to come across a guy with a nice brand new deck of cards, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the Jack of Spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ear.  But, son, do not take this bet, for if you do, as sure as you are standing there, you are going to end up with an ear full of cider.’”

Every two years when campaign time comes around, it’s advisable to recall that advice.  If you don’t, you need to always carry a towel.

Suspension (a continuation of last week’s discussion)

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Last week’s entry about whether a governor facing a criminal charge and/or impeachment could be suspended with or without pay until his or her criminal situation cleared up brought a response from longtime colleague Bob Watson, who has had his nose deeper in the statute books and the Missouri Constitution than your faithful scribe has had his.

Bob thinks we already have what was discussed in that entry, pointing to Section 106.050 of the statutes, reading, “If any officer shall be impeached, he is hereby suspended from exercising his office, after he shall be notified thereof, until his acquittal.”

Bob also recalls that when the Attorney General tried to oust Secretary of State Judi Moriarty after her impeachment, the Missouri Supreme Court suspended her with pay until her impeachment trial ended. The ruling said the only allowable means of removal of a statewide elected official is through the impeachment process and the legislature could not legally enact laws automatically removing any elected executive official.

And three responses to last week’s entry (posted with the entry) from Bill Thompson offered similar clarifications.  We thank Bob and Bill for their assistance.

Our entry last week spoke to suspension before impeachment, however.  But suspension does involve removal from the office and it seems Bob is correct that a suspension before impeachment wouldn’t work.  It seems, therefore, that our point last week that a governor is, indeed, not like other workers who can be suspended upon filing of criminal charges. In his case, impeachment charges have to be filed, too.  Or at least as we now understand it.

We had overlooked one possibility covered by Article IV, section 11B of the State Constitution, which sets up a Disability Board made up of the lieutenant governor, secretary of state, the auditor, treasurer, attorney general, the president pro tem, the speaker of the house, and the majority floor leaders of the two chambers.  That board has the power to declare a governor unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, upon which finding the gubernatorial succession protocol kicks in.

That only time we know of that such a board met and took action was in the hours immediately after Governor Carnahan’s plane crash, before confirmation of his death.  The board met and cleared the way for Lt. Governor Roger Wilson to become acting governor until there was that confirmation, at which point he was sworn in as the governor.

While some have questioned the governor’s ability to govern under present circumstances, he has been making the point that he can “discharge the powers and duties of his office,” by making appointments and making public appearances and speaking as the elected chief executive of the state.

The discussion highlights the uniqueness in Missouri history of today’s situation, however.  However it turns out will be an important guide should Missourians ever face something like this again.

—–

In a related note, we see that Rachael Herndon Dunn, the editor of the Missouri Times newspaper (which is different from the Missouri Times quarterly newsletter of the State Historical Society of Missouri and the earlier Missouri Times newspaper of the 1970s) says in the latest edition of the newspaper’s magazine that the three people she would pick, if she could pick three people to join her for dinner, would be Bob Griffin, Bill Webster, and Eric Greitens.

Interesting.  But what could they possibly have in common to discuss?

Not just another employee

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Last week’s entry, “The Process,” caught the eye of fellow former Capitol scribe Steve Kraske, once the ace political reporter for the Kansas City Star and now an associate teaching professor at UMKC.  Steve also does a weekly radio show about current events on NPR affiliate KCUR-FM.   He decided we needed to talk about “The Process” on his Monday show this week.

http://kcur.org/post/seg-1-gov-greitens-and-process-impeachment-seg-2-saving-historical-records-umkc

In preparing for the program, it occurred to THIS former Capitol scribe that the person who holds the highest elective office in state government does not have one of the privileges that people in other walks of life have when they get into trouble.  We don’t know how having that privilege would change the way events are developing, but the idea of instituting it might bear some thought.

In private business as well as in state and local government, a person suspected of breaking the law or of violating company standards can be suspended with or without pay until legal proceedings determine if that person is guilty.  If they are, the suspension becomes termination.  If they are found NOT guilty they can expect to be made whole by their employer.

But—as far as we know—the legislature can’t suspend a governor until the courts have made their determinations.  Impeachment during that period is not suspension. It’s flat-out removal.  And if the governor is found NOT guilty, he or she has no expectation of being restored to their position.

When it comes to a governor, it’s an in-or-out matter.  And that’s a matter of concern for the governor and those in and out of the legislature as impeachment talk continues.  As we write this, we have not heard how the signature-gathering on the petition for a special session to consider impeachment is going. Three-fourths of the members of both houses have to sign the petition.  Pro-impeachment lawmakers have made their sentiments known, often loudly.  But the governor only needs twenty-six percent of the legislators to refuse to sign and the special session push fizzles.

If suspension were to become part of state law, the Lt. Governor would be the acting governor until the case is resolved.  If the governor is cleared, the Lt. Governor goes back to his or her smaller office and the governor returns to the big oval room.

Would such a system be less unpleasant than what we’re watching now?  Probably depends on the governor/legislature relationship.  Should the legislature have the power to, in effect, fire the governor before a legal determination is made in the governor’s legal cases?  It has it now.   But is it right?  Isn’t there or can’t there be some structure that gives the governor the same privilege lesser citizens have when they become targets of suspicion?

We’re just asking.

The Process

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This is a time of strong opinions, strong statements, and strong actions.  In such times it is important to recognize there is The Process.

The Process often is ugly.  The Process often is painful. The Process often seems to take longer than it should.

But The Process is what assures us that there is order.   And without order there is no justice.

This is one of those times when The Process emerges from its normal daily work to become a prominent factor in our state political system.

This observer has seen two Speakers of the House and one Attorney General sent to prison. He has seen a Secretary of State impeached and removed from office. He has seen a State Treasurer exonerated after being charged with profiting from state funds. He has covered criminal proceedings against at least seventeen members of the House and three members of the Senate that resulted in convictions or guilty pleas to misdemeanors and to felonies.

In forty years of front line reporting in state government, he watched 1,032 people serve in the General Assembly, interviewed or covered (in one form or another) eleven governors, nine lieutenant governors, eleven Secretaries of State, eleven state auditors, ten state treasurers, and eight attorneys general.  Now he is watching something new and wondering how, in the end, this circumstance will fit into the list of those mentioned in the earlier paragraph.

For the first time in state history a sitting governor faces both criminal proceedings and the potential for removal efforts.  People from both sides are calling for him to resign.

The Process has become his greatest protection as well as his greatest threat.  It diminishes emotion.  It provides a structure for a balanced determination of justice.  It is not perfect but The Process gives balance in times of fierce attacks and equally fierce denials.

A special House committee has presented its first report of the legitimacy of allegations against the governor, who has called its work a “witch hunt.”   The committee was led by an honorable chairman, wisely picked by a Speaker who has chosen to respect The Process despite the difficulties the committee’s hearings might cause for several people whose lives have been altered by events. The committee has not judged the governor but it has concluded the key witness against him is credible.

The governor says the report was drafted without any testimony in his own defense. The committee reports the governor refused invitations to testify.  The governor says he will testify after his criminal trial ends and that is within his rights. Simply put, the stakes are higher in his criminal trial than they are in the committee’s study.  Potential loss of office is serious but not nearly as serious as a potential conviction and possible loss of freedom in the criminal case.  The governor’s decision is not really that hard to make under those circumstances. It is a legitimate part of The Process.

While the committee’s first report seems to be devastating news for the governor, it also is valuable news to the governor because it provides him and his defenders with a strong preview of the kind of testimony they will have to attack in the criminal proceeding next month.  It also provides them with a challenge.  They must determine how to undermine the credibility of that testimony without antagonizing a jury.  The governor says he is confident a jury of his peers will exonerate him.  His lawyers gain through this report an understanding of a fine line they will have to walk in disputing the validity of the testimony without making the witness so sympathetic in the eyes of the jury that the jury of peers tilts the wrong way for their client.

It’s The Process at work.

The committee report strengthens and increases the resolve of those who demand the governor resign. But it also strengthens his position that he should stay because a report is not a jury nor are those demanding his resignation jurors.  As long as The Process considers a person innocent until proven guilty within The System, he is innocent.

He still retains the powers of governor although his ability to govern remains badly weakened. But if he resigns the office he was elected to hold and then is found not guilty of criminal charges, he has no way of returning to the office in which the voters chose him to serve.

The Speaker and the President Pro Tem have said the legislature will start its process of convening a special session to consider penalties for the behavior described by the committee’s witness.  Voters in 1988 approved a constitutional amendment letting the legislature convene itself in special session for as many as thirty days without a call of the governor.  Article III, Section 20(b) says the session can be called by three-fourths of the members of the House and three-fourths of the members of the Senate, a big requirement but a possibility given the committee report and the existing poor relations between the governor and the legislature.

The House does not have the power to remove the governor.  It can only file charges.   The Senate, in the case of a sitting governor, does not have the power of removal either.  Its authority rests in appointing seven “eminent jurists” to conduct a legal proceeding.  Again, The Process brings the matter into The System where justice is determined, we should all hope, in a non-partisan and less emotional setting. Only those jurists can determine if he should forfeit his office.

This also is a time for firm hands on the reins in the legislature.  While the committee continues investigating the governor—-and there is no indication when it might drop the other shoe—the legislature still has about five weeks to focus on its lawmaking responsibilities.  The legislature must provide a budget that will keep government services going to the people who need them.  It also must determine the fates of several issues that will affect the hourly lives of Missouri citizens. That is its responsibility until 6 p.m., May 18.

It is not precluded, with three-fourths of the members agreeing, during that time from setting a date for the House to begin impeachment proceedings in a special session.  It might choose—out of respect for The Process—to set dates that do not conflict with the governor’s right as a citizen to obtain a fair trial. That’s The System, maintaining order in the legislative process.

The governor, as is his prerogative, is entitled to his office until he is removed or disqualified from holding it.  While retaining his position is not popular with many people, it is his prerogative.

The Process is in place and it is moving.   It is protecting the governor while at the same time threatening him, as it would do with you and me if we were facing serious accusations.  The result might not be what you or I would prefer.  But The Process is, in the end, our best hope for justice for you and me.

And for the governor.

(image credit: brainyquote)

The P and the Q

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When our state lawmakers get together during the next five weeks or so to play Scrabble, they can use four words containing the letters P and Q.  The number increases to sixty-one by the time they get to six-letter words then declines to only twenty-one for words with fifteen letters, according to an internet dictionary of words for Scrabble players.

But it’s not words that might be used as the pressure grows toward the end of the session, it’s the letters that might be heard.

The parliamentary technique of moving the Previous Question is used to cut off debate, sometimes long and tedious debate that is only holding up a vote on a bill, or when time is short toward the end of a session and leadership or sponsors rush to get something done in the last days.

Senator Rob Schaaf of St. Joseph is in the final weeks of his time in the Missouri Senate.  Because people throughout the state adopted term limits two decades-plus ago, the people in his district are denied the opportunity to vote for him ever again as their senator.  He will leave with a peculiar distinction when it comes to the previous question.

In our long experience covering the Senate, he is the only person who, in effect, PQ’d himself.

Here’s how it happened:

It was on January 28, 2013, early in the legislative session when the Senate was taking a final vote on its rules. In the previous session, in 2012, Cape Girardeau Senator Jason Crowell stopped debate on a bill when he refused to make a closing statement and sat down, thus yielding the floor for other actions but still controlling the bill.  The action left the bill in limbo.

Senate leadership at the start of the 2013 session decided to change a rule to stop such actions.  Pro Tem Tom Dempsey proposed the rule. Senator Schaaf, in challenging it, suggested amending the proposal to christen it the “Crowell rule.”  He then offered a substitute amendment to make the rule known as the “Jason Crowell rule,” a procedural move intended to block any one else from offering an amendment to his original proposal. When he was asked if he wanted to close on his amendment, Schaaf said, “No,” and sat down.

That’s when Senator Kurt Schaefer of Columbia cited another Senate Rule (number 76 for those who like to keep score) that read in part, “In order to maintain the recognition of the chair, the senator must be engaged in debate or in discourse.”  Dempsey ruled that Schaaf’s action constituted a failure to engage in debate or discourse, thus bringing the issue to an immediate vote, the equivalent of a previous question motion that debate or discourse be ended and the issue be decided immediately. Schaaf’s amendments lost. The rule proposed by Dempsey was adopted and the Crowell Strategy became in-valid in the Senate.

Senator Schaaf had, in effect, PQ’d himself.

The incident doesn’t show up on the list the press corps keeps of the times the previous question has been used in the Senate, where it is used less frequently than in the House because Schaaf’s action was an unintentional PQ and based on a ruling by Dempsey using another rule. It is not described in the official journal as a PQ issue. It was, after all, an unofficial PQ, self-inflicted.

But it is worthy of being recorded in legislative history somewhere.  Might as well be here as anywhere.

Keeping their own money

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There’s nothing wrong, really, with letting taxpayers keep more of their money.  And there’s something to the idea that letting taxpayers spend more of their own money generates a better economy.

Let’s open a discussion on this topic because, as in much of government, things are seldom as simple as they seem. The question today focuses on WHEN many taxpayers can spend more of their own money to fuel a growing economy and whether some steps seem to run counter to that goal.

There’s an overlooked segment of the economy that seems to this amateur economist  disadvantaged by the way the idea is carried out.  We mention them, not because we particularly disagree that more tax reductions are needed but because some people might become even more disadvantaged when the state lets them keep more of their own money.. We invite your participation in this discussion (there should be a box at the bottom of this entry for your comments).

We’ll be mixing some apples, oranges, pears, and peaches in our comparisons but we’ll excuse ourselves to suggest a point.

Here’s one of many places to start the discussion.

Any discussion of the size of government has to involve what government’s role should be.  Our United States Constitution says it is “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” general wording that leaves plenty of room for definition, discussion, and disagreement—and there HAS been plenty of all of that in the 230 years or so since those words were written.

Let’s narrow our focus to “promote the general welfare.”  Most of us at this meeting probably would agree that one of the major factors in achieving this goal is education.  Thomas Jefferson told Littleton Walter Tazewell in 1805 that “every member of society” should be able “to read, to judge, and to vote understandingly on what is passing.”  From such sentiments by Jefferson and others emerged the concept of an education system open to everybody, financially underwritten by everybody for the common good.

Our Missouri Constitution requires a certain minimum percentage of state tax collections to be set aside for elementary and secondary education.  However, there is no requirement for support of higher education and the state’s commitment to higher-ed has dwindled markedly.

A 2015 report by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association found that since the 2008 recession, state and local funding per fulltime college student had declined almost 28 percent at a time when enrollment had increased by 20 percent.  Missouri, at that time, was found to be twenty percent below the national average in per-student funding.  State funding for higher education has taken some hits since then as anticipated tax collections have fallen below anticipated levels because of withholdings and vetoes to keep our state budget balanced.

Those actions do not necessarily mean that state government has become anti-higher education. The higher education budget is a huge pot of money and when it is necessary to make significant general funding reductions, those responsible for balancing the budget look at the biggest pots of money to make the biggest impact.  They can’t, for example, cut spending by $200-million by making big cuts in agencies with total budgets of $20-million.

So higher education becomes one of the usual targets.

And that means the institutions have to charge students more for their educations, bringing us to the nub of our observation. The Federal Reserve System says student debt has become the second largest kind of debt in the country.  The Institute for College Access & Success thinks fifty-seven percent of Missouri college graduates in 2016 left school with an average student debt of $27,532.   The same organization said the average debt of new college graduates increased at double the inflation rate between 2004-2014.

We’ve seen figures from the University of Missouri-Columbia saying forty-nine percent of incoming students take out loans averaging $7,059 per student to get through their freshman year.  The figure includes both private and federally-backed loans. And the loan amounts pile up on each other each year until graduation or drop-out.

There are those who wonder if the return on investment makes that student debt worthwhile.  Some of those students just walk away from paying off the debt. Of the 5,465 UMC students who began paying off their college debts after graduating in 2013, 4.2% had defaulted on their loans just three years later.  That’s lower than the national average but not something to be especially proud of.

Since we’re talking about education, we looked at the average salary for Missouri teachers.  Indeed.com put out an updated list on January 3.  The state requires school districts to pay salaries of at least $25,000.  The average elementary teacher salary in this survey was $36,847 which the survey said was twenty percent below the national average.

If the average elementary teacher salary is a little shy of $37,000 (before taxes and retirement withholdings) and the average college student debt is $27,532, it seems pretty clear that the economic impact of these teachers is severely reduced. They cannot fully contribute to the economy because their disposable income is reduced for many years by debt payments.

A Missouri State Teachers Association study for 2015-16 says the state requires districts to pay teachers with a master’s degree and ten years of experience at least $33,0001.  The average maximum salary in this study for a teacher with a master’s plus ten years’ experience was $48, 873.

We think we have the figures straight. Feel free to correct us if we have confused ourselves.  But if we were a teacher with a $27,000 student debt we’d have to seriously consider whether we want to borrow even more money to get an advanced degree that would increase our average salary only $11,000 with ten years experience—-at a time when we also might be starting a family that someday will want to go to college.

Or should we give up on a profession we might love (and you better love, really love, being a teacher to walk into a classroom of twenty children from all economic and social conditions every morning and try to teach them “to read, to judge, and to vote understandingly on what is passing.”) and go sell insurance or real estate or something with much less stress but much better benefits?

We’ve drifted away from our point. But here it is: Teachers—and other college graduates who come into the real world saddled with a lot of college debts—cannot be a significant part of economic growth as long as significant parts of their incomes pay off the debts they incurred because tax reductions have led to less broad public support for “the general welfare” of the state.  “Their own money” cannot be spent in a consumer-driven economy because it is spent to pay for the higher education that is increasingly needed in our changing world but is suffering from declining public financial support caused to a great degree by a desire to let Missourians keep more of their own money.

Irony is an incongruity between what result is expected and what the actual result is. This situation seems to fit that definition.

We’ve seen a news story that some of our lawmakers are studying college affordability.  Their job is not an easy one, especially when it is politically popular to limit resources that might alleviate the problem they want to address.  But it’s good that they are looking into these issues including the degree to which new efforts to let people keep their own money are to a significant degree counterproductive for thousands of others.

We wish them well in their difficult task.

‘Tis the season for crowing

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It’s a campaign year. Filing for state offices is ending. There’s something about this editorial from the July 17, 1924 Jefferson City Daily Capital News that struck us as appropriate.  Not sure exactly why, though.

The Lowly Rooster

The rooster is a gentleman chicken and serves as press agent for the hen. When the hen has laid an egg the rooster tells the world. Nearly all well-advertised products are excellent, and the egg is no exception.  The contents are untouched by human hands and the sanitary wrapper has no equal.  Things happen to the contents, however, despite the wrapper, and as a result eggs are divided into three classes: “strictly fresh eggs,” “fresh eggs,” and “eggs.”  When those of the first class are worth 60 cents the dozen, those of the second class are worth 40 cents and those of the third class are not worth a darn.  Ancient eggs are useful only in political and dramatic criticism.

When the rooster is very young nobody knows whether he will turn out to be a rooster or a hen; but in a short time he begins to develop spurs and a comb that confesses his sex, and then he is called a frying chicken. If he is a very small rooster he may live to a ripe old age and then, being deprived of feathers, head and feet, may be called a frying chicken still.  Very large roosters that live to a ripe old age may be treated the same way and called turkey.

The rooster has many traits in common with man.  He fights when required to repel an invader; he affects the mannerisms of an important citizen while at home and is cowed in strange surroundings; and when he gets atop a fence or in any manner climbs above his fellows, he crows about it.

Crowing is offensive, as a rule; but in the rooster’s case it is not objectionable for he is ready at any time to back it up with his spurs.  When he is engaged in an argument with another rooster he does not hug his opponent to avoid punishment, and if the enemy’s superior prowess and strategy drive him from the field he will retire to a little distance and there throw back his bloody head and crow to proclaim his spirit unbroken.

The rooster does no useful labor, but he begins crowing at about 4 A. M., and anybody with pep enough to wake up and begin strutting his stuff at that hour in the morning deserves the respect of mankind.   

Apply it as you will, if you wish.

Going where the story takes you

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One of the best parts of being a reporter or an author or a historian or a detective (we suppose) is discovering where a story takes you.  Sometimes the real story is not the original story.

Such is the story of Daniel M. Grissom of Kirkwood.

Your reporter, author, and historian ran across Daniel in a letter he sent to Governor Arthur Hyde in 1924 saying he was honored to have been invited to the dedication of the Capitol that Daniel described as “one of the most chaste and beautiful structures in the world—equal in the exquisite symetry [sic] of its proportions to the once matchless now dismantled Parthenon at Athens, Greece,” perhaps a reference to the structure’s condition after a 1687 explosion.

He could not attend the dedication because “the infirmities of 94 years debar me” from being there. He concluded, “I send up my faint shout of gladness to join in the glorious and mighty outburst of patriotic joy that bursts from Capitol Hill this day.  If it be a cause for pride to be an American, the very next thing to it is being a Missourian.”

The letter was interesting enough to raise a question: “Who was this guy?”

And this is where the story took this author to a completely different place, a completely different time, and to one of Missouri’s most tragic moments.

The first question was how much longer he lasted.  He already was 94 but he seemed from his letter still to be at full mental strength.  A source for that information is the state death certificates on the Missouri State Archives webpage.  And there was Daniel M. Grissom, dead at the age of 101 on May 17, 1930.  But the certificate had another piece of information: “retired news paper editor.”  Two words.

The Missouri Press Association founded the State Historical Society of Missouri in 1898 and for many years, the society’s magazine, The Missouri Historical Review, carried obituary notices of editors and former editors who had been society members. And sure enough, there was Daniel, in the October, 1930 issue.

Daniel M. Grissom, it said, was twenty-four years old when he arrived in St. Louis from his home state of Kentucky to become a reporter for the St. Louis Evening News.  That would have been 1853.  He worked for the News for a decade, becoming the editor on a newspaper with a staff of two while still in his twenties.  When the News merged with the St. Louis Union, creating the Evening Dispatch, he became the editor-in-chief of the combined papers.  The Dispatch eventually merged with Joseph Pulitzer’s Evening Post to create today’s Post-Dispatch, which is probably when he joined the St. Louis Republican which later became just the Republic and lasted until its merger with the Globe-Democrat in 1919.

Then the eyebrows went up when the article reported, “While working on the News he was sent on the famous Pacific Railroad excursion train to Jefferson City, November 1, 1855.”

Suddenly, Daniel becomes even more significant.  That train would inaugurate passenger service between St. Louis and Jefferson City.  The legislature had put up bonding money for the Pacific Railroad and the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad and was to consider in the upcoming session whether to issue more bonds for more railroads. There was some doubt that it would because construction had been slower than expected and more expensive than expected on both lines.  Governor Sterling Price was skeptical.   The legislature was to come into session on November 5 so the arrival of the first passenger train at Jefferson City just ahead of the session was considered extremely important for the railroad interests. The capitol had been decorated for a big welcome. A huge banquet was to be held for the passengers.

But a violent and long-lasting rain storm swept in that afternoon.  And the train did not arrive.  The banquet went ahead solemnly in Jefferson City, attendees fearing something bad had happened.  But the storm had knocked out telegraph service and it was not until the next day that word arrived of what had occurred.

A separate locomotive and tender had been sent ahead of the train to make sure the not-quite-compete Gasconade River Bridge about nine miles west of Hermann was strong enough to support the train.  The locomotive made it safely across and was waiting on the other side when the passenger train steamed into sight.

The locomotive and a few cars made it across the first segment when, suddenly, that segment collapsed. Some of the cars fell thirty feet into the Gasconade River, pulling the engine and tender back on top of them.  Other following cars crashed on top of that wreckage. Only a few cars failed to go into the river. “Mr. Grissom was one of the survivors,” said the Review obituary, “and assisted in the rescue of many persons and became widely known for his reports of the catastrophe.”

Thirty-one people were dead, including two State Representatives.  About two-hundred more were injured.

There are three online resources that we use for newspaper accounts of historic events: Newspapers.com, Newspaperarchive.com; and the Smithsonian’s “Chronicling America” webpage.  There also are more than fifty-million pages of Missouri newspapers on microfilm at the State Historical Society in Columbia. Newspaperarchive.com produced the Liberty Weekly Tribune for November 16, 1855 and a gripping account of the tragedy.

In those days before wire services as we know them, newspapers exchanged issues with one another, which is how the Liberty newspaper came to have this account more than two weeks after the event.  “Yesterday was a sad day for St. Louis—a day whose events have cast a shadow over many a heart and made desolate many a bright hearthstone,” the story began in a manner typical of reporting in those days but far different from our times.

There was no byline. Bylines did not catch on much for another forty years or so after reporters became more popular with the public although correspondents at the time of the disaster sometimes signed their stories, usually with nom de plumes such as “Publius,” the Liberty newspaper’s Jefferson City correspondent who had a brief story about the tragedy on another page.

At the end of the eyewitness account in the Tribune was another surprise.  The article originally appeared in the St. Louis News.  It was Daniel M. Grissom’s account—which a survey of other newspapers in the “Chronicling America” website shows became THE nationwide story of the event.

Betty Johnson Douglas, writing in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat on March 6, 1927 described him as “a young newspaper man who had come to St. Louis from Kentucky only a few years before and was already editor of a paper which had given much support to railroad building projects in the state… blue-eyed, eager for new experiences and already making a reputation for himself as a writer of strong editorials.’

Climb aboard that ill-fated train and ride into a disaster with 26-year old Daniel M. Grissom:

Yesterday morning, at the seventh street depot of the Pacific railroad, a large crowd of happy persons were gathered, prepared for the excursion to Jefferson City, to celebrate the completion of the road to that point. It was a happy hour. Gay greetings were spoken and congratulations were joyously interchanged between friends who were glad each to find that the other was going.  Many who did not go came to wish a pleasant journey and God speed to those who did.  Some who could not go then promised to join the excursion to-morrow (today).  Two military companies, with stirring music and gay uniforms added to the pageant.  At half past eight the train started, freighted with six hundred happy hearts, followed by the good wishes of all whose hearts beat responsively to those “of the parting ones.” All was bright and pleasant, and although the twelve cars constituting the train were crowded to such an extent that many had to stand in the aisle between the seats, and others on the platform outside, yet there was a universal good feeling and “all went merry as a marriage bell.”  The people at the stations and villages along the road cheered us onward and shouted and waved hats and hand’cheifs in response to the merry music our Brass Band entertained them with.  As we came into Herman, a cannon pealed forth the glad greetings of the hearty citizens.  But how soon was the scene destined to be changed!  How soon were so many of those founding hearts to be pulseless. No one dreamed that death was near, yet it lurked for us only a few miles further on.  At 1 o’clock we left Herman [sic], preceded by a locomotive and tender which had been sent forward, to see what that the way was clear, and no danger impending.  Soon we came in sight of the bridge across the Gasconade river, about nine miles from Herman, and thirty-five from Jefferson City.  The bridge is approached by an embankment thirty feet high which terminated in a massive stone abutment.  Forty yards from the abutment, and just at the edge of the river, stands another staunch pillar, three more of which reach the other side of the stream, and support the bridge. The river is about two hundred and fifty yards wide and the bridge thirty feet high, at least.  The Pioneer locomotive had crossed the structure safely and was waiting at the other side to see the result of our attempt.  There was no fear of danger, nor thoughts of peril.  We slowly moved along the embankment and came on to the bridge.  The locomotive had passed the first span and had its forewheels above the first pillar beyond the abutment—there being then rested on the first span, the locomotive, baggage car and two heavily loaded passenger cars.  The weight was too much for the long, slender timbers which supported the rails and the enormous load above.  Suddenly we heard a horrid crash—it rings in our ears now—and saw a movement amongst those in the car in which we were seated; then there came crash-crashcrash as each car came to the abutment and took the fatal plunge.  The affair was but the work of an instant. We were running slowly at the time and the successive crashes came on at intervals of nearly a second.  We were seated in the seventh car—there being three behind us—and when we heard the horrid sound that came up, as each car slowly and deliberately took the leap, we hoped that our car might stop before it reached the precipice.  But no; it seemed that the spirit of ruin was beneath, determinedly dragging each car to the spot, wrenching it from its fastenings, and hurling it to atoms beneath.  Six cars fell in one mass, each on the other, and were shivered into fragments.  The seventh fell with its forward end to the ground; but the other end rested on top of the abutment.  Those in it were only bruised.  The eighth and ninth cars tumbled down the embankment before they reached the abutment.  Such a wreck I never saw and hope never again to see.  It was one undistinguishable mass of wooded beams, seats, iron wheels and rods, from beneath which came up groans of agony. Those who could, crawled out of the ruin immediately, and either sought to relieve their own wounds or the wounds of their friends.  Some wept tears of joy to find their friends alive and others shuddered to find their friends dead, the uninjured organized themselves under the lead of Mr. Pride, the conductor, and endeavored by chopping to extricate those who were yet alive from the wreck. Here a beam was cut into to disengage a broken arm; there an iron axle was pryed up to relieve a mutilated leg. There was no shrieking and screaming, though all begged for the love of heave to be extricated from some mass of iron or beam of wood which pinned them to the earth. All begged for water, drank it when brought and prayed for more.  There was hardly an entirely uninjured man to be seen.  Most of those who had escaped had streams of blood flowing over their faces from splinter wounds.  Others limped and hobbled about, looking for their friends.  A board shanty was the only shelter to be had and that was soon filled with the wounded, whose silent speechless agony was enough to make the stoutest heart shudder.  Soon after the accident the heavens grew dark and black as though in twain, and from the crevice gleamed the white lightning, and the harsh thunder bellowed its cruel mockings at the woe beneath. It seemed as if the elements were holding high carnival over the scene of slaughter. 

Grissom wrote a second version of the story, cited by Douglas in her 1927 article:

Suddenly there was an awful crash, a sickening lurch—another crash—another—another. We were moving forward jerkily, sickeningly.

Horrid sounds came from ahead. We realized in a flash what must have happened—the bridge was gone—we were being pulled into the river by the weight of the cars ahead, which had already crashed over the bank! Then—our car was going too. The violent motion threw us to the floor.

I was the first to gain my feet. I may have been unconscious for a moment, for the movement had stopped. When I got up and looked around not a soul was in sight. I was staggered for another second, but then I called aloud and one by one the passengers began to crawl out from under the seats, behind doors, through the debris of the wreck. No one in my car was seriously hurt, though we were all badly shaken up and some of us were bleeding and so weak from shock that we were hardly able to walk…

When a relief train from St. Louis came to our aid it was a very different kind of crowd which started on the return journey from that which had set out so gaily a few hours before. Hardly a word was spoken as we leaned our heads on our hands, some uttering groans and low cries of despair caused by their own sufferings or by the realization of the loss of a friend or relative in the disaster.     

(We pause for a while until the mental images of this extraordinary writing fade enough for us to continue.)

Jen Tebbe wrote on the Missouri Historical Society of St. Louis  (not to be confused with the state Historical Society of Missouri that is based in Columbia) last November about some things other survivors had to say. http://mohistory.org/blog/what-survivors-had-to-say/

Grissom built an outstanding career in the years ahead. Historian and journalist Walter Stevens wrote a long time ago that Grissom was “among the foremost editorial writers in the West for a third of a century. He…wrote in a virile, lucid style.”

During the Civil War he and his Evening News were critical of General John Fremont, the commander of the Army of the West at the start of the war.  Fremont became so upset at the newspaper’s criticism after the fall of Lexington that he jailed Grissom and fellow editor Charles G. Ramsey.  They were released two days later.

The microfilmed old newspapers in Columbia tell us Daniel Grissom was 82 when he moved into the Kirkwood Old Folks Home where, said the St. Louis Globe-Democrat he “delighted to regale willing listeners with tales of the Civil War, the Lincoln-Douglas debate, the capture of Camp Jackson, and other events, the formal accounts of which may only be found in histories.”

When he was in his nineties he wrote a dozen articles for the Missouri Historical Review about the famous people he had known, personal intimate sketches of people such as Senator Thomas Hart Benton, Governors Sterling Price and Claiborne Fox Jackson (who tried to take Missouri South at the start of the Civil War), James S. Rollins, and artist George Caleb Bingham, among others.  The last article was published when he was 98.

It was a surprise to him when he turned 100.  He thought he was only 99 until a week before the landmark birthday when he got a letter from a relative who had dug into an old family Bible and found that he had been born a year earlier than he thought.  So, actually, he was 95 when he wrote to the governor.

The Post-Dispatch reported he carried on a “voluminous correspondence with friends and relatives into his 90s but complained on his 100th birthday, “My pencil won’t do what I want it to now.  It wanders all over the page.  I used to walk up and down the corridor here by myself up to the last ten months but I just can’t make it alone any more.  I’m getting old and my legs just won’t support me the way they used to. I’m beginning to feel my years.”

More than one-hundred friends and relatives joined him at the home for his next, and last, birthday where he cut a thirty-two pound cake decorated by one candle symbolizing all of the others there wasn’t room for.

He survived one of Missouri’s greatest tragedies to live a long and historic life for another three-quarters of a century.  But his tombstone in Kirkwood’s Oak Hill Cemetery says only “Daniel M. Grissom, 1829-1930.”

When he thought he was 94 years old he wrote a letter to the governor of Missouri and another journalist read it after another ninety-four years and wondered, “Who was this guy?”  This is where the story took us.