Category Archives: history

The sphere of her usefulness

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We were reading Tessa Weinberg’s Missouri Independent article a few weeks ago about the eleven women members of the Missouri Senate who have put together a children’s book that tells the stories of the 36 women who have served and are serving in the Senate.  We thought, “I need get some copies of that book for my granddaughters.”

And then I’m going around office-to-office and have the authors sign them.  .

I have known all 36 of those women senators which says (a) I’m an old guy, or (b) women were late in arriving in the Senate. Actually, there is no “or” about it.  Both observations are true.

A few days ago, while looking for something else, I came across this article from the St. Louis Daily Evening Herald Newspaper and Commercial Advertiser of June 10, 1836.

EMIGRATION OF THE RIGHT SORT

The predominance of the female over the male sex, in the ancient commonwealth of Massachusetts, is very great. In some towns, according to the last census, the proportion is more than two to one, and the excess in the whole state is more than 14,000. Of course, there must of necessity be 14,000 old maids in Massachusetts, over and above the number that goes to offset the old bachelors, (the fools) which may perhaps account for half as many more. Twenty thousand old maids in the single commonwealth of Massachusetts! Now although we have no antipathy to an old maid (we have to an old bachelor though) having always found that much abused class sensible, good-natured, and conversible, yet it must be admitted that in this position, the woman can never manifest the higher qualities of her nature. It is as a wife, a mother, at the head of a family, presiding over the destinies of an infant and miniature commonwealth, that the woman shines forth in all the loveliness of those moral excellences of which she is capable.

Without this, the sphere of her usefulness is greatly circumscribed, and although we may confidently expect that she will not do much harm, neither can she do much good.  We are therefore glad to learn that a company of “industrious, capable and intelligent” young women are about to start from Northampton, Mass., for the valley of the West.  They are needed as school teachers, to fulfill the various mechanical employments which are the province of their sex, and above all, they are needed as the sweeteners of the toil and hardships of our young men who now, in great numbers, are laboring in unblessed loneliness over the vast domains of the west. These young women come out under the protection of a gentleman, and we do not hesitate, in the name of all that is pure and lovely, to promise them a hearty welcome from all classes of our fellow citizens.

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There are a lot of things to read into this article. Dismissing it as “quaint” might not be fair, though.  It’s part of our history, an understanding of the role of women in society—which was largely and quietly accepted on both sides of the gender line—an appreciation of a sort of the contribution women even in those un-emancipated times played in the home and the community—a comment on the loneliness of life on the frontier (1836 was the year that the Platte Purchase added the northwest corner to our state), and other issues.

It also is a commentary on the Missouri pioneer editor, a more colorful purveyor of that profession than we seem to have today.  I think many of these guys just had more fun in those days, whether it was in the gentle writing of this story or the more partisan pronouncements that were not uncommon in the columns of the time.

A little less than ninety years later, a woman’s place was in the House (of Representatives) in Missouri, and fifty years after that the Senate became a woman’s place, too.

These eleven senators did something important in putting together this book that the menfolk in the Senate might want to learn from.  These eleven women recognized they could do something good by forgetting about party politics, getting together over food and drink, and accomplishing something useful not for themselves but for those whose futures are far from determined.

Would that more people could do that in these times when fighting seems more important than accomplishing, when concerns about power supplant commitments to service. .

We hope that not too many years in the future a woman—perhaps one of these eleven or a young woman who reads their book—manifests “the higher qualities of her nature” by occupying the governor’s office.

As the title of the book says, “You can, too.”

YAKYAKYAKYAKYAK

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It is Valentine’s Day.  And there’s not much love in the Missouri Senate.

I recently listened to the killing filibuster in the Senate on the confirmation of the state health director’s appointment. Afterwards I spent a couple of more rewarding hours watching some paint dry.

That was nothing, however, compared to the long-running tantrum that was started last week by a minority of the majority party who objected to a proposed congressional district map. It is still ongoing as this new week begins.

I am afraid that by the time it ends, three species will have gone extinct and become fossils.

I was reminded of an article in the Boonville Missouri Register of July 16, 1840 about a speech given in Jefferson City by A. G. Minor, a Whig—the newspaper leaned Democratic:

“He opened his speech with a flowery declamation…He then went on for quantity…It was one of those stereotyped editions of Whig oratory you may hear any time and place where a number of Whigs are congregated together…Thus he trudged along through a two hours and a half speech, and left us as wise as we were when we commenced.”

Been there.  Know that, from many hours listening to filibusters in the State Senate. I always started legislative sessions with a new Filibuster Book, something to read while somebody exhausted themselves saying nothing worth remembering for hours on end—-which is okay as a tactic but makes one desperate for a newly-painted wall for sanity maintenance.  Unless the one enduring the display has a good book.  One way or another, I was determined to survive these events MORE than as wise as I was at the start.

Old-time speech-making was often colorful—and lengthy.  Two-hour speeches from the stump were not rare.  Two-hour sermons weren’t either. We have become significantly more sophisticated now.  Our televangelists can take only about 18 minutes to convince us we’re all going to Hell although we might face better alternatives if we help them for their next executive jet.

We have examples of those sometimes more eloquent expositions because newspapers sometimes printed speeches in their entirety or printed lengthy excerpts. Representative John E. Pitt of Platte County introduced legislation in January1859 to print 100 handbills announcing the celebration of the Battle of New Orleans on January 8.  He told his colleagues:

Gentlemen keep continually talking about economy. I, myself, do not believe in tying the public purse with cobweb strings, but when retrenchment comes in contact with patriotism, it assumes the form of “smallness.”

Such economy is like that of an old skinflint, who had a pair of boots made for his little boy, without soles, that they might last longer. (Laughter.)

I reverence “the day we celebrate.” It is fraught with reminiscences the most cheering; it brings to mind one of the grandest events ever recorded in letters of living fire upon the walls of the temple of time by the god of war!

On such occasions we should rise above party lines and political distinctions.

 I never fought under the banner of “old Hickory,” but, “by the eternal” I wish I had. (Laughter and applause.) If the old war-horse was here now he would not know his own children from the side of Joseph’s coat of many colors—Whigs, Know-Nothings, Democrats, hard, soft, boiled, scrambled and fried Lincolnites, Douglasites, and blather-skites!

I belong to no party; I am free, unbridled, in the political pasture. Like a bob-tailed bull in fly time, I charge around in the high grass and fight my own flies. (Great laughter.)

Gentlemen, let us show our liberality on patriotic occasions. Why, some men have no more patriotism than you could stuff through the eye of a knitting needle. Let us not squeeze five cents till the eagle on it squeals like a locomotive or an old maid. Let us print the bills and inform the public that we are as full of patriotism as are the Illinois swamps of tad poles.

I don’t believe in doing things by halves. Permit me, Mr. Speaker, to make a poetical quotation from one of our noblest authors. “I love to see the grass among the red May roses, I love to see an old gray horse, for when he goes, he goeses.” (Convulsive laughter.)

The comments were reported in the Weekly California News, published in Moniteau County, on January 29, 1859.

John Brooks Henderson, seeking to be a state representative in his first try for public office, remarked at a July 4th event in Pike County in 1847:

Though all former governments have fallen and yielded to the corroding influences of time, and shared the fate of all other human concerns, yet there are principles, firm as the unchangeable rocks of Adamant, upon which the fabric of government will stand, until human affairs shall have ceased and Heaven’s Messiah shall fill the throne of peace. These principles are founded upon the equality of mankind, upon truth, reason and justice; and the government whose foundations rest upon these, and whose strength is dependent upon the free will of a virtuous people, will only fail when time shall grow hoary with age, and nature herself shall decay.

In the days long before audio and video recordings, the only way people could learn what was said in those patriotic speeches was to read them in newspapers such as the Democratic Banner, published in the Pike County seat of Louisiana, in this case, on August 16, 1847.

Henderson, by the way, became a Union Army officer whose troops “conquered” Callaway County early in the Civil War. Later, as a U.S. Senator, he was one of those who voted against impeaching President Andrew Johnson, a courageous step that cost him his senatorship.

One more example of rhetoric of the 19th century that puts speakers of today to shame.  Walter B. Stevens, in his Centennial History of Missouri (The Center State), published in 1921, tells of an Ozarks preacher of the early 1800s who might have offered this prayer over a young man bitten by a rattlesnake:

We thank Thee, Almighty God, for Thy watchful care over us and for Thy goodness and tender mercy, and especially we thank Thee for rattlesnakes. Thou hast sent one to bite John Weaver. We pray Thee to send one to bite Jim, one to bite Henry, one to bite Sam, one to bite Bill; and we pray Thee to send the biggest kind of a rattlesnake to bite the old man, for nothing but rattlesnakes will ever bring the Weaver family to repentance. There are others in Missouri just as bad as the Weavers. We pray Thee to stir up Missouri, and, if nothing else will bring the people to repentance, we pray Thee to shower down more rattlesnakes. Amen!

We say “might have offered” because the story might be apocryphal.  But it’s too good a story to go untold to future generations.

This prayer offers something to all of us who are tired of the obviating, posturing, and prevaricating in our political discourse.  For those who do not consider being inspiring, humorous, and uplifting while they fill the air, instead, with boring verbosity, “we pray thee to shower down more rattlesnakes.”

Somebody could file a lawsuit

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—So we said last week in writing about the difficulties of re-drawing congressional or legislative districts after each census.

Those of us who are of a certain age (I think I am beyond it, actually) remember a St. Louis mover and shaker named Paul Preisler (rhymes with Chrysler, as I recall) who was a pain in the neck on redistricting after census counts in 1950, 1960, and 1970.

Preisler was a Ph.D. biochemist, lawyer, photographer, civil libertarian, photographer, and once an instructor at the Washington University School of Medicine.   He also was a Socialist back in the days when it wasn’t quite the curse word that it has become.

In the 1930s he helped found the St. Louis chapter of the American Federation of Teachers and as its first president he led a successful effort to let the public school teachers there organize.

He joined the Socialist Party during the Depression and sued the Board of Election Commissioners when the board refused non-partisan candidates and minority parties the right to have poll watchers and challengers. The Missouri Supreme Court came down on his side, giving minority parties the authority to have poll watchers and challengers.

This guy never seemed to runout of gas.  Two years after the St. Louis chapter of the AFT was created, he ran for a place on the city board of education.  The school board rejected his candidacy because the board’s constitution made it non-partisan.

The Missouri Supreme court ruled three days before the election that the school board had to let Preisler run.  The board had to print new ballots. Preisler lost but he says he was running on principle, so the loss was okay.

When he got back from the war, he went after the city school board again because of its policy banning married women teachers from being teachers.  He won that case, too, and shortly thereafter decided, at the age of 48 that  he wanted to be a lawyer.

And he did.  In fact he was a professor at the Wash-U law school and became professor emeritus in 1969.

By then he had gotten into challenging redistrict maps.  His first target was again the St. Louis Board of Education. In 1952 he challenged the way the city Board of Election Commissioners had drawn new district maps. He won again and new maps were drawn.

Not one to be satisfied just filing lawsuits, Preisler filed himself in 1954—as a non-partisan congressional candidate. When Secretary of State Walter Toberman refused to accept his filing fee, saying that splinter parties (such as the Communists, and this was at the height of anti-communist feeling in the country) and Communists could not have candidates if the party didn’t get a lot of votes in the preceding election. Preisler argued that he should be able to run as a person rather than as a representative of a political party. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed with Preisler, again.

Not content with shouting from the sidelines, Preisler ran for office several times: twice, as a Socialist, for the legislature (1934 and ’36), six times as a non-partisan for a spot on the St. Louis Board of Education with campaigns starting in 1937 and continuing to 1971. He ran as a non-partisan for the St. Louis Board of Aldermen.

He never won any of the several offices for which he ran, which was fine with him because he ran to make a point.

In the 1960s he targeted the state. He decided the new congressional districts drawn after the 1960 census were not as compact and as nearly equal in population as the law required.  That was 1962.  When the legislature tried again and the public accepted the map in ’65, Preisler refiled his lawsuit in early in ’66 and the State Supreme Court agreed with him in the summer of 1966 that THAT map was unconstitutional.

The cases all led to landmark rulings on compactness of districts and the legislature’s authority to exercise its discretion, the court writing in the 1962 case naming Secretary of State Warren Hearnes as defendant that, “[A]ny redistricting agreed upon must always be a compromise. Mathematical exactness is not required or in fact obtainable and a compromise, for which there is any reasonable basis, is an exercise of legislative discretion that the courts must respect.”

For a time Preisler did pro bono work for the American Civil Liberties Union.  The State Historical Society of Missouri, which houses 22 cubic feet of his papers at its St. Louis Research Center, says, “He defended the right of students to wear long hair, hold anti-war demonstrations, and the publish uncensored newspapers. He also defended prisoners and women against discrimination.”

He was also involved in municipal affairs, once filing a suit against the City of St. Louis that eventually killed city plans to build a roadway through Shaw’s Gardens.

When he died in 1971 at age 69, Paul Preisler had another challenge to congressional districts pending. He lost that one, posthumously, in 1975.

There has been no one like him since.

But every time there’s a redistricting map drawn for congressional or legislative districts, there’s always that uncertain time.

If It Were Only This Easy

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Filing-for-office season is approaching.  Many who would like to serve, and would be good public servants, will never seek an elective office because of the sacrifices they and their families might have to make, and the pressures to do and say things they are told they must say—rather than be true to their own character.

Or they might be like Robert Cutler.

From the Jefferson City Daily Tribune, December 4, 1909

Robert Cutler is the name a man gave who called at the governor’s office Friday afternoon and asked for a commission to represent Missouri in the United States Senate. He said he was elected last January unanimously, but had since been busily engaged on his Webster county, Missouri, farm near the town of Seymour, that he did not have time to look after his duties in Washington.  The governor was out when he called and he left saying that he would probably return tomorrow.

Chas. H. Thompson, the governor’s private secretary, questioned the caller about his business and his supposed election to the United States Senate from Missouri. He said Col. Phelps would identify him as would also Judge J. McD. Trimble of Kansas City.

Cutler is about 65 years old, bewhiskered like a Kansas Populist, but very gentle in his demeanor. He said the United States Senate had not yet organized and consequently had been doing nothing since his election, so he thought he could put in his time more profitably farming than in loafing about Washington.  The man is a total stranger here.

–Colonel Phelps was William Phelps, considered the most powerful lobbyist of his time. He later was a member of the State Senate that he had once spent years manipulating.

—Governor Hadley’s staff in 1909 numbered five: Thompson, Pardon Attorney Frank Blake, Stenographer Mary Lee, Clerk Sam Haley, and Janitor T. B. Carter. The current Official Manual shows 28 people working for Governor Parson.

—There are no follow-up stories indicating “Senator” Cutler ever went back to the governor’s office.  We have found one reference indicating he died in December, 1916.

We think someone so practical that he would rather spend his time “profitably farming than in loafing about Washington” would have a certain attractiveness to voters looking at the current campaigners for Roy Blunt’s seat.

Bicker, Bicker, Bicker

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We begin this week at the Capitol with the State Senate trying to work out a conflict with Republican ranks on a new congressional district map.

It’s not a Republican-Democrat fight. It’s a Republican-Republican fight.  Should lines be drawn to eliminate a Democratic Congressman?  Or should the lines be drawn to protect a Republican Congresswoman?  Should Missouri Democrats have only one member of Congress?  Or Two?

Heaven help us if a district might be drawn as a swing district, where the Rs and the Ds might be close enough for a campaign to be competitive.  And interesting.  And challenging for the candidates.

Last week the Senate dissolved into bickering between Republican factions.  Should the map be 7-1 Republican or might it be 6-2 with big city Democratic enclaves guaranteed places at the table?  Neither R faction could pass the bill on its own. An alliance with Democrats might provide the margin needed but the Ds would demand a 5-3 map or one that would give them a better shot at getting a third district.

And that is a bridge too far to cross for the either faction of the Rs.

There was concern that the original proposed district lines (approved by the House) would put the Second Congressional District in jeopardy of turning blue, giving the Ds a third seat. Incumbent Ann Wagner barely has survived the last two elections, drawing less than 52% of the vote each time. Republicans might have to work hard to keep that district under the House-passed map because the Democrats surely would work hard to take it, especially given its new borders.  The ultra-conservatives in the Senate don’t want to worry about that so they filibustered until the other Rs agreed to fiddle with the boundaries and make things look better for Wagner’s chances.

It appears we are to be spared the situation after the 2010 census when the lines were drawn to make our delegation 6-2 Republican by putting two Democratic incumbents in the same district.  William Lacy Clay defeated fellow incumbent Russ Carnahan after Carnahan’s district was re-drawn to include a big chunk of Clay territory in St. Louis.  There are no incumbents running against each other this time.

Lawmakers are working hard to avoid having judges draw the lines. A lawsuit after the 1980 session led to a federal district court drawing new districts for the 1982 election, the first election since Missouri lost its ninth congressional seat.  The court’s map put forty percent of Wendell Bailey’s district into Bill Emerson’s district.   Bailey, whose home was barely inside the new district, established a residence in a new district then represented by Democrat Ike Skelton.  Republicans thought Bailey was the best possible candidate to take out Skelton, and he did run strongly but Skelton, who kept 60% of his old district won—although Baily held him to a 54% majority.

That result points to something important.

Congressional districts that are not drawn to protect incumbents provide better contests for voters to decide which competing ideas best represent them. But in practice, that is not the goal of those drawing the lines.  Protecting the dominant party is the ultimate goal when the lines are approved by a partisan body.  We’ve seen that pendulum swing both ways through the years.

Democrats have a point—that the 2020 presidential race broke 60-40 Republican. Therefore, they argue, the most representative congressional map would be one with which Democrats might be able to win another seat, making the delegation 5-3 and more representative of the overall political face of Missouri.

Republicans have a point—that the most recent legislative elections left the chambers of the legislature two-thirds Republican. Thus, the real-world Golden Rule prevails: He who has the gold, rules.

So the divided Republicans in the Senate bickered the week away last week, seemed to iron out some of the intra-partisan wrinkles as the week ended, and are likely to have a map that makes Second District Republicans more comfortable to start things this week.

Then a period of uncertainty arrives. Somebody could file a lawsuit.

And when this game goes into that overtime, the two teams (or three) that have been playing the game so far will be on the sidelines while a third team controls the scoreboard. And that’s not what the majority party wants.

The Casinos in Our Pockets

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We lived in an “appointment” world in 1993, when the first Missouri laws governing casino gambling were written.  Voters had approved riverboat gambling, as it was called then, in 1992. The first casinos on boats would open in the spring of 1994.

Many of us still got our national news with the 5:30 network newscasts on television and our local news at 6 and 10 p.m. when those laws were written.

If we wanted to buy new clothes, we went to a clothing store during the hours it was open.  We went to grocery stores during their open hours to get our food.

We knew when each day we could go to the mailbox to get letters from friends and relatives.

And by the end of the year we knew that if we wanted to gamble we would have to go to the riverboat at a certain time to be admitted.

The Station Casino-St. Charles and the President Casino on the moored Admiral riverboat opened May 27, 1994. Gamblers could board the boat in St. Charles from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. for a two-hour cruise (for which they paid three to five dollars, depending on the day). If they missed the cruise time, they had to wait for the boat to come back so we could pay to get aboard for the next trip.

The President never cruised. It was permanently moored near the Gateway Arch because the old aluminum Admiral had no engines. Gamblers would pay two dollars during the week and five dollars on weekends and could board every two hours from 10 a.m. to midnight.

But the world was changing and the change accelerated each year. “Appointment living” was beginning to diminish although many of us did not realize it at the time.

There were some hints, however.

The Pew Research Center reported in 1994 that the percentage of Americans getting news from the internet at least once a week had more than tripled since 1991, going from 11-million to 36-million news users.

The number of hosts on the internet tripled from January, 1994 to January, 1996, the year something called a “browser” was created—Netscape, the same year that the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda passed a Free Trade and Processing Act allowing licenses to be given to companies wanting to allow internet users to gamble. By the end of the year there were fifteen gambling websites. The next year there were 200 and by 1998, a study was published showing online gaming revenues had topped $830-million. Modern online gambling in this country dates from November 22, 2010 when the New Jersey Senate passed a bill allowing certain forms of online gambling.

It was about that time that the casino industry was starting to see an erosion in patronage. In Missouri, casino admissions reached almost 54.3-million in FY 2005 then declined for three years before climbing back to almost equal 2005’s number. Admissions began annual declines after FY 2011.  In FY 2019 (the last full year before the pandemic crippled casino business), casino admissions had declined by 49%.

Various reasons for the decline can be suggested but the end result seems to be the same—people just don’t go to where casinos are.

So the casinos have to go where the people are.

The situation is not unique to the casino industry. It is part of our changing lifestyles and those changes have become more obvious with the COVID-19 Pandemic that has forced casino closures for in-person business and quarantines for many who would patronize them.

We no longer live in an “appointment” world.  We can buy clothing at any time of the day off the internet.  We can use the internet to get our groceries delivered.  We can order deliveries to our homes from our favorite restaurants.  The same with our pharmaceuticals. Telemedicine is eliminating some office and hospital trips.

Casino betting can happen 24 hours a day because, as one source has observed, “everyone has a casino in their pocket.”  Casinos are looking for new products that can be offered through the ubiquity of the internet that we call up on our ubiquitous cell phones.  First is sports wagering. But later, Missouri legislators are likely to be asked to let table game betting to take place remotely.

Those who find gambling a reprehensible sin will find nothing redeeming about gambling on the internet.  But thousands of other Missourians will welcome the opportunities—as they welcome opportunities to grocery shop from home.

In a world where less and less of life is lived by appointment, the gaming industry knows it must change. And it is, as it should.

Missouri’s casino gambling laws must change, too.  Laws written and fees created in the days of physical customer presence in casinos need to be changed to account for virtual presence.  State services relying on gambling fees and taxes will be increasingly diminished as appointment gambling diminishes.  Casinos, profiting from laws of the 1990s appointment culture, resist modernization of the law. It is understandable that they do.

What is not understandable is why the Missouri General Assembly would not want to protect the state’s interests by bringing our laws from the appointment era into the virtual, but very real, era.

 

A Black Life That Mattered

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It’s not the only one, of course, but this story is an example of how traditionally told history ignores the importance of some people and why there is nothing wrong with broadening our understanding of the past and re-orienting our view of it.

There is nothing to fear from a more holistic understanding of our history.

This is the story of a black life that mattered.  Except it HASN’T mattered until recently.

While Cole County was celebrating its bicentennial in 2020-2021, your persistent researcher started trying to learn about Stephen Cole, the “pioneer and Indian fighter” for whom the county was named (supposedly).  A couple of 1823 newspaper articles about Cole County recounted that it really was named for Stephen’s brother, William Temple Cole, who was killed in a central Missouri Indian ambush a decade before the county was organized.

The traditional telling of the story of the settlement of Cooper County has Temple’s widow, Hannah and their nine children, joined by Stephen, his wife and their five children, in a pirogue (a hollowed out log) paddling across the icy Missouri River from Howard County to the area that’s now Boonville in February 1810.  They supposedly arrived on the south shore of the river but all of their supplies were still on the north side and they couldn’t get back to them for several days.

Hannah is memorialized as the first white woman to settle in Cooper County (meaning, we presume, the first non-Indian).  There’s a statue of her in Boonville.  A big rock in a cemetery along Highway 5 about 13 miles south of town marks the approximate location of her burial.

It’s a nice story.  Except that the usual telling of it has Hannah as a widow seven months before she became one.

And it ignores the fact that she was not the first white woman to settle that area.  She was ONE of the first two.  Stephen’s wife, Phoebe, disappears from the narrative. It’s almost as if she’s never left that pirogue.

But it’s likely there was a THIRD woman in that not-so-little boat.

Her name was Lucy.

She doesn’t show up in the traditional narrative until Hannah’s death many years later when she’s mentioned. It’s likely she’s not mentioned along with the other family members because she wasn’t family.

Our traditional story-telling doesn’t spend any time talking about chairs and cooking pots and beds—–the property settlers took with them. Lucy was Hannah’s property, her slave.

She apparently had been with Hannah since Hannah and Temple were married.  She probably helped with the birth of the nine children.  She came west from Virginia to Kentucky, to the wilds of Missouri, and then across the river that day (whenever it was) and helped with the settlement work on that river bluff.  And she remained with Hannah until the end of Hannah’s life.

Supposedly she’s buried in the same cemetery as Hannah, perhaps at the foot of Hannah’s grave.

If Hannah was the first white woman to settle south of the river and west of Montgomery County, then Lucy had to have been the first African-American settler of a county that was 36% enslaved at the start of the Civil War. But that’s not recognized in the usual story of Cooper County or of the city of Boonville.

She was every bit the “pioneer” as Hannah (and Phoebe).  She faced the same dangers the Cole family faced, especially during the years when Indians were marauding in the area during the War of 1812. But she never drew a breath of free air.  We don’t know when she was born, or where.  We don’t know when she died, or where. Maybe she’s buried near Hannah. Maybe not.

Cooper County makes a big deal of Hannah.  But in a county where six percent of the population today is black, there’s no recognition of Lucy.  No statue.  No gravestone in the cemetery south of town.

It’s this kind of cultural oversight that some folks think needs to end. That wish, however, has been coopted by what has happened to phrases such as “The 1619 project” and “Critical Race Theory” that call on us to recognize this nation was more than what has been in the standard national narrative. They have become politicized phrases to be attacked vehemently.

We should not fear the challenge that 1619 and CRT give us to see our history more broadly because understanding the history of people whose origins are not rooted in northern Europe lessens their marginalization, recognizes their humanity, and makes all of us more American.

And Lucy?

Last September, we told her story to the Cooper County Historical Society.  Afterwards, one of the descendants of Hannah Cole got up and promised that there would be a proper stone for her installed at the cemetery before the next reunion of the Cole family in Boonville next summer.

Lucy’s life mattered in the early part of our state history but her story is an example of some of the shortcomings in the telling of that history.  Her life matters today. To all of us.

Perhaps if as much energy could be expended to end the shortcomings of our traditional history-telling as is spent attacking those who say it’s about time we told it more holistically, all of us would be richer people and we would live in a greater nation.

Truth as a Defense 

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(The Missouri General Assembly is back in session and it, the governor, and assorted denizens of the hallways will be generating ample material for observation for the next four months or so.  We are giving Dr. Frank Crane a bit of a vacation until the end of the session so we might increase the number of appropriate observations pertinent to the times. While they might be of questionable value to you, they are good therapy for your obedient observer. We begin with a story of early United States history and how it might play out in our time.)

Journalists sometimes have to decide whether to break a law by publishing information beneficial to the public or whether to withhold the information and therefore do a disservice to the public.

That ethical dilemma for the journalist who decides to publish then can become a legal issue that is uncomfortable for prosecutors, among others, to consider. When First Amendment protections of the press enter the mix, the situation offers only awkward choices.

Case in point:  Governor Parson is confident the Cole County Prosecutor will file a charge against a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter who discovered a flaw in a computer program that endangered the security of personal information of thousands of Missouri educators. The governor believes he breached state law on computer information accessibility.

The newspaper did not publish the findings until the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education had fixed the problem.  Clearly, from this observer’s standpoint, the public was better served.  But also clearly from the governor’s standpoint, a law was broken. And as a former sheriff, he took umbrage with what he perceived as law-breaking.

Former Missourian Ulysses Grant, on being sworn in as President of the United States on March 4, 1869, proclaimed, “Laws are to govern all alike—those opposed as well as those who favor them.  I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.”

The sentiment often is credited erroneously to Abraham Lincoln, perhaps based on an 1838 Lyceum speech in Springfield, Illinois.

Throughout our country’s history, the rigidity of law has been challenged by those who push against that rigidity. We could regard the Declaration of Independence as our country’s greatest challenge to existing law, for example.  Or the Civil Rights movement in more recent decades.

But more than fifty years before the Declaration of Independence, an important and surprising legal decision was made that seems to be important to the disagreement about the propriety of the report on education department computer security.

John Peter Zenger, the publisher of The New York Weekly Journal, was accused of libel by Royal Governor William S. Cosby in 1733 after Zenger accused him of various corruptions including rigging elections.  Under the laws of the time, any publication of information critical of government was considered libelous.

Zenger lawyer Andrew Hamilton, the most famous colonial attorney of his time, did not deny the accusations had been printed. But he demanded the prosecutor to prove they were false. The judge told the jury it had to convict Zenger if it found he had, indeed, printed the stories. But the jury stunned the judge, the governor, and many others when it returned after only about ten minutes of deliberation and found Zenger NOT guilty.

The finding was the first time in this country that truth was considered an absolute defense against the governor’s complaint that the law prohibited publication of information critical of government.

That ruling is considered by some historians as critical to the circulation of ideas that led to the Declaration, the American Revolution, and the development of our Constitution and Bill of Rights—and the First Amendment that includes press freedom.

Can the “truth is an absolute defense” be used in the case of the Post-Dispatch story?  We’ll see.  It is unlikely this series of events will rise to the historical significance of the Zenger case. But free public knowledge of truth must have value in a free society and a chance to emphasize that value in this time of the Big Lie should not be missed.

The principle established in a courtroom 288 years ago casts a light on the governor’s belief that a law must be strictly enforced despite the exposure of truth and the prosecutor’s decision about how to best address the issue of public benefit versus strict obedience.

The Center

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Jefferson City likes to think of itself as the center of the state and it is certainly the POLITICAL center of the state.

But, really, it IS the center of the state according to the census bureau and the post office.

If we could cut Missouri out of the United States (and 161 years ago that was tried unsuccessfully) and balance it on the point of a large pin with all of our people living where they live now and weighing the same, the state would balance on a point just south of Jefferson City.

After the folks at the Census Bureau get done counting national noses they start having fun with the numbers.  Missouri wins twice when they do.

A few weeks ago, the census geeks figured that the national population center is near Hartville, population 594, in southwest Missouri’s Wright County.  Now they’ve figured the population center of each state and Missouri’s balance point is near a bend in the Osage River east of Brazito, an unincorporated community about 12 or 13 miles from Jefferson City.

Brazito is served by the post office in Jefferson City and its street addresses have the Jefferson City zip code of 65109.

So Jefferson City IS the center of the state!  Wink, wink.

The designation as the state’s population center is one of two historical events connected with Brazito. The first is that it was named for a Christmas Day, 1846 battle in the Mexican War by members of the First Regiment Missouri Mounted Volunteers under Alexander Doniphan.

The map is from the book J. T. Hughes wrote about the exploits of the unit, Doniphan’s Expedition, published in 1847, shortly after the group returned from opening central Mexico to American military occupation after the later Battle of Chihuahua. It’s an epic story if you want to learn more about the march from Fort Leavenworth to Santa Fe, the Mexican capital taken without a shot being fired, and then south through the arid country side to the battle site near El Paso and then on to Chihuahua.

The other historical moment happened on August 9, 1974, about 39,000 feet over Brazito when Air Force One pilot, Col. Ralph Albertazzie, radioed Kansas City ground control from his blue and white Boeing 707, “This was Air Force One. Will you change our call sign to Sierra Alpha Mike 27-thousand?”  (That’s military language to make sure the receiving person knows it refers to the letters SAM.)

“Roger, Sierra Alpha Mike 27-thousand. Good luck to the President.”

“Roger.  27-thousand.”

It was three minutes, 25 seconds past noon.  Someone reached down and locked the box containing the secret military codes.

And the Boeing 707 was no longer Air Force One, the designation given to any Air Force plane carrying the President of the United States. It became another Air Force plane, tail number 27000.

The Airline Owners and Pilots Association says SAM27000 has the distinction of making 1,440 takeoffs as Air Force One, but it landed with that designation only 1,439 times.  This was that odd flight—on which Richard Nixon, heading back to California after his resignation in disgrace, officially left the office of President—

—over Brazito, Missouri when word came that Gerald Ford had been inaugurated as Nixon’s successor.

SAM27000 carried more presidents to more countries for more meetings and on more missions than any Air Force One.  Seven presidents beginning with John F. Kennedy, 445 missions. And, says the AOPA, “no luggage was ever lost.”

The airplane remains the property of the Air Force but it is on permanent loan to the Reagan Presidential Library. Should you find yourself there, you can go through the airplane where history was made over Missouri’s new population center 48 years ago.

(photo credit: AOPA)

 

 

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The Past, The Present, The Future

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(The beginning of a new year is a frequent opportunity to look back, to ponder how the past has led us to where we are, and the degree to which yesterday should shape tomorrow.  Dr. Crane tells us each has its place.)

PRECEDENT

Precedent is solidified experience. In the realm of ideas it is canned goods.

It is very useful when fresh ideas are not to be had.

There are advantages in doing things just because they always have been done. You know what will happen. When you do new things you do not know what will happen.

Success implies not only sound reasoning, but also the variable factor of how a thing will work, which is found out only by trying it.

Hence, the surest road to success is to use a mixture of precedent and initiative. Just how much of each you will require is a matter for your judgment.

To go entirely by precedent you become a mossback. You are safe, as a setting hen or a hiving bee is safe. Each succeeding generation acts the same way. There is a level of efficiency, but no progress.

Boards, trustees, and institutions lay great stress upon precedent, as they fear responsibility. To do as our predecessors did shifts the burden of blame a bit from our shoulders.

The precedent is the haven of refuge for them that fear to decide.

Courts of law follow precedent, on the general theory that experience is more just than individual decision.

Precedent, however, tends to carry forward the ignorance and injustice of the past.

Mankind is constantly learning, getting new views of truth, seeing new values in social justice. Precedent clogs this advance. It fixes and perpetuates the wrongs of man as much as the rights of man.

Hence, while the many must trust to precedent, a few must always endeavor to break it, to make way for juster conclusions.

Precedent is the root, independent thinking is the branch of the human tree. Our decisions must conform to the sum of human experience, yet there must be also the fresh green leaf of present intelligence.

We cannot cut the root of the tree and expect it to live, neither can we lop off all the leafage of the tree and expect it to live.

The great jurist, such as Marshall, is one who not only knows what the law is, but what the law ought to be. That is, to his knowledge of precedent he adds his vision of right under present conditions.

Precedent is often the inertia of monstrous iniquity. War, for instance, is due to the evil custom of nations who go on in the habit of war-preparedness. The problem of the twentieth century is to batter down this precedent by the blows of reason, to overturn it by an upheaval of humanity.

Evil precedent also lurks in social conditions, in business, and in all relations of human rights. The past constantly operates to enslave the present.

We must correct the errors of our fathers if we would enable our children to correct ours.

Our reverence for the past must be continually qualified by our reverence for the future…

The momentum of what has been must be supplemented by the steam of original conviction, and guided by the intelligence and courage of the present.

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