Category Archives: people

The Colonies and the Mother Country

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The coverage of the change in the British monarchy has rekindled some interest in the comparisons of the United Kingdom with the United States.

Oscar Wilde, the 19th Century wit and playwright had a British character in The Canterville Ghost comment, “We have really everything I common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.”

Through the years, George Bernard Shaw has been credited with turning that comment into, “England and America are two countries separated by the same language!”

The other day, we came across a newspaper column written by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, whose column, My Day, was syndicated in newspapers by United Features Syndicate nationwide.  She wrote on August 17, 1946 that the relationship between this country and the United Kingdom is “a little like a family relationship where the younger generation breaks completely away from the older generation with the result that relations for a time are very strained.

In most families, however, when either the younger or the older generation is threatened by real disaster, they come together and present a solid front. That doesn’t mean that they will see things in the same light in the future, and it does not necessarily mean approval on either side of the actions of the other—nor even that they might not quarrel again. But it makes future quarreling less probable. It is a kind of “blood is thicker than water” attitude which makes them stand together when a crisis occurs and, year by year, brings better mutual understanding.

She contrasted the characters of our peoples—Americans being people of light exaggeration and the British being people of understatement. Americans are more “dashing and perhaps more volatile” while the British are “more stolid and tenacious”

Remember this was just after World War Two. She recalled a British soldier who said the Americans did not enter the war until they developed an interest in winning, at which point they capitalized on “the hard work and the losses which we have sustained.”

And while Americans might not approve of many things important to the British, she write, there is a belief that we can find ways to live and work together.

In fact, she thought, that attitude is basic to our foreign policy—that “we can find ways to live and work together.”

The Colonies, us, are the kids who leave home.  But when there’s a family crisis, we get together.

Even in today’s world, three-quarters of a century later, she seems to have identified us.

 

Is the tax cut the Christian thing to do?

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The question came up in the Searchers Sunday School class at First Christian Church in Jefferson City yesterday.

Perhaps the question arose, at least partly, because on Saturday, the third annual Prayerfest attracted hundreds of people to the Capitol to pray for ten things: marriage and family, religious liberty, fostering and adopting, law enforcement, sexual exploitation, business and farming, government, racial tensions, right to life, and education.

Lower taxes didn’t make that list.

The bill passed by the legislature last week will reduce general revenue by $764 million a year. My friend Rudi Keller at Missouri Independent has noted the state’s general revenue fund had $12.9 billion in revenue in the most recent fiscal year and the state ended the year with almost $5 billion unspent.

But shouldn’t it have been spent?

Just because the state has it doesn’t mean the state should spend it.  But Missouri clearly has public needs that are not being met.  Whether it is more responsible to give a little bit of money back to a lot of people or to use that money to served thousands is an ethical—and religious—question.

The 2003 Missouri General Assembly passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act intended to keep the state from restricting the free exercise of religion except under specific, limited, circumstances.  But we often have been reminded that freedom carries with it responsibilities.

Perhaps we need a Religious Responsibility Restoration Act that relies on Cain’s refusal to accept responsibility for the welfare (or even the life) of his brother.  The Judeo-Christian tradition does say that there is a personal responsibility for our neighbors, even those we don’t like (recall the Good Samaritan story).

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “Pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.”  And he told the Romans, “Let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may build up another.”

Instead of using money legitimately gained for the benefit of many, it appears the governor and the legislature have decided to lessen the state’s ability to pay the costs of the services thousands of Missourians need.

The Missouri Budget Project reports these things:

–Between FY 2007 and FY 2020, there was a 22% cut in Missouri’s investment in programs to support independent living when adjusted to today’s dollars.

–While average incomes and property taxes increase over time, circuit breaker eligibility guidelines and the size of the credit have remained flat since the last increase in 2008. As a result, fewer people qualify for the credit over time and those that do are more likely to fall higher on the phase-out scale – meaning they qualify to receive a smaller credit. In addition, Missourians who rent from a facility that is tax-exempt were cut from the Circuit Breaker Program in 2018.

—When adjusted for inflation, required per student funding for K-12 schools was significantly lower in FY 2022 than it was in 2007. That is, the value of our state’s investment in its students is less than it was 15 years ago.   

—Missouri’s investment in K-12 education is also far below the national average. Our state revenue spending per child is less than 60% of what the average state spends to educate its children.

—Even with today’s rosy budget, Missourians can’t access long term care through the Department of Mental Health, child welfare workers are overwhelmed, and the state’s foster care system is in desperate need. Vulnerable Missourians – including kids – are being put at risk because Missouri has the lowest paid state employees in the country, resulting in staff vacancies.

Others reports indicate services (that in many cases are more important to thousands of people than a small tax refund) are badly in need of the funds the legislature and the governor want to give away:

Stats America ranks Missouri 38th in public welfare expenditures.  $1581. Mississippi is 20th at $2,098. W. Va is tenth at $2,722. Alaska, Massachusetts and New York are the only states above $3,000.

Spending on education: USA Facts. (from the Economics Lab at Georgetown University)  Nationwide, the top spending schools by expenditure per student spent $40,566 or more in 2019, more than three times the median school expenditure per student of $11,953.  Missouri was at  was $10,418.  That’s 37th in the country.

We were 26th in per capita spending on mental health services.  Missouri ranks 40th in mental health care, says Healthcare Insider.com

Average teacher pay 52,481 says World Population review. 39th among the states.

We are 32nd in police and corrections spending.

It’s not as if we are overburdened.  The Tax Foundation says we are 27th overall in tax burden, 22nd  property taxes burden.

Against that background is this assessment of the tax cut enacted by the legislature last week:

The Missouri Budget Project, which evaluates state tax policy and state needs says “A middle class family earning $52,000 will see only about $5.50 in tax savings each month. But the millionaire across town will get more than $4,200 a year.”   (To make sure that we’re comparing apples and apples, the middle class family’s annual savings will be $66 a year under the MBP projections.)

Reporter Clara Bates wrote for Missouri Independent about three weeks ago that “the Department of Social Services had an overall staff turnover rate of 35% in the last fiscal year ranking second among state agencies of its size after only the Department of Mental Health.”

It’s even worse for the Children’s Division: “Among frontline Children’s Division staff — including child abuse and neglect investigators and foster care case managers — the turnover rate last year was 55%, according to data provided by DSS. That means more than half of the frontline staff working at Children’s Division across the state at the start of the last fiscal year had left by the end of the year.”  Why the turnover?  High workloads for the staff. And the high workloads lead to more employees leaving at a time when the state needs to be hiring MORE people.

Missouri has almost 14,000 children in foster care.  The national average for children finding a permanent home within a year of entering the system is 42.7%.  The average in Missouri is “just over 30%.”

The politically-popular pledge to “shrink government” is exacting a terrible price on those who need its help.   The Department of Social Services has lost more than one-third of the employees it had twenty years ago.  The number of employees in the Children’s Division is down almost 25% since 2009

The number of full-time personnel at DSS shrunk by a third in the last two decades. The Children’s Division has had nine directors in the last ten years.

But instead of using the money the state has to ease or correct these more-than regrettable situations, the governor and the legislature are giving away $764 million dollars a year with the bill passed last week.

It’s always politically easy to cut taxes, especially in an election year.  It’s easy to talk about how much an individual taxpayer might get back.  It’s harder to confront the damage that might be done to the services that taxpayer needs or relies on.

A lot of people in the legislature and a lot of people in the broad citizenry of Missouri speak proudly of their religiosity. And many of them think the concept of “shrinking government” is a laudable accomplishment.

We should beware of the Pharisees who do not consider whether they are their brother’s keepers and who fail to realize that freedom of religion also carries a religious responsibility to “pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.”

In the Sunday School class yesterday we asked whether the tax cut that will become law soon is the Christian thing to do—-a question that we hope bothers at least some of those who are so boastful that this is and always has been a Christian nation.

Well, is it—a Christian thing to do?

Am I my brother’s keeper?  How does saving $5.50 a month in taxes answer that?

Banned Book Week

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I have a pin that I wear on rare occasions that says, “I Read Banned Books.”

And I do.

I’ve read Huckleberry Finn.  The Bible (well, parts of it), Grapes of Wrath, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (not just the good parts), In Cold Blood, The Naked and the Dead—–

Probably more.

And as consumers of these columns know, I am clearly corrupted, probably an abuser of something or other, and have read a forbidden word or two that most second-graders already know.

This is the fortieth anniversary of Banned Books Week, It was started at a time when there was a sharp rise in actions to take books out of schools, libraries and even out of bookstores. It was created by Pittsburgh librarian Judith F. Krug who became the director of the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom. Later she joined the Freedom to Read Foundation and after Time magazine did an article in 1981, “The Growing Battle of the Books,” founded Banned Books Week.

One of the biggest promoter is a century-old (founded in 1922) organization called PEN America, which says it “stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide.” Originally the acronym stood for “Poets, Essayists, Novelists.”  But the group has broadened its tent to include playwrights and editors and even more people. So “PEN” is no longer an acronym for anything but the organization is for free exposure to ideas.

Not long ago the organization calculated about 140 school districts spread throughout 32 states had issued more than 2,500 book bans, efforts that it says affect almost four=million students in more than five-thousand individual school buildings. It has identified at least fifty groups with at least 300 local chapters advocating for book bans.  It says most of those groups have formed in the last year.

PEN America keeps an annual index of schoolbook bans.  That list for the school year ending June 30, 2022 lists 2,535 instances of banning 1,648 titles.  The organization says 674 of the banned titles address LGBTQ+ themes or have characters who are in that category. Another 659 titles featured characters of color and another 338 addressed issues of race and racism.

Political pressure or legislation designed to “restrict teaching and learning” (PEN”s phrase) were involved in at least forty percent of the bans.  Texas had 801 bans in 22 districts. Florida had 566 in 21 districts. Pennsylvania had 457 in 11 districts.

The organization says the movement is speeding up resulting in “more and more students losing access to literature that equips them to meet the challenges and complexities of democratic citizenship.” It says, “Ready access to ideas and information is a necessary predicate to the right to exercise freedom of meaningful speech, press, or political freedom.”  It cites this except from a 1978 decision in a Federal Court case in Massachusetts:

“The library is ‘a mighty resource in the marketplace of ideas’ … There a student can literally explore the unknown and discover areas of interest and thought not covered by the prescribed curriculum. The student who discovers the magic of the library is on the way to a life-long experience of self-education and enrichment. That student learns that a library is a place to test or expand upon ideas presented to him, in or out of the classroom… The most effective antidote to the poison of mindless orthodoxy is ready access to a broad sweep of ideas and philosophies. There is no danger in such exposure. The danger is in mind control.”

Sixteen instances of book banning are on the new PEN index.  Six are from Nixa. Four are from Wentzville.

(3 actions)  Alison Bechdel, Fun House, A Family Tragicomic, banned in classrooms, Nixa May 2022; Banned pending investigation, North Kansas City and Wentzville (October, 2021)

Echo Bryan, Black Girl Unlimited, the Remarkable Story, banned in library, Nixa,  February 2022

Jano Dawson, This Book is Gay, banned in libraries, Lindbergh School District, October 2021

Jonathan Evison, Lawn Boy, banned pending investigation, Wentzville School District, October, 2021

Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing, banned in libraries, Nixa, May, 2022

Lisa Jewell, Invisible Girl, a Novel, banned pending investigation, Wentzville School District October 2021

(Two actions) George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue, banned in libraries and classrooms, Nixa School District, May, 2022; banned pending investigation, North Kansas City School District,  October, 2021

Kiese Laymon, Heavy, an American Memoir, banned pending investigation, Wentzville School District, October, 2021.

Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye, banned in libraries of the Nixa School District  February, 2022.

Logan Myracle, l8r g8tr, banned in libraries and classrooms, St. Francis Howell School District,  October, 2021

Elizabeth Scott, Living Dead Girl, banned pending investigation, Rockwood School District, March, 2022

Nic Stone, Dear Martin, banned in classes, Monett R-1 School District, December 2021

Jeanette Walls, The Glass Castle, banned pending investigation, Nixa February, 2022

I am a writer, a journalist, an author, a longtime supporter of my local and regional libraries. I do not have much patience with those who want to dictate to me what I might read, how I might speak, or what I might think.

Perhaps I am the kind of person those who want to dictate those things fear.  Fear is a lousy reason for running a society or a nation.  People who are different will not go away and keeping someone from reading about them won’t drive them away.

So for the rest of this week, be a good American.

Read a banned book.  There’s a list of them above.

 

 

 

 

Why Hasn’t Ukraine Lost?

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Ukraine’s counterattack against Russian invaders appears to have stunned a lot of Russian soldiers and their commanders—and a growing number of influential people in Moscow who are starting to openly criticize Vladimir Putin for his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Putin expected a quick conquest.  Why didn’t he get it?  And why is he, as of this writing, getting his butt kicked by a supposedly smaller, inferior, force?

You might find it interesting to explore a book that explains why.  It’s the same reason Hitler didn’t conquer England, why the United States fled from Vietnam, and probably why the Taliban controls Afghanistan.

The book is Malcom Gladwell’s David and Goliath, a study of why bigger is not always best, why stronger does not always prevail, and why—believe it or not—the underdog wins so often.

While most analyses of military actions focus on military capabilities and/or failures, Gladwell focuses on people and what happens when their country is attacked by a seemingly overwhelming force.

He writes that the British government was worried as Europe sank into World War II that there was no way to stop a German air offensive against the country. The country’s leading military theorists feared devastating attacks on London would 600,000 dead, 1.2-million people wounded and mass panic among the survivors, leaving the Army unable to fight invaders because it would be trying to keep order among the civilians.

The eight-month blitzkrieg began in the latter part of 1940 and included fifty-seven consecutive nights of bombing.

But the people did not panic.  Military leaders were surprised to see courage and almost indifference.  The reaction puzzled them as well as psychiatric workers expecting the worst.

And they discovered the same things were happening in other countries under attack.

What was going on?

Gladwell writes that a Canadian psychiatrist, J. T.MacCurdy, determined that the bombings divided the populace into three categories: the people killed, the people who were considered near misses—the people who survived the bombs, and the remote misses—people not in the bombed areas.  MacCurdy said the people in the third category developed “a feeling of excitement with a flavour of invulnerability.”

While the toll in the London bombings was, indeed, great (40,000 dead and 46,000 injured), those casualties were small in a community of eight-million people, leaving hundreds of thousands of “emboldened” near misses, people that MacCurdy said became “afraid of being afraid,” a feeling that produced exhilaration and led them to conquering fear and developing self-confidence “that is the very father and mother of courage.”

Hitler, like the British military command, had assumed that a populace that had never been bombed before would be terrified. It wasn’t. Instead, it was emboldened.

“Courage is not something that you already have that makes you brave when the touch times start,” writes Gladwell. “Courage is what you earn when you’ve been through the tough times and you discover they aren’t so tough after all.”   He maintains that the German expectations that the bombings would terrorize the people and destroyed their courage was a “catastrophic error” because it produced the opposite result. He concludes the Germans “would have been better off not bombing London at all.”

Gladwell explores the “catastrophic error” this country made in Viet Nam when its political and military leaders believed they could bomb the Viet Cong into submission.  Thousands of pages of interviews of Viet Cong prisoners indicated the result instead was that the bombings made people “hate you so much that they never stop fighting.”

Many of the prisoners maintained no thoughts of winning but they didn’t think the Americans would win either.  Nor did they think they would lose. “An enemy indifferent to the outcome of a battle is the most dangerous enemy of all,” Gladwell writes, and leads to a shift in advantage and power to the underdog.

His thoughts might help us understand why, after 30 years, the Gulf War has failed to install democracy in that area and instead has left Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan far from what we dreamed they would become.

We hope the ideas are not tested on Taiwan.

Those who go to war expecting to win through might and power alone are Goliaths. And, as Gladwell sees it, all they’re doing is creating a lot of Davids.  And—although Russia’s invasion is not mentioned—in Ukraine, the shepherds with slings are swarming.

(The book is David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, New York, Little Brown and Company, 2013 (with a revised paperback edition by Back Bay Books, 2015. His thought-challenging musings also cover such topics as class size, prestigious colleges, art, dyslexia, and crime.  If you want a sample of his perceptive interpretation of how underdogs so often prevail, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziGD7vQOwl8 and if you want more on other topics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RGB78oREhM)

(Photo credit: youtube Ted Talk)

 

RACE

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In various forms we are tied up, politically, socially, economically and about every other kind of “ically” with the subject of race.

It provokes anger, fear, and uncertainty.

Am I racist?  Is someone else a racist, too, although they don’t look the same way I do?

Am I a victim? Am I a perpetrator?

What should I do?  Admit it?  Feel guilty about it?  Demand something from somebody? Be afraid of somebody?  Organize and try to stamp it out or stamp out discussions of it?

And where did it come from?

There are those who prefer not to discuss this issue. They have turned the word “woke” into a pejorative describing disparagingly those who are, as the Oxford Old English Dictionary tells us “originally (were) well-informed, up-to-date” but now “chiefly” means someone “alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice.”

A few weeks ago (July 25), we wrote about “Two Popes and Christian Nationalism.”  Recently we listened to a talk by John Biewen, the director of Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, a podcaster, and an author. He called his remarks, “The lie that invented racism,” and offered suggestions for solving racial injustice that began about 170 years before 1619, the date cited by a much-attacked New York Times article that (erroneously, we think) sets the date for racism in America.

Biewen’s talk supplements that July 25th exploration. We do not fear being called “woke” by recommending you watch Biewen’s presentation. Frankly, we are more likely to take it as a compliment, which might only make an accuser more angry. Too bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIZDtqWX6Fk

I jotted down three quotes while listening to his talk—-not a speech, mind you, a talk.  Racism “is a tool to divide us and to prop up systems.”

“It’s about pocketbooks and power.”

“White guilt doesn’t get a lot of anything done”

His presentation is one of many TED Talks posted on the web.  Talks such as these began with a 1984 conference on Technology, Entertainment, and Design (thus, TED).  The program focuses on “ideas worth spreading.”  The talks, limited to no more than eighteen minutes, cover a huge range of topics within the broad fields of science and culture.

Some famous people have made them. There are many whose names are meaningless to most of us—but whose words are worth hearing.  This is a forum for people unafraid to think outside their personal box, not for those who prefer to box out thoughts different from theirs.

There is afoot in our land an effort to ban discussion of race. Some say discussing race is an effort to make white people feel guilty about being white. The greater danger is from those who find no guilt in continuing to consider people of another color as lesser people.

We cannot escape history and we do not serve our country if we try to hide from it, obscure it, or ignore it.

The mere fact that we are discussing this issue as much as we are is proof enough that race remains one of the greatest overarching problems in our society and in our country.  It remains a problem and a problem is never fixed by denying that it exists or denying there never was a problem.

I hope Mr. Biewen’s remarks make you think.

(Photo credit: TED talks/youtube.com)

 

Irreverence

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I was talking with one of my friends at the Y last Friday morning and the conversation drifted, as it always does, all over the place.

We eventually started talking about family heirlooms and how the current generation—Nancy and I have two members of one, she doesn’t—has no interest in them.  The silver service grandma used to dig out of the bottom dresser drawer when people were coming over for a special occasion, the doilies great aunt Marge made, the quilt (oh, lord, the quilts!) from who knows?

The nick-nacks from the places we and our forebears visited—the ash tray from the Great Smokeys (a clever pun of a souvenir), the paperweight with a picture of an enrupting Old Faithful embedded in it, matchbooks galore from hotels and motels long closed and either rotted or demolished, dried up pens from the same places, an old felt pennant that says “Rock City.”

All of that STUFF.

The coal oil lamp from the days before farms had electricity, the radio with a built-in 78 rpm record player, the salters that used to be placed on the dinner table for special occasions so people could dip their radishes in some salt before eating them, the stiff old baseball glove that great uncle Herb used in the 1920s.

My mother-in-law, Yuba Hanson, referred to STUFF as things having a “sedimental value,” being as meaningful to someone else as the dust that gathers in the corners of seldom-used and thus seldom-cleaned rooms, like sediment.

And then we slid into discussing disposing of this or that relative’s clothes after their deaths—parceling things out to surviving relatives who find something close to still being in style and giving the rest to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, and taking dishes and cooking utensils to this or that re-sell-it shop.

And I asked—–“What do you think will happen to Queen Elizabeth’s clothes.”

Yes, we really should be more reverential about the late Her Majesty (by the way, how long to do you have to be dead before you are no longer “late?).  There are millions of people, probably, in the United Kingdom who would take umbrage at such a comment.  But this is the United States and we cut to the chase.

We do not expect to see a sign on Buckingham Palace Road with an arrow pointing the way to London SW1A 1AA reading “Garage Sale.” It’s not uncommon to see a few racks of no-longer-fitting clothes in garage sales.  But we’re not going to see anything of the sort at Buckingham Palace.

Queen Elizabeth was known for her hats—which matched the rest of her attire when she was out in public.  What is to become of them?

This grossly irreverent thought has occurred that should offend so many people:

We understand that it is customary within the Catholic Church for the galero, the red ceremonial wide-brimmed tasseled silk hat of Cardinals, to be suspended from the rafters of the cathedral in which they served a month after their deaths.

The first Queen Elizabeth was the daughter of King Henry VIII, the king who broke with the Catholic Church and created the Anglican, or Episcopal, Church as the Church of England. Perhaps her large collection of hats could be distributed to the oldest Anglican churches in England, one to each, and be lifted to the rafters as a tribute to the person who headed the Church of England longer than anyone in its 488-year history.

We are aware that some will find this discussion unsavory.  But to common folks such as most of us who deal with the disposal of the worldly goods of family members who have left us, the question might lurk somewhere in the recesses of our minds but we are afraid to ask.

And she had an irreverent side to her, too.  Ten years ago, some might remember, she opened the London Olympics by “parachuting” into the stadium.  She did a video with James Bond (Daniel Craig) who went to Buckingham Palace to provide her security as she went to the royal helicopter and headed to the stadium where a stunt double jumped out of the chopper and moments later the real Elizabeth was introduced in the stadium.

Or there is the video she shot of tea with Paddington Bear in which he offered her a marmalade sandwich only to see her reach into her ever-present purse and pull out one she claimed she always kept for emergencies.

Both are on Youtube along with other moments when the Queen was just Elizabeth.  I have a feeling she would have enjoyed doing a turn on Downton Abbey if the story line were to continue another eighty years beyond where the latest movie left off.

We probably would not have written this irreverent entry if we had not seen three news stories the day after Her Majesty’s death.  One asked what would become of her beloved dogs?  She had four or five dogs, “two Corgis named Muick and Sandy, a Dorgi called Candy, and two Cocker Spaniels,” as Newsweek reported them.  There was much speculation already.

The second news story reported that the producers of the Netflix television series “The Crown,” a biopic inspired by the life of Queen Elizabeth II, had decided to pause the filming of the sixth and apparent final year of the series “as a mark of respect” on the day she died. We have seen no date for resumption of the filming although it appears it won’t happen until after her funeral. The series’ website says it is about “the political rivalries and romance of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign and the events that shaped the second half of the twentieth century.”  The writer of the series, Peter Morgan, says it is “a love letter to her.”

And ABC was quick to assure subjects of the United Kingdom that their money with Her Majesty’s face on it would still be the currency of the realm.  She was the first British Royal to have a photo on paper bills, in 1960. The Bank of England has indicated more details about changes in currency will be announced after the 10-day mourning period.

A spokesman for the Bank of Canada says there are no plans to change the face on that country’s currency. The same is true in Australia although a new $5 note with the image of King Charles will be issued at some undetermined date.  New Zealand has the same plans although its new bill will be a $20 bill.

That’s paper money.  Coinage?

The custom of the reigning monarch being on coins began with the last King Charles, the 17th Century Charles II.  The custom is to issue new coins with the new monarch facing the opposite direction the immediate past-monarch faced.

It is said she had a “wicked” sense of humor—or humour as her people would spell it.

I wonder if she ever counted the number of hats she had and laughed.

(photo credit: elle.com)

The more things change— 

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The more, well, you know.

We are reminded from time to time that today’s lamentations about our deteriorating nation are not particularly new.  Each generation seems to have those who believe the nation is taking a handbasket ride to Hell yet the country somehow has muddled through. We came across this 1959 letter from the noted author John Steinbeck to former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, who had lost the previous two Presidential elections to Dwight D. Eisenhower.  You can find it and other pretty fascinating letters and memos at lettersofnote.com.  Steinbeck, just returned from England, was worried about the nation’s moral bankruptcy.

Back from Camelot, and, reading the papers, not at all sure it was wise. Two first impressions. First, a creeping, all pervading nerve-gas of immorality which starts in the nursery and does not stop before it reaches the highest offices both corporate and governmental. Two, a nervous restlessness, a hunger, a thirst, a yearning for something unknown—perhaps morality. Then there’s the violence, cruelty and hypocrisy symptomatic of a people which has too much, and last, the surly ill-temper which only shows up in human when they are frightened.

Adlai, do you remember two kinds of Christmases? There is one kind in a house where there is little and a present represents not only love but sacrifice. The one single package is opened with a kind of slow wonder, almost reverence. Once I gave my youngest boy, who loves all living things, a dwarf, peach-faced parrot for Christmas. He removed the paper and then retreated a little shyly and looked at the little bird for a long time. And finally he said in a whisper, “Now who would have ever thought that I would have a peach-faced parrot?”

Then there is the other kind of Christmas with present piled high, the gifts of guilty parents as bribes because they have nothing else to give. The wrappings are ripped off and the presents thrown down and at the end the child says—”Is that all?” Well, it seems to me that America now is like that second kind of Christmas. Having too many THINGS they spend their hours and money on the couch searching for a soul. A strange species we are. We can stand anything God and nature can throw at us save only plenty. If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick. And then I think of our “Daily” in Somerset, who served your lunch. She made a teddy bear with her own hands for our grandchild. Made it out of an old bath towel dyed brown and it is beautiful. She said, “Sometimes when I have a bit of rabbit fur, they come out lovelier.” Now there is a present. And that obviously male teddy bear is going to be called for all time MIZ Hicks.

When I left Bruton, I checked out with Officer ‘Arris, the lone policeman who kept the peace in five villages, unarmed and on a bicycle. He had been very kind to us and I took him a bottle of Bourbon whiskey. But I felt it necessary to say—”It’s a touch of Christmas cheer, officer, and you can’t consider it a bribe because I don’t want anything and I am going away…” He blushed and said, “Thank you, sir, but there was no need.” To which I replied—”If there had been, I would not have brought it.”

Mainly, Adlai, I am troubled by the cynical immorality of my country. I do not think it can survive on this basis and unless some kind of catastrophe strikes us, we are lost. But by our very attitudes we are drawing catastrophe to ourselves. What we have beaten in nature, we cannot conquer in ourselves.

Someone has to reinspect our system and that soon. We can’t expect to raise our children to be good and honorable men when the city, the state, the government, the corporations all offer higher rewards for chicanery and deceit than probity and truth. On all levels it is rigged, Adlai. Maybe nothing can be done about it, but I am stupid enough and naively hopeful enough to want to try. How about you?

Do we Americans and Missourians grow no worse because concerns such as these somehow drive us to sink no lower?  Or, despite concerns such as these that are repeated generation by generation, are there signs that we are a better people and a better society than we were in 1959 when Steinbeck wrote his letter? Are we motivated as a nation and as a state to make progress because we continue to worry as Steinbeck does and because there are people like him who are “stupid enough and naively hopeful enough to want to try” to make things better?

 

The debt

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In these times when word “self-aggrandizement” appears to be an admired quality in some who are or who want to be our leaders, we want to highlight someone we find much more admirable.

Giles H. Stilwell was the president of the Chamber of Commerce in Syracuse, New York for 1929-30.  When he stepped down, he had an observation for those who thought their city owed them something.  No so, Stilwell said. It’s just the opposite.

My city owes me nothing.  If accounts were balanced at this date, I would be the debtor. Haven’t I, all these years, lived within the limits of the city and shared all its benefits?  Haven’t I had the benefit of its schools, churches and hospitals?  Haven’t I had the use of its library, parks and public places?  Haven’t I had the protection of its fire, police and health department?  Haven’t its people, during all this time, been gathering for me, from the four corners of the earth, food for my table, clothing for my body, and material for my home?  Hasn’t this city furnished the patronage by which I have succeeded in my business?  Hasn’t it furnished the best friends of my life, whose ideals have been my inspiration, whose kind words have been my cheer and whose helpfulness has carried me over my greatest difficulties? What shall I give in return?  Not simply taxes which cover so small a part of what I have received.  I want to give more, I want, of my own free will, to say, “This is my city,” so that I  can take pride in its prosperity, in the honors which come to its citizens, and in all that makes it greater and better.  I can do this only by becoming a part of the city—by giving to it generously of myself. In this way only can I, even in small part, pay the great debt I owe.

A similar, shorter sentiment was expressed by the headmaster George St. John at Choate Academy, a prep school in Connecticut, who quoted a Harvard dean’s statement to his students, “As has often been said, the youth who loves his Alma Mater will always ask not ‘what can she do for me?’ but ‘what can I do for her?”‘  One of St. John’s students was a kid named John F. Kennedy, who made a modified version of the phrase famous in 1961.

Some might find Stilwell’s speech pretty sappy.  Some might think substituting “state”  or “nation” for “city” would work as well.

Something to think about in our present climate, we suppose.

Unprecedented

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“Unprecedented” is a word frequently heard these days in our national political discussions.  We thought it might be interesting to see what other times “unprecedented” has been applied to our Presidents.   “Unpresidented,” if you will, although it isn’t a real word.

It was unprecedented when the nation selected its first President who was not a member of an organized political party.  He also was the first President unanimously elected, a truly unprecedented feat: George Washington.

The idea that a President would never veto a bill while in office was unprecedented when John Adams did, or didn’t, do it. Adams had a lot of “not” precedents: the first President who did not own slaves; the first President who was a lawyer; the first President to lose a re-election bid and the first President who did not attend the inauguration of his successor.

Thomas Jefferson’s defeat of an incumbent President (Adams) was unprecedented. (So was the method of his election.  In those days the President and Vice-President each accumulated electoral votes.  Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr, each got 73 electoral votes. Incumbent John Adams had 65 but his running mate, Charles Pinkney, only had 64.  The House of Representatives cast 36 ballots before Jefferson won 10 of the 16 state ballots. Burr had four and Maryland and Vermont delegations tied within the delegation.  All of this was unprecedented, too, of course.)

James Madison took the unprecedented step of asking Congress for a declaration of war.

The election of Senator James Monroe to the presidency was unprecedented.

John Quincy Adams’ election was unprecedented because he was the first President who lost the popular vote.  (None of the candidates got a majority of the electoral vote, throwing the election into the House of Representatives under the 12th Amendment. Thirteen state delegations favored Adams, seven favored Andrew Jackson and four favored William H. Crawford.)

Andrew Jackson’s administration was the first administration to pay off the entire national debt.

Martin Van Buren’s presidency was unprecedented because he was the first President who was born an American citizen (all of his predecessors had been born as British subjects).

The death of William Henry Harrisons while in office was unprecedented.

The House of Representatives took an unprecedented vote to impeach President John Tyler.  It failed.

James K. Polk took the unprecedented step of refusing to seek a second term.

Zachary Taylor had never held a public office before becoming President, an unprecedented event.

Millard Fillmore took the unprecedented step of installing a kitchen stove in the White House.

His successor, Franklin Pierce, took the unprecedented step of installing central heating in the White House.

James Buchanan was our first bachelor president. Historians debate whether he was gay.

No president had been murdered until John Wilkes Booth took the unprecedented step with Abraham Lincoln, who is the only president to hold a United States patent.

The House of Representatives held a successful unprecedented impeachment vote against Andrew Johnson.  The Senate held an unprecedented trial and failed to convict him.

U. S.  Grant vetoed more than fifty bills, an unprecedented number.

It was unprecedented in modern election history when Rutherford B. Hayes won the electoral vote but not the popular vote.

James Garfield was an unprecedented President because he was left-handed or ambidextrous.

Chester Arthur took the unprecedented step of having an elevator installed in the White House.

Grover Cleveland set several precedents—the first President married in the White House; the first to have a child while President, and the first President to veto more than 100 bills.

Benjamin Harrison set a precedent by being the first President to have his voice recorded.

William McKinley was the first president to ride in an automobile.

Teddy Roosevelt set a precedent by becoming the first president to ride an airplane. (He got aboard a Wright Brothers airplane piloted by Arch Hoxsey and flew for about four minutes at Kinloch Field in St. Louis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaFulqGGkwk). He also took an unprecedented trip on a submarine.

The first president to throw out the first ceremonial pitch of the baseball season: William Howard Taft.

The first president to hold regular news briefings was Woodrow Wilson. He also took the unprecedented stop of appointing a Jew to the U.S. Supreme Court, Louis Brandeis.

Warren G. Harding learned of his election in an unprecedented way—he heard about it on the radio.

In 1927 the Lakota Sioux tribe took the unprecedented step of adopting a U.S. President as a member of the Lakota nation. Calvin Coolidge.

Herbert Hoover took the unprecedented step of having a telephone installed on his desk.

Franklin D. Roosevelt set a precedent by serving more than two terms. Among his other precedents—the first to fly across the Atlantic and the first to establish 100 days as the first benchmark for accomplishments in office.

The Secret Service set a precedent when it made Harry Truman the first President to have a code name (General). Television set a precedent by televising his 1949 inauguration.

Television set a precedent when it gave one of its Emmy Awards to President Eisenhower who was the first President to appear on color television.

First President who was a Catholic: John F. Kennedy. He also set a precedent by being the first former Boy Scout elected to the office.

The first President to be inaugurated on an airplane was Lyndon Johnson. He also set precedents by appointing the first African-American to the U.S. Supreme Court and appointing the first African-American to serve in a cabinet position

Richard Nixon set a precedent when he attended a National Football League game. Also: First President o resign.

First President never elected to the office or to the office of Vice-President: Gerald Ford.

Jimmy Carter broke precedent when he went by a nickname instead of the formal James E. Carter Jr.  As we write this, he moves into unprecedented territory by living longer than 97 years and being married for more than 75 of them.

Ronald Reagan set a precedent when he was re-elected, the first President re-elected older than 70 (73 at the time). He also set a precedent by nominating a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court.

George H. W. Bush set a precedent when he became the first President to pardon a Thanksgiving turkey.

First President who was a Rhodes Scholar, to have an official White House website, and to perform at a jazz festival (saxophone): Bill Clinton

First President to achieve a 90% approval rating in modern polling: George W. Bush.

America set a precedent by electing African-American Barack Obama, who was the first president born outside the 48 continental United States (Hawaii) and who was the first to endorse same-sex marriage.

First President with no prior public service experience, first to be impeached twice, first president to never see an approval rating above 50%, first president to refuse to publicly acknowledge re-election defeat: Donald Trump.

Joe Biden has set a precedent by being in office past his 77th birthday. He’s the first President to get more than 80-million votes.

First President to be indicted by a grand jury?  The first President to be brought to trial on criminal charges?  The first President to wear a prison uniform?  These are unprecedented possibilities that many hope never come to pass while many others hope come true.

That’s because we are living in unprecedented times.

 

Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene

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The names might ring a bell for some of our readers.  “They” wrote books that have sold millions of copies and are still being published after more than a century.

For a short time, Franklin and Carolyn were the same person.   His name was Leslie McFarlane and I came across his second autobiography during a recent visit to a bookstore in Michigan.

Did you ever read or hear about The Bobbsey Twins?

Your grandfather or great-grandfather might have read  the Tom Swift novels or The Rover Boys, or perhaps novels featuring the heroics of Dave Fearless or the sleuthing of The Dana Girls. I have some copies of The Radio Boys. There also was a companion series, The Radio Girls. All were among the 109 juvenile fiction book series published by the Stratemeyer Syndicate which hired writers and gave them story outlines and paid them small amounts to churn out books, the best known of which are The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. 

Their contracts required that they never admit they were ghost writers of any of these books, using names assigned them by the syndicate.

McFarlane wrote 22 of the adventures of Frank and Joe Hardy and the first four spinoff volumes of Nancy Drew called The Dana Girls.

The book I picked up in Michigan is Ghost of the Hardy Boys. If you grew up reading any of the syndicate’s series, you’ll enjoy reading McFarlane’s story—which is far more than the story of the Hardy Boys stories.   His writing about the small Canadian town where he grew up and his stories of his early jobs with small-town newspapers are wonderfully written.

Not even his son knew he had written that shelf of books in the family bookcase. McFarlane, who considered his authorship just a job, never paid attention to what happened to his books after he wrote them and did not realize until the closing years of his life the significance of his efforts.

(I read several of the Hardy/Nancy novels but the real juvenile fiction author of my youth was Fran Striker, who created The Lone Ranger novels.  I have all of them about ten feet from where is have written most of the literary gems such as the one you are now reading.)

McFarlane struck a chord with your book reviewer a couple of times when he wrote about writing.  Here are a couple of excerpts:

When my young wife told her friends that she had married a writer, their good wishes sounded more like condolences…One good woman said, “God help you, my dear!” with compassion. We thought it amusing at the time. Later we realized what she meant.

Writers are not good husband material. (I am not qualified to speak for the husbands of female writers.) Not because they are worse characters than men of other occupations. They aren’t. Not because they are impractical and untidy. They are. Not because their income is chancy. It is. But they are always underfoot…Who can blame her if she envies her sisters whose husbands clear out every morning and stay the hell out until dinner time, returning with fascinating accounts of their adventures in the great world, of the installation of a new water cooler and how he told off the assistant manager? My life has been blessed by two remarkably happy marriages, each happy because of a woman who had the cheerful courage and devotion to put up with an existence calculated to drive most wives to a psychiatric hospital or divorce court…

The other day someone asked my friend, MacKinlay Kantor, when he planned to retire. Our paths in life have differed vastly but we both are of the same age, began on small-town newspapers, made a living from the pulps, and are still writing. “Writers,” replied Kantor, in a voice that came mighty close to a snarl, “never retire.  Real writers, that is.” And we wouldn’t have it any other way. It is a survival course that never ends for any of us. I will be freelancing until someone draws the cover over my typewriter for me for the last time.

I wish more people were writers.  Of their own stories.  Many people are intimidated by the thought, never sure “where to start,” thinking a story has to begin at the beginning.

Hogwash.

A story just has to begin. Earlier or later accounts will fill in the before-and-after holes. All life stories are worth telling. It is unfortunate that the main accounts of the lives people have lived are woefully inadequately summarized in the last newspaper article that will ever mention them.

Some people who retire worry about what they will do without a job and the social contacts that are part of employment.  The answer is simple.

Become a writer.  Write about the things you know best.  And the one thing you know best is yourself.  Abandon any pretense of modesty. Enroll in McFarlane’s “survival course that never ends for any of us.”

Descendants you will never meet will meet you.  And they will be enriched by what they read.

I was enriched by reading about Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene and discovering how much more they were than a couple of names.