tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-279514772024-03-13T04:40:34.980-04:00malgeoFun. Quirky. History.Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comBlogger537125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-6460575929651210972019-04-06T13:05:00.000-04:002019-04-06T13:05:18.385-04:00RFK and Fritz Hollings
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<span class="s1">The passing of Fritz Hollings calls to mind an interesting anecdote I uncovered while researching my forthcoming book about Robert Kennedy’s February 1968 trip to eastern Kentucky.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">At the time, Kennedy was interested in showing that poverty wasn’t just a black problem; he wanted to shine a light on white poverty, too. “It’s obviously a problem that crosses racial lines,” Kennedy aide Peter Edelman told me, “and [Kennedy believed] the country should know that.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Kennedy first considered visiting South Carolina, but, according to Edelman, Fritz Hollings begged Kennedy not to go. Hollings, a Democrat, was up for reelection that year. “He said to RFK, ‘Please don’t come to South Carolina. I promise that I will do the work to expose it [hunger] in my own state.’ And Hollings did do that.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">In fact, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/ernest-f-fritz-hollings-longtime-senator-from-south-carolina-dies-at-97/2019/04/06/45deaba8-5876-11e9-814f-e2f46684196e_story.html?utm_term=.a072afe439bf" target="_blank">his obituary in the Post </a>notes, Hollings was “instrumental in enacting laws to alleviate childhood hunger.”</span></div>
Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-87334125861467873622018-12-13T22:45:00.000-05:002018-12-20T19:26:11.692-05:00A Bad Day in Kentucky<style type="text/css">
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, was founded by an abolitionist minister named John Fee in 1855. The school was integrated from its founding until 1904, when the Day Law was passed, making interracial education illegal in Kentucky. From my forthcoming book, this is the story of the man behind the law.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RKOc4Pc29U0/XBMnEhk_HQI/AAAAAAAAJ6w/etLDLKAnODcDPW9RlhDhlTrsV2o5RnfMgCLcBGAs/s1600/The_Courier_Journal_Wed__Apr_13__1904_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1040" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RKOc4Pc29U0/XBMnEhk_HQI/AAAAAAAAJ6w/etLDLKAnODcDPW9RlhDhlTrsV2o5RnfMgCLcBGAs/s200/The_Courier_Journal_Wed__Apr_13__1904_.jpg" width="130" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Carl Day was a Democratic state representative from Breathitt County who, legend has it, was riding a train through Berea one day when he happened to notice a white woman and a black woman embracing on a street corner, so offending his delicate sensibilities that he introduced a bill in the state legislature to ban interracial education in Kentucky—a bill that would apply to Berea College only. In reality, however, Carl Day—who was chubby with thinning dark hair and bore a striking resemblance to a later thug, Al Capone—was just a racist who detested the college’s mission and harbored irrational fears of “the contamination of the white children of Kentucky.” In early 1904, during his first term in Frankfort, Day introduced H.B. No. 25: “An Act to Prohibit White and Colored Persons from Attending the Same School.” At hearings on the bill in early February, college officials begged lawmakers to kill it, pointing out that the school received no public money whatsoever and was entirely funded by private donations which were often contingent on interracial education. “We ask not a cent from the State, nor do we compel any student to attend,” the school’s attorney, Guy W. Mallon, testified</span><span class="s1">. “Everything is of free will on our part and on the parts of the pupils. … Berea College has been conducted as a coeducational institution for white and black boys and girls for forty-eight years, and in that entire time not one single scandal has smirched its name.” The bill attracted attention nationwide, and Northern papers editorialized against it. “This mixture of white and black in the Berea classrooms has not led to any other kind of mixture,” the <i>Chicago Inter Ocean</i> noted. “Among its students there have been no mind marriages and no scandals between the two races.”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">On February 13, 1904, Day joined a group of some 200 state officials and businessmen who took a special train to St. Louis to inspect Kentucky’s exhibit at the soon-to-open World’s Fair there: a large house—a “New Kentucky Home”—completely furnished and decorated with goods manufactured in Kentucky. According to the <i>Louisville Courier-Journal</i>, the trip was “a success in every way,” and the delegation returned to Louisville the next day “wearied in body but … in excellent health and spirits.” Carl Day, however, was not in excellent health: He’d caught a bad cold in St. Louis. Still he soldiered on, shepherding his bill through the state House, which passed it on February 18 by a vote of 75 to five. The state Senate passed the bill on March 11 by a vote of 25 to eight, and Governor J. C. W. Beckham signed it the next day.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">But by then the cold that Day caught in St. Louis had mutated into pneumonia. On March 24 he was hospitalized in Lexington, and on April 12 he died. He was 28. Eighty days later, on July 1, 1904, his namesake law took effect, and Berea College would remain segregated until 1950.</span></span></div>
<br />Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-81436142634228166462018-11-13T12:14:00.001-05:002018-11-14T07:33:43.732-05:00Upon Seeing Bob Dylan for the Last Time (Presumably)<style type="text/css">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Before the show. The young usher told me no photos were </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">allowed during the performance, “per Mr. Dylan’s request.”</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">I said, “Did he tell you that personally?” She said, “Yes, he </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">told all of us!” Apparently Dylan gives the ushers a pep talk</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">before every show. Good for him.</span></td></tr>
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<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">A Bob Dylan concert is always fraught with mixed emotions: excitement, confusion, disappointment. The only question is: What will fraught most? At the EKU Center for the Arts in Richmond, Kentucky, on November 11th confusion prevailed.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">It’s not just that Bob, as is his wont, rearranged his songs, classic as well as obscure, to the point of unrecognizability. It’s that Bob himself was almost unrecognizable. He no longer plays guitar; instead he spends the concert safely hidden behind a grand piano, banging away with enthusiasm but no exceptional talent. (“I like a lot of Bob’s songs,” Joni Mitchell once told me at a cocktail party in the Village, “though musically he’s not very gifted.”) (Check that: I’ve never met Joni Mitchell; that’s just something I read on the internet.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Dylan (for whom the word “inscrutable” was invented) seems to be slowly retreating from public life while simultaneously touring large concert halls with a four-piece band. Very Dylanesque. Eventually he will just be a small globule on the bench behind the piano, like Stumpy Pete, the Spinal Tap drummer—or was it Stumpy Joe?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">The few times he came out from behind the piano, singing with a microphone stand in his hands, he seemed unsteady on his feet—he is 77 after all. A doddering Bob Dylan: It was hard to watch.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">But then, suddenly, a flash: While most of the new, piano-based arrangements don’t work at all—I’m talking to you, “It Ain’t Me Babe”—a few shine so brightly as to obliterate even the original recordings. “Like a Rolling Stone” begins as a slow, plaintive shuffle, then slowly builds to the chorus, when the band kicks in and Bob practically screams, “How does it feel?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">He makes it sound like an indictment rather than a question: How does it feel? But whom—or what—is he indicting? Our leaders? Ourselves? As usual, Bob gave us no clues between the songs. It was Veterans Day, so I’d hoped he might be moved to say a few words about… something. But Bob Dylan has never been a patterer. He spoke not a single word all night. The band, quite fine, went unintroduced. Dylan isn’t a wordsmith, he’s a word hoarder.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">“When I Paint My Masterpiece” is another song that works well with Bob on the piano. Less so the first encore, “Blowin’ in the Wind.” The final song of the night was a cover of James Brown’s "It's a Man's Man's Man's World.” Was Bob trying to tell us something on this Veterans Day? Did he even really want to be up there singing to us? We’ll never know, of course. Maybe that’s the point. Like I said, it was confusing.</span></span></div>
Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-38038261074295712232018-11-01T10:49:00.000-04:002018-11-01T10:50:09.920-04:00An Open Letter to Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred<style type="text/css">
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<span class="s1">November 1, 2018</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Robert D. Manfred Jr.</span><span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball</span></div>
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<span class="s1">245 Park Avenue, 31st Floor</span></div>
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<span class="s1">New York, NY 10167</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Dear Commissioner,</span><span class="s1"></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Congratulations on the completion of another successful Major League Baseball season. As a longtime fan, however, I’m sure you won’t mind me making a suggestion that would improve the game for, I believe, both players and fans.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">During the season just completed, MLB teams used an average of 4.36 pitchers per game (ppg), a 3.3 percent increase over the previous season (4.22 ppg), and a 26 percent increase since the 1998 season (3.46 ppg). Several factors account for this dramatic rise:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></div>
<ul class="ul1">
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">increasing specialization (including “starting pitchers” who face just a few batters);<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul class="ul1">
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">an infatuation with statistical analysis that encourages managers to change pitchers more frequently to achieve supposed “better matchups” against certain batters; and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul class="ul1">
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">peculiar and unfounded theories (e.g., starting pitchers should throw no more than 100 pitches per game; a starting pitcher should not face the opposing team’s batting order more than three times in a game).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></li>
</ul>
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<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Changing pitchers during a game is often necessary, of course, but pitching changes inevitably slow the game, break its momentum, and dissipate a fan’s excitement. And, to many fans watching the game at home, a pitching change is a good excuse to see what else is on TV. Based on personal experience, many never switch back to the baseball game.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I propose, therefore, the following rules:</span><br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<ul class="ul1">
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">Each team shall designate a maximum of 13 pitchers for each game.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul class="ul1">
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">No team shall be permitted to use more than five designated pitchers for the first eight innings of each game.</span></li>
</ul>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">(Note that the maximum of five designated pitchers is a 14 percent increase over the current average of 4.36 ppg.)</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">These new rules would dramatically decrease the length of games, which, let’s be honest, are way too long, especially during the postseason. They would also lead to fascinating strategic subplots during a game, such as:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></div>
<ul class="ul1">
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">Should a manager replace a pitcher who struggles in the early innings, or should he “ride him out” and save one of his pitching changes for later?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul class="ul1">
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">Should he replace a struggling middle reliever with his closer earlier in the game?</span></li>
</ul>
<ul class="ul1">
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">When a pitcher is due to hit with runners in scoring position, should he pinch-hit for the pitcher, or should he let the pitcher hit to save a pitching change?</span></li>
</ul>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">(Admittedly, most managers might not like the new rules, but I believe the benefits to the game will far outweigh their complaints.)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Note that<b> nothing in these rules prohibits a team from using as many pitchers as it likes</b>. The restriction is limited to “designated pitchers” only. A team can use any of the other 12 “non-designated” players on the roster to pitch at any time with no limitations whatsoever. That means teams will be inclined to sign position players who can also pitch when called upon—and fans always love to see a position player on the mound.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Also note that, after the eighth inning, all restrictions on pitchers are lifted. A manager can use as many designated pitchers as he chooses in the ninth inning and in extra innings.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In short, these new rules would make the game faster and more exciting, and they would have a minimal effect on historic statistical records. And they are far less radical than such suggestions as changing the strike zone, lowering the mound, adding a pitch clock, or beginning extra innings with a runner on second base.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Thank you for taking the time to consider my proposal. I would, of course, be happy to discuss it with you any time.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Keep up the good work, and I can’t wait until spring training begins.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Sincerely,</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Matthew Algeo</span></div>
<br />Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-91855318301540516462018-10-08T19:42:00.000-04:002018-10-08T19:43:02.246-04:00No Homosexuals in my Office<style type="text/css">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Times, San Mateo, California, <br />
October 31, 1967</td></tr>
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<div class="p1" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">On October 31, 1967, the muckraking journalist Drew Pearson published a column accusing California governor Ronald Reagan of harboring a “homosexual ring” in his administration. Specifically, Pearson claimed that Reagan’s director of security, a former LAPD detective named Arthur Van Court, had obtained “a tape recording of a sex orgy”—the best kind of orgy, incidentally—“which had taken place at a cabin near Lake Tahoe.” Eight men were involved, Pearson claimed, including two members of Reagan’s staff. According to Pearson, Reagan first learned about the tape in the winter of ’66–’67, but took no action against the men until the following August, when they were abruptly dismissed without a public explanation. On the day the column was published, Reagan held a press conference in Sacramento at which he “angrily denied” his administration had ever harbored homosexuals. Asked if had “ever found any evidence of homosexuals in his office,” Reagan answered, “No.”</span></div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“Drew Pearson has been sort of riding my back for years,” Reagan added, employing an unfortunate metaphor, considering the context.</span></div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Pearson, who called homosexuality “a disease” and had outed one of LBJ’s closest aides, Walter Jenkins, less than a month before the 1964 election, was unapologetic. “The facts in this case are incontrovertible and he knows it. </span><span style="font-size: small;">He has been posing as Mr. Clean and yet he tolerated two homosexuals on his staff for approximately six months and did not act regarding them until he was pressured. … The public is entitled to know the facts about a man who has ambitions to become President of the United States.”</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Pearson’s so-called “orgy tape” has never emerged (I just saved you a trip to YouTube), but in the 2009 book <i>At Reagan's Side</i>, </span><span style="font-size: small;">Stuart Spencer, who managed Reagan’s gubernatorial</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">campaigns, told authors Stephen F. Knott and Jeffrey L. Chidester that several gay men worked for Reagan in Sacramento, including the governor’s chief of staff, Philip Battaglia, who announced his resignation on August 28, 1967:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I didn’t know Phil was gay. I took him out for drinks. We sat at a bar. He had some gay guys working under him and he had committed that he was going to can them. He was dragging his feet on it. Some of them are still around so I’m not going to name their names.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
I’m there saying, “Okay, God damn it, Phil, you’ve got to dump this guy. You’ve got to get rid of this guy.” I’m going through this whole speech about the homosexual question and the problem. He’s just looking at me right in the eye. I find out a month later he’s one of them. I used to think back, what did I say to him about gays? What did I say?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The irony of it was when he quit—he gets dumped basically—he comes roaring down to me in my office and says, “I’m going to fight it. I’m going to sue him.” I listened to him all the way out and I said, “Phil, you ain’t going to do a damn thing because the more you do, the more prominence you’re going to get. Think about where you are and what you are.” He never did a damn thing. That was such a terrible two weeks of my life, I try to forget it.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">At 32, Philip Battaglia’s political career was over. He returned to his law practice in Los Angeles. Battaglia died at age 79 in 2014. He was survived by his wife of fifty-two years, Lorraine, as well as numerous children and grandchildren.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Stuart Spencer went on to manage Ronald Reagan’s two successful presidential campaigns. In 1984, according to the journalist Eleanor Clift, he masterminded a smear campaign against the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Geraldine Ferraro, whose last name ended in a round vowel. Spencer spread the lie that Ferraro was closely involved with mobsters. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Spencer is now 91. One of his best friends is Dick Cheney.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-13616664744211820402018-09-13T10:24:00.001-04:002018-09-14T08:01:08.283-04:00That time a Nobel Prize winner got slapped. Twice. Hard.<style type="text/css">
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>(In the autumn of 1931, the writer and political activist Theodore Dreiser led a committee of left-wing writers on a fact-finding mission to the coalfields of Eastern Kentucky, where a bitter labor dispute was unfolding. This sidebar is from my current masterwork-in-progress.)</i></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vTXPNunaAoM/W5pyuOorBtI/AAAAAAAAJ0E/SApqXdVclrkwOpo0XtEq41BAapMB6ik6ACLcBGAs/s1600/Democrat_and_Chronicle_Sat__Mar_21__1931_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="771" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vTXPNunaAoM/W5pyuOorBtI/AAAAAAAAJ0E/SApqXdVclrkwOpo0XtEq41BAapMB6ik6ACLcBGAs/s320/Democrat_and_Chronicle_Sat__Mar_21__1931_.jpg" width="153" /></a><span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">At the time, Dreiser was one of America’s two greatest living writers. The other was Sinclair Lewis, with whom Dreiser sustained a long and bitter rivalry. Dreiser, born in 1871, first came to fame with his gritty and realistic novel about a liberated young woman, <i>Sister Carrie</i>, in 1900. Lewis, born fourteen years after Dreiser, published novels in a similar vein: <i>Main Street</i>, <i>Babbitt</i>, <i>Elmer Gantry</i>. It was the younger man, however, who in 1930 became the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Dreiser came in a close second. In his acceptance speech in December 1930, Lewis was gracious to Dreiser, saying <i>Sister Carrie</i> “came to housebound and airless America like a great free Western wind, and to our stuffy domesticity gave us the first fresh air since Mark Twain and Whitman.” Just three months later, however, at a dinner honoring the Russian novelist Boris Pilnyak at the Metropolitan Club in New York, Lewis publicly accused Dreiser of plagiarism. Asked to make a speech, Lewis rose slowly. “I am very happy to meet Mr. Pilnyak,” the new Nobel laureate said. “But I do not care to speak in the presence of one man who has plagiarized 3,000 words from my wife’s book on Russia.” Lewis’s wife, Dorothy Thompson, toured Russia in 1927 with a group of American writers that included Dreiser. Thompson felt that Dreiser’s book about the trip—<i>Dreiser Looks at Russia</i>—borrowed “quite liberally” from her newspapers articles about the trip, which were later published as a book. Dreiser denied the charge, and after he hired a lawyer the matter was dropped—until Lewis raised the issue again at the dinner honoring Pilnyak. Dreiser was “twisting uneasily in his seat” as Lewis spoke but said nothing until the dinner concluded. Then the burly Dreiser confronted the lanky Lewis, who called Dreiser a liar and a cheat. Dreiser slapped Lewis across the face, twice—and hard—before the other guests intervened. Afterwards neither would apologize. The fracas did little too improve the guest of honor’s impression of the United States. Pilnyak would write a novel based on his experiences in the United States. He named the book after his favorite American expression: <i>Okei</i>. In the book (which has never been translated into English), Pilnyak excoriates “crass capitalism.” Although his own novels were hardly prudish—the Russian Revolution, he wrote, “smelled of genitals”—Pilnyak claimed to be disgusted by a vaudeville chorus line he saw. ‘’How can a Soviet writer show his face before such bare-bellied floozies?’’ he lamented. Perhaps by denigrating the United States he hoped to win the favor of Stalin, who was suspicious of Pilnyak’s cosmopolitan tendencies. It didn’t work. Pilnyak was executed as a spy in 1938.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: small;">But, as usual, I digress. It suffices to say that, when he went to Pineville in the autumn of 1931, Theodore Dreiser was not just a famous writer, but a bona fide celebrity. After he slapped Lewis, Dreiser reportedly bragged that the contretemps was front page news from coast to coast the next day, and it was.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: small;"> </span></div>
<br />Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-53180780502972860842018-06-19T21:04:00.001-04:002018-06-20T08:11:18.042-04:00 "Another thing I wish to comment on is your long hair."<style type="text/css">
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>I’m in the latter stages of researching and writing a book about Robert F. Kennedy’s February 1968 “poverty tour” of Eastern Kentucky. I recently visited the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston to look up a few things in Robert Kennedy’s papers (which are archived there). I came across a handful of letters from ordinary citizens that very much reminded me of the current political climate, including this one:</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: small;">Whitehaven, Tenn.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Feb. 17, 1968</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Senator Kennedy:</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Am getting sick and tired of you visiting the different states commenting on their poverty, your latest one being Ky. If you were half as well bred as the people in Ky. you would know how to conduct yourself and be more careful of your speeches. With all of your millions what in the world do you and your family know of poverty?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I think you would do better if you would stay home and look at your own state. What do you know of the conditions existing in other states? You would do well to let each one take care of their own people and government. After all you are traveling on the taxpayers’ money which they don’t appreciate.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Another thing I wish to comment on is your long hair. You are entirely too old to wear a beattle [sic] haircut. It would be much better if you would get a man’s haircut which would make you look much better groomed.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I am so sick and tired of hearing you speak of your dead brother. Why don’t you let him rest in peace, or are you using him as a means of getting votes, which would never sway me to even vote once for you. Your brother was certainly a gentleman and always well groomed.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Is it true that you once made the statement that you would like to give your blood to the Viet Cong, if so I am all for it—every drop of it.* Am sure your brother J.F.K. would not have approved of your statement. Why not give your blood to our American boys if you have it to spare. They are dying for all of us.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I don’t think I will ever get an answer from you, but at least you know how I feel and many of my friends and their families feel the same way.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I love my good old U.S.A. and every thing in it and especially the stars and stripes in our flag.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Sincerely,</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Mrs. F. M. DaCosta</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">4217 Auburn Rd.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Whitehaven, Tenn. 38116</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">*<i>At a November 1965 press conference, Kennedy said he was not opposed to the International Red Cross delivering to North Vietnam blood donated by Americans. “If we’ve given all the blood needed to the South Vietnamese,” he said, “I’m willing to give blood to anybody who needs it.” Conservatives considered the statement tantamount to treason.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></span></span></div>
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Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-3094742423228808152018-05-07T11:05:00.000-04:002018-05-07T11:07:03.153-04:00Poorhouse Menu, August 1849I'm doing research for a presentation on Rhode Island poorhouses that I will be giving at the Middletown Historical Society's annual dinner this Thursday. I recently went through the records of the Newport Asylum (as the poorhouse was known) and found this menu for the "inmates" from August 1849.<br />
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<span class="s1"><b>Bill of Fare for Inmates of Asylum</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Breakfast.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Rye and Indian Bread, with good milk porridge.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Supper.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Flour and Indian Bread, half and half with porridge except on Sunday when coffee and molasses will be substituted for porridge in the morning with butter, and tea and sugar and butter at night.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Dinner.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Sunday. <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Boiled rice or Indian pudding with milk or molasses.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Monday. <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Boiled beef with vegetables in sufficient quantity.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Tuesday. <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Salt fish minced and fried in fat.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Wednesday. <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Good soup of a nutritive quality.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Thursday. <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Pork and beans, green or dry with vegetables.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Friday. <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Fish as on Tuesday.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Saturday. <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Soup as on Wednesday.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">The men who work on the farm and those who make themselves useful about the house to have meat, with butter for their breakfast and bread and butter for supper, with tea or coffee at both meals.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Women that are useful about house to have bread and butter with tea and coffee daily—on wash days meat to be added to their breakfast.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The sick to be fed according to the directions of the Physician.</span></div>
Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-51265440290014885612018-04-24T17:44:00.000-04:002018-04-24T17:51:57.359-04:00The "Romper Room" Host Who Had an Abortion<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9k85o4SeXSY/Wt-jh8H6Y1I/AAAAAAAAJFc/DeO2-_2FAfgiU9tkQFLIYdzmApvX4BYzACLcBGAs/s1600/Arizona_Republic_Sun__Apr_29__1962_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1468" data-original-width="1600" height="293" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9k85o4SeXSY/Wt-jh8H6Y1I/AAAAAAAAJFc/DeO2-_2FAfgiU9tkQFLIYdzmApvX4BYzACLcBGAs/s320/Arizona_Republic_Sun__Apr_29__1962_.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sherri Finkbine as "Romper Room" host.<br />
(<i>Arizona Republic</i>, April 29, 1962)</td></tr>
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Before the 1960s, abortion was not a major political issue in the United States. The topic was simply taboo. Most states prohibited abortion outright. A handful, including New York, permitted abortions only to save the life of the mother, though in some states this was interpreted more broadly than in others. The illegal abortion trade flourished. In 1957, Planned Parenthood estimated that between 200,000 and 1.2 million unlawful abortions were performed annually in the United States, and that about 100 women died each week as a result of botched procedures. But prosecutions were rare. As the Kinsey Institute explained in a 1957 report, “Police and other officials often allow known abortionists to practice in their community since it is felt there is a need for their services.” <br />
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The issue remained in the shadows until 1962, when Sherri Finkbine, the 29-year-old host of the local version of “Romper Room” in Phoenix became pregnant with her fifth child. Early in the pregnancy, Finkbine took sleeping pills that her husband, a high school teacher and football coach, had brought back from a school trip he’d chaperoned in London. On July 16, about ten weeks into her pregnancy, Finkbine read a front page article in the <i>Arizona Republic</i> about thalidomide, a tranquilizer widely available in Europe that had been found to cause severe birth defects. (Thalidomide was never licensed for sale in the United States because an FDA pharmacologist named Frances Oldham Kelsey—a bureaucrat—refused to approve the drug due to her concerns about its safety.) Worried, Finkbine called her doctor, who contacted the London pharmacy where her husband had bought the pills. They were pure thalidomide. <br />
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Finkbine was distraught. Her doctor feared she would suffer a nervous breakdown, and he recommended “a therapeutic abortion for Mrs. Finkbine’s well-being.” Arizona permitted abortions to preserve the life of the mother. On July 25, the hospital where the abortion was to be performed, Good Samaritan, petitioned a judge to issue a declaratory judgment that the abortion was necessary for the “saving and preservation” of Finkbine’s life, and that the hospital would not be prosecuted for its role in the procedure. The filing put the case in the public domain. A banner headline on the front page of the <i>Republic</i> the next day blared: “In Abortion Case: Mother TV Star Here.” The judge, Yale McFate, refused to sanction the abortion. The hospital backed out. “Miss Sherri,” as she was known to her young viewers, was forced to go abroad for an abortion. After Japan refused to issue her a visa, the couple flew to Stockholm, where the abortion was performed on August 18. Needless to say, her days hosting “Romper Room” were over. <br />
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(A year later, Yale McFate was the presiding judge in the trial of Ernesto Miranda, a 23-year-old Mexican-American laborer charged with robbery, kidnapping, and rape. Miranda’s public defender objected to introducing his signed confession into evidence because police had failed to inform him of his constitutional right to an attorney. McFate overruled the objection and Miranda was convicted. In 1966 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction, ruling that criminal defendants must be informed of their right to remain silent and their right to legal representation. The case is known as Miranda v. Arizona, and the Miranda warning has become a fixture of American jurisprudence. When he died at 96 in 2006, one of McFate’s obituaries noted that the judge “was never a fan of the Miranda decision.” (Miranda was retried without his confession admitted as evidence and was convicted again. Paroled in 1972, he was stabbed to death in a bar fight in Phoenix on January 31, 1976. The man suspected of stabbing Miranda, a Mexican immigrant named Eseziquel Moreno Perez, is still at large.))<br />
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The Finkbine case drew international attention. It was front-page news on papers from coast to coast, and featured prominently on the evening news programs. On July 30, a live television report on the case was transmitted from outside the courthouse in Phoenix to the BBC in London via Telstar, the first communications satellite, which had launched just twenty days earlier. (“Thanks to Telstar,” the <i>Republic</i> noted the next day, “it was Phoenix’[s] debut on world television.”) <br />
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The Vatican denounced the Finkbine abortion. “Morally and objectively it was a crime, all the more because it was accomplished legally,” Vatican Radio declared. “It was ascertained only, it is said, that the baby Mrs. Finkbine carried would have gravely menaced the mother’s mental and physical condition if it had been born deformed. The baby was killed as though it were an assailant against which legitimate defense would have been justified.” As the <i>New York Times</i> put it in 1987, twenty-five years after the event, “no one in U.S. history ever had a more exhaustively chronicled abortion than Sherri Finkbine.” <br />
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The Finkbine case profoundly affected public opinion. Despite the Catholic Church’s vehement objections, a September 1962 Gallup poll found that 52 percent of respondents supported Sherri Finkbine’s decision to abort. (Thirty-two percent opposed it. Sixteen percent had no opinion.) The movement that would come to be known as pro-choice was energized. A coalition of lawyers, doctors, and lawmakers began a campaign to ease restrictions on abortion. (Women were conspicuously absent from the movement’s early days.) “Finkbine’s situation evoked sympathetic reactions from various organizations and in essence, led to the creation of an American abortion reform movement,” wrote Lee Epstein, a professor of law and political science at the University of Southern California. Between 1967 and 1970, sixteen states would liberalize their abortion laws. <br />
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Finkbine later said the doctors in Sweden told her the aborted fetus was missing both legs and one arm. After the abortion, Finkbine and her husband had two more children. The couple divorced in 1973. Finkbine moved to southern California, where she became a successful real estate agent. Sherri Finkbine, now 84 years old and known as Sherri Chessen, is currently living back in Arizona. </div>
Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-62085099421946985132018-03-05T10:53:00.002-05:002018-03-05T10:53:35.809-05:00When "Senator Bobby" Cracked the Top 40<div style="text-align: center;">
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Appearing at a student assembly at Syosset High School on Long Island on February 17, 1967, New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy was peppered with questions about abortion, civil rights, the war in Vietnam—and a record that was climbing the charts at the time.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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<span class="s1">The record was "Wild Thing," a parody of the classic Troggs song by a 25-year-old Kennedy impersonator named Bill Minkin and his friends Steve Baron and Dennis Wholey. Calling themselves the Hardly-Worthit Players (a play on the Huntley-Brinkley Report), the trio hastily recorded the song after Illinois senator Everett Dirksen unexpectedly cracked the Top 40 in late 1966 with his sonorous rendition of a patriotic poem called "Gallant Men."<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Backed by a full orchestra, Dirksen's single peaked at No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1967. "Wild Thing" was a satirical response to Dirksen's dirge. Described by one critic as "delightfully kooky," to contemporary ears it sounds woefully hokey. Clocking in at a mercifully short 2:30, the "song" is actually a skit: Two sound engineers (Baron and Wholey) coach "Senator Bobby" (Minkin) as he attempts to record the vocals to "Wild Thing" in a studio. (The record was produced by the writer of the original “Wild Thing,” Chip Taylor, whose brother is the actor Jon Voight.)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Given directions such as "More Boston soul, senator" and "Not so ruthless, senator," Senator Bobby stammers the lyrics with an exaggerated Boston accent: "You, uh, you, uh, make my heart sing." It's not exactly LOL stuff, yet it sold more than 500,000 copies, and for one brief shining moment, the Hardly-Worthit Players were a thing. They performed “Wild Thing” on the Mike Douglas Show and Hollywood Palace, a West Coast version of the Ed Sullivan Show.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">"Wild Thing" managed to peak at No. 20 in February 1967, besting Senator Dirksen by nine spots on the Hot 100. (The Monkees' "I'm a Believer" was No. 1.) But Dirksen would get the last laugh. His album, also called "Gallant Men," went on to win the 1968 Grammy Award for best spoken word album. Minkin followed up "Wild Thing" with another single by "Senator Bobby," a riff on the Donovan hit "Mellow Yellow," which only reached No. 99, and ended the brief, inexplicable craze for senatorial singles, legitimate or impersonated.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Unlike Vaughn Meder, the JFK impersonator whose entertainment career imploded on November 22, 1963, Bill Minkin's career survived Robert Kennedy's assassination. In the 1970s he hosted the King Biscuit Flower Hour, a popular radio program that played live recordings of rock concerts. He also had small parts in several Martin Scorsese films, including "Taxi Driver."<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">What did Robert Kennedy make of "Wild Thing" by "Senator Bobby"? "The voice on the record has a Massachusetts accent," he told the assembly at Syosset High. "I'm from New York. It must be my brother."</span></div>
<br />Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-57168347948065269642018-02-03T13:38:00.000-05:002018-05-31T11:22:47.823-04:00Times Is Not Good: A Letter from My Great-Grandfather<style type="text/css">
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<span class="s1"><i>We’re preparing for another move in a few months, so I’ve been busy culling my “archives.” This week, I came across a letter that my great-grandfather Alexander Anderson wrote to his daughter (my paternal grandmother) Margaret Algeo (nee Anderson) in 1933. </i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>I’ve had the letter for years but I never took the time to </i></span><i><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">read it until this week. I wish I’d read it earlier. It’s a moving letter.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></i></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>I don’t know much about Alexander Anderson. He was born in 1857. He was a Protestant from Cootehill in County Cavan. He married Margaret Anne Moffett. That’s about it.</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>I don’t know much about my grandmother Margaret, either. She was born in Cootehill on May 31, 1892. She immigrated to Philadelphia and married Samuel Algeo on December 6, 1916. They had four children. My father was their youngest. He was born in 1927. Margaret died on November 10, 1966, six months after I was born. She was the only one of my four grandparents to meet me.</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>So when Alexander wrote this letter to his “Maggie,” he had four grandchildren by her, none of whom he would ever meet. I was especially impressed by Alexander’s handwriting: firm and steady. His command of spelling, however, was incomplete. </i>Sic<i> throughout.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Leighan Cootehill</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span><span class="s1">September 21st 1933</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Dear Maggie,</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">I address you these few lines hoping to find you and your husbant and family in good health. We are well at preasant. I have been think long to here from youse will you let me know how yous are all getting along or is it hard to get ends to meet. I hope that Martha Anne and Tillie is all well. Tell them that I entend to write to them soon. Let me know how they are getting along.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">I am not feeling very well since Mother died. It was a hard blow but God doth all things well. I hope we will all meet in heaven where there will be no parting anymore.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">We have had a drie warm Summer and harvest here. But times is not good. Our government has refused to pay England her land anuity. So she has put on a forty percent duty on every thing she takes from the Free State. All we have to sell is very cheap and every thing we have to buoy is taxed very high.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">People is dying out of Kilmount very quickly for the last few months. Among some of them who has died is John James Ferguson, George Logan, Thomas Lockiton and Mrs. John Ferris. The latter has left eight children behind her and she was only 33 years of age.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">I must draw to a close. I remain your lovin father.</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Please write soon.</span></blockquote>
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Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-30761684369378907242018-01-15T19:34:00.001-05:002018-01-15T19:34:24.773-05:00Mark Sullivan: The Muckraker Who Became a Reactionary
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mark Sullivan<br />(Image from Slate.com)</td></tr>
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Mark Sullivan was a titan of twentieth century journalism who has faded into obscurity. Born on a farm in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1874, he was only in his late teens when he bought an interest in a local newspaper, the <i>Phoenixville Republican</i>, for $300. The profits from this investment funded his education at Harvard, where he earned bachelor's and law degrees. In the first decade of the century he was a muckraker in the mold of Ida Tarbell and Lincoln Steffens. His 1904 exposé on patent medicine quacks for <i>Ladies' Home Journal</i> helped stoke the public outrage that resulted in the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act two years later. In his later years, however, he strayed considerably from his progressive roots. In his twice-weekly syndicated column, Sullivan railed against the New Deal and American engagement overseas. Roosevelt's advisors were too "pink." Of Europe, he wrote, "let her work out her own salvation." He was a "good old days" journalist who seemed to oppose anything modern. He was a close friend of Herbert Hoover, and, the <i>Washington Post</i> noted, "his high collar, like Mr. Hoover's, was a symbol of conservatism." Sullivan himself denied he'd undergone a transformation. "I haven't changed," he liked to say; "the world changed." He died in 1952, in the same farmhouse he was born in.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-27905140613581488402017-10-12T17:35:00.001-04:002017-10-13T09:48:52.458-04:00Teddy Roosevelt, Africa, and the Negro Problem<div class="p1" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">On November 11, 1909, while former president Theodore Roosevelt was on safari in British East Africa, </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Leslie’s Weekly</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">, a respected magazine, published a startling full-page article that purported to explain the “real” purpose of Roosevelt’s expedition. Written by William Buckey, one of the magazine’s regular correspondents, the article quoted an unnamed federal attorney “in charge of a Southern district” who claimed Roosevelt was in Africa to “solve forever the negro question of America.” The plan, as described to Buckey,</span></div>
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<span class="s1">[is] to stake out a good section of the country in the Sudan, north of Congo Free State and west of German and British East Africa; hoist up the Stars and Stripes at the four corners, have Uncle Sam declare a protectorate, organize the native tribes into a suzerainty of the United States of America, and then will come the expatriation of the negroes from this country to the new empire in the heart of Africa.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Voila! In one fell swoop, the United States would establish a colony in Africa and solve the “negro problem” once and for all. Ridding the country of negroes—and with them the negro problem—was the central goal of a coterie of white supremacists who believed it was simply impossible for the two races to peaceably coexist. Presumably the federal attorney who was the source for the <i>Leslie’s </i>article fell into this category. He told William Buckey:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Roosevelt will burst from the jungles of Africa next April and say, “Here, I have done it; now help me. I have risked my life for a year to find a solution to your negro problem. I have organized a friendly federation of tribes in the most fertile country of Africa. I have prepared a place for the negro, where each can have a hundred and sixty acres of land.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The source, who claimed to be a “confidant” of the former president, acknowledged the difficulties inherent in deporting to Africa the nation’s nine million blacks. For one thing it would require the repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment. For another, it would cost a fortune, though federal bonds and a nationwide fundraising campaign would help. And then there was the matter of persuading ten percent of the population to simply abandon their jobs and homes and move half a world away to a new and utterly foreign land. This would be achieved “by offering the negroes peace and safety, freedom from conditions that are now humiliating, [and] by offering each a farm with a bonus with which to make a new start and buy the tools of husbandry.” If that didn’t work, “compulsory legislation” might be necessary. There was a precedent for this, after all: the Mormon exodus from Missouri to Utah.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The cherry on top of this racist sundae was the establishment of an American protectorate in the heart of Africa, “a nation under the control of the United States, that will prevent the expansion territorially or commercially of Germany and will make the United States a factor in the balance of power among the nations of Europe now struggling to retain and enlarge their footholds in Africa.” The Spanish-American War had given the United States a colony in the Philippines. America’s canal across the Panamanian isthmus was nearing completion. Imperialism was ascendant in the United States, and some Americans were eager to flex the country’s expansionist muscles in Africa. Britain and Germany had already taken shares of the continent. Even Belgium and Portugal were poised to exploit the continent.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Why not the now-mighty United States?</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It was a harebrained scheme, obviously, the ultimate fantasy of a <i>fin de siecle</i> white supremacist. The <i>Freeman</i>, a black newspaper in Indianapolis, called the idea “preposterous.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">To attempt such a thing would be the height of folly, for the cost of money and blood would appall the nation. … African deportation or emigration receives no encouragement from this source, for we are confirmed in our opinion that it is impracticable and unpopular. We do not think it a means of a solution to the race problem in this country. So far as the United States is concerned, we advocate a strict adherence to the Monroe doctrine. We have expanded enough. Let us improve the territory now in our possession.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">However preposterous, the fact that the proposal was plausible enough to warrant publication in a major periodical like </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Leslie's</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> shows just how raw race relations were in 1909. Sixty-nine African Americans were lynched in the United States that year, an average number for the era.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span class="s1">On the evening of June 23, 1909, the same day Roosevelt shot and killed his fifth lion</span><span class="s1"> in Africa, an elderly black preacher named Joseph Hardy was lynched in Talbot County, Georgia. His crime was preaching empowerment. In his sermons, Hardy urged blacks to withhold their labor from abusive white farmers. Accused of “stirring up strife between the races,” Hardy was dragged from his home by a white mob, whipped viciously, and thrown off a bridge. His body was found the next morning in the creek below. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">As president, Roosevelt spoke out against lynching, sometimes forcefully. In his December 1906 address to Congress, he called lynching an "epidemic," noting that "a considerable proportion of the individuals lynched are innocent of all crime." But he also played the rape card, claiming that the “greatest existing cause of lynching is the perpetration, especially by black men, of the hideous crime of rape—the most abominable in all the category of crimes, even worse than murder," and he was quick to admonish blacks to police themselves:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Every colored man should realize that the worst enemy of his race is the negro criminal, and above all the negro criminal who commits the dreadful crime of rape; and it should be felt as in the highest degree an offense against the whole country, and against the colored race in particular, for a colored man to fail to help the officers of the law in hunting down with all possible earnestness and zeal every such infamous offender. Moreover, in my judgment, the crime of rape should always be punished with death, as is the case with murder; assault with intent to commit rape should be made a capital crime, at least in the discretion of the court; and provision should be made by which the punishment may follow immediately upon the heels of the offense; while the trial should be so conducted that the victim need not be wantonly shamed while giving testimony, and that the least possible publicity shall be given to the details.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Theodore Roosevelt wrote in 1901 that he had “not been able to think out any solution to the terrible problem offered by the presence of the Negro on this continent.” He believed there were “higher races” and “inferior races.” The former (to which he belonged, naturally) comprised “the English-speaking race” and most northern and western Europeans; the latter comprised pretty much everybody else to one degree or another. </span>African Americans, Roosevelt averred, were “a people only just emerging from conditions of life which our ancestors left behind them in the dim years before history dawned.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Now as to the negros!” he wrote a friend, Owen Wister. “I entirely agree with you that as a race and in the mass they are altogether inferior to the whites.” African Americans, consequently, were unfit for self government. “Such fitness, TR wrote, “is not a God-given natural right, but comes to a race only through the slow growth of centuries.” If African Americans would not be fit to govern themselves for centuries, what, then, was their “place” in America? Or was there a place for them at all? This was the negro question.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Theodore Roosevelt’s life coincided with the rise of Jim Crow. It also coincided with the rise of scientific racism. Roosevelt was deeply interested in this spurious movement. He corresponded with Madison Grant, author of <i>The Passing of the Great Race</i>, a book that claimed to prove the superiority of white races and called for a strong eugenics program to protect them. Among the measures he suggested: sterilizing “undesirables,” including “weaklings” and “worthless race types.” (Adolph Hitler wrote Grant to thank him for writing the book, which he called “my bible.”) (To be fair, Roosevelt, a prolific correspondent, also exchanged letters with Jean Finot, a French social theorist who opposed scientific racism.)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">TR believed in racial “equipotentiality,” that the inferior races could eventually rise to the level of the higher races. German and Scandinavian immigrants might achieve this in two or three generations. But TR argued that the distance between the black and white races was still very great, and diminishing only slowly. TR did not believe all blacks were inferior. Some, he believed, had risen quite high. These were the “good” negroes. He famously invited Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House, and he appointed several African Americans to political posts, but he believed that the great mass of African Americans were “backward” and “wholly unfit for the suffrage” and a long way from becoming one of the higher races. Roosevelt believed the black soldiers who had fought with him in Cuba were uniformly inferior to white soldiers. They lacked the ability to lead, he said, and they panicked under fire. “I attributed the trouble to the superstition and fear of the darkey,” he wrote in <i>Scribner’s Magazine</i>, “natural in those but one generation removed from slavery and but a few generations removed from the wildest savagery.” (Faced with losing black votes during the 1900 presidential campaign, Roosevelt, the Republican vice presidential candidate, backpedalled, insisting he was the “last man in the world to say anything against the colored soldiers.”)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">To TR, then, the answer to the negro question was, simply: time. Very slowly, perhaps as slowly as evolution itself, blacks would acquire the “immense reserve fund of strength, common sense, and morality” necessary to achieve equality with whites. But this might take eons. In the meantime, it was the white man’s duty to “help the race in every way on the upward path.” Legislation was not the answer however:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The negroes were formerly held in slavery. This was a wrong which legislation could remedy, and which could not be remedied except by legislation. Accordingly they were set free by law. This having been done, many of their friends believed that in some way, by additional legislation, we could at once put them on an intellectual, social, and business equality with the whites. The effort has failed completely. In large sections of the country the negroes are not treated as they should be treated, and politically in particular the frauds upon them have been so gross aud shameful as to awaken not merely indignation but bitter wrath; yet the best friends of the negro admit that his hope lies, not in legislation, but in the constant working of those often unseen forces of the national life which are greater than all legislation.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">One thing was certain, however: American blacks weren’t going anywhere. Even Teddy Roosevelt had accepted their permanent if peripheral place in American society. No matter how fervently white supremacists wished it, he would not burst from the jungles and say, “Here, I have done it.”</span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">© 2017 by Matthew Algeo</span></span></div>
Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-36794263382340031072017-09-14T08:29:00.003-04:002017-10-02T13:31:41.739-04:00Lassoing a Lion: A Strange SafariCharles Jesse “Buffalo” Jones despised hunting, and he was unusually outspoken about it, especially for an old cowboy. “Man was made to rule over animals,” he liked to say, “not exterminate them.”<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Buffalo Jones<br />
(Kansas Historical Society)</td></tr>
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He didn’t always think that way. As a young man in the 1860s, he made his living hunting buffalo. But when he realized the animals were in danger of disappearing from the Plains altogether, he had a change of heart and began working to save them (hence his nickname). Jones rounded up as many buffalo as he could find, herded them to his farm in Kansas, and bred them. By the early 1890s, his herd numbered about 150 and was the largest in the state.<br />
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As a passionate opponent of hunting, Jones was appalled when President Theodore Roosevelt announced in 1908 that he would be going to East Africa to hunt big game after leaving office the following year. On that yearlong safari, Roosevelt and his son Kermit would kill scores of large mammals, including lions, elephants, rhinos, hippos, and giraffes—a veritable Noah’s Ark of slaughter.<br />
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Known for his skill with a lasso, Jones decided to go to East Africa too, to prove that big game could be hunted with a rope instead of a gun. “I believe in giving these wild things a fair sporting chance,” he explained.<br />
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In his long life, Buffalo Jones had roped Arctic muskox and bighorn sheep, wild mustangs and grizzly bears. He even claimed to have once roped a bear cub in Yellowstone and spanked its backside “to teach it some manners.” He believed all wild animals, even lions, could be roped and subdued, as long as the roper had “courage in his heart and determination in his soul.”<br />
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So, in late 1909, while Roosevelt was still in Africa, 65-year-old Buffalo Jones began planning his own safari. Charles Bird, a Massachusetts businessman who’d once watched Jones rope a 200-pound cougar, agreed to finance the unusual expedition. Jones hoped to recoup the investment by making a movie of his trip.<br />
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To assist him on the safari, Jones recruited two young New Mexico cowboys renowned for their roping skills, Marshall Loveless and Ambrose Means. He also shipped ten horses and a pack of tracking dogs from New Mexico to Africa for the expedition.<br />
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On the way to Africa in January 1910, Jones stopped in London and hired a cameraman: Cherry Kearton, a famous nature photographer who’d filmed parts of the Roosevelt safari. Kearton doubted Jones would succeed, but found him entertaining. “I never thought they would do it,” Kearton later confessed, “but I went along because I knew it would make a good picture, whatever happened.”<br />
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In London, Jones also scoured for supplies: collars, belts, chains, branding irons. One rainy morning he walked into a hardware store and asked for handcuffs. The clerk showed him a pair.<br />
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“Not large enough,” Jones said.<br />
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“How large would you want them, sir?”<br />
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“Twice that size.”<br />
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“May I ask for what purpose you require them, sir?”<br />
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“For lions.”<br />
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“Precisely, handcuffs for lions,” said the unperturbed clerk; “yes, you need large ones. I am afraid I have none in stock just now, but I can have them made for you within a few days.”<br />
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On the steamer to Mombasa, an Englishman who had done some hunting in East Africa asked Jones if he could really throw a lasso 300 feet—what hunters considered a safe distance from a lion.<br />
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“My ropes are forty feet long,” Jones answered.<br />
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“How do you expect to arrive within forty feet of a lion, may I ask?”<br />
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“On my horse,” said Jones.<br />
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On the first day of the safari, Jones’s guide spotted a small pack of warthogs in the distance. With Kearton filming, Jones, Loveless, and Means gave chase. They separated one of the animals from the pack and drove it back toward Kearton. Loveless drew his rope, specially made for the safari by the American Cordage Company of Brooklyn. It whistled as he twirled it above his head. He let it fly. The noose caught one of the warthog’s hind legs, bringing it down. When they released the animal, it meekly trotted away.<br />
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In the days that followed, Loveless roped an eland, Jones a cheetah, Loveless a giraffe. All the animals were set free. Some were branded with Jones’s personal brand before they were released: “B. J.”<br />
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One morning, they spotted a rhinoceros sleeping in some brush. They flushed it out. Means lassoed it, but the rope snapped. They chased the animal for four exhausting hours before Loveless finally roped one of its hind legs and tied the other end of the rope around a tree. “What pictures!” Kearton shouted as he filmed the incredible scene.<br />
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On April 8, 1910, they tracked a female lion to a crevice between two rocks. Jones threw firecrackers at the animal to flush her out. Just as she lunged at Jones, Loveless, who had thrown his rope over a tree trunk and tied it to his saddle, managed to lasso one of the lion’s hind feet. He galloped away, pulling the lassoed lion up into the tree, from which she hung helplessly. Jones was ecstatic. “We got her!” he shouted. They roped her legs as she hung. (The handcuffs were not necessary.)<br />
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“You're certainly a beauty,” Jones said as he admired the captive lion. “I guess we'll just have to take you home with us as a souvenir of the trip.”<br />
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That lion would be the only animal Jones shipped back to America. She was sent to the Bronx Zoo, where she was named Niobe, after a figure in Greek mythology who was turned to stone by Zeus. For years Niobe was one of the zoo’s star attractions. When President Taft visited the zoo in 1911, he asked to see “the lioness that ‘Buffalo’ Jones lassoed in Africa.”<br />
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Cherry Kearton’s film of the Jones expedition, “Lassoing Wild Animals in Africa,” was released in February 1911. The reviews were glowing. “‘Lassoing Wild Animals in Africa’ is the greatest cowboy picture that has ever been produced,” gushed the trade journal Moving Picture World. “The excitement at times is almost hair raising.” Kearton screened the film for Roosevelt, who called it “a really phenomenal record of a really phenomenal feat.”<br />
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At the box office, however, “Lassoing Wild Animals in Africa” was a bomb. The market had been oversaturated with animal pictures since the Roosevelt safari. (Sadly, no copies of the film are known to exist.)<br />
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A few years after their bloodless safari, Buffalo Jones and Cherry Kearton went to the Bronx Zoo to visit Niobe.<br />
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“When the two men reached the lion house in the Zoo they went to the cage where the lioness was skulking sourly behind a stump,” wrote a newspaper reporter who tagged along. “Buffalo Jones attracted the animal’s attention, and the beast, taking one glance at him, lunged fiercely at the cage. She glared back at him, then slunk back to a corner, where she crouched.”<br />
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“I guess she remembers me,” Jones said proudly.<br />
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In 1914, Buffalo Jones returned to Africa, this time to lasso a gorilla. This expedition, however, was a failure. All Jones caught was malaria. He was evacuated from the French Congo shortly before the outbreak of the First World War.<br />
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Jones never fully recovered. He died at his daughter’s home in Topeka, Kansas on October 1, 1919. He was 75.<br />
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Niobe, the lion Jones lassoed in East Africa, outlived him by two years. She passed away peacefully at the Bronx Zoo in October 1921. She was believed to be about 15 years old when she died—not bad for a lion in captivity at the time.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue Light", HelveticaNeue-Light, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">© 2017 by Matthew Algeo</span>Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-2422564353362977652017-08-14T10:16:00.002-04:002017-08-14T15:01:00.765-04:00With Great Vigah: Kennedys, Baby Boomers, and a Fad for 50-Mile Hikes<div class="p1" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In the first half of 1963, thousands of Americans of all ages and abilities attempted to walk 50 miles in 20 hours—and many of them succeeded. Of the eras many fads—the hula hoop, the twist, phone booth stuffing—long-distance walking was the most unlikely, the most demanding, and, in the end, the most poignant.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It all began when President John F. Kennedy came across an old executive order issued in 1908 by one of his predecessors, Theodore Roosevelt. The order required all U.S. Marines to be fit enough to march 50 miles in less than 20 hours. Kennedy wondered if his own Marines were as fit as Roosevelt’s.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Although crippling back pain limited his own mobility, JFK believed fervently in the importance of physical fitness. As president-elect in December 1960, he published an article in Sports Illustrated entitled, “The Soft American.” In it he lamented the decline in physical fitness, especially among the young, in the prosperous years since the end of World War II.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">In early 1963, Kennedy asked the Marine Corps commandant, General David M. Shoup, to find out if contemporary Marines could match the marching standard set by Roosevelt’s leathernecks.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Should your report to me indicate that the strength and stamina of the modern Marine is at least equivalent to that of his antecedents,” Kennedy wrote, “I will then ask Mr. Salinger to look into the matter personally and give me a report on the fitness of the White House Staff.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">This was a joke: Pierre Salinger was the president’s portly press secretary. Salinger was hopelessly out of shape, certainly incapable of walking 50 miles in 20 hours. But another member of the White House staff took the president’s joke as a personal challenge.</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robert F. Kennedy</td></tr>
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<span class="s1">Though slightly built, JFK’s younger brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, was, according to one biographer, a “physical fitness maniac.” As the seventh of nine children, he was also preternaturally competitive, on a constant quest to prove himself. If Teddy Roosevelt’s Marines could march 50 miles in 20 hours, then so could he.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">So, at five o’clock on the morning of Saturday, February 9, 1963, the 37-year-old attorney general of the United States set out from Potomac, Maryland, on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath. The temperature was 20 degrees. Slush and ice covered the path. Shod in an old pair of Oxfords, Kennedy hiked the 50 slippery miles to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia in less than eighteen hours.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">At Camp Lejeune the following week, 34 Marines wearing 24-pound packs marched 50 miles in less than 20 hours. Jack’s Marines were as fit as Teddy’s.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">These remarkable feats of pedestrianism inspired ordinary Americans to take up the challenge as well, and suddenly everybody, it seemed, was attempting to walk 50 miles in 20 hours. Pauline Domico, a 26-year-old newspaper reporter from Lincoln, Nebraska, did it. So did 40 high school students from Larkspur, California, and three teenagers from Elmira, New York, who carried a handmade sign reading “50 miles for J.F.K.” A Marshall University fraternity dribbled a basketball for 50 miles. A 25-year-old Arizona State senior covered the distance in his wheelchair. In Hagerstown, Maryland, the Cumberland Valley Athletic Club organized a 50-mile hike along the Appalachian Trail.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Most who attempted to walk 50 miles failed. Of the more than 400 high school students from Roseburg, Oregon who tried it, just 47 succeeded. But even those who fell short were better for the effort. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Each day’s papers carried fresh accounts of “Kennedy walks.” Eight pages of the February 22 issue of Life were devoted to the phenomenon. Many Americans were perplexed. Why would anyone in their right mind walk 50 miles, for no apparent purpose, in the middle of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>winter? The answer, according to one fan of the hikes, was simple: To prove that “we Americans are not becoming soft and out-of-shape.” Another hiker said it was simply a “wonderful way to get out of town and see new faces.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Contrarians rebelled against the fad. A Yale student staged a “sit-athon,” refusing to leave his easy chair for 30 hours. Cold War rivalries were inflamed. “So a man walks 50 miles in one day—what of it?” sneered Soviet track coach Gabriel Korobkov. “Tomorrow, he catches a taxicab again to go four blocks.” Republicans sensed something insidious.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Kennedy just started this hike kick to get the people to forget we have Communist Cuba breathing down our neck,” read one letter to the editor.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Sporting goods stores couldn’t keep pedometers in stock. Podiatrists reported a sizable increase in business, as did shoe stores. The folk singer Phil Ochs wrote a song about the fad called “Fifty Mile Hike”:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Fifty miles, keep a-walkin’</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Twenty-five miles and you’re almost there</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Fifty miles, no use a-talkin’</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Better get in step with the New Frontier</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Doctors warned gravely of the perils of long-distance walking. “People can endanger themselves,” said the American Medical Association. “Walking 50 miles is like dancing the twist or jumping on a reverse tumbling apparatus without proper training.” Indeed, scores of hikers were hospitalized for minor injuries, and at least one—a 34-year-old father of four from Wyoming—was struck and killed by an automobile.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Even the President’s Council on Physical Fitness was compelled to issue a press release urging restraint: “The Council advises those who have not been exercising regularly to begin moderately and to gradually increase the amount and intensity of the activity. This caution applies to any exercise program including walking and hiking.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Fitness experts were quick to point out that the benefits of a single, 50-mile hike were negligible. “The kind of 50 mile hike that will help most people is the one on which they walk a mile a day for 50 days,” said Dr. David A. Field, the head of the University of Bridgeport’s phys ed department. “Excessive walking—just like excessive shoveling of snow—is foolish and physically wasteful.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Americans of all ages took part but, like most fads, the walking craze was primarily for the young. The vast majority of walkers were students: college, high school, junior high, even elementary school. Boy Scout troops were well represented. Children as young as eleven completed the hike.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The first baby boomers, born in 1945, were just coming of age in 1963. In a way, the 50-mile fad was their generation’s first expression of independence. It separated them from their parents, physically and symbolically. Many of the hikes were organized with no adult involvement whatsoever. The kids just did it on their own.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The phenomenon was also overwhelmingly white. When 100 black high school students from Meridian, Mississippi attempted to walk the 50 miles to Philadelphia, Mississippi, they were stopped by highway patrolmen, who claimed it was too dangerous for them to walk along the highway. The sight of young blacks marching—for whatever reason—was intolerable to many whites, especially in Mississippi.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Ironically, President Kennedy, whose letter to General Shoup had sparked the craze, was unable to take part in it; his chronic back pain made walking long distances impossible. But he found the fad gratifying—and amusing. While vacationing in Palm Beach in late February, Kennedy convinced two of his guests, his brother-in-law Stanislaw Radziwill and his friend Charles Spalding, to hike the 50 miles down the Sunshine State Parkway to Fort Lauderdale. The president accompanied them part of way, driving—very slowly—a big white convertible with the top down.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">All fads, by their very definition, must end. Tastes change, and a teenager’s attention span is short. By August, the walking craze had run its course, so to speak. Few who’d managed to hike 50 miles in 20 hours were inclined to repeat the feat. Newspaper reports of Kennedy walks, once a torrent, became a trickle. In November, the president who had urged Americans to live with vigor was assassinated. He was 46.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The Cumberland Valley Athletic Club, which organized the 50-miler over the Appalachian Trail in Maryland in the spring of 1963, held another one the following year in honor of the assassinated president. One has been held every year since. Now a prestigious 50-mile race, the JFK 50 Mile Memorial is considered the nation’s oldest ultramarathon.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">John F. Kennedy’s goal of a physically fit nation remains unrealized. During his presidency, it was estimated that 13.4 percent of adults age 18 to 79 were obese and 0.9 percent were extremely obese. Those figures have risen to 34.3 percent and 6 percent, respectively.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><br />
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America could use another fad for 50-mile hikes.</div>
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<span class="s1">© 2017 by Matthew Algeo</span></div>
Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-64547117861212625542015-09-24T13:21:00.000-04:002015-09-24T13:42:07.630-04:00Simplified Spelling <div class="p1">
<i>(This is an excerpt from my current work-in-progress.)</i></div>
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Although Andrew Carnegie was responsible for the creation of United States Steel, the country’s largest trust, he and Theodore Roosevelt, the trustbusting president, maintained a cordial relationship. Their detente was partly due to their shared interest in one of the progressive era’s more quixotic movements, the campaign to simplify spelling. Carnegie was a committed pacifist who believed international relations would be vastly improved if the world spoke a single language. A monoglot globe, he believed, would ultimately lead to “universal peace.” Carnegie was convinced that English could be that language, but for its “contradictory and difficult” orthography. </div>
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Of all the phonetic languages, English is by far the most difficult to spell. That’s because, when the spelling of many words was standardized with the introduction of the printing press in the fifteenth century, Middle English was transforming into Modern English. So, while the pronunciation of many words has changed over the ensuing centuries, the spelling hasn’t. Middle English speakers pronounced the <i>k</i> in <i>knee</i> and the <i>l</i> in <i>talk</i>. We don’t, but we still spell those words as if we did. Same goes for the <i>gh</i> in words in words like <i>night</i> and <i>thought</i>. In Middle English the <i>gh</i> was pronounced as a guttural <i>kh</i>. Over time, the sound was dropped from these words altogether, but the original spelling stuck. </div>
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At the same time, something called the Great Vowel Shift was underway. This changed the way many vowels were pronounced. Sometimes the spelling was changed, sometimes it wasn’t. So <i>so</i> and <i>sew</i> rhyme, while <i>hear</i> and <i>wear</i> don’t. Even as pronunciations changed, often radically, English speakers clung tenaciously to what have become illogical, erratic, and archaic spellings.</div>
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Andrew Carnegie was determined to change that. In March 1906, he pledged $75,000 to fund the creation of the Simplified Spelling Board, a panel of thirty “prominent men of affairs as well as men of letters,” including Supreme Court Justice David Josiah Brewer, former Treasury Secretary Lyman Gage, publishing magnate Henry Holt, and author Mark Twain. “They do not intend to urge any violent alteration in the appearance of familiar words,” the New York <i>Times</i> averred after the board was announced. “They wish, in brief, to expedite that process of simplification which has been going on in English, in spite of the opposition of conservatives, ever since the invention of printing, notably in the omission of silent and useless letters.”<br />
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In June, the board released a list of the 300 words that were to be simplified first. Most were minor changes that were already coming into common usage, such as dropping the “u” from colour, honour, and labour, and the extraneous final two letters from catalogue and programme. The board also proposed eliminating the double consonants in skillful, waggon, and woollen. But some of the proposed changes were more radical. Words ending in -ed were changed to end in -t: asked became askt, and advanced became advanst. The “ough” letter combination was abandoned almost entirely. Although became altho, borough boro, doughnut donut, thorough thoro, through thru.</div>
Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-83643054986339276922015-08-04T06:47:00.001-04:002015-08-04T06:47:48.383-04:00A Long Walk<div class="p1">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Zyi3rX3Z-Ac/VcCXzoH1mKI/AAAAAAAABVM/qpQx6rhHhb0/s1600/ready2rock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Zyi3rX3Z-Ac/VcCXzoH1mKI/AAAAAAAABVM/qpQx6rhHhb0/s320/ready2rock.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still feeling good at this point!</td></tr>
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I guess Greg felt guilty, which is why he’d come all the way from Colorado to “crew” me. After all it was he who’d gotten me into this mess in the first place.</div>
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<span class="s1">Greg is Greg Salvesen, a 28-year-old graduate student in astronomy at the University of Colorado and an elite ultra marathoner. In June 2014, Greg won a 200-mile trail race in Vermont in 61 hours, 46 minutes.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Then he read my book. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America's Favorite Spectator Sport” is my non-bestseller about a long-distance walking craze in the 19th century. Huge crowds filled arenas like the first Madison Square Garden to watch men and women walk on dirt tracks in races that lasted as long as six days. The winner often covered more than 500 miles. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Greg sent me an email telling me he’d enjoyed the book and enquiring, almost innocuously, whether I’d ever competed in a long-distance event.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I answered no.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Greg suggested I give one a try, just “for the ‘fun’ of it” and to “get a flavor of just how amazing these pedestrians were.” Specifically he suggested the 24-hour race at Three Days at the Fair, an ultra event held every May at the Sussex County Fairgrounds in northern New Jersey.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I proffered that, while I’d run cross country in high school three decades earlier, I’d never competed in anything more strenuous than a 5K since then. I was 49, not in the best shape in the world, extremely busy, and…</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Greg was persistent. “Please don't take this the wrong way or as a challenge,” he emailed. “I just wish to suggest that, in this case, I think experiencing the difficulties that come with traveling a long distance on foot can far outweigh imagining what these pedestrians were going through.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">He was right. Besides, it only seemed fair that I subject myself to a taste of the rigors of old time pedestrians. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I agreed to give it a try, though I pledged to walk “fair heel and toe,” just like the pedestrians of yore. No running for me! My goal would be 50 miles—about half the distance an elite nineteenth-century walker could cover in a day. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">To my surprise, Greg even offered to crew me. It was like Joe Torre offering to manage a Little League team. A very bad Little League team.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">In the meantime, I had to get in shape. I began jogging for the first time in years. In March I ran a 5K. My time was a less-than-blistering 35 minutes, and afterwards I was spent.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It was with great trepidation that I drove up to Jersey from my home in Washington for the event in late May.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Three Days at the Fair is, well, a three-day affair that encompasses 72-, 48-, and 24-hour races. The 72 began on Thursday, the 48 on Friday, and the 24 on Saturday. So when I started my race at 9 a.m., there were competitors already on the mile-long course who’d been at it for two days. Some of them did not look well. It made me fear for my future.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">For the first 20 miles or so, however, I felt fresh as a daisy. Greg was stationed in a lawn chair near the quarter-mile mark, and each time I passed him he offered me bananas, or peanut butter sandwiches, or salt pills. Mostly, though, his support was moral: his encouragement was constant. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">For a while I felt like a pitcher with a no-hitter in the sixth inning. I felt like I could walk forever. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Then I jinxed it by telling Greg that. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Around Mile 25, my body began to rebel. My gluteus were sore. My calves were sunburned. It started to rain. I suggested to Greg that it might be worthwhile for me to go back to my hotel room, take a nice hot shower, change into nice dry clothes, and resume the race bright eyed and bushy tailed.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“No,” he said, “I think it’s better to stay on the course.” His tone implied that I had no choice in the matter. I stayed.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">My shoes were squishy. Blisters began to form on the bottom of my feet. My stride, once spry, grew lumbering. In the 30s, my mind began to wander. I’d suddenly find myself a half-mile along with no memory of getting there.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">By now it was evening. To keep my spirits up, Greg would occasionally walk with me for a lap. There was a rodeo at the fairgrounds that night. Greg asked me if I’d ever been to one. I told him I hadn’t. In my stupor I’d walked right into his trap: “So,” he said, “this is your first rodeo.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">A plane dipped low overhead and dropped two skydivers into the fairgrounds. The grandstands erupted in cheers. Things were starting to feel a little surreal. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Around 11 o’clock that night, when I finished Mile 40, Greg finally went to sleep in the back of his van, leaving me to reach my goal alone. I wished I could go to sleep, too. The rain returned. The time it took me to complete each mile grew longer and longer: 22 minutes, 25 minutes, 28 minutes… </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Around three a.m. I completed my 50th mile. I added a 51st, a tribute to Greg, Then I slumped into Greg’s lawn chair. I intended to continue walking after a short break, but instead fell sound asleep. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">When I awoke a few hours later I could barely move. I struggled to climb the small hill up to Greg’s van. I tapped on the window but he didn’t rouse. I didn’t have the heart to wake him up, so I went back to my hotel.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">A week later, Greg won an 888-km (551-mile) race in Vermont, finishing in just under nine days.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I, meanwhile, was back home, content to resume my sedentary life, but grateful for having experienced just a small taste of the pedestrian life.</span></div>
Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-42351590618563763222015-07-16T15:43:00.001-04:002015-07-16T15:44:24.383-04:00The Mombasa Club<i>(This is an excerpt from my current work-in-progress.)</i><br />
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A dinner was held in TR’s honor that night at the Mombasa Club, a gentlemanly bastion of British colonialism. Established in 1896, just thirteen months after the British established the protectorate in East Africa, the club was, according to the Africa scholar P.J.L. Frankl, “a home from home for the European-Christians at the top end of the social scale, to the exclusion of all others.” The bylaws explicitly banned “natives, except servants of the club, or servants of the members.” W. Robert Foran, a reporter based in East Africa, recalled that a minimum annual income of £250 was required for entry into the club. The building itself, Foran wrote, “was neither an imposing nor luxurious Club-house.” Its walls were lined with hunting trophies, mounted animal heads mutely testifying to the vigor with which the British would tame this savage land.<br />
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After dinner, the protectorate’s acting governor, Frederick Jackson, read a telegram to Roosevelt from King Edward VII: “I bid you a hearty welcome to British East Africa, and I trust that you will have a pleasant time and meet with every success.” As he rose to respond, a military band heralded Roosevelt with a musical flourish. Roosevelt began his remarks by praising the British for “their energy and genius in civilizing the uncivilized places of the earth.” Then he warned his audience that the British could not expect to achieve in a short time in East Africa what had taken several hundred years to accomplish in America. It was a tad presumptuous for the former president of the United States to lecture the British on the inherent difficulties of colonialism: At the time, the United Kingdom controlled a quarter of the earth’s landmass.<br />
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However flabbergasted, the audience was undoubtedly heartened by what TR said next. Citing his own experience with the Philippines, he “emphasized the necessity of leaving local questions to be solved by the authorities on the spot.” Home rule was dear to the hearts of the British residents of East Africa. TR would be visiting England after the safari. The audience surely hoped he would deliver this same message to London. Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-58996624937581398672015-05-12T11:18:00.000-04:002015-05-12T11:18:33.650-04:00Only Four Days to Go...<div class="p1">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e3doKCs4oh8/VP8SWLpGFbI/AAAAAAAABR8/zI4AdZWeg3c/s1600/headline_image.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e3doKCs4oh8/VP8SWLpGFbI/AAAAAAAABR8/zI4AdZWeg3c/s1600/headline_image.gif" height="52" width="200" /></a><span class="s1">Inspired by the old-time long-distance walkers I wrote about in <a href="http://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/pedestrianism-products-9781613743973.php" target="_blank">Pedestrianism</a>, I will be walking in a 24-hour race in New Jersey beginning at nine a.m. this Saturday, May 16th. The race is part of the <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/njtrailseries/fair" target="_blank">New Jersey Trail series of races </a>and will take place at the Sussex County Fairgrounds. My goal is to complete 50 miles. </span>The race is also an opportunity for me to raise money for Just Detention, a charity dedicated to ending prison rape. Please consider donating. <a href="https://www.crowdrise.com/malgeo" target="_blank">Click here for more information</a>.</div>
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<span class="s1"></span></div>Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-35231132976596284752015-04-22T13:37:00.001-04:002015-04-22T13:37:52.506-04:00Start spreading the news...I will be speaking at the Mid-Manhattan branch of the New York Public Library tomorrow (Thursday, April 23) at 6:30 PM. <a href="http://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2015/04/23/abe-fido-lincolns-love-animals-and-touching-story-his-favorite-canine">Click here for details</a>.
Then I'm off to Springfield, Illinois for appearances at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum on Saturday (April 25) at noon and 2 PM.Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-59084182562411028912015-03-31T20:57:00.001-04:002015-03-31T21:04:05.084-04:00Win a signed copy of Abe & Fido<div id="goodreadsGiveawayWidget133259">
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<script charset="utf-8" src="https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/widget/133259" type="text/javascript"></script>Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-3102295097219280592015-03-10T11:47:00.001-04:002015-03-10T11:49:02.951-04:00Walking for Just Detention<div class="p1">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e3doKCs4oh8/VP8SWLpGFbI/AAAAAAAABR8/zI4AdZWeg3c/s1600/headline_image.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e3doKCs4oh8/VP8SWLpGFbI/AAAAAAAABR8/zI4AdZWeg3c/s1600/headline_image.gif" height="52" width="200" /></a><span class="s1">Inspired by the old-time long-distance walkers I wrote about in <a href="http://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/pedestrianism-products-9781613743973.php" target="_blank">Pedestrianism</a>, I will be walking in a 24-hour race in New Jersey on May 16th and 17th. The race is part of the <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/njtrailseries/fair" target="_blank">New Jersey Trail series of races </a>and will take place at the Sussex County Fairgrounds. My goal is to complete 50 miles. </span>The race is also an opportunity for me to raise money for Just Detention, a charity dedicated to ending prison rape. Please consider donating. <a href="https://www.crowdrise.com/malgeo" target="_blank">Click here for more information</a>.</div>
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Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-50968598904354410642015-03-08T21:32:00.002-04:002015-03-08T21:32:58.078-04:00Circus ElephantsRingling Brothers’ decision to end elephant acts brought back memories of the summer I spent working in close proximity to circus elephants. I was a vendor in the Cole Bros. traveling circus, which claimed to be the world’s largest traveling three-ring circus under a canvas big top (lots of qualifiers in there!). As part of my job I assisted in the raising and taking down of the big top, which is where I worked alongside the elephants, who helped pull the big top into place. I was warned to never stand behind them because their kicks were quite fearsome.Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-25367968710960382452015-02-22T12:00:00.002-05:002015-02-22T12:01:09.656-05:00Miracle MemoriesToday (Feb. 22) is the 35th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice (the historic US defeat of the USSR hockey team in the 1980 Olympics). I remember watching the game on TV... but I already knew the final score. ABC tape-delayed the afternoon game until prime time. In those ancient, pre-Internet days, my 13-year-old self was forced to listen for hourly updates in real time on the CBS Radio newscasts (on KYW 1060 AM in Philadelphia). And now the Miracle on Ice is closer to World War II than to today. Time flies, as they say.Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27951477.post-62255994759983448072015-02-14T14:55:00.003-05:002015-02-14T14:56:28.239-05:00Presidents DayI occasionally get asked, “Which president is your favorite?” The short answer is all of them. We’ve had some bad ones (I’m talkin’ about you, Franklin Pierce), but even the worst have had redeeming qualities. (Pierce was a party animal, for example.) The point is, we’ve never had a president hellbent on destroying the country (despite what the incumbent’s critics say). Each president did his best. Faint praise in some cases. But lots of other countries have had truly evil leaders. In 239 years, we’ve not had one. Make me wonder how long we can keep dodging that particular bullet.Matthew Algeohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992251686494012205noreply@blogger.com