My Old Year’s Resolution: No More “Happy Holidays”

December 3, 2012
Menorah

Menorah

We are now in the final month of 2012. As the old year winds down, it’s the “Holiday Season,” which began with our day of Thanksgiving on November 22 and ends on New Year’s Day, January 1. It is a happy and festive time for all of us.

For the rest of this old year, however, I am going to try very hard not to say “Happy Holidays.” Why, may you ask? Patriotism, I reply.

On December 2, the first Sunday of Advent, Christians lighted the first candle of their advent wreath: the candle signifying hope.  Four more candles will follow, in succeeding weeks leading up to Christmas. Saturday evening December 8, our Jewish friends will mark the first of Chanukah’s eight days when they light the shamash , the menorah’s “server” candle, which they will then use to light the other eight candles. Christians are preparing for the birth of their Savior; Jews are commemorating the re-dedication of the temple after fighting to secure their religious freedom.

Advent Wreath

Advent Wreath

The reverence for tradition and the celebratory spirit that we find among Christians and Jews at this time of year should not be, in my opinion, a reverence and spirit that is limited to homes and houses of worship, or shared only with those of one’s same faith.  Rather, it ought to shine forth from every household, burst forth from the hearts and lips of every man and woman in America, whether they practice a religion or not.  These holidays are quintessentially American holidays.

Yes, July 4 is rightfully regarded as America’s biggest day. It celebrates the birth of our nation. But I suggest that the Christmas and Chanukah holidays are just as important. They remind us why the birth of America even took place.

Here is how the Bill of Rights commences: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…” Only after the people’s religious rights and liberties were addressed did the Founding Fathers go on to add freedom of speech, of the press, of the right to peaceably assemble, of the right to petition for redress of grievances.

The longing for religious freedom brought people to America. The securing of the right to that freedom was the very first building block of the Bill of Rights.

This is the time of year that we are – or should be – remembering and celebrating that freedom.  And to me, “Happy Holidays” just does not do an adequate job; it is a bland and artificial substitute that purposely avoids any religious impulse or feeling.   “Merry Christmas,” or “Peace of Christmas,” or “Happy Chanukah” or “Chanukah Sameach” are so much better, and so much more American.

And so, here’s my Old Year’s resolution. For the rest of December I’ll do my best to eschew “Happy Holidays.” But I will be wishing happiness for those I greet, while keeping in mind the blessings we all enjoy in our lives in this great and noble land.  My words of greeting: “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Chanukah.”

Posted in Events and Society, Words | Leave a Comment »

Armistice Day 2012

November 10, 2012

It is Veterans’ Day Weekend in America. This national holiday was known as Armistice Day from 1926 until 1954, when an Act of Congress changed the name to Veterans’ Day. It is now known as Remembrance Day in the British Commonwealth of Nations. In France and Belgium, however, the name of Armistice Day has remained.

I agree with the thought behind that change, which came in the aftermath of World War II. We should remember and honor those who served in all conflicts that imperiled our nation and the free world. Thank you once again to all American veterans, and to your comrades in arms from Britain and Canada, for going into harm’s way for the sake of my freedom.

Ferdinand Foch

However, perhaps because I am old enough to remember Armistice Day, I think that it is unfortunate that the name of that day, and what it meant, is fading into the background of history. Armistice Day commemorated the cessation of hostilities on the Western front in World War One. It took effect at “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.” The document was signed in the private railway car of French army general Ferdinand Foch in the forest at Compiegne, France.

Armistice Day, to me, is a sobering and necessary reminder that World War I, the “War to End All Wars,” was anything but that.

War is hell, as the Union’s William Tecumseh Sherman said. The Civil War saw more than its share of carnage – Antietam, Gettysburg and other battles – but World War I was especially brutal and gruesome. The best way to honor our all of our veterans is to learn, and to belatedly apply, the lessons of Armistice Day.

William Tecumseh Sherman

Perhaps we should adopt, or return to, a practice first suggested by Australian writer Edward George Honey. That is, we observe two consecutive minutes of silence at 11:00 a.m. local time on November 11. The first of those minutes is dedicated to the approximately 20 million people who died in World War I. The second is dedicated to the living who remained behind – mainly the widows, children, and families.

That second minute is especially fitting. Why? Because it reminds us, the living, that we have a duty to fashion a better world, so that our children and those who come after us might be spared the horrors of war. We remember those who died but, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg, we highly resolve that these honored dead shall not have died in vain.

And how shall we fashion that better world? How shall we ensure that our veterans’ sacrifices have not been in vain? Let us ponder the words of American General Omar Bradley, who learned well the lessons of war.

Bradley graduated West Point in 1915 but did not end up in Europe before the Armistice. He first saw duty on the Mexican border, then commanded a unit that guarded the copper mines in Butte, Montana. But in World War II, he was an especially able commander under Dwight Eisenhower. At one point, he commanded 900,000 soldiers, the largest force ever to serve under a single field general.

Like Sherman, Bradley knew war in all its fury. When he took up arms, he was good at it. He saw war for what it was, as only someone who has been there is able to do.

Omar Bradley

Here is a link to Bradley’s 1948 Armistice Day speech .

His words are still relevant today, especially the following:

“It is no longer possible to shield ourselves with arms alone against the ordeal of attack. For modern war visits destruction on the victor and the vanquished alike. Our only complete assurance of surviving World War III is to halt it before it starts….”

“For that reason we clearly have no choice but to face the challenge of these strained times. To ignore the danger of aggression is simply to invite it. It must never again be said of the American people: Once more we won a war; once more we lost a peace. If we do we shall doom our children to a struggle that may take their lives…”

“With the monstrous weapons man already has, humanity is in danger of being trapped in this world by its moral adolescents. Our knowledge of science has clearly outstripped our capacity to control it. We have many men of science; too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Man is stumbling blindly through a spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”

I don’t think all that much has changed in the 64 years since Armistice Day, 1948. Perhaps Armistice Day, 2012, can be a new beginning. We can highly resolve to heed the words of General Bradley. And after that second minute of silence, we can strive for wisdom to guide that brilliance, for conscience to guide that power – and make sure that hereafter, those we elect to lead our nation are not ethical infants, and will do likewise.

Posted in Events and Society | Leave a Comment »

The Babe and the Bar — and Other Fun Facts about Popular Candies

October 28, 2012

George Herman Ruth

Every child knows the story. Baby Ruth candy bars were not named after Babe Ruth, baseball’s Sultan of Swat. The Curtiss Candy Company dubbed its confection Baby Ruth in honor of the daughter of President Grover Cleveland.

Wrong! That’s a myth. It’s World Series time, so we’re thinking baseball. Halloween is coming, so we’re thinking candy bars. Let’s tell the rest of the story.

Babe Ruth’s Rise to Fame and Breakout Year of 1920

As every Boston baseball fan knows, George Herman Ruth began his career as a pitcher for the Red Sox. He was too good a hitter to keep out of the lineup, so he did a lot of pinch hitting too. In 1919, his sixth and final year with Boston, he hit 29 home runs, up from 11 in 1918. Then came Harry Frazee’s detested sale of the Babe to the Yankees.  In 1920, Ruth hit 54 home runs in the media capital of the world. The following year, he whacked 59 of them. He became the biggest celebrity in sport.

In that year of 1920, Curtiss renamed its Kandy Kake confection “Baby Ruth.”  After the product relaunch, company founder Otto Schnering tried to get Ruth to endorse the Baby Ruth bar. Ruth refused. Instead, in 1926, the George H. Ruth Candy Company tried to register with the United States Patent and Trademark Office its own trademark confection: “Ruth’s Home Run Bar” and “Babe Ruth’s Own Candy.”

The Curtiss Baby Ruth

Here Come the Lawyers

The commissioner of patents turned Babe down, ruling that “Babe” was too close to “Baby,” particularly as it related to “Ruth.” The Court of Customs and Patent Appeals upheld that ruling in 1931, saying that there would be confusion if “Babe” and “Baby” competed for the same sweet-tooth market. The court said it was evident that George Herman Ruth was trying to capitalize on his own nickname, at a time when sales of Baby Ruths were as high as $1 million a month.

Schnering had also sued Ruth’s company for trademark infringement.  Ruth, of course, accused Schnering of using his name. Schnering professed to be shocked, shocked, at such an accusation. Why, his candy was named after “Baby” Ruth Cleveland, Grover’s daughter. The little girl, he maintained, had once visited his company.

Plausible testimony? Grover Cleveland had not been president for 24 years at the time the candy bar hit the market. Ruth Cleveland had died in 1904, at the age of 12, and Grover passed away in 1908. The candy bar didn’t appear until 12 years later.

George Herman Ruth Candy Company’s Home Run Bar

The candy maker steadfastly maintained that it was just a coincidence when it renamed Kandy Kake “Baby Ruth” in the very year that George Herman Ruth exploded onto the national scene with his baseball heroics. Schnering also declared that Babe Ruth wasn’t even famous – another whopper – so why would he possibly want to associated his candy bar with the Babe.

Baby Ruth Cleveland indeed! But the courts believed the company – or they ruled in its favor anyway.  Ruth never collected a penny in royalties. All he could say, in closing, was “Well, I ain’t eatin’ your damned candy bar anymore!”

The Story Doesn’t End  

In 1923, Schnering hired a pilot to fly his plane over Pittsburgh and drop several thousand Baby Ruth candy bars over the city. Each candy bar was equipped with a parachute to avoid injuring people.

The Curtiss Candy Company’s headquarters was close to Wrigley Field. In 1932, they set up a giant lighted Baby Ruth sign near the spot where Babe Ruth’s supposed “called shot” home run landed. This advertising of the candy bars remained there for four years.

Babe Ruth’s Home Run Bar is long gone, but Baby Ruth has survived and prospered. Nestle now owns the Baby Ruth candy bar. It obtained the right to use Babe Ruth’s name and likeness from CMG Worldwide, which represents Ruth’s estate.  Nestle can use the famed ballplayer in Baby Ruth marketing campaigns. In 2006, Baby Ruth became “the official candy bar of major league baseball.”

The Story Behind Other Candy Names

The November 2012 issue of Mental Floss magazine recounts this tale. It also tells how several other popular confections were named. Samples:

Mr. Goodbar got its name in 1925 when a taster at the Hershey Company said “That’s a good bar.” Milton Hershey didn’t hear him correctly, but thought that “Mr. Goodbar” was a good name for the new candy. Milton, not surprisingly, got his way.

Charleston Chew was introduced in 1922, when the Charleston was a popular dance. Even I remember watching people doing the Charleston on our black-and-white television – which had two channels, Four and Seven, along with the educational Channel Two.

Junior Mints is a play on the 1940s stage production Junior Miss.

Tootsie Roll is named for the daughter of Leo Hirschfeld, the candy’s creator.

Kit Kat debuted in 1935 as Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp. The name changed in 1937 to ride along on the reputation of the Kit Kat Club, a swingin’ British men’s club of the 18th Century.

3 Musketeers wasn’t always a chocolate bar. At its 1932 introduction, it consisted of three separate pieces – chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry – hence the name.

Snickers was named for the favorite horse of the bar’s inventor, Frank Mars.

Milky Way’s name had nothing to do with astronomy.  Its name comes from a malted milkshake of the 1920s.

….and now you know the rest of the story!

 

Posted in Things in General | Leave a Comment »

“We the People” say “Thank you, Gouverneur”

September 25, 2012

Those mighty opening words!

September 17, 2012 came and went without fanfare. That’s unfortunate. It was the 225th anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution.  Constitution Day is one of the least-acknowledged events on America’s calendar, and it just shouldn’t be that way.

Don’t take it from me. Let George Washington remind you of how significant the completion and ratification of the Constitution was.  As president, he issued a proclamation – to accompany a resolution of Congress – declaring November 26, 1789 as the first Thanksgiving Day. It was to give “thanks” for the new Constitution.

We should be thankful for it as well, and September 17 of each year should be an occasion of thoughtful and appreciative reminiscence, if not a national holiday.  I’d like to take this occasion to belatedly raise a glass in salute to one of the most unsung heroes of early America, and the most important influence on the final form of United States Constitution, the remarkable Gouverneur Morris.

Our Constitution has a total of 4,440 words. It is the oldest, and the shortest, written Constitution of any major government in the world.  Every word of the Constitution counts, especially “We the People,” the mighty and telling first three words of the Preamble. Those were the words of Morris, the wealthy, womanizing aristocrat from New York. He did much, as one of the Founding Fathers, to help bring forth the new nation.  Those three words were his greatest gift to us all.

Gouverneur Morris: “Penman of the Constitution”

Gouverneur Morris actually disdained democracy.  That word, in fact, does not appear in the Constitution. When Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts remarked, at the Constitutional Convention, that “The evils we experience flow from an excess of democracy,” Morris agreed. He thought that only landowners should be allowed to vote; a broad voting franchise would entrench the rich in power, in his view.

“The people never act from reason alone,” he said, in one of his 173 speeches – more than anyone else – at the Convention. “The rich will take advantage of their passions and make these the instrument for oppressing them.  Give the votes to people who have no property, and they will sell them to the rich, who will be able to buy them.”

So how did that man fashion the enduring document that has secured the rights of all individuals for the past 225 years?  He was on the right side of all the issues that truly mattered. He was an ardent nationalist; he believed that the only hope for survival of the new country was for it to be bound together as one nation, not a confederation of sovereign states. He also hated slavery, and he was a passionate believer in freedom of religion even though he was no churchgoer himself.

As one who writes and edits for a living, I am a big fan of Morris.  My earlier blog post, which you can read by clicking here, recaps his life and career. There’s no need to repeat it.  But since I did that post, I have read Richard Brookheiser’s biography, “Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution.” The book describes how Morris’s skills as a writer and editor brought the Constitution into being.

William Samuel Johnson, Chairman of the “Committee of Stile.” He delegated the committee’s responsibilities well.

Morris was the star performer on the “Committee of Stile,” a group of five men selected by a Committee of Detail to “frame” all of the resolutions that the entire convention had approved.  The chairman of the committee was Dr. William Samuel Johnson, a 60-year old lawyer from Connecticut. The others were Rufus King, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison.  Only one could do the writing, though, and they delegated it to Morris.

He completed his redraft in four days. Morris compressed the first draft’s 23 articles into seven.  He followed faithfully all of the resolutions, but his editing eliminated superfluous wording and added clarity and simplicity. Here is just one example, from Article 1, Section 10, in which he reduces the word count from 61 words to 36.

The early draft reads:

“No State, without the consent of the Legislature of the United States, shall…keep troops or ships of war in times of peace…nor engage in any war, unless it shall be actually invaded by enemies, or the danger of invasion be so imminent, so as not to admit of a delay, until the Legislature of the United States shall be consulted.”

Morris’s tightened version reads:

“No State shall, without the consent of Congress…keep Troops or Ships of War in times of peace…or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as to not admit of Delay.”

So it was throughout the redrafting. Though he was a lawyer, Morris avoided the excess verbiage that lawyers seem to love.  His rewording was invariably concise, direct, and clear.

But the Preamble was the one place where he did not have to follow any resolutions. Instead, he wrote it from scratch. Rather, he rewrote it from scratch, and in so doing he made clear for all time that the powers of the government derive ultimately from the people. He also pointed out the purpose of the government that was being formed, which the Committee of Detail had neglected to do.

The Committee of Detail’s version of the preamble went, “We the people of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts…” and so on through Georgia “do ordain, declare, and establish this Constitution for the Government of Ourselves and our Posterity.”

This wasn’t good enough for Morris. It was, first of all, a roll call of states. It also neglected to say what the ends of the government were, or why it existed in the first place. And you know how he fixed it.

Elbridge Gerry, Massachusetts delegate who refused to sign the Constitution.

“We the People of the United States…” begins his preamble. It’s not the 13 states that are the source of legitimacy and power of the government. It’s the people of the entire nation.  This was Gouverneur Morris’s statement of nationalism, and his lasting bequest to us.

Not everybody agreed with the wording. Patrick Henry refused to attend the convention, and wrote “That poor little thing, we the people, instead of the states.”

Just as importantly, Morris wrote why “We the People” are doing it. Earlier drafts and suggestions had had vague and off-point purposes such as “the exigencies of government” and “the common benefit of the States.”  Morris swept them all away with: “In order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

The style is poetic even while it remains spare. The subtle rhymes of “insure/secure” and “tranquility/liberty/posterity” along with the alliteration “provide/promote” give the Preamble an appealing and memorable ring.  “We the People” are establishing this government, and here’s why.

The government that Morris and his fellow conventioneers built and secured with that Constitution has endured for more than two centuries.  It will continue as long as “We the People” elect representatives who carry out the mission of the government as stated in the Preamble, who act in the interests of the entire nation. There is no guarantee that we will do that.  Our record over the past several decades is mixed at best.

Most of the framers knew that their finished work was not perfect. After the Convention’s final meeting, the 81-year old Benjamin Franklin, oldest of the signers, was asked by the wife of the mayor of Philadelphia what kind of a government had been formed. His reply was, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

In 1803, Gouverneur Morris wrote to a friend, “In adopting a republican form of government, I not only took it as a man does his wife, for better for worse, but what few men do with their wives, I took it knowing all of its bad qualities.”

For doing so, and for writing the immortal words that established our sovereign role in this great and lasting enterprise, “We the People” say “Thank you, Gouverneur.”

Posted in Events and Society, Words | 2 Comments »

Marty McInnis – You Couldn’t Get That Puck Away from Him!

September 13, 2012

Marty McInnis played three years of hockey at Boston College, represented his country at the Olympics in 1992, and enjoyed a ten-year career in the National Hockey League. Here is my profile of him from the Hingham, Massachusetts, Journal: http://tinyurl.com/8et56k7

Posted in People, The World of Sport | Leave a Comment »

Before Orr, Before Leetch, There Was Don Fox, Rushing Defenseman from Boston College

September 13, 2012

Don Fox

Don Fox, who grew up in Newton, Massachusetts and learned his hockey on the ponds and on the Charles River, was inducted into the Boston College Hall of Fame on September 7, 2012.  Here’s a link to his story, which I wrote for the induction ceremony and which was published in the Newton Tab on September 11, 2012: http://tinyurl.com/9pawkl4

Posted in The World of Sport | Leave a Comment »

Lucien Tessier: Every Inch a Hero

September 9, 2012

Track captain and sprinter Lucien Tessier on the lawn at Boston College.

From time to time I post articles that I’ve done for other publications. Here’s my profile of Captain Lucien Tessier, USMC and Boston College track captain in 1965. His story is a sad one, of

Captain Lucien Tessier, USMC

a good man’s life that ended far too soon.  It is a story that needs to be told, however, and I feel privileged to be the one who has done so. Boston College inducted him into its athletic Hall of Fame on September 7. A well deserved, and much overdue recognition of a wonderful young man.

This link is to the story that appeared in the Union Leader in Lucien Tessier’s home town of Manchester, New Hampshire: http://tinyurl.com/9umvk9x

Posted in People, The World of Sport | 3 Comments »

Third-Party Candidates: The Fun and Fascinating Losers

August 30, 2012

As I write, The Republican National Convention winds down in Tampa, and the Democrat hoedown begins soon in Charlotte.  Believe it or not, the political “preseason” is just ending and the campaigning starts in earnest.

Did you know that in addition to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, there are 19 people are running for president as nominees of their respective parties, and five more are running as independents?  That’s what I got from a Web search. Some of the candidates will actually get votes. Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson is on the ballot in 40 states thus far. The Green Party’s Jill Stein, a Massachusetts physician, has ballot access in 32 states.

There are many other parties that have nominated candidates – household names like the Socialist Workers’ Party, the Reform party, the Peace and Freedom Party, and of course the old reliable Prohibition Party.  I don’t know anything about their candidates, and I’m not going to seek them out.   Which might mean I’ll be missing out on some of the fun of politics, America’s favorite spectator sport.

Here are some of the “colorful” characters who have run for president in campaigns gone by:

Amondson Campaign Button

GENE AMONDSON (Prohibition Party) – He ran against Obama in 2008 and received 643 votes. He liked to dress as the Grim Reaper. He was a landscape painter, woodcarver, Christian minister and prohibition activist who preached like the legendary Billy Sunday.  Some of his talking points from press conferences: “Prohibition was America’s greatest 13 years.” “Drinking responsibly is like teaching a pig to eat with a spoon. Can’t happen.”

Amondson died of a stroke shortly after the last election, but the Prohibition Party has contested every election since 1872. Its candidate this year is Jack Fellure of West Virginia.

HOMER TOMLINSON (Theocratic Party) Ran against Nixon in 1968, as well as in 1952, 1960, and 1964, when he got 24 votes. His platform included replacing taxes with tithes and

Homer Tomlinson

establishing a cabinet post of “Secretary of Righteousness.” His day job was “King of the World.” He crowned himself king in 100 countries and ruled the world from a hotel room in Jerusalem, wearing a gold-painted crown and sitting on a folding chair.

LAR “AMERICA FIRST” DALY (Tax Cut Party)  Ran against Kennedy in 1960, campaigning in an Uncle Sam costume.  He also ran for many other offices during his lifetime. He wanted to legalize gambling and shoot drug dealers on sight. He once told Harry Truman that he wanted to drop the first atomic bomb on Moscow.

Daly also was a big fan of Douglas MacArthur, and he filed MacArthur’s name for President in every election from 1936 onwards. In the 1950s he announced that he was “100 per cent behind” Senator Joseph McCarthy’s investigations into domestic Communist activities.

Daly’s day job was operating a chair and stool company out of his garage. But his incessant demands to be given equal time whenever a mainstream candidate appeared on air, citing Section 315 (the “equal time” provision) of the Communications Act, caused Congress to amend the law so that broadcasters didn’t always have to give equal time. Daly died in 1978.

Maxwell-Gould Campaign Button

JOHN MAXWELL (Vegetarian Party) – He was an 85-year old vegetarian restaurant owner who founded the party and ran with running mate Symon Gould against Truman in 1948.

He pledged to abolish medicine, and he wanted to pass a law prohibiting farmers from spending more than 20% of their time raising cattle or poultry. He also wanted government ownership of all natural resources and a $100 per month government pension for everyone over the age of 65. His favorite vegetable was any one, except okra.

GEORGE TRAIN (Independent) – Ran against Ulysses Grant in 1872.  After his unsuccessful presidential bid, he campaigned to be America’s first dictator. He charged admission fees to his campaign rallies, and drew record crowds. Instead of shaking hands with other people, he shook hands with himself. That was a type of greeting he had seen in China. He spent his final days on park benches in New York City’s Madison Square Park, handing out dimes and refusing to speak to anyone but children and animals.

But before his sad ending, the Boston-born Train had a most interesting life. He started in the mercantile business and at age 31, in 1860, he went to England to found horse tramway companies in Birkenhead and London.  His trams were popular with passengers, but his designs had rails that stood above the road surface and obstructed other traffic. In 1861 Train was arrested and tried for “breaking and injuring” a London street.

George Train

Train was involved in the formation of the Union Pacific Railroad during the Civil War, but left for England in 1864 after having helped set up the infamous Crédit Mobilier of America.  That company had been formed to sell construction supplies for the Union Pacific, and its attendant payoffs and scandals rocked the nation.

In 1870 Train made a trip around the globe which was covered by many newspapers. It likely inspired Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in Eighty Days.  Phileas Fogg is believed to be modeled on Train. In 1890, he made his third circumnavigation of the earth in 67 days.  A plaque in Tacoma, Washington commemorates the point at which the 1890 trip began and ended.

While in Europe after his 1870 trip, Train met with the Grand Duke Constantine and persuaded the Queen of Spain to back the construction of a railway in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. That was the funding for the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad. Back in America he promoted the Union Pacific Railroad. His company, Credit Foncier of America, earned Train a fortune from real estate.  He was in on the action when the transcontinental railway opened up settlement and development of huge swathes of western America, including large amounts of land in Omaha, Council Bluffs, Iowa and Columbus, Nebraska.

In 1872 he ran for President of the United States as an independent candidate. He supported the temperance movement and that year he was jailed on obscenity charges while defending Victoria Woodhull.  Her newspaper had published an issue reporting the alleged affair of Henry Ward Beecher and Elizabeth Tilton, each married to other people.

Train was the primary financier of the newspaper The Revolution, which was dedicated to women’s rights, and published by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

LEONARD “LIVE FOR EVER” JONES (High Moral Party) Ran against Lincoln in 1860. Jones believed that as an immortal, he was made for high office. Fortunately, voters didn’t agree. He also ran for governor of Kentucky, where he was born.  His campaign style was to speak while jumping up and down on the spot and banging the ground with his cane.

Jones filed a lawsuit against President Buchanan in 1856 on the grounds his name had not appeared on the ballot. He also sued Lincoln in 1860, trying to have the election declared invalid. When Lincoln was murdered in 1865, Jones took that as a sign from God that the “morally elected president” (himself) had not been allowed to serve.

Jones thought that mortality was a side effect of immortality, and anyone could achieve immortality through a regimen of prayer and fasting.  His brother was Laban Jones, a renowned preacher of the time. Jones caught pneumonia and died in 1868, refusing medical aid because he believed that his sickness was moral at its base.

So – see what we’re missing if we don’t pay attention to those third-party candidates?

Posted in Events and Society | Leave a Comment »

It’s About Time!

July 31, 2012

The Art, Science, and Business of Timekeeping, in the Olympics and Long Before

Michael Phelps was 4.10 seconds behind Ryan Lochte in the 400-meter Individual Medley at the 2012 Olympics.  Lochte lost the lead to a Frenchman on the final relay leg and checked in 0.45 seconds behind.

Mere fractions of seconds now separate Gold Medal winners from out-of-the money participants. The swiftest will reap millions and bask in fame for the rest of their lives. The slower – barely, but still slower – ones who finish in their wakes will join the madding crowd in anonymity.

“As long as I’m around you’re second best. You might as well learn to live with it,” said Edward G. Robinson as Lancey Howard in The Cincinnati Kid. Live with it, they will. Maybe they won’t like it, but the also-rans should be bloody well proud that they even had a chance to compete.

Is there a higher honor for an athlete than to represent his country in the Olympic Games? I don’t think so. Well done, ladies and gentlemen, whatever your time or place of finish happens to be. That’s the editorial comment. Now, to our story.

Time is Money

The games of the Thirtieth Olympiad take place in London. It’s fitting. London is home to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, which has long been the world’s point of geographical reference and is the fons et origo of modern timekeeping. Back in 1836, the Royal Observatory knew, down to the second, what time of day it was. But they had just about no way of sharing that information with the public.

Enter the first entrepreneur of time: John Henry Belville, an astronomer and meteorologist who worked there. He built up a lucrative side business – selling time.  Customers – local merchants, dockyards, shipping offices, instrument shops – paid a subscription fee for a weekly visit from Belville and his personal chronometer. That pocket timepiece, which was nicknamed Arnold, was tuned to the observatory’s clock to within one-tenth of a second.

Belville died in 1856, and his young widow Maria took over the time-supply business with the blessing of the Observatory. Her daughter Ruth inherited both the business and Arnold. Though telegraph, radio, and telephone’s “speaking clock” service moved onto the scene, the “Greenwich Time Lady” was most reliable and had a loyal following of customers. Ruth stayed in the time-selling business until 1940.

Timekeeping in Sports

Omega, the official timekeeper of the games, is now able to calibrate race times to one-thousandth of a second.  The starter’s “gun” is integrated with the laser detectors at the finish.  There’s no longer a human element to Olympic timing.

George V. Brown (right), the writer’s grandfather, finish line judge at 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Omega has been the Olympic timekeeper for eight decades. The relationship began back in 1932, at the Los Angeles Olympics. Omega supplied 30 stopwatches for the track judges.  These watches were accurate to a tenth of a second. In the Amsterdam games of 1928, the timers had all used their own stopwatches.

The writer has little doubt that one of those who used the first official Olympic stopwatches from Omega was his grandfather, George V. Brown (pictured here).  George V. had been involved with U.S. Olympic Track and Field since the first London games in 1908. In Los Angeles, he was a finish line judge.

More accurate watches didn’t make for undisputed decisions at the 1932 Games, however. The 100 meter duel between Thomas Edward “Eddie“ Tolan and Ralph Metcalfe, both USA sprinters, is described thusly by Robert Parienté in his book La Fabuleuse Histoire de l‘Athlétisme:  “Everyone saw Metcalfe win, and yet he was only placed second… Metcalfe was beaten by the rule book.”

The timekeepers‘ hand-held Omega stopwatches had recorded three times of 10.3 seconds for Metcalfe and two times of 10.3 and one of 10.4 seconds for Tolan. Even so, Tolan was declared the winner. Why? Both competitors reached the finishing tape at exactly the same moment, but the rules specified that the race is finished only when the athlete‘s torso has completely crossed the finishing line marked on the ground.  Tolan crossed before Metcalfe. This rule, which was often interpreted in different ways, was changed in 1933. Since then, the winner has been the first person to cross the line with any part of his or her torso.

Thomas Edward “Eddie” Tolan

The results list shows both Metcalfe and Tolan with times of 10.3 seconds. Even though this time, which was achieved against a headwind of 1.4 m/sec, equaled the world record then held by Tolan, it was never officially recognized as such by the IAAF.  Tolan won two gold medals in Los Angeles, and Metcalfe went down in the history books as an unlucky loser. In the 200 m final, he was wrongly told to start the race from the relay mark and ran 3.5 m further than he needed to, finishing third as a result. Unbelievably, neither Metcalfe nor Tolan was a member of the USA 4 x 100 m relay team!

Ralph Metcalfe

Metcalfe did not win a gold medal until 1936, when he was part of the US relay team that included the legendary Jesse Owens. Tolan and Metcalfe were the world‘s top sprinters before

Owens began to rewrite the sporting history books. Metcalfe set a total of 15 unofficial world records over 100 yards, 100 m, 200 m, 220 yards and the 4 x 100 m relay; Tolan set 14.

Tolan later became a teacher. Metcalfe spent the last seven years of his life as a Democrat member of the House of Representatives. Both were members of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first academic fraternity for blacks in the USA.

The Horse and the Stopwatch

Stopwatches were not a new thing in 1932. As far back as the 1850s, they came into demand in America because of the famous racehorse, Lexington. Here too, is an interesting story in the history of race relations and American sport.

Lexington was a beautiful bay that stood at 15 hands and 3 inches. He was foaled in 1850, bred for a Dr Elisha Warfield, who named him Darley. Darley’s trainer was a former slave known as Burbridge’s Harry. He was a superb and well-known trainer, but Darley could not be entered into races by the Burbridges because the trainer was black. The horse first ran under Dr. Elisha Warfield’s name.

The Chronodrometer from American Watch Company

Darley was fast and strong.  He won his first two races handily and was purchased by a Richard Ten Broeck. The horse was renamed Lexington, and he proceeded to become one of the most popular of all race horses during his day.  He raced seven times and won six of them. Those races were four miles long. In April 1865, Lexington was raced against the clock. He complete four miles in seven minutes and 19 ¾ seconds, a record speed that he held for more than twenty years.

Lexington’s success spurred demand for timepieces that could measure fractions of seconds.  In 1869, the American Watch Company of Waltham, Mass. introduced the “chronodrometer,” or improved timing watch. The company made about 600 of the watches between 1859 and 1861. The watch sold for $50, compared to as much as $350 for a high-grade European import.

The Photo Finish

The first Olympic photo finish. Harrison Dillard wins the 100 Meters in 1948.

The Omega company’s website claims that the “Birth of Modern Sports Timekeeping” came at the second London Olympic Games in 1948. The world’s first independent, portable and water-resistant photoelectric cell, made by Omega, made its Olympic debut in 1948. There was also the Racend Omega Timer, a device that combined a Race Finish Recording photo finish camera with a timer.

The first photo finish came in the 1948 Men’s 100-Meter Final.  In that race, Harrison “Old Bones” Dillard of the United States finished in 10.3 second and beat out fellow American Barney Ewell by a tenth of a second.

Then at Helsinki in 1952, Omega became the first company to use electronic timing in sport with the Omega Time Recorder .

The Clock that Saved Professional Basketball

Hard to believe, but the National Basketball Association has not always used the 24-second clock. The league had been in operation for five years before the owners realized that they had to speed up the game or go out of business. Fans were often disgusted and upset when teams would hold the ball for minutes on end.  In 1954, Syracuse Nationals owner Danny Biasone figured it all out with some simple arithmetic.

Biasone believed that basketball was most entertaining when it was neither a stallball game nor a wild shootout. His personal observation put the optimal level of shots per team at 60. That meant 120 shots per game. So he divided the length of each game, 48 minutes or 2,880 seconds, by 120. The result? 24 seconds per shot.

We’ve Come a Long Way

As with almost any subject, the history of timekeeping has a number of interesting developments in the 5,000 or so years since the Egyptians started building obelisks to track the passage of time with their shadows.

The Chinese used candles with evenly-spaced markings to track the passage of time. The Greeks had the clepsydra, which might have been the first way to record attorneys’ billable hours.  It was used to limit the length of lawyers’ speeches, actually. A hollow vessel with a hole in the bottom, the clepsydra was filled with water that would gradually run out into another vessel.  When the water was gone, the speaker’s time was up.

“Clock” comes from cloche, the French word for “bell.” The first mechanical clocks originated in European monasteries. They were faceless devices that marked the time with chimes rather than with hands.

The Swiss were talented horologists, as we all know. In 1577, Jost Burgi of Switzerland invented the minute hand. But it didn’t get popular until some 80 years later, when the addition of a pendulum decreased clocks’ daily margin of error from 15 minutes to about 15 seconds.

Back to Britain for our final story, and another lesson in economics.  Advocates of big government and of taxing everything that moves should be aware of yet another example of the killing power of taxes, this one involving timepieces. In 1797, British Parliament in its wisdom passed a law requiring citizens to register privately-owned timepieces, then pay taxes on them. The scheme, predictably, devastated the British clock making industry.  The law was repealed just nine months later.

Posted in Events and Society, The World of Sport | Leave a Comment »

Fun with History: How Thomas the Tank Engine Arrived at His Home Land of Sodor

July 17, 2012

Thomas the Tank Engine

When the Vikings invaded the British Isles back in the Middle Ages, they divided the northern islands into two kingdoms.  Nordr, the northern kingdom, comprised the Shetland and the Orkneys. Sodor, the southern kingdom, included the Hebrides and the Isle of Man.

In 1266, the Vikings lost control. The Church, however, preserved the Southern Kingdom’s name in its already-established diocese of Sodor and Man. Seven centuries later, Rev. Wilbert Awdry visited the area on church business. He noted that, while there was an Isle of Man, there was no Sodor to be found.

Awdry was on the lookout for a fictional setting for his books, “The Railway Series.”  Thomas the Tank Engine was the subject of four stories in the second book of that series. Thomas was modeled after a wooden toy that Awdry had made from a piece of broomstick for his son Christopher. Awdry decided to use the name Sodor for the setting in the books.

Thomas was described as “a tank engine who lived at a Big Station. He had six small wheels, a short stumpy funnel, a short stumpy boiler and a short stumpy dome.  He was a fussy little engine, always pulling coaches about. … He was a cheeky little engine, too.” Kids loved Thomas, and he eventually became world-famous.

The Railway Series books were rediscovered in 1979 by British writer Britt Allcroft. The TV series “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends” began in 1984. Ringo Starr was the first narrator for the series.  The accompanying picture of Thomas appears on a British postage stamp.

That’s how the ancient Viking kingdom of Sodor came to be the home of Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends.

Posted in Events and Society | Leave a Comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »