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History Unwrapped – February 2005

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Bob Richards, affectionately known as the “Vaulting Vicar” because he was an ordained minister, won two Olympic gold medals in the pole vault (1952 and 1956), the first person and the only person ever to do so. Richards was the second man to clear 15 feet. That doesn’t seem like much when you consider that today’s pole vault record is over 20 feet. Richards did it with a steel pole. Steel, unlike fiberglass, does not bend and therefore does not have the catapult effect of fiberglass. Getting over the bar was the major concern of every vaulter, but landing was especially hazardous. Unlike today’s massive pits that vaulters can fall into as they drop on their back, pits in Richards’ day were saw dust. A vaulter had to land on his feet or risk serious injury. Richards was the first athlete to appear on a Wheaties box in 1958. Richards ran for president in 1984 backed by the Populist Party.

Richards had two sons who also were outstanding pole vaulters. Brandon broke the national high school record in 1985 (18’ 2”) that stood until 1999.

February 25, 2005 – Scraped from the Rubbish

Thomas Jefferson believed in an “aristocracy of talent and intellect.” He proposed that all white children be given three years of free public education, followed by exams. Those who passed would get three more years of free public education. Those who failed would be sent back to the farm. “Final” exams would continue every three years for twelve years. Then, ten students would be chosen for college education at the public expense. Jefferson referred to them as “ten scraped each year from the rubbish.” By today’s standards, such views might be considered arrogant and certainly politically incorrect, but in Jefferson’s day they were actually considered quite liberal because this “aristocracy of talent” could be recruited from any social class.

February 24, 2005 – Spooky History. . . Or Is It?

It's been said that history repeats itself. Take, for example, the supposed freakish parallels between the assassinations of presidents Lincoln and Kennedy. Abraham Lincoln was first elected to Congress in 1846. John Kennedy followed exactly 100 years later. Lincoln was elected President of the United States in 1860. Kennedy was elected President in 1960. After their deaths they were both succeeded by southerners named Johnson. Andrew Johnson was born in 1808, and Lyndon Johnson was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, the man who killed Lincoln, and Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who shot Kennedy, were themselves shot and killed before they could come to trial. Booth committed his crime in a theater and then ran to a barn. Oswald fired his rifle from the window of a warehouse and ran to a theater. Both Lincoln and Kennedy were shot on a Friday. Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theater. Kennedy was shot in an automobile made by the Ford Motor Company— a Lincoln. Kennedy had a secretary named Evelyn Lincoln.

Kinda spooky, ain't it? Not really. There are more dissimilarities than similarities. We tend to focus only on the similarities while ignoring many obvious dissimilarities. For example, Lincoln was assassinated in April during his second term as president. Kennedy was assassinated in November before completing his first term. Kennedy died in Dallas, Texas. Lincoln died in Washington, D.C. Lincoln was taken to a house after he was shot. Kennedy was taken to a hospital. Lincoln was a Republican, Kennedy a Democrat. Eight people were convicted by a military court for helping John Wilkes Booth murder Lincoln. As of this date, the assassination of Kennedy remains a conspiracy of one.

February 23, 2005 – Castro’s Fastball and Other “What Ifs” of History

What if Fidel Castro had had a better fastball when he tried out before American baseball scouts? “According to James Blight, a former pitcher who is now a research fellow at a Brown University foreign policy institute, a Giants scout who tried to recruit Castro reported that he ‘doesn’t throw that hard but he’s got an amazing curve ball.’” What if Abraham Lincoln had stood his ground and refused to go to see Our American Cousin at the Ford Theater on April 14, 1865? What if Adolf Hitler had been given the family name Schicklgruber? Can you imagine anyone saying, “Heil Schicklgruber”? What if Vivien T. Thomas had not walked into Dr. Alfred Blalock’s lab seeking a job to clean out animal cages? (see the HBO Special “Something the Lord Made”). What if Jim Lehrer had not called Secret Service Officer Forrest Sorrels to ask him if the bubble top on President Kennedy’s car was going to be on?

February 22, 2005 – Reading is Fundamental

The eighteenth century found a high degree of literacy among Americans which was not confined to just one class of people. Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784), a seventeen-year-old black servant in Boston, composed a eulogy for George Whitefield on his death in 1770, which was published as a Poem By Phillis, a Negro Girl in Boston. Phillis worked for the family of John Wheatley as a personal servant. Wheatley permitted Phillis to be educated, which was highly unusual for someone who was not only a slave but also a woman. Her one and only book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was published in 1773, the year she was freed from slavery. Phillis Wheatley was acclaimed as the “African poetess.”

February 21, 2005 – You’ve Come a Long Way Girl Scouts... Or have you?

The Girl Scouts used to promote what we describe today as “traditional family values.” This included helping young women develop into well rounded homemakers. In the 1952 edition of Senior Girl Scouting, we find the following:

“Your ‘dream house’ will, of course, hold children. You will want to surround your children with the very best you can afford in good books, music, sufficient clothing, and food. Most important to your children will be the love and care that their parents can give them.”

“When you begin to think about vocations, you will come across a great variety of jobs in a great many fields. Watch the newspapers and magazines for week and list all the different jobs that are held by women. Read the ‘Help Wanted—Women” columns of the newspapers. There are jobs listed which you many not know about. Never lose sight of the fact that the greatest career is homemaking and that everything you do in your Girl Scout troop is useful to a homemaker. The job of holding the family and home together through all the pressures of modern life is a tough one, but more challenging than ever. It calls for every skill and every resource you can muster.”1

1Senior Girl Scouting (New York: Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., 1952), 151, 169..

February 18, 2005 – Race and Personhood in the Constitution

One of the arguments used by some to label the Constitution a “racist document” is the use of the three-fifths clause found in Article 1, sec 2:3a. The argument goes something like this:

Slaves, who were predominately black, were only worth three-fifths of what a white person was worth. It’s right there in the Constitution.

1 Robert A. Goldwin, Why Blacks, Women, and Jews Are Not Mentioned in the Constitution, and Other Unorthodox Views (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 1990), 13.

February 17, 2005 – Star Light, Star Bright, Who Are We Going to Put in Prison Tonight?

The Star Chamber was a room in the palace at Westminster, England, where the king's council met. The room was named because of the star-decorated ceiling. From medieval times the king's council had ruled on specific legal cases that were beyond the jurisdiction of the common courts. By an act of Parliament in 1487, Henry VII strengthened the power of the council so nobles could be put on trial. In 1540 Henry VIII put the committee under his direct control that came to be known as the Court of Star Chamber. There was no jury and any punishment could be inflicted except the death penalty. The Star Chamber forced people to testify against themselves. By the time of Charles I, the Star Chamber had the reputation of being a "legal" way for the king to get rid of his political enemies. The authority of the Star Chamber was taken away by the Long Parliament in 1641 and restored the concept of "lawful judgment" of a defendant by "his peers or by the law of the land." The Courts of High Commission served a similar purpose but were directed at the clergy, especially Puritan ministers. They, too, were abolished in 1641.

Michael Douglas and Hal Holbrook starred in the movie The Star Chamber (1983). When cases must be dismissed because of technicalities, a small cadre of judges resort to establishing a secret tribunal—a star chamber—to try cases and pass their own sense of justice. At first, justice seems to prevail. But before too long, things go awry. Open tribunals, as frustrating as they may be, are better than any star chamber no matter how perfectly conceived.

February 16, 2005 – Franklin’s “Bird of Bad Moral Character”

Benjamin Franklin, possibly with tongue in cheek, penned the following comments about what bird should be chosen to represent America:

“For my own part I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead tree near the river, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing hawk; and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes it from him.“With all this injustice, he is never in good case but like those among men who live by sharping and robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank coward: The little king bird, not bigger than a sparrow, attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati1 of America who have driven all the king birds from our country.

“I am on this account not displeased that the figure is not known as a bald eagle, but looks more like a turkey. For the truth, the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America. . . . He is besides, though a little vain and silly, a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier2 of the British Guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on.”

1 “The Society of the Cincinnati (plural) was formed after the American Revolution. Its name originates from Cincinnatus, the legendary Roman farmer-soldier who rescued Rome and then returned to his plow. George Washington exemplified the modern Cincinnatus” (www.greatseal.com/symbols/turkey.html). See Garry Wills, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1984).

2 Infantrymen equipped with grenades.

February 15, 2005 – Predicting the Future by Studying the Past

In the 1934 edition of Ripley’s Big Book Believe it or Not! an entry appeared that stated the following: “United States presidents elected every twenty years since 1840 died in office. The list includes William H. Harrison (1840), Abraham Lincoln (1860), James A. Garfield (1880), William McKinley (1900), and William G. Harding (1920). The entry for 1940 includes question marks. As we know, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, elected for a fourth term in 1940, died in office. Some suspect that Jeane Dixon used the Ripley oddity to make her 1952 prediction that the presidential winner in 1960 would be killed in office. As time went by, the story was told that Dixon predicted the assassination of JFK long before he became president. In reality, “she merely employed the well-known 20-year cycle that every president elected in an even decade since 1840 died in office.” Believe it or not!

February 14, 2005 – Whoever Rules the School, Rules the Future

“Victor Hugo has said that ‘he who opens the door of the schoolhouse closes the door of the jail.’ That depends on who keeps the school and what is taught there. The schoolhouse may become a place for polishing fiends and graduating outlaws. It is not the number but the character of our schools; not how many children attend, but who teaches them, and what they are taught, that type and measure their influence for good.”

—Charles B. Galloway, Christianity and the American Commonwealth (1898).