Fillmore’s writings on line

January 9, 2007

Manchester Union Democrat, Dec 8, 1852, with news of Fillmore's SOTU address

Manchester, New Hampshire, Union Democrat,
December 8, 1852 (?); with news of Fillmore’s State of the Union Address

Millard Fillmore was a grade school drop out. He took the path to a career that many in his day did — he apprenticed, and worked his way up. Legal education in his day (circa 1815 to 1825) required that one apprentice in a law office, to “read for the law.” In that way, Fillmore, who didn’t graduate elementary school, became a lawyer.

Lawyering requires words, of course, but Fillmore was no great writer than we know, especially compared to Teddy Roosevelt, who was a newspaper reporter, or John Kennedy, in whose name a Pulitzer Prize-winning book was published (controversy for another time; Profiles in Courage, (Perennial Classics Books, 2000). We might hope that some institution will undertake a collection of Fillmore’s legal arguments as they may be spread across New York court archives, much as the Lincoln Library has scoured Illinois for Lincoln’s writings and oral arguments.

We may assume that Fillmore participated heavily in the writing of his state of the union addresses, in a day when ghost writers were not listed in the staff books of the White House. So they would contain genuine Fillmore ideas and phrases. Fillmore’s three state of the union speeches are available at the Gutenberg Project.

I’ll be mining them for accurate quotes, you may rest assured. (Does he mention bathtubs in any of the speeches? No.) Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Abraham Lincoln, Accuracy, Good Quotes, Millard Fillmore, Presidents | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Ordered the cake yet? Millard Fillmore’s 207th birthday coming up

January 5, 2007

Just a reminder that Millard Fillmore’s 207th birthday anniversary is Sunday, January 7, 2007.

How do you plan to celebrate?

Image from NY State Library

Did he really say that? “May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not.” (attributed to Fillmore)

Update, January 6, 2007: Elektratig tried to source the quote, but cannot — posts that the line does not sound like Fillmore. At the end of the day, January 5, neither the New York State Library nor the good people at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society could confirm the quote. We may have to add this line to the list of Bathtub debunkings; but there are many sources yet to check.

Image: State Library of New York

13 Comments | Good Quotes, History, Millard Fillmore, Public education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Churchill, on war and executions

January 2, 2007

“When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.”

  • Winston Churchill, The Second World War: Moral of the Work, vol. III, The Grand Alliance (1950)

Churchill, 1946 portrait by Douglas Chandor, Smithsonian (NatlPortraitGall)

 

  • Sir Winston Churchill, 1946 portrait by Douglas Chandor, courtesy of Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

 

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Good Quotes, History, Iraq, Winston Churchill | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Gerald Ford: Too nice a guy

December 27, 2006

CBS Nightly News tonight featured a short snippet from a series of interviews reporter Phil Jones conducted with Gerald Ford in 1984 — interviews granted on the condition they not be shown until after Ford’s death. They talked about Ford’s first speech as president, in which he declared, “Our long, national nightmare is over.”

Ford hadn’t wanted to use that line. His speechwriter, Bob Hartman, insisted on it. It’s the line that is quoted most — but at the time it set the tone that Ford was a straight talker.

Hartman himself is 89 now. CBS tracked him down, too. His memory of Ford’s not wanting to use the phrase correlated exactly. Hartman said that Ford did not want to say anything that reflected badly on anyone, not only then, but any time. Referring to the Watergate scandals and crises as “a nightmare” could be interpreted negatively on President Nixon or any number of other people. Ultimately, Hartman’s judgment of what needed to be said prevailed.

Hartman had something else to say about Ford, which is also quotable:

Gerald Ford had only one fault.

He was too nice a guy.

Mark that one down; it should be in the next Bartlett’s, or the next Yale collection. Should be.

  • Post script: It was nice to see our old friend Phil Jones again. He was the Capitol Hill correspondent for CBS for much of my time on the Hill, a man of great patience, great insight, and solid reporting.
  • More CBS coverage: Here.

Leave a Comment » | Gerald Ford, Good Quotes, History, Politics, Presidents | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

‘First, Roy Moore came for Keith Ellison . . .’

December 26, 2006

While denying that they have any racist or other xenophobic intent, critics of Minnesota’s U.S. Representative-elect Keith Ellison, like the abominable Dennis Prager, continue to try to gin up reasons why he cannot carry his own scriptures to Congress, why he cannot have the rights that every school child in America has, because the scriptures Ellison carries are Islamic.

Except for Roy Moore, the Xian Nationalist, unreconstructed Christian Reconstructionist, and Christian Dominionist who probably got the memorandum about how they aren’t supposed to talk about it in public, but who lets it fly anyway.

Representing the Great Booboisie, Roy Moore says Ellison should not be seated in Congress at all.

Alabama’s voters were wise to reject Roy Moore as governor, after Moore burned the people so badly when they trusted him to be chief justice of the state’s supreme court, and he instead turned the court into a circus of religious pomposity and disregard for the laws of religious freedom. Another History Blog Fisks the manifold, manifest errors Moore makes.

I cannot escape the feeling that Moore is speaking for most Reconstructionists and Dominionists, Read the rest of this entry »

9 Comments | Accuracy, America's founding, Bad Quotes, Bill of Rights, Bogus history, Civil Rights, First Amendment, Freedom - Political, Good Quotes, History Revisionism, Patriotism, Religious Freedom, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

“Yes, Virginia,” most famous editorial ever, Newseum says

December 21, 2006

Is this the man who really saved Santa Claus?

The Newseum itself doesn’t open until autumn of 2007, but some exhibits are already up, online.

Among other things already up is this explanation for the 1897 editorial in The New York Sun, with the famous line: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” It is “history’s most reprinted editorial,” the Newseum says.

While you’re there, look at other exhibits already in place. This is a good source for kids’ reports and for teachers’ lectures.

Update: Parallel Divergence is at it again (remember the “how Hubble killed God?”) Here it is: “How Google Earth Killed Santa Claus.”

Update May 2007:  Coverage of the Newseum’s pending opening.

1 Comment | First Amendment, Good Quotes, History, Newspapers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

From the Archives: For Thanksgiving, the Mayflower Compact

November 22, 2006

It is the day before Thanksgiving, a holiday generally associated with the English colonists of New England. What better time to re-run a piece on the Mayflower Compact and its religious implications? Originally, this desultory ran here, on July 26, 2006.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars features a set of comments on an interview right-right-wing pundit John Lofton did with Roy Moore, the former chief justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court who lost his job when he illegally tried to force his religion on the court and on Alabama. This year Moore ran for governor of Alabama, losing in the primary election.

One of the grandest canards in current thought about U.S. history is that the Mayflower Compact set up a theocracy in Massachusetts. Lofton and Moore banter about it as if it were well established fact — or as if, as I suspect, neither of them has looked at the thing in a long time, and that neither of them has ever diagrammed the operative sentence in the thing.

The Mayflower Compact was an agreement between the people in two religiously disparate groups, that among them they would fairly establish a governing body to fairly make laws, and that they would abide by those laws. Quite the opposite of a theocracy, this was the first time Europeans set up in the New World a government by consent of the governed.

That is something quite different from a theocracy. Read the rest of this entry »

10 Comments | America's founding, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Good Quotes, History, History Revisionism, Religious Freedom, Thanksgiving, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Classroom quiz: Did they really say it?

November 20, 2006

From the History Matters site at George Mason University, a quiz about quotes attributed to presidents — formatted, ready for classroom use.  Only three out of the seven are accurate?  There are some surprises.

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Good Quotes, History, Lesson plans | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

But, did George really say it?

November 19, 2006

I have nothing new or enlightening to add to the discussion about whether George Washington actually added “so help me, God” to his oath of office when he assumed the presidency of the United States. So let me merely point you to History is Elementary, where the issue is covered very well.

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, America's founding, Good Quotes, History, History Revisionism, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Query: Capt. Bucher’s confession?

September 28, 2006

I’m looking for a good copy of the full text of the “confession” of Capt. Lloyd Bucher of the U.S.S. Pueblo, the spy ship captured by North Korea in 1968.  I have a couple of versions that are alleged to be excerpts — I am particularly interested in what I recall that I have not found:  Navigation instructions that would have put the ship off the coast of Alaska, and a reference to the definition of rape in the Uniforme code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

If you know of a source, especially on-line, please let me know.

Leave a Comment » | Author query, Cold War, Good Quotes, History | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Behind “kill all the lawyers”

September 24, 2006

In an otherwise informative post about a controversy over alternative certification for school administrators, at EdWize, I choked on this:

The Department leaders, Klein, Seidman and Alonso, lawyers all (perhaps Shakespeare was correct), are rigid ideologues who have alienated their work force as well as the parents of their constituents

Did you catch that? Especially the link to the Shakespeare line, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers?”

This is not exactly history we’re fisking here — it’s drama, I suppose. Still, it falls neatly into the category of debunkings, not too unlike the debunking of the story of Millard Fillmore’s bathtub.

The line from Shakespeare is accurate. It’s from Henry VI, Part II. But it’s not so much a diatribe against lawyers as it is a part of a satirical indictment of those who would overthrow government, and oppress the masses for personal gain.

It is Dick the Butcher who says the line. Jack Cade has just expressed his warped view that he should be king, after having attempted a coup d’etat and taken power, at least temporarily. Cade starts in with his big plans to reform the economy — that is, to let his friends eat cheap or free.

Dick chimes in to suggest that in the new regime, the lawyers ought to be the first to go — they protect rights of people and property rights, and such rights won’t exist in Cade’s imagined reign. Cade agrees. The purpose of killing the lawyers, then, is to perpetuate their rather lawless regime.

At that moment others in Cade’s conspiracy enter, having captured the town Clerk of Chatham. The man is put on trial for his life, accused of being able to read and keep accounts. Worse, he’s been caught instructing young boys to read. Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Freedom - Political, Good Quotes, Law, Public education, Teaching | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the day . . . “Carboniferous!”

September 15, 2006

I’d always thought the Republicans would love to roll back history to the Middle Ages, but who’d have thought they’d set their sights on returning to the Carboniferous?

— P.Z. Myers

Myers is, as Murphy was, an optimist.

Leave a Comment » | Current History, Good Quotes, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

One-room schools and national memory

September 13, 2006

Speaking of Jim Bencivenga — I did, here — he was the education reporter for the Christian Science Monitor prior to his time at the U.S. Department of Education, where he was my predecessor as director of Information Services in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) (a long title that means “the office that’s looking for good stuff and new stuff”).

A Google search revealed that Bencivenga is cited in a book of quotations for an article he wrote on one-room schools.

The single-room worlds remain strong icons at the heart of our national memory, permanent as any church spire piercing the New England sky.

On country schools, Christian Science Monitor 13 Feb 85

In my family, childbearing has been put off to later than average for a couple of generations. So I heard stories of the old one-room schools from those who experienced them. The memory of one-room schools was with my parents, and my maternal grandparents (I did not get a chance to meet my paternal grandparents). There are, in 2006, a few one-room schoolhouses remaining — in Maine, California, Nebraska, Hawaii, and other places. NPR featured a series on them this past year.

One-room schools seem awfully quaint, and perhaps wholly obsolete in times when some school districts give every student a laptop computer to get schoolwork done. The values taught in those schools should be preserved, however: Love of education, seeking of wisdom, cross-generational learning, respect for people of differing ages, and a reliance on living the golden rule, among other things.

The U.S was once a nation of mostly one-room schoolhouses. Change isn’t always completely for the better, even when it is mostly so. We struggle to keep good values in changing times.

We still don’t have a magic formula for how people learn, or how education should work; it remains true that in education, one-size fits few.

1 Comment | Good Quotes, History, Pedagogy, Public education, Teaching, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Samuel Gompers: Mission of the trade unions

September 5, 2006

Gompers

 

To protect the workers in their inalienable rights to a higher and better life; to protect, not only as equals before the law, but also in their health, their homes, their firesides, their liberties as men, as workers, and as citizens; to overcome and conquer prejudices and antagonism; to secure to them the right to life, and the opportunity to maintain that life; the right to be full sharers in the abundance which is the result of their brain and brawn, and the civilization of which they are the founders and the mainstay. . . . The attainment of these is the glorious mission of the trade unions.

— Samuel Gompers (1850-1924), speech in 1898

 

Image: Samuel Gompers on the cover of Time Magazine, October 1, 1923; drawing by Gordon Stevenson; Time Archive

5 Comments | Good Quotes, Labor and unions | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Collateral damage: War is hell

September 2, 2006

“There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.” – Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, from an address to the graduating class of the Michigan Military Academy, June 19, 1879, known as his “War is hell” speech (Wikipedia entry on Sherman).

(Query: Does anyone have an electronic link to the full text of Sherman’s address that day? Or, do you know where it might be found, even in hard copy?)

Jeff Danziger’s cartoons in The Christian Science Monitor kept me buying that paper for a while. I don’t know who carries his work now, but it’s still good, vital cartooning. I saw the caption to one of his cartoons as a signature line in an e-mail post, and just the caption caused me to pause and pray for an end to war. The whole cartoon is below the fold. Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments | Bad Quotes, Cartoons, Current History, Good Quotes, History, Political cartoons, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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