It seemed like a routine flight for the relatively early days of regularly scheduled commercial airline operations.  In the late afternoon three crew members and four passengers climbed aboard one of United Air Lines most modern aircraft, a twin-engine Boeing 247, at Newark, New Jersey for a transcontinental flight to Oakland, California with several stops for fuel along the way.  Most of the passengers had Chicago as a destination.  Other fares would be picked up there.  After a stop in Cleveland, Ohio the plane was cruising at about thousand feet over Indiana around 9 pm October 10, 1933 when it was ripped apart by and explosion, falling in two pieces into cornfields near Chesterton and the Dunes of Porter County.  Everyone on board was killed.

The sleek new Boeing 247 was not a likely candidate for an accidentalexplosion.  The aircraft, which was introduced into fleet service in May and was the highly talked about centerpiece of the Boeing exhibition at Chicago’s Century of Progress, was the safest and most modern commercial plane in the air.  It was so far advanced that it immediately made the high wing Fokker and Ford Trimotors and Curtis Condor bi-planes then in service obsolete.  It was the first airliner with an as all-metal anodized aluminum construction, a fully cantilevered (low) wing, and retractable landing gear. Other advanced features included control surface trim tabs, an autopilot,deicing boots for the wings and tailplane, and even a climate controlled, air conditioned cabin for passenger comfort.  It’s airspeed was faster than the most modern Army Air Corps fighter, but its design allowed it to be set down gently at a mere 62 mph on a remarkably short runway for its size and weight.  The 247 was so revolutionary, it essentially was the prototype for all subsequent multi-engine passenger planes.

Witnesses on the ground in Indiana reported hearing an explosion shortly after 9 pm and saw the plane in flames at an altitude of about 1,000 feet.  A secondary explosion occurred after the main body of the aircraft plowed into the ground.  The tail section aft of the baggage compartment and lavatory was found mostly intact almost a mile away from the main wreckage indicating that the plane had broken up almost immediately after the initial explosion.

Rescuers arriving on the ground immediately noted suspicious conditions of the debris.  By the next morning Melvin Purvis, head of the Chicago office of the United States Bureau of Investigation, an already a famous gang buster whose regular appearances in the newspapers was stirring the ire of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, arrived on the seen with a team of agents to investigate the wreckage.  He found the toilet and baggage compartment smashed into fragments with metal shrapnel riddling the inside of the toilet door while the other side was free of the metal fragments.  Purvis later reported to the press that:

Our investigation convinced me that the tragedy resulted from an explosion somewhere in the region of the baggage compartment in the rear of the plane. Everything in front of the compartment was blown forward, everything behind blown backward, and things at the side outward…The gasoline tanks, instead of being blown out, were crushed in, showing there was no explosion in them.

 

Dr. Carl Davis of the Porter County Coroner’s Office called on the Crime Detection Laboratory at Northwestern University to conduct forensic tests on the wreckage.  His report, based on the Lab conclusions was that the plane had been brought down by an explosive device, probably employing powerful nitroglycerine.  There seemed to be no doubt that the plane was sabotaged with a bomb.  The Coroner’s Jury ruled that the seven dead were homicide victims.

It was the first known case of what we would now call a terrorist bomb bringing down an airplane.

Figuring out who did it and why proved virtually impossible.  No notewas found. Nor was there a claim of responsibility that would be common in aircraft bombings decades later.  Investigations turned up no known enemies of the passengers or crew.  There were no attempts to extort the airline or its parent company and plane manufacturer Boeing.  No one carried un-usual or extravagant insurance coverage.  In short, no motive could be established and without a motive, suspects were impossible to identify.

There was a brief stir of excitement when a witness recalled seeing one of the passengers board the plane in Newark with a package wrapped in brown paper.  Then the package was found intact amid the wreckage.  There was also a rifle on board but it was in the nearly destroyed baggage compartment and was the property of a passenger on the way to Chicago to compete in a shooting match at the North Shore Gun Club.  All of the passengers and crew were evidently in their seats when the mid-air explosion took place. 

The crime has never been solved. 

Air crew victims included Pilot Harold R. Tarrant of Oak Park, Illinois, Co-pilot A.T. Rudy also of Oak Park, and 26 year old nurse and stewardess Alice Schiber of Chicago’s North Side.  The unfortunate Miss Schiber had the distinction of being the first stewardess ever to die on a commercial flight.

Other than the fact that they could afford the hefty price of a plane ticket during the Depression nothing seemed unusual about the four passengers.  They were 28 year old Chicagoan Fred Schendorf, the manager of the apartment division of R. Cooper, Jr., Inc., a manufacturer of refrigerators; 25 year old Dorothy M. Dwyer of Arlington, Massachusetts; Emil Smith, age not noted, of Argyle Avenue in the Roger’s Park neighborhood; and H. R. Burris of Columbus, Ohio, a United Airlines radio technician dead heading to a work assignment.

The bodies of Smith and Burris, believed to have been seated next to each other nearest the explosion, were thrown from the plane and found the next morning a half mile from the wreckage.

Pilots Tarrant and Rudy had both been married within the year and members of Tarrant’s family rushed to the grim scene of the still smoldering wreckage.  Stewardess Schiber had left her Stevens Point, Wisconsin home just two month earlier to take up the exciting career of an airline hostess.

The crash was the first with loss of life for the seven year old airline.

It could have been much worse.  Only 4 passengers occupied the ten available seats.  The plane was operating therefore at a loss. 

Note—The deadly fires devastating California and much of the West are a reminder of those that burned over much of the Great Lake region 149 years ago.  Conditions were remarkably similar—a prolonged drought, tinder dry forests and wooden buildings.  Unlike Chicago, which burned this day, the other fires could not be blamed on an immigrant woman’s cow.

You may have noticed that this is National Fire Protection Week.  The annual event is marked by news stories extolling the virtues of smoke alarms and family fire evacuation drills.  Your local fire station would likely host school field trips or an open house—maybe let you climb on an engine or even slide down a pole if it weren’t for the Coronavirus pandemicthis year.  Ask and you will be told that this week was selected because the Great Chicago Fire broke out on October 8, 1871.

That fire was certainly memorable.  After breaking out in an immigrant south side neighborhood, winds whipped flames north and west across the sprawling city.  It burned for two days consuming 4 square miles, including the downtown business district, killing an estimated 200-300 and leaving 90,000 people homeless.  The fire originated in the O’Leary family barn (the house was spared being up wind) but neither the lady of the house or her cow had anything to do with it.  Apparently neighborhood layabouts set it off while shooting craps. 

Word of the fire spread rapidly across the country and within a week national publications were carrying firsthand accounts and illustrationsof the carnage.  The city famously rose from the ashes, replacing its largely ramshackle wooden buildings with modern—and fire resistant—brick and stone.  In less than a decade the city had not only fully recovered, it had again doubled in population.

But the fire in Chicago was not the only conflagration that day.  After an extended long droughtthat covered the entire upper Midwest, a fast moving cold front drove intense winds before it.  Fires swept Holland and Manistee, Michigan and swaths of surrounding areas on the east shore of Lake Michigan.  More than 200 died when another fire consumed Port Huron, Michigan on the southern shores of Lake Huron.

As devastating as those fires were, they all paled compared to the great fire in Wisconsin’s North Woods centered on the lumber town of Peshtigo.  Despite tinder dry conditions, careless neglect sparked several fires in the area that had burned more or less unchecked for several days before the fire.  These fires were attributed to cinders from railroad locomotive smoke stacks, small cooking fires left unattended by hunters, farmers burning to clear brush, and loggersburning the tree tops stripped their operations.  Local experience was that these fires would burn themselves out or be extinguishedby the early snows expected in the region by mid-October.  The night before the big fire survivors reported seeing several small blazes on surrounding hills.

By the evening of the October 8 high winds were merging the fires, which began to move on broad frontsburning, among other things, the telegraph lines that Peshtigo and anotherdozen small towns could have used tosignal for help.  By the time a wall of flame erupted over a ridge near town, the fire was roaring with unprecedented fury, moving at high speed directly on the town.  Residentshad little time to gather possessions and attempt to flee before the town itself was engulfed.  By then the fire was traveling from tree-top to tree topcreating its own cyclonic winds, including at least one “tornado of fire” witnessedby several survivors.  The firestorm fed itself creating internal windsof up to 80 miles an hour ripping the roofs off houses, blowing over barns, uprooting trees, and tossing a 1,000 lb. wagon like a tumbleweed.

Before it was over the fire burned over 1.2 million acres.  Winds carried embers to both sides of the Peshtigo River and across Green Bay where it burned the Door Peninsula from Dykesville almost to Sturgeon Bay to the north.  Sixteen towns were totally destroyed.  In Peshtigo alone, 800 lives were lost.  The total death toll will never be knownexactly because town records across the region were destroyed and whole families wiped out.   In addition hundreds of lumber workers, isolated small farmers, hunters, and trappers were in the woods with no way to determine their fate.  Best estimates of the death toll range from 1,200 to over 2,000. 

Word of the Peshtigo fire and the other disasters in the north was overwhelmed by news from Chicago.  To this day the largest loss of life by fire in American history remains little known outside of Wisconsin and among fire historians. 

During World War II, however, the Army Air Force was aware of the historic firestorm.  It commissionedAmerican and British scientists to study it to find ways of duplicating the firestorm through incendiary bombing.  The destruction of Dresden, Germany by fire storm, which took more lives than either of the atomic bombs used against Japan, was partly the result of that research.

Today a museum in Peshtigo commemorates the fire.  It has very few relics of the town—almost everything burned up except for one house freshly built of green lumber.  Among the few artifacts of the fire are the Tabernacle from the Catholic Church which was saved by survivor Father Peter Pernin by submersing it in the river, a melted can of peas, some fused ceramics, a charred piece of lumber from the surviving house, and artifacts recently dug up, including a Bible discovered opened to Psalms.

Despite the fact that conditions across the region were perfect for wide spread fire, that many eyewitness accounts of numerous fires burning for days around the town, and that the origin of the Chicago fire can be traced to the O’Leary barn, speculation that the fires had some common origin has gone on for years.  As early as 1883 there was speculation that the fires across the region might have been caused by impact of debris from the Comet Biela, which was observed to break up in its 1854 appearance.  The intersection of the projected route of the comet’s return in November 1872 was marked by an intense meteor shower. 

The 1985 book Mrs. O’Leary’s Comet: Cosmic Causes of the Great Chicago Fire by Mel Waskinrevived that theory.  In 2007 Robert M. Wood published a scholarly article in the Journal of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics which calculated that gravitational pull of Jupiter when debris of the comet crossed its path may have accelerated the arrival of that debris by as much as a year.  Observations of “fire balls” falling from the sky in both the Peshtigo and Chicago fires might have actually been burning gasses from the dead comet. 

Other experts remain skeptical of this theory. Many dismiss it as the kind of pseudo-science peddled on the History Channel.  The skeptics point out that the extreme and prolonged drought and gale force winds over a wide area is a sufficient explanation. Their argument has been fortified by the scores of independently started but near simultaneous fires that now sweep the Western United Statesand Canada annually due to similar conditions caused by man-made climate change.

One thing we know for sure.  Mrs. O’Leary’s innocent cow had a better press agent than the victims of the Peshtigo inferno. 

Before 1850 when showman P. T. Barnum brought  the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind to these shores for a legendary and triumphant tour, the young United States had celebrities, but no stars in the sense of a performing artist of such renown as to be a household word to millions who might never see her in person.

Entertainment itself was suspect as a gateway to sin and sloth in much of the country, especially if indulged in by the lower classes who should not be tempted from their 10-12 hours a day, six days a week labor for their employees and a Sabbath dedicated to pointing out to them what sinful, undeserving wretches they were.

So who were American celebrities?  Well, preachers for one.  Famous evangelists and revivalists like George Whitefield and his heirs, or heady intellectuals like William Ellery Channing.  Collections of sermons were the bestselling books in the country and a really fine preacher could attract huge audiences to outdoor camp meetings or keep parishioners  coming back week after week to large and prosperous churches while being welcomed everywhere in pulpit exchanges.

In fact orators of all stripes were famous.  The mid-week lecture platform rivaled the Sunday morning pulpit as a showcase for verbal dexterity.  Crowds plunked down good money to hear the nation’s leading intellectual and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, a touring literary lion like Charles Dickens, or even the unbelievable—a female reformer like abolitionist and women’s rights advocate like Lucretia Mott.

Of course politicians and statesmen were avidly followed.  Their speeches were widely printed in the press and the political rally and stump speech were popular mass entertainment.  Eloquent speakers like Daniel Webster or fiery ones like John C. Calhoun attracted devoted followings.  The proration of Webster’s Second Reply to Haynes was so popular that generations of school boys would be forced to memorize and recite it.

Portraits of military and naval heroesas well as prints depicting their noble deeds like the Marquis de Lafayette, Oliver Hazard Perry, Andrew Jackson, or Winfield Scott hung on parlor walls or over bars across the country.

Finally there were what we would now call folk heroes—Sam Patch, The Yankee Leaper who became the first famous American daredevil after successfully jumpingfrom a raised platform into the Niagara River near the base of the Falls, or Davy Crockett whose exaggerated exploits were chronicled in the early predecessors of the dime novel. 

But outside local notoriety there were no singers, musician, or actors. 

There were as yet no great civic orchestras.  At best chamber ensembles would perform for a small educated elite in cultural centers like Boston.  Small bands performed for the balls elite, or where dancing was not outlawed for the more moderate classes.  Most musicians were amateurs or part timers.  Similarly, theaters had been allowed to open in some cities with Puritan roots only with in recent decades.  Some actors had established resident troops in a handful of cities, and bands of actors toured the country performing Shakespeare and popular melodramas, but the play was the advertised attraction and few actors were widely known by name.  The Englishman Julius Brutus Booth would be one of the first to promote himself by name.

Minstrel Shows, which would become the leading musical entertainment of the second half of the 19th Century, were just in the beginning of their formative stages.

Traveling menageries, dog and pony shows, and small circuses were popular, but individual acts were hardly household names.

Enter Phineas T. Barnum, who had been associated with early circuses, and had found a niche exhibiting curiosities.  His first was George Washington’s alleged childhood slave nurse.  By the 1840’s he had established his American Museum in New York City which featured performances by dwarf General Tom Thumb as well as musical acts, and native dancers.  Barnum, an ardent Universalist as well as a promoter, publicly advanced the shocking notion that ordinary working men and women deserved leisure and entertainment as much as the wealthy.  He was essentially inventing American show business.

In 1844 and ’45 Barnum toured Europe with Tom Thumb, who created a sensation and was introduced to Queen Victoria and the Russian Tsar.  It was then that he became aware of the enormous popularity of Jenny Lind, a lovely Swedish opera singer noted for her pure crystalline voice, humility, and Christian piety.  Then still in her mid-20’s she was at the height of her fame triumphing in London, Berlin, and Vienna as well as in the Scandinavian capitals.  Barnum, who was personally tone deaf, never went to see her, but he took note of her popularity.

Lind was born on October 6, 1820 in Stockholm.  She was the illegitimate daughter of a bookkeeper and the proprietress of a day school for girls.  Despite her situation, her mother was quite religious and would not allow her lover to divorce.  Finally, when her father’s wife died, her parents were able to wed when she was 14.  By that time she was already an established wonder child singer.

Little Jenny had been singing around her home all of her life with no training.  When she was nine years the maid of Mademoiselle Lundberg, the principal dancerat the Royal Swedish Opera happened to hear her on a visit to her mother’s school.  The next day she returned with Lundberg, who arranged for her attend to the acting school of the Royal Dramatic Theatre.  The Lind studied with Karl Magnus Craelius, the singing master at the theater.

She was successfully singing on the stage by age 10.  But due to inadequate training, she severely damaged her vocal chords at age 12 and nearly lost her fledgling career.  After recovering, in 1838, she got her first great role as Agathe in Weber’s Der Freischütz at the Royal Swedish Opera.  She was soon after honored as court singer to King Oscar I of Sweden and Norway.  

Lind in her early 20's was already and established European opera star when Johan Gustaf Sandberg painted her in Sweden

But her vocal trouble returned due to over-use.  She turned herself over to teacher Manuel Garcia in Paris in 1841-’42.  Garcia prescribed total vocal rest, even from speaking, for three months to allow her voice to heal, and then completely retrained her in techniques for preserving her magnificent instrument. 

When she recovered, Lind was dealt one of the few disappointments of her career.  She auditioned for the Paris Opera—and was turned down.  The French did not believe her voice was “warm enough” and that she had shaky control in her lower register.  She would occasionally hear these complaints throughout her career voiced by those used to singers trained first in Italian opera.  Lind was hurt enough that a few years later when she was the most famous singer in the world, she rejected offers to sing at the Paris Opera.  In fact she rejected most dates of any kind in Paris.

She rejoined the Stockholm Opera and toured regularly.  In 1843 she had an extensive tour of Denmark where Hans Christian Anderson fell in love with her.  She admired him and enjoyed his company, but soon found his obsessive attentions alarming.  Anderson was said to have based some of his fairy tales on her—Beneath the Pillar, The Angel, and The Nightingale.  After she definitively rejected him and returned to Sweden, Anderson got revenge by making her the model of the Snow Queen—beautiful but with a heart of ice.

Lind’s international reputation soared in 1844 when she was invited to Berlin to sing Norma. Her success in the part was so great that she remained in the city for month performing in many of the most popular operas, both German and Italian.  She drew the professional adoration of composers Robert Schumann, Hector Berlioz, and Felix Mendelssohn.  Giacomo Meyerbeer wrote the leading soprano role for his paean opera to the Prussian Royal House of Hohenzollern.  Although she was not able to premier the part, when she did it in Berlin in January 1845 audiences went wild.  One critic described an aria, “Jenny Lind has fairly enchanted me ... her song with two concertante flutes is perhaps the most incredible feat in the way of bravura singing that can possibly be heard.”  The song became a signature peace that she included by request in her later concerts.

Mendelssohn, who conducted her personally in Leipzig, was more than professionally interested.  He, like Anderson, fell in love.  Lind was slender and fair skinned with shining light brown hair.  She had a sweet disposition, modesty, and was noted for her lack of diva pretentions.  Still in her mid-20’s men found it easy to fall in love with her.  She evidently returned the married Mendelssohn’s affections, but her strict Lutheran morality made her reject his pleading to consummate an adulterous relationship.  He evidently composed passionate love letters in which he threatened suicide if she did not give herself to him.  These letters were destroyed after his death, but their existence was confirmed by those who saw copies.  Despite the pressure, Lind remained close to the composer.  He frequently conducted for her and started an opera, Lorelei, for her, based on the legend of the Lorelei Rhine Maidenswhich was unfinished at his death. He also tailored the aria Hear Ye Israel in his oratorio Elijah to Lind’s voice.

After extending her German stay with a tour of other cities, Lind returned for her season with the Stockholm Opera and seems to have had a romantic relationship with her frequent co-star there, tenor Julius Günther.  They may have even become engaged, but their tour schedules—and Lind’s far greater fame and acclaim, separated them and made marriage impossible.

In 1846 Lind spent the season in Vienna which she conquered just as she had Berlin.   She was feted by the Imperial Family. 

The following year she extended her triumph to London where she enjoyed her greatest success yet.  Mendelssohn attended her English début as Alice in an Italian version of Robert le Diable.  Queen Victoria was also in attendance.   She would work in London for the next two years.  That summer she sang the world premiere of Verdi’s I masnadieri with the composer himself conducting.

Lind was devastated by the news of Mendelssohn’s death in November 1847.  The following year she made her first appearance in an oratorio to sing the soprano part in Elijah to raise money for a memorial to the composer.  The single performance raised more than £1,000, an astonishing amount.  With that a subsequent benefit performances Lind raised the money to create the Mendelssohn Scholarship for “pupils of all nations and [to] promote their musical training.”  The first recipient was 14 year old Arthur Sullivan, a prodigy in whom Lind had taken an interest. 

Barnum had been in London for all of this and had noted the adulation accorded the woman now acclaimed as the Swedish Nightingale and took due note.

Although she never explained, Lynd socked the music world early in early 1848 by announcing her planned retirement from the opera.  She was not yet 28 years old and still at the height of her powers.  She never explained her motivation and there has been much speculation as to why.  The timing suggests it might have something to do with her continued mourning of Mendelssohn.  Her last performance in an opera was on May 10, 1849 with Queen Victoria once again in attendance.

Although she retired from the opera, Lind did not fade into oblivion.  She continued to perform on the concert stage, mostly for her favorite charities including the Mendelssohn Scholarship and a project to build free public schools back home in Sweden.  She also made herself available to other good causes.  In the process she helped create the tradition of benefit performances.  And her generosity only endeared her more than ever to her adoring fans.

Back in New York City, when Barnum heard the news he made arrangements for an agent to make an offer the Swedish Nightingale could not refuse.  He was prepared to risk everything to bring her to America. 

At first reluctant, Lind could indeed not turn down the astonishing opportunity Barnum offered—$1,000 each for 150 American performance plus full expenses.  This was at a time when many Americans—subsistence farmers andlaborers—did not earn $1000 in cash money over a life time and when that amount of money over a year would sustain a very comfortable middle class life in a large home with multiple servants and carriage.

Lind was a smart business woman.  She first checked Barnum’s credit and found it solid.  She made a counter offer—that her whole fee be paid in advance and deposited in her London bank and that a singing partner and musical director/pianist each of her own choosing be included.  That brought Barnum’s total upfront cost to $187,500, far more cash than the showman had.  No banks would finance a loan secured by the gate of the concerts.  The would-be impresario had to mortgage his Bridgeport, Connecticut home, the American Museum, and all of his other holdings.  And he was still $5,000 short and in danger of having the deal fall through.  Finally he was able to tap a wealthy Philadelphia minister for the balance by convincing him that Lind’s well known Christian piety and charity would elevate the public morals. 

The deal was done, with the inclusion of an escape clause that allowed Lind to withdraw from the tour after sixty or one hundred concerts, paying Barnum a $25,000 penalty.

While Lind prepared to make the voyage to the States, Barnum swung into action.  Few Americans except the small class rich enough to make the Grand Tour of Europe or visit on business had ever heard of Jenny Lind.  Opera music was not yet popular entertainment.  Luckily no one in America was better prepared to overcome that than Barnum who added the words ballyhoo, hoopla, and press agent to the American vocabulary.

He built his initial blitz of publicity on the eye-popping size of Lind’s contract, her reputation for charity, and effusive praise for her voice and beauty.  “If I knew I should not raise a farthing profit I would yet ratify the engagement,” Barnum modestly told the New York Herald, “so anxious I am that the United States should be visited by a lady whose vocal powers have never been approached by any other human being, and whose character is charity, simplicity and goodness personified.”

He flooded the country with engraved portraits and glowing biographical pamphlets.  As the date of her arrival drew closer he arranged to have her image to be printed on commemorative plates, costume jewelry pins, and that most American of all salutes—a cigar box.  Before Lind set foot in the country she was famous and the respectable middle class was convinced that, at all costs, they must see her.

In August of 1850 Lind, Italian baritone Giovanni Belletti, German conductor and pianist Julius Benedict, plus Miss Alimanzioni, her Italian traveling companion and her Swedish secretary Max Hjortsberg arrived in Liverpool to embark.  Lind gave to hugely successful farewell concerts for charity.  Thousands jammed the docks to see her board the reigning queen of trans-Atlantic packets the side paddle SS Atlantic.  Even faster sailing clipper ships sped accounts of the departure scene to New York, where Barnum made sure they were front page news.

The Atlantic docked in New York on September 1.  A mob scene greeted Lind and her party at the dock and there were several minor injuries in the pushing and shoving to get close to her.  When she came down the gang plank, Lind kissed her hand and laid it on an American flag telling the crowd in flawless but charmingly accented English, “There is the beautiful standard of freedom, which is worshipped by the oppressed of all nations.”  It seems that Miss Lind was no slouch as a promoter herself.

Her first two concerts were scheduled at Castle Gardens and were charity affairs for local causes.  Barnum sold tickets by auction.  4,476 tickets were sold at a total price of $24,753.  The program included Lynd’s most famous set pieces, Casta diva from Norma, a duet with Belletti, the trio for two flutes and voice composed for her by Meyerbeer, and Swedish songs.  She also sang a piece composed by her music director to words by New York poet Bayard Taylor called Greeting to America.  After she left the stage to riotous applause, Barnum stepped out and announced that Miss Lind would donate her $1000 fee for the evening’s performance to the local charity beneficiaries. 

These concerts open Lind’s eyes to how lucrative the concert tour would be.  Once again she insisted on re-negotiating her contract.  In addition to her flat fee, she would now receive all of the proceeds from the gate of each show beyond a $5,500 per concert management fee was paid.  She also insisted that at each concert at least some $1 and $2 seats be reserved for the less fortunate.

The first New York appearances set the stage for what amounted to a triumphant procession.  Lynd worked her up and down the East Coast with multiple concerts in most cities—Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Richmond, Virginia and by ship to Charleston, South Carolina.  On the way to Charleston, her ship nearly was lost in a gale.  There was a side trip for concerts in Havana, Cuba.

From Cuba Lind sailed to New Orleans where the sophisticated and cosmopolitan population turned out in droves for several concerts where seats were in such demand that Barnum was able to sell tickets for the ticket auction.  Then up the Mississippi by riverboat to Natchez, Mississippi, Memphis, Tennessee, and St. Louis, Missouri then off to Louisville, Kentucky, Cincinnati, Ohio, Pittsburgh, and again to Philadelphia. 

By then it was July of 1851 and Lind had completed her minimum obligation to Barnum under their contract.  She was uncomfortable with Barnum’s aggressive marketing—and by now was so famous that she did not need it.  She exercised the escape clause and continued the tour under her own management.  The parting was not acrimonious and Barnum and Lind remained friendly.  During their association Lind had raised $350,000 for her charities and Barnum raked in at least $500,000.  Plenty of reason for good cheer all around.

Next Lind was off to New England where 20 year old Emily Dickinson recoded in a letter:

...how bouquets fell in showers, and the roof was rent with applause—how it thundered outside, and inside with the thunder of God and of men—judge       ye which was the loudest; how we all loved Jennie Lind, but not accustomed oft to her manner of singing didn’t fancy that so well as we did her. No doubt it was very fine, but take some notes from her Echo, the bird sounds from the Bird Song, and some of her curious trills, and I'd rather have a Yankee. Herself and not her music was what we seemed to love—she has an air of exile in her mild blue eyes, and a something sweet and touching in her native accent which charms her many friends. ... as she sang she grew so earnest she seemed half lost in song.

Shortly after that concert Benedict left the tour to become musical director at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London.  Lynd invited a young friend, Otto Goldschmidt to replace him.  Despite his being nine years younger than the singer, romance bloomed.  When the young Jew publicly converted to Episcopalianism it was a sign of how intense his feelings were.  The couple wed in Boston on February 2, 1852.  Afterwards Lind made sure that she was publicly billed as Madam Jenny Lind Goldschmidt.

Shortly after that concert Benedict left the tour to become musical director at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London.  Lynd invited a young friend, Otto Goldschmidt to replace him.  Despite his being nine years younger than the singer, romance bloomed.  When the young Jew publicly converted to Episcopalianism it was a sign of how intense his feelings were.  The couple was wed in Boston on February 2, 1852.  Afterwards Lind made sure that she was publicly billed as Madam Jenny Lind Goldschmidt.

The tour continued with added stops in Canada before returning to New York for farewell performances featuring a new song, Farewell to America with words by C.P. Cranch and music by Goldschmidt.  Then the couple sailed away back to England on May 29, 1853.

They left behind a country that had been changed, fired with a new enthusiasm for opera and classical music—and indeed for all of the performing arts now that Lind had demonstrated that they could not only be respectable, but uplifting.  A mania for building concert halls and opera houses was launched.  Many of the most noted European musicians and actors became alerted to the possibilities of the American audience and launched their own tours, broadening the American cultural experience.  Other promoters learned from Barnum who to promote new attractions.  Other stars shown in American skies, but for many years none matched the super nova that was Jenny Lind.

Lind and Goldschmidt first lived in Dresden, Germany before relocating permanently to England in 1855.  The couple had three children and by all accounts were devoted and happy.  Lind continued to make charity concert appearances, although with declining regularity as years went on.  Goldschmidt’s own career as a pianist, composer, conductor, and teacher flourished. He became a professor in 1863 and later vocal director at the Royal Academy of Music.  When her husband formed the Bach Choir in 1875, Lind trained the sopranos and sang in the début concert.  In In 1882, she was appointed Professor of Singing at the newly founded Royal College of Music. She believed in an all-round musical training for her pupils, insisting that, in addition to their vocal studies, they were instructed in solfège, piano, harmony, diction, deportment and at least one foreign language.

In 1883 Lind announced her permanent retirement from the stage.  Her farewell appearance was a benefit concert at Royal Malvern Spa near her retirement home at Wynd’s Point, Herefordshire,on the Malvern Hills.  She was in increasingly frail health and died on November 7, 1887 at the age of 67.  She was buried in a local cemetery but a memorial plaque with a profile cameo was installed in Poets Corner, Westminster Abby.

Goldschmidt wrote a biography of his wife, Jenny Lind: Her Career as an Artist originally published in German but soon translated into English.  He died in 1907 at age 77 in London.

Lind has been commemorated in numerous ways, including being represented on Swedish bank notes and having had several ships named for her.  She has appeared as a character in novels based on her relationships with Hans Christian Anderson, Mendelsohn, and as a muse for Fredrick Chopin.  She has been portrayed in films including the 1930 Hollywood picture A Lady’s Morals, with Grace Moore as Lind and Wallace Beery as Barnum; a 1941 German musical biography, The Swedish Nightingale; Hans Christian Andersen: My Life as a Fairytale, featuring Flora Montgomery as Lind in 2005; and most recently in the P.T. Barnum musical fantasy The Greatest Showman.   

Note:  Three years ago my youngest daughter Maureen Murfin was  inspired to collect and preserve some family history for posterity.  She collected questions from her two older sisters and her three nephews and one niece for my wife Kathy Brady-Murfin and me and whipped up a tailor made questionnaire for each of us.  This is mine with my responses.  Challenging, thought provoking stuff.  Now with the Coronavirus pandemic we have gone without our regular gatherings of the clan for months and will not be together again in person for the holiday season.  It’s a good time to revisit this and reconnect.  And it may be mildly interesting to the casual reader and morbidly curious.

What was it like moving from the West to the Midwest? Did anything surprise you?

I didn’t know quite what to expect. On one hand I liked Cheyenne.  It was all I knew.  On the other I knew my Dad had resisted moving us to the big, bad city for years but finally could not take the long absences from home—almost half of the year—which stoked my Mom’s resentments and rages.  I thought I might be moving into a world of towering apartment buildings and gangsters.  I was quite surprised to find that Skokie, an older suburb, felt more like a small town with its own nice little downtown and that we lived in small brick ranch style home not that different than the one in Cheyenne, but on a much smaller lot.  Niles West was four or five times bigger than Cheyenne East high, so that in itself was an adjustment.  So was finding myself in a school that was maybe 75% Jewish and where most of the Gentile kids were considered “Greasers”—a term we used for Mexicans in Cheyenne but discovered meant the kids we called Hoods out west.  The Jewish kids were mostly the Collegiate—nice clothes, polite, and with assumed bright futures.  Back in Cheyenne as a clumsy, not-athletic, pudgy, bookish kid, I was an outcast and near pariah with virtually no friends.  But that bookishness and even my nerdy social awkwardness seemed to be a more comfortable fit in the new school.  There were plenty of others with similar interests.  If I didn’t get welcomed into the highest social cliques, I found plenty of friends among the theater geeks, would-be writers, and political activists.  They accepted the odd Goy in the cowboy hat, perhaps as an exotic.  For the first time I felt I had a real life of my own.  So on the whole, the move was probably a life saver for me.

Is there anything in your life that you would change, if you could?

Tough question.  There are many forks in the road and infinite possibilities for choosing different ones.  On the whole, I wouldn’t change a whole lot.  Good, bad, even disastrous decisions created who I am, the only me I know.  Maybe I should have had more confidence, taken some more risks, especially in pursuing my writing.  I passed opportunities to work on Chicago daily papers after the Seed simply because I was ashamed of my horrible spelling and afraid that I would be eaten alive by an old time hard boiled copy editor.  Similarly, I sent few of my short stories out, even those that got high praise at Columbia College, for fear of rejection.  Perhaps I could have built a career and not just a succession of jobs.  But perhaps not….

What 3 adjectives would you use to describe your mother?  What 3 for your father?

Mom—damaged, lonely, resentful.  Dad—integrity, stoic, aloof.

Your brother [Timothy later called Peter] died while he was still fairly young, what do you think he would be like or be up to if was alive today?

We were not all that young.  He was 55 when he died.  He was trying to get his life together but he had not only burned most of his bridges, he had blown them to bits.  Although he may have stopped drinking and pill popping, he still had wide swings between religious ecstasy, black depression, and self-loathing.  I think he was by then incapable of either happiness or building lasting and meaningful relationships.  He probably would have relapsed, dried out, and repeated the cycle until a similar end.

Your father was a military man – if it weren’t for the Vietnam War, would you have ever joined the military?

Although he enlisted in the Army for World War II, I don’t think he considered himself a military man.  It was something he needed to do given the times.  And it may have been an escape following the death in infancy of his only natural child months before.  But I grew up surrounded by not only him but all of my uncles and almost every adult male I knew were veterans.  Every home I visited had framed pictures of young men in uniform.  That and a steady diet of old John Wayne war flicks on the after-school TV movie made me want to join the service.  As a young child had played a recurring back yard game where I was the hero of the United States Playground Marines or of the Rough Riders.  In high school I joined the Civil Air Patrol pretty much just for the uniform and to get my picture taken in it.  I seriously considered an Air Force career and seeking a Congressional appointment to the Air Force Academy.  The Vietnam War changed all of that.

What was your father’s reaction to you refusing the draft?

My father was surprisingly supportive once he understood that it was a matter of conscience despite being personally a conservative Republican.  But being true to your convictions was important to him.  He really believed the old Davy Crocket motto that I grew up with as a kid:  “Be sure your right, then go ahead.”  Mom was actually, although quietly, a liberal Democrat.  But her fear that I would bring shame upon the family completely trumped her politics.  She was also emotionally unstable and in fragile health.  Dad and I had to conspire together to keep Mom from finding out that I was convicted of Draft Refusal and in prison.

Do you believe in soulmates?

As a romantic kid I certainly did.  But now I don’t believe that there is just one person out of millions that you are destined for or compatible with.  Any of us are limited by those who life throws in our path.  A soul mate in India would be as useless as ice skates in Hell.  Many relationships are possible.  The best and most enduring ones take mutual work and effort over a long time, not magic fairy dust.

What is something you think the family would be surprised to hear about you/your life?

I have been fairly free about telling my stories.  Not everyone has listened, and few have read the several memoir pieces I have written, some of them embarrassingly honest about my manifest failures and deficiencies.  I don’t think anyone would be terribly surprised if they have paid any attention.

What was it like living in a house full of women for so long?

It’s been so long, I can’t remember any other way.  Mostly it is humbling.

What do you miss about your childhood?

The physical bigness and beauty of Wyoming.  And the total freedom we seemed to have there and then.  I could leave the house after breakfast and as long as I came home when the dinner bell on the porch rang about 5:30 I could roam all over Cheyenne at will from the time I was in the second or third grade.  No one even took notice whether I left the house with my back pockets stuffed with paperback books to read while lolling on a willow tree branch overlooking a pond in Holiday Park or if I toted by .22 rifle and had a couple boxes of shells to go plink cans and bottle at a ranch junk yard.  I did both with pleasure.

What’s the best concert you’ve ever been to?

Hard to say but here are some candidates—Barbara Streisand at Soldier Field when I was in high school, The Mothers of Invention and Canned Heat at the Electric Playground while on acid, Bob Dylan at the International Amphitheatre  in the late ‘70’s,  the first time I heard Utah Philips at the old Quiet Knight on Wells Street, Steve Goodman playing for us cons at Sandstone Prison.

Was there ever a career you wanted to pursue as a kid/teenager that you didn’t?

Influenced by my hero Theodore Roosevelt—fat bookish kid with glasses makes good—as a pre-teen and later as a young adolescent in the Kennedy years I told people I would be President of the United States.  They told me fat chance.  In high school and college I wanted to write the Great American Novel.

What passions did you have as a kid/teenager?

From a very young age, reading—an escape to anywhere.  As an older teen writing, theater, and eventually activism.

If you could give advice to your grandkids for their future, what would it be?

Fall down.  Get up.  Repeat.   And dare a little.

What do you think the grandkids will be like as older adults?

Themselves.

Over the years how have you seen each of the kids and grandkids change?

Almost all of you have had demons and almost all of you have come to grips with them even if they are never wholly tamed.  You are fine human beings who make me proud and humble.   

What do you want your legacy to be?

That I stood up, spoke out, and tried not to be too much of a dick.  How well I succeed will depend on how well any scar tissue I have inflicted on all of you, however unintentionally, heals.

What would you say to your past self now if you could?

Look out for the damned walnuts on the sidewalk.  They will wreck your ankles….

Seeing the way your girls turned out, is there anything you would go back in time and change?

I would pay better attention.  Sometimes I could be clueless to what was really going on.

What do you think about today’s clothing selections for teens/young adults?

Every generation wants to shock the bourgeoisie—meaning the old folks.  Not much has changed except the nature of the red flags waved.  I try not to get too excited about it.

What do you think about the music now?

Another timeless truth is every generation thinks the music of their youth is the greatest ever.  No decrepit geezer like me should mouth off about what young folks listen to, even if he wants to change the station for himself.  I have seen when the inevitable crap and mediocrity gets shaken out over time in every genre and every generation has produced some great music.

Did you know October 2 is the International Day of Non-Violence?  Neither did I until stumbled on the informationduring my daily scrounging for something—any damn thing—to write about.  My first thought was that it is such a good idea that it is no wonder it is obscure. 

It’s one of those United Nations observances.  Right away that makes it deeply suspect here in good ol’ U.S.A. where a huge chunk of the population is still convinced that UN black helicopters supported by the minions Barack Hussein Obama are poised to swoop down and rip the guns from the hands of patriots.  But other UN holidays get better press even here—International Women’s Day, International Children’s Day, the International Day of Indigenous Peoples—to name a few examples.

Maybe it’s because it is still pretty new and hasn’t had a chance to catch on—it was first observed in 2008 after being adopted General Assembly on June 15, 2007.  Apparently the ambassadors of several countries were asleep.  After all protest—even non-violent protest—is not popular with a wide range of dictatorships and or with oligarchies posing as democracies.  It’s law breaking and anarchy to most governments and only to be encouragedin the realms of one’s enemies.  Take the U.S. which got giddy in support of various color coded non-violent revolutions where the old Soviet Union held sway or about, at least at first the Arab Spring until it threatened to spread to our Saudi and oil rich Emirates pals, but shovels riot gear and arms to dozens of repressive regimes when those being repressed are on our own shit list.

And in an era of militarized police, free speech zones, the general criminalization of dissent, suppression of and spying on Black Lives Matter protests and organizers, the targeting of the amorphous Antifa movement, the militarization of Federal police agencies into something with more than a passing resemblanceto a secret police,  alleged Free Speech Zones safely caged away from political conventions and campaign rallies, and an Il Duce impersonator in the White House it is pretty clear that there is no commitment to respecting non-violent protest at home, either.

The very origins of the UN observance are, after all, suspect.

In 2003 Shirin Ebadi an Iranian lawyer, a former judge, human rights activist,  founderof Defenders of Human Rights Centerin Iran, and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate met an  Indian teacher, Akshay Bakaya in Paris.  Bakaya brought her an idea that he said originated with his students—an international observance honoring non-violence as a tool for social change tied in some way to its greatest modern proponent, Mahatma Gandhi.

On January 30, 2004 while in Bombay, India for the World Social Forum, Ebadi first proposed that the date, also the anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination by Hindi extremists in 1948 be designatedas an international day of non-violence. 

In tandem with South African Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Ebadi reiterated the proposal at the Satyagraha Conference at Delhi but changed the proposed date to October 2, Gandhi’s birthday which already was an Indian celebrationknown as Gandhi Jayanti.  The conference had been cosponsored by Tutu and Sonia Gandhi, President of the Indian National Congress Party.  The term satyagraha was coined and developed by Mahatma Gandhi and translates as insistence on truth or soul force. It is a philosophy and practice within the broader idea of non-violent resistance. 

With the support of the ruling Congress Party, India brought the idea to the U.N. General Assembly, which acted with unusual speed adopting the proposal on June 15 of the same year.  The resolution called on member states to commemorate October 2 in “an appropriate manner and disseminate the message of non-violence, including through education and public awareness.”

The first year celebration was marked by the issuance of a postal cachet by the United Nations Postal Administration in New York City which was used on all outgoing U.N. mailbetween October 2 and 31 of that year. 

Since then celebrations in most countries outside of India and South Africa have been, at best, muted.

Perhaps that is because the Non-Violence promoted by the commemoration is not just a sort of vague warm fuzzy pacifism, but an active strategy for social change.  The U.N. puts it this way:

One key tenet of the theory of non-violence is that the power of rulers depends on the consent of the population, and non-violence therefore seeks to undermine such power through withdrawal of the consent and cooperation of the populace.

There are three main categories of non-violence action:

protest and persuasion, including marches and vigils;

non-cooperation; and

non-violent intervention, such as blockades and occupations.

Gee, that sounds like the last thing most regimes want tohappen as Shirin Ebadi herself found out after her criticism of Iranian persecution of the Baha’i, other Iranian minorities, and dissidents when the Ayatollahs literally stole her Nobel Prize, French Légion d’honneur, and other international awards from her Tehransafety deposit box.  Her organization, the Center for the Defense of Human Rights  was raidedand closed in 2008 and its employees threatened and harassed.  Ebadi, her husband, and daughter were all targeted by the Revolutionary Guard and threatened with bogus charges.  She was forced into exile in London in 2009 and has lived there ever since still threatened by the regime back home.

It is a sad tale echoed by the experiences of many others around the world.

Maybe today is a good day to dust off this neglected celebration….in the streets.  Seems to me we now have plenty of reasons to do it…. 

Once again our heads split from the relentless assault of demoralizing news that hammers at our senses humanity and decency.  Tuesday night the Residentcapped of a week of horrors with his bizarre but ominous blathering during the Presidential debate which climaxed by his instructions to his white nationalist/militia followers to “Stand down and Stand by” to rise up if the election, as expected does not go his way. The hot breath of fascism has never been felt so strongly on our necks.  That comes on the heels of his push to nominate and confirm a Supreme Court Justice before the election who will side with him in any challengesto the vote’s legitimacy.  His lackey Attorney General declared great American cities as “Anarchist Jurisdictions,”  Climate change fueled wild fires continue to consume the West and the Coronavirus victim count continues to accelerate as Moron-in-Chief attacks science. You would not have to cast a stone far to hit any of a dozen other outrages.  It’s a lot.  I know, I know.  And it can be demoralizing to the point of paralysis.

But, take heart!

Way back in 2013 I wrote a poem and posted it here.  It was in the midst of a crisis that seemed at the time to be an overwhelming and immediate danger but in comparison to what we have endured lately seems downright quaint.  As you may dimly remember back then the Republican Congress made good on its chest beating threats to let the government shut down rather than pass a routine raise in the Debt Limit because they were in a life-and-death struggle with Barack Obama over, you know, stuff.  Experts—all of the folks who will proclaim that they know what they are talking about—were predicting dire consequences up to and including a world economic collapse that would make the Great Depression look like your mommy forgot to put a Twinkie in your lunch box.

It turned out that after a few days of tourists being turned away from the monuments and museums on the National Mall, and some needy folks had some checks delayed, the bankers who hold the paper on the Republican Party applied some judicious leverage and presto! A deal was worked out, the debt limit was raised, and everything got back, more or less, to normal, whatever the hell that is.  President Obama once again holding no more than a pair of deuces took the pot from Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan who had, you should excuse the strained metaphor, a full house.

Of course neither I nor anyone else knew the ultimate outcome that day seven years ago.  So I felt compelled to speak to the situation not with stunning and astute analysis buy with a damn poem.

In my introduction to the verse that day I wrote:

Political poetry has the shelf life of sushi on a pushcart in Phoenix in August.  It has a long and noble history since the days when long satirical ballads were printed anonymously in partisan newspapers, through the righteous radicalism dripping with the blood of workers and peasants, to acid penned short pieces in the columns of Puck or The New Yorker.  This is none of those, but read it fast before it evaporates from your screen.

It turns out that this one recycles usefully today.  And may again in the future….if we have a future.

This Morning

October 1, 2013

The sun rose this morning

            heedless of deadlines

            of wails and curses.

But that doesn’t mean

            we must sit idle

            with Zen-like equanimity.

The dew on the grass

            invites the first foot print.

The crystal air refreshes         

            our lungs.

The wind at our backs

            pushes us to action.

What they have done,

            is done.

What we will do

            is yet unwritten.

We have but one resolve—

            not to be pawns

            on their chessboard

            anymore.

Note—This is an apt time to be reminded of the horror of anti-Semitism, racism, nationalist supremacism, fascism, and Nazism.  Don’t say it can’t happen here.  Be prepared to fight to prevent it.

Seventy-nine  years ago on September 29 and 30, 1941 most of the Jews of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev were transported to an isolated ravine named Babi Yar.  Over the course of those two days we know by the meticulous records kept by the Nazis that 33,771 men, women, and children were shot and killed.  It was the greatest mass execution of the Holocaustand as far as anyone has been able to determine the perhaps biggest single mass execution in all of history.

The Germans occupied Kiev on September 19.  Within days the Nazi military governor, Major General Kurt Eberhard decided to eradicate the Jews of Kiev in retribution to partisan attacks on German soldiers. On September 25 posterswere put up in the Jewish quartercommanding Jews to report with their baggage, papers, and valuablesfor deportation on the 29th on pain of death.

S.S. commanders ordered to carry out the planned execution estimated that about 6000 would voluntarily show up and that they would have to conduct raids to secure the rest.  But almost the entire population obeyedthe order. 

The Jews assembled as ordered near the Jewish Cemetery.  They expected to be taken to rail yards for further transportation.  They were continually re-assured that everything would be fine. They were loaded in trucks and driven down a long corroder lined with German troops.  When unloaded they were told to strip all of their clothes.  One of the truck drivers described the scene:

…they had to remove their luggage, then their coats, shoes, and over garments and also underwear … Once undressed, they were led into the ravine which was about 150 meters long and 30 meters wide and a good 15 meters deep … When they reached the bottom of the ravine they were seized by members of the Schutzpolizei [battalions of ordinary German Police mobilized for service under the SS] and made to lie down on top of Jews who had already been shot … The corpses were literally in layers. A police marksman came along and shot each Jew in the neck with a submachine gun … I saw these marksmen stand on layers of corpses and shoot one after the other … The marksman would walk across the bodies of the executed Jews to the next Jew…

Units of Ukrainian collaborators also assisted the S.S. in maintaining order among the Jews as they were led to the slaughter.  Considering that the operation had to be conducted in such a primitive manor—as opposed the industrial gas chamberslater in use—it was remarkably efficient.

The Babi Yar ravine continued to be an execution site as long as the Germans remained in the area.  Concentration camps were eventually constructed nearby.  Victims included not only more Jews rounded up from smaller cities and villages, but Romani (Gypsies), Soviet prisoners of war, occupants of mental hospitals, Communists, Ukrainian nationalists, and hostages of every sort.  Estimate run to 100,000 to 150,000 more executions in and around Babi Yar, most of them dumped in that seemingly bottomless ravine.

As Soviet forces closed in on the Germans in Kiev, they began systematically trying to destroy evidence of their crimes.  In August and September of 1943 about 300 chained prisoners from the nearby concentration camp were put to work exhuming bodies from the gorge.  The bodies were burned in makeshift crematoriums and the ashes scattered over surrounding farm land.  It is believed that up to 90% of the bodies were disposed of in this way.

The identitiesof most of the dead remain unknown.  Despite years of painstaking research Yad Vashem and other Jewish organizations has recorded the names of only around 3,000 Jews killed at those days Babi Yar and 10,000 killed in the area for the course of the war.

Following the war, S.S. commanders were sentenced to death and long prison sentences for their part in the killings.

Several monuments to various victims of Babi Yar have been erected there forming a kind of memorial park.  The largest, a monumental statue to all Soviet Citizens and POWs killed, presumably including by not specifically mentioning the Jews, was erected in 1971.  On the 50th anniversary of the killings a large Menorah was erected to commemorate all of the Jewish victims killed there during the war.  It was damaged by vandals in 2006.  There are two large wooden crosses, one for 621 Ukrainian nationalists shot in 1942 and another for two Orthodox priests executed for spreading anti-German propaganda.  By a subway station a memorial to the children of Babi Yar was installed in 2001.  

As the horror story of the two days at Babi Yar got out, the mass murder gripped the attention of the public and of artists.  A censored version of the Russian/Ukrainian writer Anatoly Kuznetsov’s first hand memoirs, Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novelwas published in a Soviet literary magazine in 1956.  In 1971 Kuzetsov defected to Britainand brought out with him his original manuscript on microfilm.  It was published 1970 under the pseudonymA. Anololi.  Expurgated text was insertedin the original Russian version and highlighted in bold face.  The new edition became an international sensation.

The best known literary memorial is the one by Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko.  In it he decried not only the original crime itself, but the Soviet policyof refusing to acknowledge that Jews were the special victims of the Nazis and its general encouragement of semi-official anti-Semitism.  Written in 1956, the poem circulated in the Soviet Union via underground samizdat—copies, usually carbon-paper typescripts, surreptitiously passed hand to hand.  Copies also found their way to the West where the poem was translated and reprinted to lavish praise.  It was not until the beginning of the glasnost era that the poem was officially published in the USSR. 

Yevtushenko developed an international reputation as a dissenter based on this and a 1961 poem denouncing the continuing vestiges of Stalinism.  But dissident writers who were imprisoned in the Gulag have charged him with making many compromises with authorities pointing out that he continued to be a member of the Communist Party and was protected by top leaders.  He only criticized what was safe to criticize, his critics said.

None the less Yevtushenko’s poem Babi Yarremains a powerful expression.  Another Soviet era artist, composer Dmitri Shostakovich, set the poem to music in a movement of his choral Symphony #13 which premiered in Moscow in 1961 during a brief period of internal liberalization under Nikita Khrushchev.

Here is Yevtushenko’s poem: 

                                         Babi Yar

No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.
I am afraid.
Today, I am as old
As the entire Jewish race itself.

I see myself an ancient Israelite.
I wander o'er the roads of ancient Egypt
And here, upon the cross, I perish, tortured
And even now, I bear the marks of nails.

It seems to me that Dreyfus is myself.
The Philistines betrayed me - and now judge.
I'm in a cage. Surrounded and trapped,
I'm persecuted, spat on, slandered, and
The dainty dollies in their Brussels frills
Squeal, as they stab umbrellas at my face.

I see myself a boy in Belostok
Blood spills, and runs upon the floors,
The chiefs of bar and pub rage unimpeded
And reek of vodka and of onion, half and half.

I'm thrown back by a boot, I have no strength left,
In vain I beg the rabble of pogrom,
To jeers of “Kill the Jews, and save our Russia!”
My mother's being beaten by a clerk.

O, Russia of my heart, I know that you
Are international, by inner nature.
But often those whose hands are steeped in filth
Abused your purest name, in name of hatred.

I know the kindness of my native land.
How vile, that without the slightest quiver
The anti-Semites have proclaimed themselves
The “Union of the Russian People!”

It seems to me that I am Anna Frank,
Transparent, as the thinnest branch in April,
And I’m in love, and have no need of phrases,
But only that we gaze into each other's eyes.
How little one can see, or even sense!
Leaves are forbidden, so is sky,
But much is still allowed - very gently
In darkened rooms each other to embrace.

-“They come!”

-“No, fear not - those are sounds
Of spring itself. She's coming soon.
Quickly, your lips!”

-“They break the door!”

-“No, river ice is breaking...”

Wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar,
The trees look sternly, as if passing judgment.
Here, silently, all screams, and, hat in hand,
I feel my hair changing shade to gray.

And I myself, like one long soundless scream
Above the thousands of thousands interred,
I’m every old man executed here,
As I am every child murdered here.

No fiber of my body will forget this.
May Internationale thunder and ring
When, for all time, is buried and forgotten
The last of anti-Semites on this earth.

There is no Jewish blood that’s blood of mine,
But, hated with a passion that’s corrosive
Am I by anti-Semites like a Jew.
And that is why I call myself a Russian!

—Yevgeny Yevtushenko  

Translated by Ben Okopnik 

On September 29, 1650 Henry Robinson, a noted religious dissenter, philosopher, writer, merchant, and sometimes government official, opened the Office of Addresses and Encounters, a brand new and unusual business on Threadneedle Street in London.

At the office, for a modest fee of sixpence individuals and businesses could record their addresses, what services they could offer, and list what needs they might have.  The poor could use the service without charge.  Employers could offer jobs, and seekers find them.  Real estate including country houseswas offered but lodgers could also find accommodations.   Hard to find merchandise was matched with buyers.  It is said that occasionally the lovelorn sought companionship or prostitutes discretely offered their comfort, leading some later historians to conclude that it was some sort of dating service.

Leave it to humansto make every sort of information exchange about sex.

Most commonly it functioned as what the Brits call a labour exchange or on this side of the puddlecall an employment service—the first in England. 

In Paris Théophraste Renaudot, a physician, philanthropist, and journalist had operated the bureau d’adresse et de rencontresince 1630.

Robinson got the idea from his good friend German born Samuel Hartlib, another one of those geniuses-at-large.  Today we might call both men public intellectuals.  Hartlib had a grander vision for adaptingRenaudot’s idea to England.  He wanted a much larger undertaking sponsored by the government as a central repository for all useful information.  In addition to the exchange, he wanted a staff of the leading experts on every topic to be available to answer any question a member of the public might have—a kind of living encyclopedia or Google.

Not surprisingly no one at any level of government was interested in such a grand and expensive project.  After the idea had been kicking around for a few years, Robinson decided to go ahead with the more modest core of the idea as a private enterprise.  The project did not last long during the turbulent years of the Commonwealth which directed energies elsewhere.  But it was long remembered and has been cited as the inspiration for various public information projects on both sides of the Atlantic.

Robinson as a bright young man was educated at St. John’s College, Oxford and was admitted to membership in the Worshipful Company of Mercers, the premier Livery Company of the City of London, a kind of privileged trade association of general merchants especially exporters of wool and importers of velvet, silk and other luxurious fabrics.  That made him a wealthy man.

Wide travel, especially to Holland which nurtured religious dissent, a spirit of tolerance, and unencumbered commercial business, made him a vocal advocate for all sorts of changein England.  He began to write widely on economic matters—trade policy, interest rates, naturalization of foreigners, redistributionof trades from London center, and inland navigation.  When Parliament and Cromwell came to power ideas that he advanced in his pamphlets influenced policy.

In recognitionRobinson was appointed to administrative positions, dealing with accountsand sale of former Crown lands, with farm rents, and acting as secretaryto the excise commissioners.

But Robinson is best remembered as a strong advocate of religious toleration.  He believed that “no man can have a natural monopoly of truth.”  Of course, he meant toleration within a range of Protestant beliefs—Catholics and Jews need not apply.  He later fell out of favor with the Puritans for opposing the establishment of a new National Church based on Presbyterianism for fear that it would lead to religious persecution of dissenters.

Robinson was also a pioneer writer against censorship anticipating and informing the views of John Milton.

Robinson died at the age of 64 in 1664 after the Restoration had destroyed his public influence and put his personal safety at risk. 

The odd, Coronavirus shortened 2020 regular season ended yesterday with the Chicago Cubs in first place in the National League Central and their Traditional rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals finished second despite starting the season with many Covid canceled games and ending with a grueling 11 double headers.  If the baseball gods so ordain they could meet later in the playoffs.  It’s now worth looking back at another remarkable season 22 years ago.

On September 27, 1998 St. Louis Cardinal slugger Mark McGwire smashed two out of the park to end the season with a record shattering 70 Home Runs.  Big Mac had connected with 5 round-trippers in the last three games of the season ending a long race with Chicago Cub Sammy Sosa, who finished with 64.

Baseball had been enduring an attendance slump for years since the season ending 1994 Player’s Strike, which outraged fans.  The long dominance of the National Football League in Television ratings and the surge of National Basketball Association popularityin the Michael Jordon era threatened Baseball’s status as the national pass time.  Some sports journalists, in fact, confidently predictedthat Major League Baseball would shrivel in status, attendance, and broadcast ratings to the level of the National Hockey League, a perennial fourth place among major professional sports leagues.

But fans returned in droves as the home run race that year packed not only Bush Stadium and Wrigley Field, but ball parks wherever the rival sluggers appeared.  The American League got its own boostfrom Seattle’s Ken Griffey, Jr., another potent slugger and fan favorite who started the season as McGwire’s acknowledged main competition in a race to shatter Roger Maris’s single season Home Run record of 61.

McGwire, who was Rookie of the Year in 1987 under manager Tony LaRussa with the Oakland A’s and hit a record 49 blasts in that first complete season, had followed his old manager to the Cardinals in 1997.  He had suffered a couple of years in Oakland with injuries that kept him mostly benched and a fall off of home run production.  But He came out of the gate strong in 1997, having bulked up his big frame with bulging muscles that he attributed to a rigorous work-out regime.  He had slammed 34 homers for Oakland before being traded to the Cardinals on July 31 and finished the season with 58, tantalizingly close to Maris’s record.

Most sports experts believe that he would seek free agency and a long term deal in his native Southern California, but he opted to stay with LaRussa and the Cardinals for a hefty pay raise.  As the ’98 season opened it was widely expected that it would be the year that he would pass Maris.

At the start of the season Griffey was in the middle of an amazing string of home run production that  helped to propel his team to AL Championship Series in 1995, saved baseball in Seattle, and led to the construction of a new ballpark, now known as Safeco Field but popularly acknowledged as the House that Griffey Built.  Because of his equally good defense, Griffey was touted as the best player in baseball.  Many picked him to pass McGwire and win the long sought-after new record.  Despite having fewer days lost to injurythan any in his career, and matching his own season high record of 56 homers, however, Griffey was essentially out of the race by late August.

Sosa, the Dominican born right fielder had come to the Cubs from the cross town rival White Sox in a trade before the 1992 season.  He had a reputation as a speedy, scrappy playerwho could slap hits for average, leg out close calls, and hit with only occasional power.  After his first season with the Cubs in which he hit only 8 homers, his production jumped.  So did his size.  Little Sammy Sosa bulked up noticeably year to year.  From 1993 through ’98 his Home Run totals dipped below 25 only once.  He finished the ’97 season with a very respectable 38.  Despite having proven power, no one was picking him for a contender against McGwire the next year.

That was before Sosa went on an epic tear in the month of June when he hit an astonishing 20 homers in just 30 days, a feat never before accomplished or matched since.  From then on Sosa was nipping at McGwire’s heels.  The lead in the race switched hands several times as media interest soared.  Sosa was given his nick name, Slamming Sammy, by Cubs broadcaster Chip Caray.  Sosa last held the lead on August 19 when he hit his 48th, but later that day McGuire matched him and added another.  He never relinquishedthe lead again.

The two were under intense press scrutiny, reminiscent of the frenzy shrouding the 1961 race between Maris and fellow Yankee Mickey Mantle.  McGwire and Sosa may not have played on the same team, but they were members of two teams in the same division in the longest running and one of the most intense rivalries in baseball.  Both men were gracious in praising the other.  Neither seemed ready to wilt under the pressure.

The high point of the season came on September 8 as the two teams faced each other at Bush Stadium.  Everyone knew the record could be broken that day.  McGwire had already matched Maris’s record.  Not only was Baseball Commissioner Bud Seligpresent, but so were members of the Maris family.  Television networks stood by to switch to live coverage should McGwire set the record.  When McGwire hit the 63rd homer the stadium erupted in cheers he made his homerun trot.  His entire team greeted him at home base.  The game was stopped.  Sammy Sosa came from the Cubs dugout to embrace his “brother” and seemed genuinely to share the joy. 

McGwire went to the field box where the Maris family was sitting and acknowledge them.  Then, in a photo op moment that left hardly a dry eye, he picked up his young sonin his own miniature Cardinal uniformand doffed his hat to the crowd. The stadium employee who found the ball quickly made sure that McGwire got it.  The second homer of the day was just icing on the perfect cake.

When the season ended, Sosa, not McGwire, won the National League MVP because the Cubs made the playoffs that year and the Cardinals finished only third in their division.  Sosa also topped McGwire in batting average, total hits, and on base percentage.  The two shared the Sports Illustrated Athlete of the Year Award

Both players would go on to have good years.  Sosa became the first player ever to hit more than 60 home runs in three seasons in his career.  In 2001 Sosa hit 64 homers again, but trailed San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds who broke McGwire’s record with 73 homers.

McGwire’s production began to fall in 2000 and 2001 as he struggled with injuries.  Despite still hitting a respectable 27 homers in 97 games, he decided to retire after the 2001 season.  There were already rumors circulating about his possible use of steroids.

Sosa’s career also faltered after he was ejected from a game in June 2003 when a shattered bat in a game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays was discovered to be corked.  Sosa claimed that he had accidently picked up a bat he used for batting practice only.  Despite the fact the when MLB tested 9 other of his bats, and another batch of his bats were tested by the Baseball Hall of Fame, none were found to be corked, both the press and the fans turned on him.  His many accomplishments and club records were declared tainted.  Despite leading the club to the National League Central Division Titlethat year and belting to homers against the Florida Marlins in the playoffs, fans did not warm up to him again.

The next year Sosa spent an extended time on the Disabled List after he injured his back sneezing in the locker roomsetting of persistent back spasms.  The nature of the injury lead to speculation that the bulked up, muscle bound Sosa might be using steroids.  Upon returning to the team he went into the worst slump of his career and into depression.  When he packed his bags and left the Cubs club house before the end of the last game of the season, fans, press, and even fellow teammates with whom he had a contentious relationship denounced him.  He was ignominiously traded to the Baltimore Orioles the next winter in a deal that made it clear the club was dumping him.

Sosa’s career never recovered.  He spent unproductive seasons with the Orioles and Texas Rangers.  The Cubs made a point of not retiring Sosa’s number.  Instead they assigned it to pitcher Jason Marquis.  Sosa got his revenge on June 7, 2007 when as a Ranger he hit one of the final homers of his career of Marquis.  That hit also made him the only man in Major League history to hit a Home Run off of pitchers from every single active Major League team in his career.

Despite abortive comeback attempts, Sosa played his last game in the majors that season.  He never officially retired, but told reporters that he would go back to the Dominican Republic and placidly await his induction into the Hall of Fame—a statement that many in baseball took as arrogant.  The Cubs have never invited him back to Wrigley Field for any honor.  There are no plans to add his statue to the growing collection around the field.  He is for all intents and purposes a non-person to the club and too many Chicago fans.

If that is a sad fate, McGwire’s was worse.

In 2005 McGwire emotionally refuted charges by former Oakland team mate Jose Canseco that he seen McGwire take performance enhancing drugs before a Congressional Committee.  Sosa also appeared, but declined to answer questions letting his attorney read a statement.  Most commentators at the time did not believe the story because McGuire showed many of the symptoms of steroid use—in addition to packed on muscle mass, acne and depression. 

McGwire has failed to win election to the Hall of Fame—once considered a first ballot shoe-in—in each of the years he has been eligible.  In each year his total percentage of ballots cast for him has dropped.  Many believe that he, like other super stars tainted by the steroid scandals like Barry Bonds and Roger Clements he will never make the cut.  At least he avoided indictment.

In a 2009 deal with Major League Baseball to return to the game as a hitting coach for LaRussa and the Cardinals, McGwire finally did admit to steroid use, but claimed it was only to treat the injuries that had threatened his career in his last years at Oakland, and occasionally for other injuries later—including in 1998—but not to enhance his performance.  He was not banned from baseball and was been a very successful coach for the Cardinals and the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Today he keeps a very low profile, seldom speaking to the media, and almost never makes public appearances.

The following year in 2010 the Missouri State Legislature stripped its previous designation of a portion of Interstate 70 near Bush Stadium as Mark McGwire Highway and re-named the road for Mark Twain.

Sitting on top of the Acropolis, the stony high point of Athens, the Parthenon in all of its ruined glory is one of the most famous structures in the world, an iconof classic antiquity, and for the Greeks, the symbol of their cultural glory.  But its current condition is not just the result of centuries of wear and tear or even of the earth quakes that shake the eastern Mediterranean.  Here’s what happened.

The Parthenon we know today was the second—some believe the third—temple structure on that hill.  The first was begun shortly after the Battle of Marathon about 490 BCE.  It was a sanctuary for Athena Parthenos, the Virgin Athena.  It replaced even older temple structures to other gods.  Alas, the structure, sometimes called the proto Parthenon, did not last long and was not even finished when the Persians sacked the city and razed the Acropolis in 480 BCE. 

Some believe that a second proto Parthenon was begun around 466 BCE and abandoned before completion, its foundation used in the present structure.  This theory, propounded by German archeologist Wilhelm Dörpfeldaround 1890 is not now widely held.

Most believe the site was left vacant for 33 years, some say because of an oath sworn by the Greek allies before the Battle of Plataea in 479 BCE declaring that the sanctuaries destroyed by the Persians would not be rebuilt until Greece was safe from further Persian invasion.  The Peace of Callias between the Greeks and the Persians in 450 BCE supposedly relieved the Athenians of their obligation.  But in fact decades of war had emptied the city’s coffers.  There was no money for public works on a grand scale.

The great Athenian leader Pericles relocated the seat of the Delian League, the alliance of more than 150 Greek city states which ringed the Aegean and Black Seas and which defeated the Persians, from the island of Delos to Athens and made the Arocopolis its de facto headquarters.  Athens was then the preeminent power in that corner of the world, and like many a victor before him, Pericles was determined to show off that power and wealth in stone.  He ordered the crown of the Acropolis leveled and the construction of a new temple to Athena.  Construction lasted from 447 to at least 432 BCE.

We know that the architects of the new building were Ictinos and Callicrates and the sculptor Phidias was both the general artistic supervisor and the creator of the bas relief decoration, incidental sculpture, and the giant statue of Athena Parthenos that was the center piece of the interior.  More on her later.

It was a massive project to build the temple which measured 228.0 x 101.4 feet at the base with 46 out and 23 inner Doric columns supporting a massive roof of marble tiles. The largest single expense in its creation was the transportationof tons of the stone from Mount Pentelicus, about 10 miles from Athens, to the Acropolis.  The finished work is considered the finest exampleof Greek architecture ever built and inspired the later Romans and well as the classical revival architecture for public buildings that was popular in Europe and America for a century and a half.

Interestingly, although we call the Parthenon a temple, it was evidently not originally a place of worship—it was more of a public monument, a center for civic events, and perhaps more than anything a treasury.  The Cult of Athena Polias, the civic protector of the city, worshiped nearby in the more ancient temple on the northern side of the Acropolis.  Nor were there any know priestesses or rituals associated with the site.

Phidias’s famous statue was not an object of veneration which must at all times be ritually attended, cleaned, and preserved.  Which is probably a good thing because the statue was assembled on a wooden core, covered with shaped bronze plates covered in turn with removable gold plates, with the flesh of the goddess’s face and arms made from ivory.  The gold, made from melted coins seized from enemies of Athens, weighed 44 talents—about 2,400 pounds.  Importantly, the plate could be removed.  Essentially, it represented a large portion of the treasury of the Delian League.  The gold plates were removed at least once by Lachares in 296 BCE to pay his troops and were replaced by gilded bronze plates.

The trouble is, no matter how big and heavy you make your treasury by turning it into a monument, eventually someone will conquer you and haul it away.  Which is just what happened.  The Romans carted it away in the 5th Century C.E. It was reported in Constantinople before disappearing entirely.  We know pretty much what the statue looked like, however, from copies, vase painting, carved gems, coins, and written descriptions.

The Parthenon itself stood and remained dedicated to Athena for nearly 1000 years.  During much of that time it was painted in vivid colors, not at all the austere white that we imagine.  We know that from the contemporary accounts of visitors to Athens and it has been confirmed by the recent archeology which using modern technology have identified tiny residue of paint.  Undoubtedly it was re-pained after a major fire in the 3rd Centurydestroyed the roof, which was replaced by wood with clay tiles and pitched more steeply than the original, and damaged the great statue of Athena.

In an act of Christian triumphalism Emperor Theodosius II decreed in 435 AD that all pagan temples in the Byzantine Empire be closed.  The Empire carted off many of the remaining treasures and the Parthenon was left open for further looting. 

After that the building fell into other hands and was converted to other uses.  Around 590 it was converted to an Orthodox Church known at different times as Church of the Parthenos Maria(Virgin Mary), or the Church of the Theotokos (Mother of God).  Many physical alterations and additions had to be made to the building, pagan sculptures that could not be re-interpreted as Christian were removed and many were destroyed, Christian texts were carvedinto some pillars, and interior wallswere painted with icons.  It became one of the four most holy Orthodox pilgrimage places.

The Fourth Crusade conquered Byzantium in 1204 and Athens fell under the sway of the Catholic Church, which tore out Orthodox iconography and renamed the building the Church of Our Lady.  Other physical alterations were made, including the construction of a bell tower at the southwest corner. And so it remained for another 250 years.

Then it was time for the Catholics to exit the stage.  In 1456, Ottoman Turks laid siege to Athens which was defended by a Florentine army which made its last stand on the Acropolis, holding out for two years before surrendering to the Turks. By the turn of the 16th Century they converted the building to a mosque, scouring it of graven images, both Catholic and pagan, and extending the old church tower into a minaret.

Despite all of these changes of hands, the basic structural integrity of the building was intact and much of the sculptural ornamentation, especially the friezeand pediments were well preserved.  Several westerners visited the city, wrote detailed descriptions, and made drawings of the venerable building.  Everyone who saw it was struck by its beauty.

In 1687 the Venetians, the dominant naval and military power in the Mediterranean, decided to retake Athens for the greater glory of the Church as part of its wider war against the Ottomans.  Or maybe they just wanted to sack the city.  Hard to tell the difference. 

Francesco Morosini and his subordinate general, the Swede Count Otto Wilhelm Königsmarck laid siege to Athens.  As the Catholics before them had done, the Ottomans fortified the Acropolis—and they made the Parthenon their main arsenal, filling it with hundreds of barrels of powder.  In retrospect it was probably not thewisest idea to make the most visible target in the city into a literal powder keg.

Morosini seems to have been informed of how the Parthenon was being used by a deserter—or perhaps even by a Turkish agent in the belief that the attackers would never target such a historic treasure.  They were wrong.  Morosini pounded the city with artilleryfrom the surrounding hills.  He did not spare the temple.  A mortar roundpierced the roof on September 26, 1687 and exploded in the magazine. 

The explosion was tremendous.  Greek architect and archaeologist Kornilia Chatziaslani described the destruction:

. ...three of the sanctuary’s four walls nearly collapsed and three-fifths of the sculptures from the frieze fell. Nothing of the roof apparently remained in place. Six columns from the south side fell, eight from the north, as well as whatever remained from eastern porch, except for one column. The columns brought down with them the enormous marble architraves, triglyphs and metopes.

Three hundred defenders and civilians were killed outright.  Stone fragmentsrained down like shrapnel over a wide area wounding hundreds more.  Fires were ignited that burned much of the Acropolis and much of the city including many homes.  Of course it finished off Turkish resistance.  Morosini occupied the city in triumph.

Count Königsmarck would later claim that Morosini regretted the “accidental” destruction of the temple, but in his own report back to Venice the commander boasted of his lucky shot.  The next day Morosini ordered the looting of the smoldering wreckage.  His troops tried to remove sculptures of Poseidon and Athena’s horsesfell to the ground and smashed as they tried to detach them from the building’s west pediment.  The victor had to content himself with lesser spoils.  21st Century Venetians with their sinking city may be all about preserving “our priceless architectural and cultural heritage”, but clearly in the 17th Century they didn’t give a rat’s ass.

Morosini held the city for less than a year, retreating when the Ottomans assembled a large army to dislodge him. 

When the Turks returned they did not try to rebuild the nearly destroyed building.  They did use some of the stone wreckage as construction materialelsewhere in the city and used smaller pieces as land fill.  They also discovered there was a lucrative European market for antiquities and began to loot the ruins for their own profitand to allow visitors to cart of souvenirswhich were sometimes hacked from still standing components. 

Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elginobtained a controversial permit from government to remove pieces from the Parthenon while serving as the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1799 to 1803.  Through 1812, Elgin’s agents removed about half of the surviving sculptures of the Parthenon and carted them away to England where they found a prominent home in the British Museum.

A war of independence restored Athens to Greek hands for the first time in centuries in 1832.  For the Greeks the Parthenon was a great cultural symbol.  They quickly leveled the minaret and razed the remaining portions of the mosque.  They cleared the Acropolis of all Latin medieval and Ottoman buildings.  But they had no money for further restoration or to prevent continued looting by western antiquity collectors and dealers. 

The Greeks always protested the legitimacy of the Lord Elgin’s questionable deal—indeed the supposed permit documents from the Sultan have never been found.  The Greek government has been demanding a return of their patrimony since 1975 when they began a comprehensive project to restore the Parthenon and the Acropolis.  The British Government has steadfastly refused on the principle that they were stolen fair and squaredespite decades of rancorous negotiations.

There have been several attempts at not so much restoring the Parthenon, but cleaning and preserving it in its current state of ruin.  Heavy air pollution and acid rain continue to do damage to the building and some predict may complete what the Venetians started. 

The history of Rock and Rollis replete with firsts that really weren’t.  Almost anyone will tell you that the first rock and roll song was Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and the Comets recorded in 1954 and which shot to the top of the charts the next year.  Wrong.  It can only claim to be the first 1# hit and/or the first big hit by White artists covering a Black style.

Some musicologists claim that songs with key rock and roll elements were recorded by Black blues artists as early as 1939.  But it took ten years and several technological and economic changes—the introductionof the 45 rpm single and the collapse of the viability of large touring big bands among them—for Black artists to break out with a new sound on the Rhythm and Blues charts.  Two 1949 contenders were Goree Carter’s guitar driven Rock Awhile and Jimmy Preston’s Rock the Joint with a driving, blaring saxophone lead.  In fact Rock the Joint was covered three years later by Bill Haley and his earlier band The Saddlemen becoming a minor hit.

Bu

Another Black contender for first rock and roll record is Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats—Ike Turner and The Kings of Rhythm under contract to another label working under a pseudonym—recorded by Sam Phillips at Sun Records in MemphisMarch of 1951.

By the mid-‘50’s, rock and roll was an emerging genre and picking up steam, but pop charts were still dominated by crooners, close harmony vocal groups—the doo wop sound would emerge from the street corners out of this genre—and even the surviving big bands.  It took Elvis Presley to send it into thestratosphere.  Presley was the super-nova of a group of Sun Records stars who would infuse Delta blues and gospel sounds into a tight, stripped down country sound.  Presley’s first regional hit, That’s All Right Momma was recorded within months of Rock Around the Clock.  Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash, all recording at Sun along with Presley would define what became known as Rock-a-Billy.

In 1955 Black blues based performers would drive the beat even harder and introduce a new guitar sound—Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard.  And white acts were hard on their heels cleaning up lyrics and sanding off raw edges to make their sound acceptable to white teenagers—and their parents.

By 1957 rock and roll was a cultural steamroller.  So why at this late date does a record by some kids from Lubbock, Texas barely out of their teens which went to No. 1 on September 24, 1957, rate as seminal in rock history? 

Because the band, The Crickets, their lead singer and creative dynamo, Buddy Holly, and a smart record labelassembled at last all of the elementsthat would tie together the disparate roots of rock and propel it into a new era.  That was the day that That’ll be the Day made it to the top.

The Cricket’s line-up—lead, rhythm, and bass and drums—stripped awaysaxes, horns, stride or boogie-woogie piano, organ, and even the country fiddles and accordions that were part of earlier combos.  This quartet arrangement soon became standard, capable of delivering a beat heavy, driving sound.  The band could sing together in harmony or put Holly out front.  They could take the themes of teen age love, the stripped down substitute for the raw sex of early black rock, and run with them in new and creative directions.  Perhaps most important, they were the first white act to consistently write and record their own material instead of either adapting it from Black artists or using the talents of professional songwriters like those in the famous Brill Building.  Within a few years bands, as opposed to solo performers, would dominate rock music and they would be expected to produce their own songs.

The Crickets were immediately influential.  Within a year other acts were copying their formula.  In the early ‘60’s John Lennon and Paul McCartney would acknowledge their debt by naming their band the Beatles, a tip-o’-the-hat to the Crickets.

Influenced by the Memphis Rock-a-Billies, Holly and high school pals were experimenting and making demos as early as 1954.  Holly signed with Decca Records in 1956 and recorded several sides under his own name with the backing of Sonny Curtis, Jerry Allison and Don Guess in Nashville.  These records were straight forward Rock-a-Billy and were only moderately regionally successful.  One of those sides was a version of That’ll be the Day.

Holly was inspired to write the song after a trip to the local movie palacein Lubbock with his pals where they saw The Searchers.  The words were something of a catch phrase for John Wayne’s obsessed character.

In February 1957 producer Norman Petty brought Holly and his band, now consisting of drummer Jerry Allison, bassist Joe B. Mauldin, and rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan to Clovis, New Mexico for a new recordings session for the Brunswick label.  Because Holly was under contract as a solo to Decca, Petty decided to release the resulting recordings under a band name.  After a brief consultation among the members, they settled on The Crickets after first toying with some “bird” names. 

That’ll Be the Day was released in May with Holly’s name visible only in the fine print as a composer under the name of The Crickets, as would all of the subsequent successful releases from that session.  It began its slow rise to the top.  As it did so, Decca discovered that their artist was one of the Crickets.  They were not overly alarmed, however, because Brunswick was a subsidy.  They signed a new deal with Holly.  The material recorded in Nashville would be released under his own name on Decca.  Anything recorded with the band would be released as the Crickets.  Subsequent solo efforts by Holly would go out on yet another subsidy label, Coral.

As That’ll Be the Day was nearing the peak of its climb, Decca released the Nashville version under Holly’s name on September 7 as a B sideto Rock Around With Ollie Vee.  It was not a hit, but made it to Holly’s solo LP.

How big a deal was the second Dempsey-Tunney Heavyweight Championship fight that was held at Chicago’s Soldier Field on September 22, 1927?  Big.  Huge. Gargantuan.  Oh there had been fights with greater attendance—120,000 squeezed into Philadelphia’s Sesquicentennial Stadium 364 days earlier on September 23, 1926 to see Jack Dempsey defend his title against top contender Gene Tunney, his first title bout in three years.  Tunney had stunned the nation by handily whooping the popular champ on points.  Interest in the re-match was astronomical.  Only 104,000 bodies could squeeze into Soldier Field—but they shelled out $2,658,660, about $22 million in today’s dollars.  It was the first $2 million gate in entertainment history and a record that would stand for 50 years.

The fight attracted celebrities of all stripes, politicians, millionaire businessmen, and many of the best known writers in America.  Fight promoter Tex Rickard boasted to a reporter before the bout with only a little hyperbole:

Kid, if the earth cam’se up and the sky came down and wiped out my first 10 rows, it would be the end of everything. Because I’ve got in those 10 rows all the world’s wealth, all the world’s big men, all the world’s brains and production talent. Just in them 10 rows, kid. And you and me never seed (sic) nothing like it. 

In big cities around the countrycrowds gathered on streets to see round by round summaries of the action posted, just as they gathered for the results of World Series games.

Despite losing his belt decisively the year before, the draw as Dempsey, the famous Manassa Mauler, a brawling former hobo from out West who had become the People’s Champion.

Jack Dempsey was born in Manassa, Colorado on June 24, 1895, his father was a down-on-his-luck sometime miner and laborer who bounced from town to town, and job to job or job hunt around Colorado, West Virginia, and finally Utah.  The whole family sometimes rode the rails and jungled up at hobo camps.  When he was about 5 his mother convertedto Mormonism and cajoled her husband to join her.  Jack was baptized at age 8, the age of consent in the faith.  The connection to the Latter Day Saints brought the family to Salt Lake.

By the time he was a teenager Dempsey was helping to support his family by entering saloons and announcing, “I can’t sing, I can’t dance, but I can lick anyone in the house.” He was already a powerful puncher and could take a pummeling, too.  He made a living from the bets on the bar brawls he almost always won and was soon fighting in amateur matches, then as a low grade pro on the club and smoker circuit.  His early record is hard to keep track of because he boxed under his own name and as Kid Blackie. 

From 1914 to early ’17 Dempsey fought 36 times under his own name mostly in Utah, Colorado, and Nevada, but with a trip to New York in 1916 as he gained a reputation.  His record was 30 wins—most by knock-outs—six draws or no decisions, and just two losses.

With the outbreak of World War I, Dempsey got a good job in a California ship yard making real money without having to rely on his fists for the first time in his life.  He would later be taunted as a draft dodger for not entering the Army.  In fact, as we shall see, this was an issue in his fights with Tunney ten years later.  Dempsey had actually tried to enlist but was rejected because of injuries associated with boxing.  Whether or not he needed to box for the money, he loved the game and fought several times in California on weekendsincluding some bouts against nationally ranked fighters like Willie Mehan.

By 1918 he was well enough known to tour and fight about every two weeks in Racine, Wisconsin; Buffalo, New York; Milwaukee; St. Paul; Denver; Joplin, Missouri; Atlanta; Harrison, New Jersey; Dayton, Ohio; back to San Francisco for a rematch with Mehan (his only loss in this stretch); Reno; New Orleans; multiple times in Philadelphia and other Pennsylvania cities; New Haven.  It was a brutal, grueling schedule, but after the loss to Mehan, he had ten straight victories all but one by a knock out.  The boxing world was abuzz about the brawler from the west and Dempsey had earned his shot at the reigning champ.

Jess Willard, the Pottawatomi Giant, had been the final Great White Hope and the man who finally defeated the first Black Champ, Jack Johnson.  He had held the title for four years, but had defended the title only once back in 1916 preferring to rake in purses from non-title bouts and appearance fees for exhibitions.  He towered over Dempsey and outweighed him by almost 40 pounds.  He was and remains the biggest fighter to hold the heavy weight belt. 

But with a devastating attack and flurries of punches to the head, Dempsey knocked down the champ 5 times in the first round, battering his face into a swollen mess.  Although there were no more knock downs, Dempsey dominated the next two rounds.  Willard could not answer the bell at the beginning of round four.  Dempsey was World Champ.  The power of Dempsey’s punches was so terrific, charges of doctored gloves, bandage wraps covered in plaster of Paris, or even that he was clutching an iron spike in one glove were bandied about.  All charges were disproved by witnesses who saw Dempsey’ hands unwrapped and by fight film showing him pushing Willard away in clenches with his glove open.  Willard himself said:

Dempsey is a remarkable hitter. It was the first time that I had ever been knocked off my feet. I have sent many birds home in the same bruised condition that I am in, and now I know how they felt. I sincerely wish Dempsey all the luck possible and hope that he garnishes all the riches that comes with the championship. I have had my fling with the title. I was champion for four years and I assure you that they’ll never have to give a benefit for me. I have invested the money I have made.

The brawler defended his title five times over the next few years beginning against Billy Miski 14months later.  Ray Brennan at Madison Square Garden gave the champ his toughest fight going 15 rounds before being KOed on body punches.  His fight with French Champion and World War I hero Georges Carpentier at Boyle’s Thirty Acres in Jersey Cityresulted in the first million dollar gate and the Frenchman hitting the canvas in the fourth round.  The fast-on-his-feetTommy Gibbons went 15 rounds in a fight at remote Shelby, Montana.  Dempsey won on a decision.  The Champ said, “Nailing him was like trying to thread a needle in a high wind.”

The defense against another giant, Argentine Luis Fripo had to be held at the Polo Grounds, home of the New York Giants to accommodate the crowd.  The 1923 bout was not a close fight.  Dempsey had Fripo down multiple times.  But Fripo could take a punch and came back to land a lucky one against Dempsey which sent him sailing through the ropes onto the ring side press table.  The Champ got back in the ring and nailed Fripo in the second round.  Probably the most famous sports painting of all time was by George Bellows showing Dempsey landing on that table.

After the Fripo fight Dempsey took an extended break from defending his title.  He took time off to marry actress Estelle Taylor and appeared with her in a short runBroadway production called The Big Fight.  He also had a nasty break up with his longtime manager Jack “Doc” Kearns that resulted in a bitter, expensive, and time consuming law suit.  Mostly Dempsey was just enjoying the fruits of being Champ and one of the most famous and popular men in America.

But as time dragged on criticism mounted for his failure to defend the Title.  The main reason seemed to be that the top contender, Harry Willis was Black.  After first winning the Belt at a time when the wounds to the White American psyche from the dominance of Jack Johnson was still fresh, Dempsey had told a reporter that he would not allow a Negro to fight him for the championship.  But then he publicly claimed to be willing to face Willis.  And it may be true.  Promoters and venues fearing race riotswere not eager to take the risk.

Enter a new rising contender, Gene Tunney.

Tunney was born on May 27, 1897 to Irish immigrant parents in New York City.  He was big and exceptionally fast for his size and established himself as an amateur and club fighter as a highly skilled ring man.  He is known to have lost only two fights.  He enlisted in the Marine Corps and fought in France where he also became American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) Champion.

After the War he became a lumberjack in Ontario for a while, seeking solitude and recovery from what was likely combat caused post-traumatic stress syndrome before turning pro.  Then he quickly moved up through the ranks beating top boxers including Carpentier and Gibbons.  By 1926 he was a popular fighter tagged the Fighting Marine and a reasonable White alternative top contender.  A bout with Dempsey was inevitable.

Promoter Tex Rickard wanted to stage the bout in Chicago.  But Dempsey got word the Al Capone was a big fan and was ready to bet big money on the fight.  Dempsey was still stung by those early charges that his Title win against Willard might have been rigged in some wayand knew that gambling and fight fixing  were eating away at public support.  He insisted the fight not be held in the Windy City.  Instead the two fighters met in Philadelphia.

This time public sentiment had swung to Tunney both because of Dempsey’s long lay-off and because charges that he was a draft dodger were resurrected and compared to the challenger’s status as a war hero and veteran.   Many boxing experts thought Dempsey would be rusty and that Tunney was a technically more proficient fighter.

It turned out that those experts were right.  Tunney out fought Dempsey for 10 rounds and won a unanimous decision.  It was Dempsey’s graciousness in defeat and a widely reported quip to his wife, “Honey, I forgot to duck,” that help him win back the admiration of the fans.

After contemplating retirement, Dempsey came back to win a bout with another top contender, Jack Sharkey at Yankee Stadium in 1927 for the right to face Tunney again.

As the challenger, Dempsey could not keep the fight out of Chicago.  And as he feared, Capone bragged about putting down $50,000 of his own money on him.  The public followed, betting heavily on the challenger.

As champ Tunney got sports first million dollar pay day, while Dempsey was guaranteed about half of that.  During negotiationson the terms of the bout, someone from Dempsey’s camp insisted on using the new but optional rule that required fighters to retreat to a neutral corner after a knock down before a count could begin.  It is a mystery why Dempsey’s people would make such a request since their fighter’s aggressive style including standing over prone opponents ready to slam them as they struggled to their feet.  This was highly effective, and a deterrent to a groggy fighter even considering getting back up.  They also agreed to a larger than standard ring, an advantage to the mobile Tunney and a disadvantage to Dempsey who liked to pin his opponents in a corner and pummel them with a flurry of blows.

Once again Tunney dominated the fight.  He was well ahead on points in the seventh round when Dempsey recoveredand unleashed a torrent of hits sending Tunney to the canvas.  For what seemed like several seconds, Dempsey loomed over Tunney as the referee tried to push him away and told him to retreat to a neutral corner.  It was as if he forgot or never knew the rule.  The count did not begin until Dempsey finally did.  On the count of nine, Tunney got up and closed on Dempsey.  The round ended but in the next round he dropped Dempsey for a count of one—but the referee began that count before Tunney reached the corner.  The Champ outscored Dempsey through the final two rounds and won a unanimous decision.

The fight became celebrated in boxing lore for the Long Count.  Just how much extra time Tunney had to recover was controversial.  The official time keeper had the total time Tunney was down as 14 seconds.  In a film of the fight a clock was superimposed that recorded Tunney’s time on the floor as 13 seconds, from the moment he fell until he got up.  But most of the public never saw that film until years later when the ban on interstate transportation of boxing films was lifted.  But at the time the public imagined a much longer break for Tunney and sympathy swung to Dempsey who some thought was robbed.

Neither of the fighters saw it that way.  After the fight, Dempsey lifted Tunney’s arm and said, “You were best. You fought a smart fight, kid.” Tunney later said that he had picked up the referee’s count at two, and could have gotten up at any point after that, but waited until nine for obvious tactical reasons. Dempsey said, “I have no reason not to believe him. Gene’s a great guy.”

Dempsey may have lost the fight, but he emerged as a beloved hero. 

Tunney defended his title just once and then retired undefeated in 1928 at the request of his wife, wealthy socialite,Mary “Polly” Lauder.  He and Dempsey became great friends and were close through the rest of their lives.  The couple had several children including former Democratic Senator John V. Tunney of California.  He died at age 81 on November 7, 1978 in Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut.

Jack Dempsey and his famous New York restaurant were featured in MGM's Big City in 1937 with Spencer Tracy and Louise Rainer.  Dempsey and other sports legends including Jim Thorpe, former White Hope Jim Jeffords, and popular wrestler of the day Man Mountain Dean joined Tracy in a climatic street brawl between independent and union cab drivers.  Don't ask....

Dempsey enjoyed along retirement and became the proprietor of a popular New York night club.  He made several films, usually playing himselfincluding Big City with Spencer Tracy and Louise Rainer and appeared on several top radio programs.  He fronted several charities, including one to raise money for his friend Joe Lewis when he was down on his luck. 

During World War II he finally put the old draft resister canardbehind him by enlisting in the Coast Guard and rising to the rank of Lt. Commander.  Although he spent much of his time selling War Bonds and making moral boosting visits to the troops, Dempsey also instructed sailors in self-defense and saw sea duty and action aboard the attack transport USS Arthur Middleton for the invasion of Okinawa.

In 1977 he wrote an autobiographyDempseyin collaboration with his daughter Barbara Lynn.

On May 31, 1983, Dempsey died of heart failure in New York City at age 87 with his second wife Deanna at his side. His last words were “Don’t worry honey; I’m too mean to die.”

Almost Jack, almost.

On September 22, 1950 the world was surprised when an American diplomaton loan to the United Nations was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  It was not that his achievement was unworthy—brokering the thorny negotiations that led to an armistice agreements between Israel and the Arab States ending a bloody war that began when Israel declaredits independence—it was because Ralph Bunche was an African-American.

Bunch was born in Detroit, Michigan on August 4, 1904 (some sources place the date a year earlier.)  His father was a barberserving an exclusively white clientele—and thus probably passing himself off as white in his work.  Some of his ancestors had been free since before the American Revolution.  His mother was an accomplished amateur musician.  Also in the house hold was his maternal grandmother, “Nana” Johnson who had been born into slavery but was also capable of “passing.”  Despite their fair completions the family strongly identified as Black and lived in that community.

Both parents were in fragile health and the whole family relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico in hopes of improvement.  Both however soon succumbed—probably to tuberculosis.  Bunche, his two sisters, and his grandmother moved to Los Angeles.

To help support the family Ralph sold newspapers and held numerous side jobs, including laying carpets, and being a house boy to a film actor while he attended Jefferson High School.  Despite the time lost to work, he excelled as both a student and an athlete.  He was valedictorian of his graduating class, and earned athletic scholarships to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA.) While the scholarships paid his school expenses, he earned his personal expenses by working as a janitor.  He competed as a varsity basketball player on league championship teams while also competing in debate and writing for the campus newspaper.  In 1927 Bunche graduated summa cum laude and valedictorian with a major in international relations.

His accomplishment was a matter of great pride in his South Los Angeles neighborhood.  The community raised $1000 by subscription to supplement a scholarship so that Bunche could continue his education at Harvard.  He completed his Masters in political science in just a year.  He began teaching at Howard University, the nation’s most prestigious Black institution in the fall of 1928.  For the next six years he alternated terms at Howard and back at Harvard where he pursued his Doctorate.  He was named Chair of Howard’s Department of Political Science, a title he held until 1950 despite numerous absencesto conduct research or in war time or diplomatic service.

He received many honors and distinctions as a scholar.  The Rosenwald Fellowship in 1932 and 1933 enabled him to conduct research in Africa for a dissertation comparing Frenchrule in Togoland and Dahomey.  The resulting paper won the Toppan Prize for outstanding original research in the social sciences in 1934.  A fellowship from the Social Science Research Council from 1936-37 enabled Bunche to do postdoctoral research at Northwestern University, the London School of Economics, and the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

As he was becoming the acknowledged leading academic on African affairs and European Colonialism, he began to forcefully expound his sometimes controversial views.  His influential 1936 pamphlet A World View of Race argued, “…class will some day supplant race in world affairs. Race war will then be merely a side-show to the gigantic class war which will be waged in the big tent we call the world.”  From 1936-40 Bunche was contributing editor to a leftist academic journal, Science and Society: A Marxian Quarterly.

It was inevitable that with his credentials and expertise Bunche would be called upon for service during World War II.  He began as a senior analyst on colonial affairs at the Office of Strategic Services (OSS.)  There his knowledge of French possessions helped provide information that kept most of the sub-Saharan colonies in Free French hands and available as support for eventual action in North Africa.  He also provided insight on Nazi attempts to turn South African Boers against the British Empire.

In 1943 Bunche moved to the State Department where he served under Alger Hiss as Associate Chief of the Division of Dependent Area Affairs.  There he worked not only on African issues but as a leader of the Institute of Pacific Relations, and the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission. 

Bunche was active in preliminary planning for the Dumbarton Oaks Conversationsheld in Washington D.C. in 1944 and as an adviser to the U.S. Delegationfor the Charter Conference of the United Nations in 1945. He participated in the drafting of the Charter.  He worked closely with Eleanor Rooseveltin the creation and adoption of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.

Given his role in the birth of the institution, it came as no surprise when UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie asked to “borrow” Bunche from the State Department in 1946.  He was placed in charge of the Department of Trusteeship to oversee the numerous dependent areas that were placed under UN Trusteeship following the war.  It was delicate work, balancing the demands of former colonial masters and the growing anti-colonial nationalism of countries straining at the “transition” process to self-government.

In June, 1947 Bunche was assigned to work on the seemingly intractable problem of confrontation between Jewsand Arabs in Palestine.  He soon moved from assistant to the UN Special Committee on Palestine to Principal Secretary of the UN Palestine Commission, which was charged with carrying out the partition approved by the UN General Assembly. When the original partition plan was droppedamid intense fighting between Arabs and Israelisin early 1948 the UN appointed Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte as mediatorfor the conflict with Bunche as his chief aide. Count Bernadotte was assassinated in Jerusalem four months later on September 17 by the Zionist group Lehi. And Bunche was catapulted to chief mediator on Palestine. It was, theoretically a “temporary” appointment.

For eleven months Bunche conducted ceaseless negotiation from his headquarters on the island of Rhodes.   Israeli negotiator Moshe Dayan later reported on Bunche’s unorthodox style.  He often conducted one-on-one talks with the parties over supposedly casual gamesof billiards.  He generally kept the parties apart as much as possible since their mere presence with each other in the same room inflamed passions and tended to harden positions.  He shuffled the parties in an out getting little concessions here and there from both parties until he could finally bring them together to sign the 1949 Armistice Agreements  made successively between February and July between Israel and its neighbors, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordon, and Syria.  No party got what they really wanted, but all parties got what they could live with—at least for a while.

His accomplishments made Bunche an instant celebrity.  He was greeted in New York City by a ticker tape parade and his adopted home town of Los Angeles declared a Ralph Bunche Day. He was awarded the Spingarn Prize by the National Association of Colored People (NAACP) in 1949.  He was awarded 30 honorary degrees over the next three years.  He could not keep up with requests for speeches.  And all of this only intensified with the announcement of the Nobel Prize.

Of course, Bunche was not without critics.  His participation in the avowedly Marxist academic publication, his endorsement of National Negro Congress in the ‘30’s, and his close association with accused traitorAlger Hiss did not go unnoticed.  He was somewhat protected by the enormous prestige of the Nobel Prize—and the fact that he was no longer at the State Department. But he was subjected to an investigation by a Loyalty Board into American diplomats working at the United Nations in 1953 and had to personally appear and refute each of 14 spurious chargesagainst him.  Although he had the support of President Dwight Eisenhower, it was a painful and humiliating experience for him.

Many also did not appreciate his loud public support for Civil Rights causes.  Academically, he had participated in the groundbreaking research on American race relations by Swedish sociologistGunnar Myrdal and often spoken out about the absence of scientific evidence for differentiations among the races.  He publicly supported actions by both the NAACP and the Urban League.  He endorsedthe campaigns of non-violent civil disobedience of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and participated in the 1963 March on Washington.  Controversy around him probably cost him appointment as Secretary of State or Ambassador to the United Nations under John F. Kennedy.

The beneficiaries of his greatest achievement have not looked kindly towards him in recent years.  Palestiniansand Israelis have hardened even more toward one another after years of ongoing conflict and bloodshed.  Both wield their own oft revised views of historyas cudgels.  And both sides now feel that Bunche “sold them out” and blame the ongoing conflict in not getting everything they demanded in those tense negotiations.  Compromise and compromisersare no longer welcome in either camp.

For his part, the indefatigable Bunche resumed splitting his time numerous educational commitments, lecturing, and undertaking more missions for the United Nations.  From 1955 to 1967, he was Undersecretary for Special Political Affairs and from 1968 to his death was Undersecretary-General.  In 1960 Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld appointed him as his special representative to oversee the UN commitments in the war torn Congo and he served similarly during conflicts in Cyprus, Kashmir, and Yemen.

Bunche found time to teach at Harvard from 1950-52, serve on the New York City Board of Education from 1958-64, serve as a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers from 1960 to 65, as well as being a board member of the Institute of International Education, and a trustee of Oberlin College, Lincoln University, and New Lincoln School.

Bunche died, evidently of exhaustion, on December 9, 1971 at the age of 68.

In American letters there have been figures who nurtured the writers who became the voices of their generations.  There was the Sage of Concord, Ralph Waldo Emerson himself and his circle of acolytes and admirers.  William Dean Howells presided at The Atlantic and hobnobbed with Mark Twain and fostered the realist novelists who lifted the genre from genteel diversions for ladies and epic adventure yarns to a mirror of American life.  Ezra Pound in London and Paris and Harriet Monroe in Chicago nurtured a brood of modern poets.  These folks were writers themselves who mentored and encouraged other writers, most often through periodicals that they edited or controlled.

But the man who revolutionized the American novel and made it the preeminent literary force of the first half of the 20th Century was not himself a writer.  He held a previously obscure position—manuscript editor for a publishing house—and transformed it into a discoverer of new talent and an active partner with authors in shaping their books for the public eye.  In the process he became the most famous editor of all time—Maxwell Perkins.

Perkins was born into the perfectly respectable WASP upper middle class on September 20, 1884, in New York City but was raised in the leafy bedroom suburb of Plainfield, New Jersey, a place of large homes and expansive lawns.  His parents could afford to send him to a prestigious prep school, St. Paul’s in Concord, New Hampshire and on to Harvard where he studied economics in preparation for an expected career in banking or a brokerage house.

But at Harvard Perkins fell under the sway of Charles Townsend Copeland, a famous teacher of literature who ignited a passion for reading.

Upon graduation Perkins worked briefly as a reporter on the New York Times perhaps dreaming that it might be a stepping stone for a career as a writer.  But it was not a good fit.  In 1910 at age 26 he joined the distinguished—and stuffy—publishing house of Charles Scribner’s Sons as an advertising manager.  Scribner’s was the home of genteel giants of American fiction—Edith Warton, Henry James, and John Galsworthy who chronicled the lives of the American elite.

It took Perkins four years to reach his goal—moving to the editorial department where he became a manuscript reader and junior editor.  It was here that his talents shone, particularly what came to be described as his exquisite tasteand his eagerness to discover new talent that would break the bonds of convention.  That did not always make him popular with his superiors, but he shepherded enough good work to profitable publicationthat he could keep his job.

Perkins’s breakthrough came in 1919 when a manuscript landed on his desk that had been rejected with scathing comments by all of the company’s other readers.  The Romantic Egotist by a very young writer named F. Scott Fitzgerald was indeed rough.  But Perkins discerned talent.  For nearly two years he worked closely with the writer, guiding him through two complete revisions while continually advocating for the book with his bosses.

His approach would set a pattern.  He became not just a proof reader and style critic, but a friend and mentor to the young author, encouraging him, listening to his self-doubts, advising him on his tempestuous romance with a wealthy belle named Zelda, lending him money, and when necessary sobering him up.  Much later Roger Burlingame, a writer who came under his tutelage described Perkins’s unique approach, “He never tells you what to do.  Instead, he suggests to you, in an extraordinarily inarticulate fashion, what you want to do yourself.”

Despite all of his work, it looked like Scribner’s would finally reject the book.  At a last, desperate conference, Perkins appealed to the company’s sense of self-preservation, warning that if a talented writer like Fitzgerald was lost to them, he would find a publisher elsewhere, have a great success, and other promising young writers would follow him, “Then we might as well go out of business.”

Scribner’s held its own and published the re-titled This Side of Paradise was published in 1920 with the boast that the author was the youngest ever issued by the house. It became a best seller, a popular sensation, and the company’s biggest seller of the year.

Perkins continued to work with his wunderkind, bringing to publication the even bigger success of the Great Gatsby and then holding his hand through years of writer’s block, self-doubt, and heavy drinking, extracting from thewreckage what he could.  They remained personally and professionally close right up to the writer’s death.

Fitzgerald helped Perkins find his next discovery, when he wrote from Paris in 1924 recommending his friend and drinking companion Ernest Hemingway. The short novel the expatriate writer sent to New York with its terse language and shocking themes, required less editorial tinkering than Fitzgerald’s but did take a lot of cajoling to get his bosses, who were shocked by the use of curse words and sexual tension, to get the company to release A Sun Also Rises. 

Hemingway also became a close friend to his editor—and often had him attend to various business aspects of his sometimes messy life in addition to work on his manuscripts, even seeking his help in securing his house in Key West.  It was said that the first person Hemingway visited each time he was in New York was Maxwell Perkins.  After Perkins died his old friend dedicated The Old Man and the Sea to him—just one of 68 books dedicated to him by grateful authors. 

Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Perkins together remade the image of Scribner’s elevating it to undisputed first position among major American publishing houses.  And they were just getting started.

In 1927 Perkins came upon the greatest challenge of his career—the wildly talented and prolific Thomas Wolfe who presented him with thousands of typewritten manuscript pages.  Wolfe was everything Hemmingway was not—lush in his language, devoted to detailed and evocative description of scene and place, sprawling, undisciplined, and deeply emotionally attached to every sentence he wrote.