Man or Ass?

Image from Old and Welsh

Reconstruction, Negro Suffrage, &c. [excerpt]

Our fathers, in the adoption of the Constitutions of most of the States, required a property qualification before granting the right to vote. But this was a very mistaken and mischievious distinction, and experience soon convinced all reflecting men that there were thousands of intelligent and very worthy citizens, who from one cause or another, never acquired sufficient property to entitle them to vote, and who where, therefore, denied that privilege, while on the other hand, there were multitudes of those who possessed wealth, who were so depraved and ignorant that they were totally disqualified to vote understandingly, even on the most common and simple political issues of the day.

Benjamin Franklin explosed this humbug most thoroughly when he asked the question, if a man could not vote without owning an ass, and could vote if he did — whether it was the man or the ass which really voted?

Alton Weekly Telegraph (Alton, Illinois) Jun 16, 1865

“A Journalist,” said the Great Napoleon…

Image from Eponymous Flower

“A journalist,” said the great Napoleon, “is a grumbler, a censurer, a giver of advice, a regent of sovereigns, a tutor of nations. Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a hundred thousand bayonets.”

The Berkshire County Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) Mar 5, 1858

The House that Jeems Built

Image from U.S. History Images – Bleeding Kansas

THE HOUSE THAT JEEMS BUILT. —

Kansas with Slavery. — This is the house that Jeems built.

Southern influence and Gold. — This is the malt that lay in the house that Jeems built.

Shannon. — This is the rat that eat the malt that lay in the house that Jeems built.

Walker. — This is the cat that killed the rat that eat the malt that lay in the house that Jeems built.

Lecompton Constitution — This is the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that eat the malt that lay in the house that Jeems built.

Douglas — This is the cow with crumpled horn that tossed the dog, that worried the cat that killed the rat that eat the malt that lay in the house that Jeems built.

Kansas without Slavery — This is the maiden all forlorn that milked the cow with the crumpled horn that tossed the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that eat the malt that lay in the house that Jeems built.

The Union. — This is the man all tattered and torn that married the maiden all forlorn that milked the cow with the crumpled horn that tossed the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that eat the malt that lay in the house that Jeems built.

The American People. — This is the priest all shaven and shorn that married the man all tattered and torn unto the maiden all forlorn that milked the cow with the crumpled horn that tossed the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that eat the malt that lay in the house that Jeems built.

— Kansas Crusader for Freedom.

The Berkshire County Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) Mar 5, 1858

Thomas Chase: Last of Paul Jones’ Men

Image from the Revolutionary War and Beyond

The Last of Paul Jones’ Men.

To the Editor of the Whig & Courier:

During a recent visit to the County of Oxford, I found time to call on the venerable THOMAS CHASE, of Livermore, the last, probably, of Paul Jones’ men. Mr. Chase is now 88 years old, and, though the old hull is pretty much battered and decayed, his mind is clear, and his recollection of the stirring events of his youth, is distinct and vivid. He was born at Martha’s Vineyard; from which place he removed to L some fifty years ago, where he has since lived. He has ever enjoyed, and deservedly, the reputation of an industrious, intelligent, and thoroughly honest man. In fact, the name of “Uncle Chase” is the synonym of “honesty,” in the neighborhood where he lives.

He delights to tell the history of his early life — to relate the story of his numerous adventures and sufferings; but it is when he comes to speak of Paul Jones and his daring exploits — when he is describing, it may be, the engagement between the Richard and the Serapis, that his eye kindles and sparkles with unwonted brightness, and his voice, broken and almost inaudible before, becomes strong and clear, and he is ready to shoulder his crutch and show how ships were taken seventy years ago.

The outlines of his story, as near as I can recollect, are as follows: —

A Privateer came to the Vineyard in the early part of the Revolution, for the purpose of engaging a number of men to go out cruising on the coast. Chase, and about a dozen other young men joined them. After they had sailed they were, for the first time, informed that their destination was the coast of England. At this intelligence, they were a “good deal struck up,” though there were a few that were not displeased at the idea of going abroad, and among this number was Chase, who had a love of adulation and a strong desire to see foreign countries. —

They had not been long on the British coast before they discovered a British man-of-war, much too strong and powerful for them. As they were not noticed for sometime they had hopes of being able to escape, and tried to do so, — they were, however, seen, before they could get away, and were finally taken. In a few days the prisoners were put into another ship, and were shifted not less than three times in about four months. In one of the ships they suffered exceedingly — there were over 1400 souls, men, women, and children, Americans, French, &c. on board. The ship was dirty, the prisoners were dirty, sick and dying — large numbers died. At length the American prisoners were landed at Plymouth, and carried before two justices and a clerk and arraigned for treason. Witnesses were examined, and they were told that they would be committed to “Mill Prison,” on “suspicion of treason against his most Gracious Majesty, George the Third, and would there await their trial or His Majesty’s most Gracious pardon.” They were committed to this famous [or infamous] prison, and kept there twenty three months, during which time they underwent almost incredible privations and sufferings. At the end of twenty three months, (two years and a quarter after they were made prisoners) they were exchanged for British sea men and sent to France. They landed at a small town about ten miles below Nantes. Here they found a recruiting ship and were persuaded to enlist for the purpose of filling the crews required for the squadron, then fitting out at Le Orient, for John Paul Jones.

While at this place Mr. Chase very well recollects seeing John Adams on board the ship where he was. He was in his morning gown, walking the quarter deck when he saw him, and accompanied by his son, John Quincy Adams, then a boy some ten or twelve years old. Mr. Chase was one of the crew of the Alliance, Capt. Landais. His account of the celebrated engagement between the Bon Homme Richard, &c., the Serapis and Countess of Scarborough agrees in the main with that given by Mr. Cooper, though he differs with him in some respects. — He will not allow that the Alliance deserves all the left handed compliments paid to her by Mr. C. According to his account, it was the Alliance and not the Pallas, that disabled the Countess of Scarborough — that it was in consequence of the broadsides from the former that she struck — that the Pallas, coming up, rendered them valuable assistance, and was left in charge of the prize, while the Alliance went to the aid of Jones. And here, Mr. Chase says the Alliance also did good service — not to the enemy, as Mr. Cooper would have it, but to Jones.

When Jones sailed alongside of the Serapis, her commander hailed him — “who are you?’ Jones made no answer. The questions was repeated, “Who are you?” Tell me, or I’ll fire into you” “I will tell you when I get a little nearer!” roared Jones, in a voice that almost drowned the thunder of a simultaneous discharge of broadsides from the Richard and Serapis, which took place at that moment.

Chase was afterwards under Jones several months while he was in command of the Alliance, and became considerably acquainted with him. He was a man of great mechanical ingenuity, and an excellent worker of wood, and while at the Mill prison had beguiled many weary hours in whittling out some very curious wooden ladles, one of which he happened to have with him when Jones came to command the Alliance, and which so pleased Jones, that he gave him half a guinea for it for a punch ladle. He then employed him as a cabin joiner, and while in this capacity he saw a good deal of Jones, and had the vanity to believe he was quite a favorite.

Mr. Chase represents that Jones was liked by his own crew, but not generally by the crew of the Alliance. The crew of the Alliance were much attached to one of their Lieutenants, a Mr. Barkley of Boston, with whom Jones had a falling out, and who was sent below by Jones as the crew thought without sufficient cause. Jones tried to get him back, but he resolutely refused to stir without a Court Martial, Jones would not give him one and he did not go upon deck until Landais was reinstated.

He says Jones was a stern man — brave impetuous — a good man when the crew did well, but the devil if they did otherwise. He wanted everything done in its proper time and way, and everything in its place, and would have it. If his men did well, and took hold right he was kind and pleasant. He had a voice like a cannon, but which in ordinary conversation was rather thick and grum. He was of light complexion, and something, perhaps, below the medium stature. Chase speaks highly of his talents as a naval Commander, and says he always “liked Jones.”

En passant,]our friend is one of six revolutionary veterans (they are all Whigs,) now living in the fine old Whig town of Livermore. A year ago his son endeavored to persuade him to vote the anti-slavery ticket. “No, said he, “I was a Whig of ’76 — I am a Whig now — I have always been a Whig — I believe I shall die a Whig.”

X.

Bangor Daily Whig and Courier (Bangor, Maine) Sep 19, 1843

The Expedition:

Richard “Dick” Swete’s goal was to find, and preserve, all of John Paul Jones’ ships. A historian and underwater archaeologist, he spent years researching Jones and the American Revolutionary naval battle between the HMS Serapis and the HMS Bon Homme Richard. Gathering a group of volunteers, his own modest income and a great deal of perseverance, Swete laid plans to find Serapis.

Find out more HERE

Ralph S. Bauer: Reform Mayor of Lynn

Lynn, Massachusetts postcard image from Jovike’s photostream on flickr

LYNN
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Mayor Bauer of Lynn has spoken. No more shall the woman smoker be seen in that town on stage or screen. The billboards have also been purged of the contaminating influence exercised by the pictorial cigaret and girl. And the ukase will, we are sure, be heartening to everybody who worries about the frailties and peccadilloes of other folks and thinks something ought to be done about it.

Obviously, the Mayor of Lynn is every inch a wowser; Lynn itself, once gay and grimy, has come upon the semi-retirement of “the city that was.” Now its elegy may be written, in true wowserian strophe:

Here lies Lynn,
Sans gin, sans sin,
Sans Nicotin.

Decatur Herald (Decatur, Illinois) Oct 24, 1929

MAYOR BAUER’S REFORM.

Mayor Bauer of Lynn gets his name on the front pages of the newspapers again by issuing an ultimatum against bare-legged girls, but he would accomplish more as a reformer if he used a little quiet persuasion with school teachers and pupils.

We have failed to detect a grave menace in the fashion of bare sun-tanned legs. With all due regard to the sensitive nature of the fair sex, it must be said that most feminine legs are too imperfect in form and natural covering to permit of public display without artificial covering of some kind.

The bare-legged fashion will not get very far because most women have too much common sense to display the imperfections which are more conveniently concealed or minimized beneath sheer silk.

Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachusetts) Oct 1, 1929

“The notions that were bred into being years and years ago are now being assaulted and turned topsy-turvy. Our social conduct is changing. We must admit that. Thirty or 40 years ago, if a flapper appeared on the street in the same costume she wears today, she would have been rushed to jail as fast as the smoke left her heels. Now no one cares about the flapper’s dress except Mayor Bauer of Lynn.

Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachusetts) Nov 23, 1929

Not yet can they put you in jail for wondering so we wonder what Mayor Bauer of Lynn is going to attempt after he has pulled off that recently announced determination to make the school teachers of his city, men and women alike, cut out tobacco. It might be as well to wait until he has made good on that ruling before thinking up the next play for front page position in the newspapers.

If the Lynn teachers are human beings, the mayor is likely enough going to find it harder to make them quit the smoking habit than it was to give his city a reduced tax rate. It will be more or less like enforcing the Volstead act.

Theoretically, it can be done, and the dry leaders can prove it. Actually, it has not yet been done, and the wet leaders say you can’t prove it can be. Looking at it from a distance, it doesn’t strike us as being any of the Lynn mayor’s business if the school teachers wish to smoke, providing they do it in reason. We shouldn’t say that the women teachers should smoke at any time, and not at all in public. But as for exercising that privilege in their own homes it is hard to see where the mayor has any particular call to get stuffy about it.

As to making the men teachers take the anti-nicotine pledge, he has accepted a real job if the male breed down that way is anything like normal. The joker in the cold deck which Mayor Bauer has picked up appears in the situation as it affects the pupils in the schools.

Mayor Bauer may conceivably make the school teachers as smokeless as he decrees, but we have a natural curiosity to know how he is going to make the boys and girls who go to school quit it. Not that we know whether the Lynn school girls smoke, but many of the boys do, unless down in Lynn boys are no longs boys. For which reason the pupils are going to snicker as they look at their poor hen-pecked teachers who dare not smoke for fear of losing their jobs. And you don’t have to be a slave to nicotine to see the humor of the situation which Lynn’s great reform mayor seeks to bring about.

The Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachusetts) Sep 8, 1926

Bone Dry or No Football Game

Lynn, Mass., Nov. 26. (AP) — Mayor Ralph S. Bauer saw so much drinking at the Harvard-Yale football game at Cambridge Saturday, he said, that he has ordered the Thanksgiving Day high school contest here to be bone dry or stopped.

Twelve thousand persons at the stadium for the Yale-Harvard contests, he estimated yesterday, were more interested in quart bottles and hip flasks than anything else. Many women “took a pull out of the bottles the same as the men,” the Mayor said, and neither the police nor the faculty interfered.

The Rev. Garfield Morgan, pastor of the Center Congregational Church, according to the Mayor, was approached by some one in a big fur coat who said to him, “you look like an old timer, have a drink.”

“Can this be the same Harvard of which the late President Eliot used to boast?” Mayor Bauer asked. “The factor that made her the dominant educational institution of our land was that she had been building men for nearly 300 years?”

On the Mayor’s order, the police chief will station fifty patrolmen and sergeants on duty Thursday at the Lynn-English classical high game with orders to arrest all persons who drink and to stop the game if drinking becomes serious.

Kingston Daily Freeman (Kingston, New York) Nov 26, 1929

Mayor Bauer, of Lynn, addressing a meeting of the Women’s Republican club at  Cambridge, Mass., this week, said there were about 4,000 too many municipal employes in Boston and that he could discharge all of them without one being missed. “All city governments are ‘good fellow’ governments,” the mayor told his audience. “Public officials feel they have got to get jobs for their constituents and they don’t care whether there exists a job or not.”

The Bridgeport Telegram (Bridgeport, Connecticut) Jun 30, 1927

“THE NAKED TRUTH.”

“The Naked Truth” which is now showing at the Park theatre has caused considerable comment and discussion recently in Boston and Lynn, Mass. The Mayor of Boston, refused permission to present the film to Bostonians, and immediately upon taking this stand, Mayor Bauer of Lynn viewed the film and passed on it as a good and proper picture, bearing a message of beneficial value to the community and permitted the Lynn Auditorium to show the film for four weeks to record-breaking crowds. The film is featured by an all-star cast supported by Jack Mulhall and Helene Chadwick. This is the first showing of the film in this vicinity. “The Naked Truth” is to the point and calls a spade a spade.

The Bridgeport Telegram (Bridgeport, Connecticut) Nov 2, 1926

Image from Shorpy

DOGS MAY ROAM

LYNN, Mass., — Dec. 14. — (By The Associated Press.) — By proclamation of Mayor Bauer, dogs are assured the freedom of the streets if they do not make nuisances of themselves nor obstruct traffic like some political aspirants do. The more he sees of men, the more respect the mayor has for dogs. The proclamation was issued after state authorities urged that stray dogs be rounded up and killed because of the spread of rabies.

Ogden Standard Examiner (Ogden, Utah) Dec 14, 1927

Images of John P. McGloin from the Lynn Museum and Historical Society

Independent baseball will be played on the playgrounds at Lynn this summer with Mayor Fred Manning tossing out the first ball. Former Mayor Bauer stopped the games on the playgrounds when he was in office.

Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachusetts) Jul 12, 1930

Mayor of Lynn

Ralph Sherman Bauer

Image from NOBLE Digital Heritage

The following biographical information (from Descendants of HANS MICHAEL BAUER, (BOWER)) tells of Mayor Bauer “pulling himself up by the bootstraps” and making a life for himself:

Notes for RALPH SHERMAN BOWER:

His father died when he was only seven years old. Even at that extremely early age he became the main support of a family consisting of his mother and three sisters, the youngest a nursing baby. The family then living in Philadelphia and it was there that Ralph S. Bauer began his career in the newspaper business. The result of his first day’s sales as a “newsie” was cents. From that time on, every dollar he has ever had has been made by his own business ability. During the first 15 years of his life, there was no kind of human poverty this family did not face, and through it all, held together as a family and received such education as could be obtained under such circumstances.

When Ralph Bauer, yet in his teens, determined to exchange the environment of Philadelphia for cultured Boston, his [wealth] when he landed amounted to 27 cents. Many were the hours of loneliness that were his, with neither kith nor kin nearer than the PA metropolis. Many were the night he slept on a Boston Common bench with the star-studded blue dome of the heavens above, his only coverlet. Oft were dreams rudely disturbed by the smart blow of a patrolman’s night-stick on the thin soles of his tattered shoes. Always with warm appreciation will remained his memory of one of Boston’s guardians of the peace, who drew from him the tale of his struggles for existence. Never will he forget the warmth of the coat the officer tucked about his lusty body while he promised to rouse him from his slumbers in time to get his share of the profits from the early morning edition of the Herald. True to his word the officer awakened the sleeping lad and provided him with a good hot breakfast. If that man is still alive today Ralph Bauer would like to know his whereabouts, for he has never forgotten his kindness to a little lonely lad in a great city, far from his lived ones. He was graduated from the Boston Latin school and immediately thereafter obtained a position in the mailing department of the Boston Herald.

Who Then Shall Be Saved?

Dr. Meiklejohn Says Our National Wealth is a Viper That is Destroying Us …

And We Know What a Terrible Worry it is to Rich Men …

And Besides, Money is the Root of All Evil …

But We All Take a Chance!

Decatur Herald (Decatur, Illinois) Oct 17, 1929

Image and quote from searchQuotes

Whatever the immediate gains and losses, the dangers to our safety arising from political suppression are always greater than the dangers to the safety resulting from political freedom. Suppression is always foolish. Freedom is always wise.
— Alexander Meiklejohn

Looks Favorable for ’12

A Change

Looks Favorable for 1912

Robesonian (North Carolina) Jan 2, 1912

Git Out, and Never Darken My Door Again!

Hopeful New Year!

Cambridge City Tribune (Cambridge, Connecticut) Jan 5, 1939

Packing the Supreme Court

Supreme Court Packing Case:

What About Some Future President with Dictatorship Ideas?

El Paso Herald-Post (El Paso, Texas) Mar 9, 1937

RUSH! – A Big Order for FDR:

Pack the Supreme Court

CONGRESS – “We didn’t ask for that!”

El Paso Herald-Post  (El Paso, Texas) Mar 16,  1937

Packing the Supreme Court

Patronage and the Vote

El Paso Herald-Post  (El Paso, Texas) Mar 22,  1937

Three Rousing Cheers for Approval!

While labor disputes and war continue.

El Paso Herald-Post  (El Paso, Texas)  Mar 29,  1937

Age of Miracles!

The Supreme Court Lays Golden Eggs!

El Paso Herald-Post  (El Paso, Texas) Apr 2,  1937

The Supreme Court’s Inconspicuous Start

Image from Architect of the Capitol

Supreme Court Of The United States Had An Inconspicuous Start

Washington — In a small and undignified chamber on the first floor of the unfinished Capitol of the United States, there assembled in 1801 a body of nine men who probably in the next few years did as much as anyone to mold the still malleable forms of the American Government.

The recent reconvening of the Supreme Court for its 1927-28 term, from October to June here, recalls the inauspicious beginnings of the body in the days of John Marshall. No branch of the Government and no institution under the Constitution, it has been said, has sustained more continuous attack or reached its present position after more vigorous opposition. Today, in black-robed dignity, under the benign smile of Chief Justice William H. Taft, the court sits in assured national respect, in the room in the Capitol which was the Senate Chamber 50 years ago. In 10 or 15 years more the court will sit in its own million-dollar building authorized by the last Congress, to be located on the hill near the Library of Congress.

Quarters Were Inconspicuous

But in 1801, and in the year of the famous Marbury vs. Madison decision, which decided once and for all the court’s power to review, and, if need be, declare unconstitutional acts of Congress, the Supreme Court sat in a chamber only 24 feet wide, 30 feet long, 21 feet high, and rounded at the south end. This was the room casually set aside for it only two weeks before the court came for the first time, in 1800, to the “Federal City,” known now as Washington, D.C.

After 12 years of control by the Federalists, John Adams had been defeated. Jeffersonian Democracy was to have its opportunity. Feeling ran high. Along the unpaved streets of the little capital-town that is now the center of America’s co-ordinated Government, new and old office-holders came almost to blows. Riding into power came the “Anti-Federalists” or Republicans, not to be confused with the present party of that name. Eventually they were to become the Democratic party. Tammany Hall still inscribes its campaign inscription with “Democratic-Republican candidates.”

The Anti-Federalists, with Jefferson, had won the executive and the legislative fields in 1800, but it was the Federal strategy to hold control of the judiciary. A short time before retiring, President Adams almost doubled the number of inferior federal courts and filled them with supporters. Then on Jan. 20, 1801, a little while before leaving office, he sent the name of his Secretary of State to the Senate for confirmation as the _______ Justice. It is recorded that John Marshall, under the stress of the times, nearly failed confirmation at the outset of his 34 years in office.

Image from awesomestories – MARBURY VS. MADISON

Mingled With the People

John Marshall, the man who upheld the right of judicial review and thereby definitely confirmed that the American Government should ride three-wheeled instead of tandem, with equal powers divided between executive, legislative and judiciary, was regarded as a tower of strength by the Federals. He as a man who felt he could mingle with the people without losing dignity, for he pitched quoits, dressed carelessly, read novels ceaselessly, it is said, and went to market — basket on arm.

He was reared in Fauquier county, Va., served in the Revolution, and was the oldest of a family of 15. From the same state came his arch-opponent in constitutional theory, Thomas Jefferson, the new President. At one end of the unpaved Pennsylvania avenue, in the White House, sat the man who believed in states’ rights; in the stuffy room over the basement, east entrance hall, of the unfinished Capitol sat John Marshall, the very embodiment of the theory of a strong central government.

Decision Delayed Two Years

The incident that made the Supreme Court what it is today came almost at once. Under the act rushed through by the Federalists establishing additional judicial offices a certain William Marbury and three others were named justices of the peace in the District of Columbia. Jefferson coming into office instructed James Madison, as Secretary of State, to refuse to issue their commissions. Marbury and his associates moved by their counsel in December, 1801, in the Supreme Court for a mandamus — a writ requiring a person to do a specified act. A delay of two years ensued. Justice Marshall did not have congested dockets to excuse his delay, but weightier political reasons for withholding judgment.

Then from the small room in the Capitol in 1803 was first enunciated from the Supreme Bench in unmistakable language the doctrine that judicial control over legislation is implied in the provisions of the Federal Constitution. In fact, Chief Justice Marshall was the first man who declared an act of Congress unconstitutional.

Image from Free North Carolina

Comment Still Continues

The Marbury vs. Madison decision declared Marbury was entitled to office and that a mandamus was the rightful remedy. However, the application for the latter from the Supreme Court was denied, on the ground that the authority given the Supreme Court by a recent Judiciary Act of Congress was not warranted by the Constitution. Comment has continued on the decision from that day to this.

The right of judicial review is still challenged. Chief Justice Walter Clark of North Carolina, for example, declared the authority of the court is a “doctrine never held before, nor in any country since,” and attacked it as giving sovereignty in the Nation to a majority of the court — “to five lawyers, holding office for life, and not elected by the people.” On the whole, however, the Nation has supported the Marshall view. The whole course of American democratic development since then has been founded upon it.

Today as the nine Supreme Court justices file into their decorous chamber, led by Chief Justice Taft, smiling broadly, and greeted with old-time pomp of prim, deferential bows from clerk and court attaches, they probably have to thank John Marshall not only for their expanded quarters but for the dignity and power which, under him, the great judicial body has obtained.

— Christian Science Monitor.

Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin) Oct 13, 1927