She is So Very Gifted!

Gifted

By ANNE CAMPBELL

She is so very gifted!
If she should write a song,
The lyric would be garbled,
The melody all wrong.
But singing to her baby
She builds a world of peace
Where sorrow does not enter,
And dark forebodings cease.

She is so very gifted!
She cannot write a book,
But all the world grows brighter
Beneath her cheerful look.
Her mind is not creative,
But with homemaking hands
She fashions all the beauty
Her family demands.

She is so very gifted!
She tries sometimes to paint,
But on her day’s brief canvas
She sketches no complaint.
Her gifts are of the spirit,
And there is joyful proof
They do not go unnoticed
Beneath her star-crowned roof.

Syracuse Herald (Syracuse, New York) Apr 5, 1937

Liberty Fetes Constitution

The Constitution — America’s Gibraltar

Fresno Bee Republican (Fresno, California) Sep 17, 1937

Constitution Adopted September 17, 1787

A Rock Foundation

Hamilton Daily News Journal (Hamilton, Ohio) Sep 17, 1937

Have you ever seen the Statue of Liberty’s torch ablaze before? Then just look how the smoke pours from it above. The occasion was the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution. Army and Navy color guards join to present the colors on the parapet of the statue’s pedestal, Bedloe’s Island, New York harbor.

The Helena Independent (Helena, Montana) Se[ 17, 1937

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Taking as his theme the history of the Constitution, the attacks which have been made upon it and the security it provides the American people, Associate Justice John A. Matthews, principal speaker at yesterday’s Kiwanis meeting said that while the communist party boasts of 500,00 members in this country, an even greater threat to liberty is being made by “intelligent demagogues.”

He cited as an example of the latter, Jay Franklin, author of several “leftist” books and regarded in some circles as a leader in socialistic government tendencies. He referred in particular to a statement attributed to Franklin that the Constitution had been framed by a group of “old farmers.”

Greatest of Time

“As a matter of fact,” the speaker said, “the Constitution was written by the greatest students of government ever gathered together at one time.” In the group were college presidents, ambassadors, governors, members of the Continental congress and others who had proved themselves the most brilliant men of their times.

The average age of this group, he said, was 42 years refuting the implication and “doddering old timers” were responsible for the document.

Swinging into a brief discussion of the Supreme court, over which wide spread discussion has rested because of the president’s plan to pack it, Judge Matthews asserted that unfavorable comment about fire-to-four decisions of the court was unfounded.

Two Favorable

“Actually,” he said, “until the time for the Supreme court furor last winter only three of nine New Deal decisions were by a five-to-four decision. And of these three, two were favorable to the government.”

Generally, Kiwanis voted his talk one of the most interesting of the year.

The speaker was introduced by Warren Batch, program chairman. Musical entertainment included two vocal solos by Mrs. Dorothy Statler, accompanied at the piano by Mrs. Pearl Johnson.

The Helena Independent (Helena, Montana) Sep 14, 1937

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Lower the Net?

Abilene Morning News (Abilene, Texas) Feb 17, 1937

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Previous Constitution Day posts:

What You Should Know About Our Constitution

Preserving Our Constitution

Constitution Day 1922 – Study the Constitution

Across the Path of Popular Impatience

Constitution Proclamation

The New Deal and the Constitution

Progressive Economics: Dealt from a Pack Thumbed by Kings, Despots and Tyrants

The U.S. Constitution: Wet or Dry

A Constitution Day Thought

Herbert Hoover’s Poignant Duty

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 For the Portsmouth Times.

NOTA BENE.

A KING once said, “I am the State;”
Did his assertion make it true?
Another heard the words, “Too late!”
As from his land and throne he flew.

One ruler, in our own fair land,
Sets up his will as all in all;
A greater issues his command,
Liberty’s Goddess to enthral.

When “Constitution” is prefixed “Un-”
And ended by a small “A.L.,”
Are laws illegal, all but one?
And that the law which would compel?

What follows, then? Have we no laws?
No Constitution to uphold?
Judge for yourselves, ye who can draw
Prophetic truth from histories old.

X. ENTRIC.
PORTSMOUTH, O., Nov. 27th, 1862.

The Portsmouth Times (Portsmouth, Ohio) Dec 6, 1862

Antietam: ‘By heaven! it was a goodly sight to see – For one who had no friend or brother there.’

Image from: (Google book link)

Title: The Secret Service, the Field, the Dungeon, and the Escape
Author: Albert Deane Richardson
Publisher    American Pub. Co., 1865

Incidents of Antietam.

We take the following incidents of the battle of Antietam from “The Field, The Dungeon and the Escape,” by A.D. Richardson.

My confrere and myself were within a few yards of Gen. Hooker. It was a very hot place. We could not distinguish the ‘ping’ of the individual bullets, but their combined and mingled hum was like the din of a great Lowell factory. Solid shot and shell came shrieking through the air, but over our heads, as we were on the extreme front.

Hooker – common-place before — the moment he heard the guns, loomed up into gigantic stature. His eye gleamed with the grand anger of battle. He seemed to know exactly what to do, to feel that he was master of the situation, and to impress every one else with the fact. Turning to one of his staff, and pointing to a spot near us, he said:

“Go and tell Capt. ____ to bring his battery and plant it there, at once.”

The lieutenant rode away. After giving one or two further orders with great clearness rapidity and precision, Hooker’s eye again turned to that mass of rebel infantry in the woods, and he said to another officer with great emphasis:

“Go and tell Capt. ____ to bring his battery here instantly!”

Sending more messages to the various divisions and batteries, only a single member of the staff remained.

Once more scanning the woods with his eagle eye, Hooker directed the aid:

“Go, and tell Capt. ____ to bring the batter y without one second’s delay. Why, my God, how he can pour it into their infantry.”

By this time seven of the body-guard had fallen from their saddles. Our horses plunged wildly. A shell plowed the ground under my rearing steed, and another exploded near Mr. Smalley, throwing great clouds of dust over both of us. Hooker leaped his white horse over a low fence into an adjacent orchard, whither we gladly followed. Though we did not move more than thirty yards, it took us comparatively out of range.

The desired battery, stimulated by three successive messages, came up with smoking horses, at a full run, was unlimbered in the twinkling of an eye, and began to pour shots into the enemy, who were also suffering severely from our infantry charges. IT was not many seconds before they began to waver. — Through the rifting smoke we could see their line sway to and fro; then it broke like a thaw in a great river. Hooker rose up in his saddle, and, in a voice of suppressed thunder, exclaimed:

“There they go, . . . . . . . Forward!”

Our whole line moved on. It was now nearly dark. Having shared the experience of ‘Fighting Joe Hooker’ quite long enough, I turned toward the rear. Fresh troops were pressing forward, and stragglers were ranged in long lines behind rocks and trees.

Riding slowly along a grassy slope, as I supposed quite out of range, my meditations were disturbed by a cannon ball, whose rush of air fanned my face, and made my horse shrink and read almost upright. The next moment came another behind me, and by the great blaze of a fire of rails, which the soldiers had built, I saw it ricochet down the slope like a foot ball, and pass right through a column of our troops in blue who were marched steadily forward. The gap which it made was immediately closed up.

Men with litters were grouping through the darkness, bearing the wounded to the ambulances.

At nine o’clock I wandered to a farm-house, occupied by some of our pickets. We dared not light candles as it was within range of the enemy. The family had left. I tied my horse to an apple tree and lay down upon the parlor floor, with my saddle for a pillow. At intervals during the night we heard the popping of musketry, and at the first glimpse of dawn the picket officer shook me by the arm.

“My friend,” said he, “you had better go away as soon as you can; this place is getting rather hot for civilians.”

I rode around through the field, for shot and shell were already screaming up the narrow lane.

Thus commenced the long, hotly-contested battle of Antietam. Our line was three miles in length, with Hooker on the right, Burnside on the left, and a great gap in the centre, occupied only by artillery; while Fitz John Porter with the fine corps was held in reserve. From dawn until nearly dark the two great armies wrestled like athletes, straining every muscle, losing here, gaining there, and at many points fighting the same ground over and over again. It was a fierce, sturdy, indecisive conflict.

Five thousand spectators viewed the struggle from a hill comparatively out of range. — Not more than three persons were struck there during the day, McClellan and his staff occupied another ridge half a mile in the rear.

‘By heaven! it was a goodly sight to see
For one who had no friend or brother there.’

No one who looked upon that wonderful panorama can describe or forget it. Every hill and valley, every corn field, grove and cluster of trees was fiercely fought for.

The artillery was unceasing; we could often count more than sixty guns to the minute. It was like the patter of rain drops in an April shower. On the great field were riderless horses and scattering men, clouds of dirt from solid shot and expending shells, long, dark, lines of infantry swaying to and fro, with columns of smoke rising from their muskets, red flashes and white puffs from the batteries — with the sun shining brightly on all this scene of tumult, and beyond it, upon the dark, rich woods, and the clear, blue mountains south of the Potomac.”

The Herald and Torch Light (Hagerstown, Maryland) Aug 16, 1865

Seventy five years ago Corp. Basil Lemley, left, 94, fought with the Union army, and Capt. Robert E. Miles, center, 98 was on the side of the Confederacy in the bloody Civil war battle of Antietam. The two ex-soldiers put aside their one-time enmity and sealed their friendship with a handshake above, with President Roosevelt, right, when he visited the battlefield near Sharpsburg, Maryland on Constitution day.

Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin) Sep 18, 1937

Image from Mr Lincoln & Friends – Ozias M. Hatch

After the battle of Antietam, when McClellan’s army lay unaccountably idle, Lincoln, with his friend, O.M. Hatch of Illinois, went to the front. They stood on a hill from which they could view the vast camp, and Lincoln said:

Lincoln — Hatch, Hatch, what is all this?

Hatch — Why, that is the Army of the Potomac.

Lincoln — No, Hatch, no. That is General McClellan’s bodyguard.

The Bee (Danville, Virginia) Jul 31, 1952

John Dewey Slew the Little Red School House

Image from The Center for Dewey Studies

Says Teachers ‘Pale Pink.’

American school teachers, often denominated as politically “red,” average up “pale pink,” according to preliminary conclusion reached in connection with a national poll made by the John Dewey Society for the Study of Education.

The poll, extending to 3,000 teachers in the 48 states, is in charge of Dr. George W. Hartman of Pennsylvania State college. He reports that the average teacher tends to support a number of “incompatible policies” and that the “radical” group of teachers is better informed on social issues and public problems of the day than the conservatives. This latter observation probably is true of citizens generally, since the conservatives is often disposed to take the status quo for granted while the “advanced thinker” has reasons, real or imaginary, on which he justifies his position.

An outstanding contradiction was reported to be the prominence of Socialist convictions and sentiments and the relatively small number intending to vote for Norman Thomas for president. Dr. Hartman found that the “typical teacher approves of many far-reaching reforms but his dissent from the status quo is that of a gradualist rather than that of a revolutionist.” Of those polled, 59 per cent expressed the view that an annual family income of approximately $4,000 could be obtained if the productive equipment of the nation were operated at full capacity.

Under the capitalistic system, with the progressives and radicals acting as a spur in the flanks of the large conservative element, income over the years has shown a pretty consistent increase. While some might consider $4,000 a year a high average goal, it is gratifying to find that the teachers favor working toward it under the doctrine of abundance rather than that of scarcity.

Billings Gazette (Billings, Montana) Jul 23, 1936

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“What school teachers think about public questions is important, because their thinking affects their work and tends to mold the minds of the rising generation,” says an exchange, citing 3,000 replies to a questionnaire sent out by the John Dewey Society for the Study of Education….

More than half believe that several millions of our unemployed will “never again find steady work at good wages in a capitalist society.

Only 15 per cent think teachers have a moral obligation to remain entirely neutral on debatable issues, in class and elsewhere.

Ninety-eight per cent reject the idea that the school “has no business trying to improve society.”

Three-fourths favor a federal department of education.

Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin) Aug 12, 1936

Commission Finds Trotsky Innocent

New York, Dec. 13. — Leon Trotsky was informed Monday that an international commission of inquiry had found him innocent of counter-revolutionary activities and had declared the trial of 17 of his sympathizers a “frame-up.”

Dr. John Dewey, philosopher and author, was introduced to a mass meeting Sunday night as “the Zola of our age,” read the commission’s review of the evidence and concluded:

“We therefore find the Moscow trials to be a frame-up. We therefore find Trotsky and Leon Sedoff (his son) not guilty.”

Billings Gazette (Billings, Montana) Dec 14, 1937

Image from English Russia – Only in Russia!

DR. DEWEY FLAYS STALIN REGIME.

Dr. John Dewey, professor of philosophy at Columbia university and chairman of the committee that “retried” Leon Trotsky on the charge of treason to Soviet Russia, is utterly disgusted with the Soviet as it is now being operated. This noted American philosopher spent a long, long time peering under the surface of the Trotsky case and what he finds is that the effort to make the proletariat supreme has resulted in the most ruthless and dictatorial political regime that is in operation anywhere today.

Not that he cares anything as between the two personalities Stalin and Trotsky, Dr. Dewey says, but he had hoped for much from the Russian experiment. He finds that experiment now deteriorated into a mass of misrepresentation, lies, propaganda and violence. The people of Russia are kept in ignorance of what is going on in the world and even in their own country. His views are published in the Washington Post.

To those who say that the end justifies the means, Dr. Dewey replies with a bit of philosophy, so startlingly true that its significance comes as a shock to the minds of many. That philosophy, the end justifies the means, is so deeply ingrained in the minds of many Communists that the radicals in this country resort to it in their defense of the Stalin regime by justifying the present assassinations in Russia.

But Dr. Dewey says that the means that are employed decide the ends or the consequences which are ultimately attained. Thus, when violence is used to bring about so-called political and economic reforms violence must be employed to keep the new government in power and violence becomes its principal weapon, not only upon those who are opposed but even within the party itself. Thus all idea of democracy is lost. The means have dominated the ends that were sought to be attained.

The venerable American philosopher, who because he expressed the belief that the world could learn much from the Russian experiment, was himself sometimes called a Communist, has given up all his cherished hopes for Russia. He believes that Communist Russia and Nazi Germany are growing very much alike. There is simply the employment of force to maintain a regime, the holding of the people in ignorance through vicious propaganda, misinformation and fear.

Declaring that he cares little more for Trotksy’s ideas than he does for the scheme of things that is carried on by Stalin, Dr. Dewey insists that the Trotsky trials were a “frame-up” of crooked testimony and evidence; that the Russian prosecutor did not follow the legal rules of evidence under Russian law. All of this Dr. Dewey proposes to prove not only to the satisfaction of Americans but to the confusion of the Russians themselves.

Finally he bids American radicals to see the truth. There is a growing tendency among these radicals to conceal the truth regarding Russian affairs in this country. “They can accomplish nothing by hiding the truth,” he said. “Truth, instead of being a bourgeois virtue, is the mainspring of all human progress.”

Montana Standard (Butte, Montana) Jan 2, 1938

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Groups Are Criticized For School Meddling
(Associated Press)

New York, Feb. 24. — Curtailment of Academic freedom by pressure groups which seek to impose their doctrines on the nation’s school children was held by John Dewey society today to be “definitely on the increase.”

Describing it as one of the “most vital issues of the day” the society said in announcing the 1938 year book, teachers have been reprimanded and even dismissed from jobs for teaching accepted facts about history, science and civics which, for one reason or another, were disagreeable to certain groups in their communities.

Progressive as well as conservative organizations which seek to hamstring school teachers with rules and regulations were denounced in the year book as enemies of democracy.

Among them were listed the “ancestor worshipers” with D.A.R., Sons of American Revolution and United Daughters of Confederacy included in the category — military organizations like the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars and patriotic organizations like the National Civic Federation, the Paul Reveres and Key Men.

Greeley Daily Tribune (Greeley, Colorado) Feb 25, 1938

Lima News (Lima, Ohio) Mar 5, 1938

LET’S NOT DODGE ISSUE

Dear Editor:

Public schools may not teach “religion,” at least A religion, that is settled; but the general rule in courts of law in this country is that for a witness to qualify as such and testify under oath “he must possess a conscience alive to the accountability to a higher power than human law in case of falsehood.” (American Jurisprudence, 1948 ed. page 96, vol. 58.) This rule is entirely in harmony with the federal constitution, as it was the established common law at the time of the adoption of that constitution and still obtains in states that have not changed it by their own local law.

In Soviet Russia school children are taught that there is no “accountability to a higher power” than the law of Stalin. The prevailing doctrine is found in the teaching of Karl Marx that: “Religion is the sighing of a creature oppressed by misfortune; it is the ‘soul’ of the world that has no heart, as it is the intelligence of an unintelligent epoch. It is the opium for the people.”

Such doctrine is closely akin to that of John Dewey, “who identifies religion with superstition when he says that religion originated in man’s fear and his effort to safeguard himself in every way possible against unknown and uncontrollable forces and changes.” So writes an anti-Communist Russian authority. (Demiashkevich, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, p. 113.) The same writer quotes Dewey as saying that “As a drowning man is said to grasp at a straw” so men who lacked the modern implements and skills snatched at religion as “a source of help in time of trouble.” So, the disciples of John Dewey (whether teachers or others) are naturally against teaching “accountability to a “higher power than human law,” whether you call it “religion,” “ethics,” or merely “good citizenship.”

Accordingly, they now propose to teach ABOUT religions — probably in the same manner that that topic would be treated in the World Almanac or the Book of Facts. Since there is no more mature subject than that of Comparative Religion, which embraces all the sects and philosophies, we may see at once what a synthetic plate of “bolonie” would be served out to the youngsters whose parents are still trying to teach some good old-fashioned ideas of “right” and “wrong.” Such negativistic mush would be a fraud and a fake — certainly a poor antidote against the atheism of the USSR.

If our boys are dying in Korea to save the world from communism and atheism then the public schools ought to find a way to teach these facts; but if, on the other hand, they are bleeding to preserve an adoration of John Dewey’s world of “instruments and skills,” materialistic comfort, and scientific gadgets, let’s not be hypocritical enough to dodge the issue and teach ABOUT religions. Call it “morals,” “citizenship,” or “social science,” but teach that communism, atheism and slavery go hand in hand; that the American tradition requires an “accountability to a higher power than human law.”

ROBERT B. RALLS
186 North Meyer street

Tucson Daily Citizen (Tucson, Arizona) Apr 16, 1951

Image from Fans in a Flashbulb

These Days . . .

By GEORGE E. SOKOLSKY

Do you know the teachers of your children? They speak of tenure, of academic freedom, of their rights to their jobs. But what have you to say about your children? After all, they are your children and you are responsible for them, for their minds, their bodies, their spirits.

What do the teachers of your children know? What have they been taught? Have they had a broad, humanistic training or are they specialists in methods of pedagogy?
…..

Does your child come home an say, “All fathers are alike,” when your child has repeated to the teacher some criticism you have made of the teacher or textbooks?

For instance, the other day, I heard a child talk about starvation in India. Nothing had been said about sacred cows and sacred monkeys and wild dogs who eat the food of the people and who may not be killed. Could we rescue the people of India if we sent them all our surplus wheat? The fact is that the teacher wants to make the child like the united nations and point four and all that, but the teacher did not say that the peoples of India starve because they do not grow enough food per acre and that a religion which sacrifices living human beings to living animals is partially responsible. The teacher told a half-truth for political purposes.

You need to know what a teacher believes. The teacher says that it is none of your business. The teacher says that the Constitution, under the fifth amendment, protects a citizen in his beliefs. That is absolutely true. A citizen can believe anything he likes: That the moon is made of green cheese, that Karl Marx is as great an historic figure as Moses, Jesus, Aristotle and Plato; that John Dewey was the greatest philosopher of all time. That is a teacher’s private business.

But your child is your business. It is correct that a teacher may be a Republican, a Democrat, a communist, a Catholic, Protestant, Jew or Christian Scientist. He may believe that vitamins will save the world or that vaccination will ruin the world.

But none of that solves the problem of your own responsibility for your own children. No child need be sent to a school whose teachers offend a parent’s beliefs. The child must have a certain amount of “education,” according to the law. That may require the parents to pay for the upkeep of two schools. Many do.

The various organizations of teachers object to this attitude. They wish to make a fetish of the public school system and put it above and beyond criticism. In a country like ours, nothing, but absolutely nothing, should be above and beyond criticism.

(Copyright, 1951, King Features Syndicate, Inc.)

Billings Gazette (Billings, Montana) Dec 18, 1951

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Haney Conducts Question And Answer Column Today

BY LEWIS HANEY

Professor of Economics, New York University

Highland Park, Ill., asks: “I was surprised to learn that Mr. Goslin is on the advisory staff of the National Citizens Commission for the Public Schools. What do you know of this organization? What do you think of a man in the U.S. Office of Education rebuking an Indianapolis school teacher for criticizing  British socialism?

Answer: The two facts you mention tie together. The U.S. Office of Education is in harmony with the ideas of the Nat’l Citizens Commission. Goslin is an advisor. All three agree. A,D. Morse in a magazine article on the schools links them. The fact that a representative of the U.S. Office doesn’t want socialism criticized is typical of the whole set-up. The list of members of the commission shows that it is closely interlocked with the so-called Public Education Ass’n, the CIO, and the Committee of Econ. Develoop. The Pubic Ed. Ass’n is an outfit which joins the Nat’l Education Ass’n trust in propaganda for molding “the whole child” and viciously attacking those who criticize progressive education.

I would say that they are all tarred with the same stick — progressive education slanted toward collectivism. I can find among their leaders no critics of socialism or progressive education. The Nat’l Citizens Committee (with its typical “workshop” conferences) may well have been set up in 1949 as a cover for N.E.A. propaganda, particularly designed to bring in public relations talent and newspaper and magazine publicity.

Peekskill, N.Y., writes: “Please tell me in language that a non-legal mind can understand the exact difference between a Republic and a Democracy.”

Answer: The only difficulty is with the word, democracy, which has been so abused by politicians and Communists that you can’t tell what it means, any more than you can tell what it means to be a Democrat. A republic is a state that has representative government. It is governed by representatives elected by, and responsible to, the people who have voting power. This country has always been a republic.

Originally the meaning of “a democracy” was plain: It meant direct government by all the people. In a pure and complete democracy, all the people would vote directly on all government issues. This country has never been a democracy.

But now the term, democracy, is widely used in two other ways:

(1) Some use it to mean socialism. For example, in a yearbook of the John Dewey Society (which is closely tied in with the Nat’l Education Ass’n) the following statement appears: democracy is “above all a society of and by the common working people.” According to this notion a democracy would be a socialistic society run by the labor class.

(2) Some, however, use the word, democracy, loosely to mean any society in which people are free to discuss affairs and have a vote. This definition, of course, would include republics such as ours; as it would consider a republic as a kind of indirect democracy in which control of government might be through representatives.

In view of the confusion and propaganda surrounding “democracy” you should avoid using the term, and require those who do use it to tell exactly what they mean….

News-Palladium (Benton Harbor, Michigan) Feb 19, 1952

Bob Ruark’s Roundup

NEW YORK — The old man, I guess you would call him the grandest old man, quit trying and died the other day, 92. This was John Dewey, one of the few great thinkers of the long time we call past and present, and you might say he sowed more whirlwinds than anybody else.

Dr. Dewey made one mistake. He presumed in innocent arrogance that the majority of his fellow citizens were partially as intelligent as he, and there he made his mistake. They weren’t. And aren’t. And doubtless won’t be.

John Dewey was the father of what is loosely termed “progressive education.” This is to say that he slew the little red school-house, assassinated Santa Claus, and placed an added burden of maladjustment on a civilization that had been reasonably happy with the three R’s, the little red hen, and McGuffey’s Reader. He introduced unfettered thought into the public domain, and he gods, how it got mishandled!

The old man was a fine old man, and a brilliant thinker he was, too, and a find philosopher, and a good practical psychologist, and a great educator, and, withal, he made more trouble for us than Karl Marx. Because, principally, John Dewey made a vogue of early self-determinism, and the lip readers seized on his doctrines with glad, incoherent cries.

His idea was basically, if an idea is ever basic, that the young mind should be freed to develop the richness of the moment, rather than to equip the fledgling with the standard spare parts of education for a problematical future. He was of middle age  when he first propounded the idea that modern education should be fitted to individual needs and capacities instead of being assembly-lined along the simple precepts of his fathers.

In very short, he pierced the first large loophole for mass irresponsibility and laziness of educational discipline by the adult of the immature. It is not to lessen the majesty of the man, Dewey, to say that his breadth of thought has contributed as highly to divorce rates, to suicide rates, to psychopathic incidence — and always innocently — as if he had plotted viciously against the welfare of his fellows.

Because his teachings, being fairly intricate and dependent on responsibilities, naturally got abused and soiled from handling by the inept. The story is ancient about his abrupt meeting with a nursery school brawl involving his young son and another moppet. Professort Dewey was shocked at the infantile mayhem, and was informed that this was “progressive education.” Unbridled freeing of the coarser impulses was not what he had in mind.

It is my purely private idea that the dean regarded mankind as essentially noble and simultaneously susceptible to nobility of handling at a very early age. I do not think that in his academic purity he considered a high incidence of lazy parents, spoiled brats, and incompetent candidates for self-determination.

Be all as it may, we have shown small progress in the half-century of popularity for John Dewey’s credo of education. His advanced (then) theories of literally making the child his own master do not seem to have tamed the dreary statistics of delinquency, of adult aberration, of social maladjustment, or rape, murder, dope addition, irresponsibility and general unhappiness.

Tucson Daily Citizen (Tuscon, Arizona) Jun 9, 1952

Image from Genconnection – John Dewey

From John Dewey’s book, My Pedagogic Creed, linked below:

I believe that the school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends.

….

ARTICLE V. THE SCHOOL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS.

I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.

I believe that all reforms which rest simply upon the enactment of law, or the threatening of certain penalties, or upon changes in mechanical or outward arrangements, are transitory and futile.

I believe that education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction.

I believe that this conception has due regard for both the individualistic and socialistic ideals. It is duly individual because it recognizes the formation of a certain character as the only genuine basis of right living. It is socialistic because it recognizes that this right character is not to be formed by merely individual precept, example, or exhortation, but rather by the influence of a certain form of institutional or community life upon the individual, and that the social organism through the school, as its organ, may determine ethical results.

Title: My Pedagogic Creed
Author: John Dewey
Published: 1897
page 7 and pages 16-17

You Can’t Forget a Garden, But Can You Forget a Poet?

Image from Alfredo Rodriguez

YOU CAN’T FORGET A GARDEN

You can’t forget a garden
When you have planted a seed —
When you have watched the weather
And know a rose’s need.
When you go away from it,
However long or far,
You leave your heart behind you
Where roots and tendrils are.

— Louise Driscoll, in “Garden Grace.”

Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachusetts) Jun 11, 1932

Louise Driscoll To Speak at Normandie

Garden lovers will have an opportunity to indulge themselves, in imagination, in the delights of their hobby, despite Winter’s barricade against outdoor participation, when Louise Driscoll speaks on Thursday, February 20, in the ballroom of the Normandie, No. 253 Alexander Street.

Miss Driscoll will have as her theme that evening “A Garden Thru the Year.” Author of “Garden Grace” and “Garden of the West,” she will bring the spirit of all gardens to her listeners, as in her poem, “Lost Garden,” from “Garden Grace.”

Guest of Mrs. Forbes

Miss Driscoll will be the guest of Mrs. George M. Forbes of Alexander Street, president of the Rochester Poetry Society, under whose auspices she will speak.

Rochester Journal (Rochester, New York) Feb 13, 1936

ON BEING A NEWSMAN IN PASADENA

I have long said one of the delightful aspects of being a newsman in Pasadena is that — no matter on what subject you write — you may rest assured that among the thousands of persons reading your stuff will be at least one of the world’s greatest authorities on that subject.

It never fails.

Some of the most valued acquaintances I have picked up over the years have developed this way. You do a “masterpiece.” Next day the phone rings, or there’s a letter on your desk. You were right, and you know it. Or you were wrong, and you’ve picked up a world of understanding.

*          *          *

On my desk this morning was a letter of a different type — illustrating the point I am making in another way.

It was in response to a column I wrote way last spring, forgot, and then published late because I still thought it was a good column. I called it, IN WHICH I GROW SENTIMENTAL. It was built around re-discovery of this poem, which, half forgotten from my boyhood days, nonetheless had carried me through many tight places.

Here’s the letter I found on my desk.

L.M. — I was very much interested and pleased to see, in your column, a quotation from a poem by Louise Driscoll.

Louise — who died some years ago — way my cousin.

She was for many years, head of the library of Catskill, New York, and was a poet of quite considerable reputation. In the days when poetry, to be publishable, did not have to be (a) an imitation of the New Yorker, or (b) something just long enough to fill that annoying gap at the end of a magazine page.

Her poems were published in many magazines in the 1920s and thereabouts, and appear in several anthologies. She published one book of collected verse, so far as I know; a small book of very charming and rather haunting poems, under the title “Garden Grace.”

I am sure it would have made her very happy to know that one of her poems was remembered.

Very sincerely,

Marjorie C. Driscoll,

Altadena.

See what I mean about the delightful aspects of being a newsman in Pasadena?

*          *          *

SENTIMENT HAS A PLACE IN OUR BEING

Star-News (Pasadena, California) Jun 9, 1959

 

Distinction for Local Women

New York, Sept. 26 (Special). —

Three Kingston women, seven residents of Woodstock, one Palenville and one Catskill woman are members of a group of outstanding women of the nation selected for inclusion in “American Women,” a who’s who of the feminine world just completed and published.

The honor was attained locally by Mary E.S. Fischer, illustrator, Melvina E. Moore-Parsons, and the late Mary Gage-Day, physicians of Kingston, Mrs. J. Courtenay Anderson, Agnes M. Daulton, Harriet Gaylord and Louise S. Hasbrouck, writers, Nancy Schoonmaker, lecturer, Lily Strickland, composer, and Mrs. Bruno L. Zimm of Woodstock, Jennie Brownscombe, artist, of Palenville, and Louise Driscoll, librarian, of Catskill.

New York state has contributed 1,096 of the 6,214 women chosen for the distinction of places on the list. Eighty-two per cent attended college and the majority are active in clubs and organizations. The possibility of success for a career and marriage combination receives strong endorsement from the fact that 41 per cent of the roster are married.

Approximately a third of the list, in true feminine fashion, declined to state their age. Writers formed the largest class, numbering 800, and professors the second with 355. Four each are engaged in aviation and astronomy, five in engineering and thirteen in the ministry. Gardening is the most popular hobby. Only sixty-four like to play bridge and one goes in for hunting mushrooms.

Kingston Daily Freeman (Kingston, New York) Sep 27, 1935

Louise won an award for this one:

Title: Poems of the Great War
Editor: John William Cunliffe
Publisher: The Macmillan Company, 1917
“The Metal Checks”
Pages 78-83

Her Father:

Kingston Daily Freeman (Kingston, New York) Jan 3, 1941

Services Tonight For Mr. Driscoll, Dean of Masons
—–
Native of Rockland County, 103, Died Yesterday in Catskill
—–

CATSKILL — Masonic services will be held tonight for John Leonard Driscoll, a native of Piermont, Rockland County, and oldest Mason in the state, who died yesterday at his home. Mr. Driscoll, who had been in remarkable good health until two weeks ago, was 103 years old last October eleventh.

Mr. Driscoll was a descendant of Johannes ver Vailen, one of the holders of the Harlem Patent who had an inn and a ferry at Spuyten Duyvil in the early days of the state. His father was Isaac Driscoll and his mother Eliza Burgess Shaw. His great-grandfather came to the United States from Ireland about the middle of the Eighteenth Century.

Surviving Mr. Driscoll, who had lived under twenty-five of the nation’s thirty-two presidents, are the Misses Lizbeth, Caroline and Louise Driscoll, all at home.

As a boy Mr. Driscoll witnessed the digging of holes and the planting of rails for the Hudson River Railroad. Until the age of sixty he had never smoked. He first tried a cigar, without becoming sick, and then changed to a pipe which was his favorite and constant companion during the last few years of his life.

Syracuse Herald (Syracuse, New York) Sep 30, 1937

At the age of 100, referring to his job in the 1830’s when pine logs were used for fuel and he was chief engineer for the Catskill Mountain Railroad, he said, “A good fireman in those days would handle the wood only once. He pitched each chunk at such an angle that when it landed on the floor of the engine it would bounce through the fire door into the box.”

He explained his philosophy of life, take it as it comes, by saying:

“When you’ve lived as long as I have, and seen many things, you realize there are few things in the world worth worrying about. It’s a good world, too, as long as people keep their sense of humor.”

Middletown Times Herald (Middletown, New York) Jan 3, 1941

* Another obituary states his wife died in 1903. (See end of post for image.)

* I couldn’t find obituaries for Louise or her sisters. It is possible there were some in the Greene County Examiner-Recorder, but I don’t have access to the years they would have appeared. A shame, really; Louise was a very talented lady and I would like to know more about her.

Quilt square sewn by Louise Driscoll’s grandmother:

From Dutch Door Genealogy:

18. E.B. Driscoll, age 47
She was Eliza Burgess Shaw, mother of Carrie, above, and in 1862 was the widow of Isaac Blauvelt Driscoll (#6010) in 1836. Isaac died in 1851. Their children who lived were John Leonard Driscoll, born 1837, lived to be 103; Charles Francis, born 1841; and Caroline, born 1844. Eliza was a seamstress, per the 1860 census.

Read more about the quilt at the link.

This is the closest I could come to finding a biography, other than the short bit I linked at the top of the post:

Louise Driscoll, who had a story, “The Tug of War,” in Smith’s Magazine for May, and a novelette, “The Point of View,” in the June number of the same magazine, lives in Catskill, N.Y. She has written verse since she was a very little girl, and while still a schoolgirl used occasionally to send poems to the New York newspapers and different magazines, many of them being accepted. It is only within the last few months that she has tried to do much prose, and she says that she has found the editors of the American magazines so ready to receive and educate a new writer that she has no faith in the tales so often heard concerning the necessity of influence to gain attention. Her verses have appeared in Lippincott’s, the Critic — now Putnam’s Monthly — the Independent, the Metropolitan, and a number of other periodicals, and some of them have been widely copied. One poem, “The Highway,” which appeared in Lippincott’s about three years ago, brought her a good many letters from readers, including some editors of other magazines. Miss Driscoll in now at work on a longer and more serious book than “The Point of View,” which is her first long story. She is very ambitious and believes fully in hard work, but she says she writes because she must, and is sure she would write if she had never heard of type. Incidentally, she has a large regard for the English language, and a sincere desire to use it correctly.

The Writer, Volume 19
By William Henry Hills, Robert Luce, 1907

Another garden themed poem by Louise Driscoll:

Olean Evening Times (Olean, New York) Nov 17, 1924

One of Louise Driscoll’s books can be accessed for free at Google Books:

Title: The Garden of the West
Author: Louise Driscoll
Publisher: The Macmillan company, 1922

From Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine – 1907

THE POOR HOUSE

by Louise Driscoll

There’s a white road lined with poplars
And the blue hills rise behind,
The fields lie green on either side
And the overseer’s kind.

This is a play/skit:

Title: The Drama Magazine – Volume 7
Author: Drama League of America
Editors: Charles Hubbard Sergel, William Norman Guthrie, Theodore Ballou Hinckley
Publisher: Drama League of America, 1917
Pages 448-460

This description from The Quarterly Journal of Speech Education – 1918:

One act tragedy for two men and two women. Realistic play of American rural life and the tragedy of weakness and lack of determination.

She also wrote and/or translated music lyrics. I ran across a Christmas carol she did as well:

Polska
Metsän puita tuuli tuudittaa,
ja joka lehti liikkuu,
oksat keinuu, kiikkuu,
karjan kellot kilvan kalkuttaa
ja linnut livertävät
la la la la la la.
Niinpä neidon mieli nuor eli’ ijällä
lentää kuin lehti ilman tiellä
Näin iloiten vain ma laulelen
la la la la la la la la la la la la.
Karjan kellot kilvan kaikottaa
ja linnut livertävät
la la la la la la.

Sunnuntaina taasen kiikuttaa
pojat iloissansa
kukin neitojansa.
Korkealle keinu heilahtaa
ja tytöt laulelevat
la la la la la la.
Niinpä neidon mieli nuorell’ ijällä
lentää kuin lehti ilman tiellä.
Näin iloiten vaan ma laulelen
la la la la la la la la la la la la.
Korkealle keinu heilahtaa
ja tytöt laulelevat
la la la la la la.

*****

Polka

In the woods the trees, the trees are gay.
See how the branches lightly swing and sway, swing and sway.
Sheep bells tinkle and sweet birds sing,
So sing the maidens, tra la, la,la, la,la.
Shaken like a leaf when winds are blowing,
Is a girl’s heart when the rose is showing.
Tra la, la tra la,la, when high flies the swing,
Tra la, la,la,la.la,la,la,la,la,la,la,la.
Her heart goes there like the swing in air,
And falls while she is singing_Tra la, la,la,la,la.

English version by
Louise Driscoll.

Title: Folk Songs of Many Peoples, Volume 1
Editor: Florence Hudson Botsford
Publisher: Womans Press, 1921
Page 26

*     *     *     *     *

Greene County Examiner-Recorder (Catskill, New York) Jan 9, 1941

U.S. Debt, Taxes and Timber

Let Us Consider for a Moment, the U.S.Public Debt…

The Daily News (Huntingdon, Pennsylvania) Jun 22, 1937

Heavy, Heavy Hangs the Possibility of New Taxation

The Daily News (Huntingdon, Pennsylvania) Jun 22, 1935

In the Woods — Presidential Timber

The Daily News (Huntingdon, Pennsylvania) Apr 10, 1935

The Ivy Green

Image from Paris Roselli

THE IVY GREEN

Oh, a dainty plant is the Ive green,
That creepeth o’er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim;
And the mouldering dust that years have made
Is a merry meal for him.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,
And a staunch old heart has he.
How closely he twineth, how tight he clings
To his friend the huge Oak Tree!
And slyly he traileth along the ground,
And his leaves he gently waves,
As he joyously hugs and crawleth round
The rich mould of dead men’s graves.
Creeping where dim death has been,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

Whole ages have fled and their works decayed,
And nations have scattered been;
But the stout old Ivy shall never fade,
From its hale and hearty green.
The brave old plant in its lonely days,
Shall fatten up the past;
For the stateliest building man can raise,
Is the ivy’s food at last.
Creeping on where time has been,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

— Charles Dickens

The Oshkosh Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Mar 8, 1937

O, March!

MARCH WINDS

O, fickle winds of March, blow warm, blow cold!
Your ever-changing temper matches mine.
Today my mood in love is fearless, bold.
O, fickle winds of March, blow warm, blow cold!

What tender passions may tomorrow hold,
If winds blow warm and thus my thoughts incline?
Or, fickle winds of March, blow warm, blow cold!
Your ever-changing temper matches mine!

— Susan Doudican

The Oshkosh Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Mar 14, 1936

MARCH

Slayer of winter, are thou here again?
O welcome, thou that bring’st the summer nigh!
The bitter wind makes not thy victory vain,
Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky.
Welcome O March! whose kindly days and dry
Make April ready for the throstle’s song,
Thou first redresser of the winter’s wrong!

Yea, welcome, March! and though I die ere June,
Yet for the hope of life I give thee praise,
Striving to swell the burden of the tune
That even now I hear thy brown birds raise,
Unmindful of the past or coming days;
Who sing, “O joy! a new year is begun!
What happiness to look upon the sun!”

O, what begetteth all this storm of bliss,
But Death himself, who, crying solemnly,
Even from the heart of sweet Forgetfulness,
Bids us, “Rejoice! lest pleasure less ye die
Within a little time must ye go by.
Stretch forth your open hands, and while ye live,
Take all the gifts that Death and Life may give.”

— William Morris

The Oshkosh Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Mar 26, 1936

WRITTEN IN MARCH

The Cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter,
The green field sleeps in the sun;
The oldest and the youngest
Are at work with the strongest;
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!

Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated,
And now doth fare ill
On the top of the bare hill;
The plowboy is whooping-anon-anon,
There’s joy in the mountains;
There’s life in the fountains,
Small clouds are sailing,
Blue sky prevailing;
The rain is over and gone!

— William Wordsworth

The Oshkosh Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Mar 12, 1937

SONG IN MARCH

Now are the winds about us in their glee,
Tossing the slender tree;
Whirling the sands about his furious car,
March cometh from afar;
Breaks the sealed magic of old Winter’s dreams,
And rends his glassy streams;
Chafing with potent airs, he fiercely takes
Their fetters from the lakes,
And, with a power by queenly Spring supplied,
Wakens the slumbering tide.

With a wild love he seeks young Summer’s charms
And clasps her to his arms;
Lifting his shield between, he drives away
Old Winter from his prey —
The ancient tyrant whom he boldly braves,
Goes howling to his caves;
And, to his northern realm compelled to fly,
Yields up the victory;
Melted are all his banks, o’er-thrown his towers,
And March comes bringing flowers.

— William Gilmore Simms.

The Oshkosh Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Feb 25, 1938

THE PASSING OF MARCH

The braggart March stood in the season’s door
With his broad shoulders blocking up the way,
Shaking the snow-flakes from the cloak he wore,
And from the fringes of his kirtle gray;
Near by him April stood with tearful face,
With violets in her hands, and in her hair
Pale, wild anemones; the fragrant lace
Half-parted from her breast which seemed like fair,
Dawn-tinted mountain snow, smooth-drifted there.

She on the blusterer’s arm laid one white hand,
But he would none of her soft blandishment,
Yet did she plead with tears none might withstand,
For even the fiercest hearts at last relent.
And he, at last, in ruffian tenderness,
With one swift, crushing kiss her lips did greet.
Ah, poor starved heart! — for that one rude caress,
She cast her violets underneath his feet.

— Robert Burns Wilson

The Oshkosh Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Apr 1, 1938

Who is the Forgotten Man?

(Forgotten Man – emphasis mine)

The Burdens of “The Forgotten Man.”

NEW YORK, Feb, 2. — Professor William G. Sumner, of Yale college, delivered a lecture last night before the Brooklyn Revenue Reform club, at the Long Island Historical Society building. His subject was “The Forgotten Man.” Professor Sumner said that the forgotten man was the simple, honest man, who earned his living by good hard work, paid his debts, kept his contracts and educated his children. He was passed by and forgotten because he did his duty patiently and without complaint. On him rested all the burdens engendered by paupers, vagrants, spendthrifts, criminals and jobbers. All legislation which tended to relieve the weak, the vicious and the negligent to the consequences of their faults threw those consequences upon the forgotten man.

Daily Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Feb 3, 1883

*****

*****

Coshocton Tribune (Coshocton, Ohio) Oct 29, 1932

HE WHO PROVIDES IT ALL

William G. Sumner Gave Credit to the “Forgotten Man” for His Patient Industry.

Wealth comes only from production, and all that the wrangling grabbers, loafers and robbers get to deal with comes from somebody’s toil and sacrifice. Who, then, is he who provides it all? Go and find him, and you will have once more before you the Forgotten Man. You will find him hard at work because he has a great many to support. Nature has done a great deal for him in giving him a fertile soil and an excellent climate, and he wonders why it is that, after all, his scale of comfort is so moderate. He has to get out of the soil enough to pay all his taxes, and that means the cost of all the jobs and the fund for all the plunder. The Forgotten Man is delving away in patient industry, supporting his family, paying his taxes, casting his vote, supporting the church and school, reading his newspaper and cheering for the politicians of his admiration, but he is the only one for whom there is no provision in the great scramble and the big divide. Such is the Forgotten Man. He works, he votes, generally he prays — but he always pays — yes, above all, he pays.

Denton Journal (Denton, Maryland) Dec 23, 1922

Don’t Think – Just Vote the Straight Ticket!

Coshocton Tribune (Coshocton, Ohio) Nov 6, 1932

“The Forgotten Man” is that individual who does an honest day’s work, pays his bills, brings up three or four children, indulges in a pipe or an occasional cigar, keeps up a small savings account, never asks for charity from anyone, never gets into trouble with the police, never makes a speech or writes a letter to the city editor — in short he’s the individual who keeps going on his own momentum, good times, bad times.
When the hat is passed around for the down-and-outers, or those lads who have lost $4.90 by some cruel, heartless flapper, the “Forgotten Man” chips in his mite.

The tax collector visits the “Forgotten Man” regularly, and collects toll for the upkeep of the police courts, jails, workhouses, and poor houses — none of which the “Forgotten Man” ever uses. He is self-supporting, self starting, self-sufficient, and being so he is counted in on nothing except the census. But in that document he cuts a big figure because he probably forms the vast majority.

— Harold the Imaginer.

Appleton Post Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) Feb 25, 1929

LONG-SUFFERING LANDLORDS

In commiserating the “forgotten man,” an observant citizen suggests why overlook the forgotten landlord? He, too, in this painful period, may well be an object of sympathy. Often, too, of admiration.

There is still too much remaining of the tradition which represents a landlord as a ruthless old skinflint, who probably got his property dishonestly and who rejoices in any pretext to gouge rent out of a poor tenant, or to turn a sick family out into the cold. There have been, and are, such landlords, but certainly in these days they are exceptional.

The owner of a house or a farm today is lucky if he is getting enough out of the property to pay the taxes and mortgage charges, without any income on his investment. In almost any town there may be found hundreds of rented homes where, because the tenants are out of work, the owner is carrying them along for half their usual rental or for nothing at all, because he has not the heart to turn them out. Many a family has skimped and saved and put its savings into a house or two for renting, to help safeguard its own future, is as badly off as the tenants who never saved in good times. All in all, honest inquiry will probably show that landlords as a class have been behaving pretty handsomely.

Daily Mail (Hagerstown, Maryland) Oct 11, 1932

But Ain’t We Got Beer?

THINKING OUT LOUD

Why is our prolific and prolix correspondent Jone Howlind, so incensed at the decidedly dubious prospects of the new deal? I presume she voted for the egregious F.D.R., and certainly has been an advocate of repeal. Her letter in Friday’s Post is inconsistent with former letters.

Surely, prices are rising over the moon and the average person is being ground between the upper and nether millstones. What does that matter? We’ve got beer, and “hard likker” is in sight.

The many will continue to be sacrificed for the few and the hungry and ragged are increasing. Never mind — we’ve got beer!
Beer puts some men to work. The wet papers sedulously refrain from reporting the men who lose their jobs in the candy and soft drink and allied industries.

The well known “Boobus Americanus” with his propensity for following and believing the demagogue, turned out of office a wise, far seeing statesman and elected a man whose own neighbors refused to vote for him.

Now the “forgotten man” is still forgotten; thy new deal is the same old deal; the specter of anarchy rides the minds; the Blue Eagle is only a plucked pigeon, but “sing you sinners, sing” — we got beer!

MRS. EVELYN FORTT
4130 Pera

El Paso Herald-Post (El Paso, Texas) Sep 13, 1933

Roosevelt and Wall St.

THINKING OUT LOUD:

The Herald-Post editorial on the Farley-Pecora move was splendid, although I must confess I thought parts of it a trifle naive in view of the fact that while Farley gets Pecora removed from conducting his investigations of the crooked operations of Wall Street bankers, two more Wall Street men take up office in Washington.

I refer to James Bruce, now financial advisor to the Board of the Home Loan Bank, erstwhile vice president of the Chase National bank under Mr. Wiggin, and George Lindsay, fiscal agent of the Home Loan Bank Board, lately vice president of the Blancamerica – Blair Corp.

I can, by stretching my imagination, credit a newspaper with being naive about such a situation, but I can’t stretch it far enough to include Mr. Roosevelt. Consequently, what seems “new” about the “New Deal” is that the Wall Street operators are now operating in Washington where in the old deal they operated in Wall Street.

I advise anyone who doubts this to go over the old newspaper files of the early summer showing the corporations through which the House of Morgan stretched its influence and the lists of Morgan beneficiaries and with these lists check Roosevelt’s appointments. count ’em yourselves. The information isn’t hidden. The strength of politicians lies in the short memories of the public.

I think the Herald-Post’s optimism in regard to Roosevelt’s ability to keep hold of the Progressives was more a case of the wish being father to the thought than anything else. The public may be ignorant as to the character and background of the men with whom Roosevelt has surrounded himself by choice, but it can hardly be thought that the leaders of the Progressives are not perfectly aware of the personnel of the entire set-up. Their stand, therefore, will not be a case of ignorance, but a test of their weakness or strength of character.

Will the “forgotten man” be not only forgotten, but deserted by all as well?

JONE HOWLIND.

El Paso Herald-Post (El Paso, Texas) Oct 10, 1933

“The Forgotten Man”

THINKING OUT LOUD

We have been watching the administration of the “New Deal,” and have seen how the “Forgotten Man” — the banker, manufacturer, jobber and retail merchant have been remembered. We wondered, naturally, if another class of citizens who seem to be having a hard time “carving” a name for themselves on the torso of humanity, would likewise be “remembered.”

I make special reference to the “25,000 doctors out of a job” which the press mentioned as a surplus of the profession a few months ago. We felt worried about the future of these poor souls, when realizing that they are slaves to “medical ethics” and can not advertise the skill with which they can do human carving or puncture you with a hypodermic needle.

But thanks to the faithful press for informing us that prospects for their relief is in sight, as soon as congress convenes. Rex Tugwell, assistant secretary of agriculture under the guise of protecting the innocent from poisonous, harmful and mislabeled patent medicines, and habit-forming drugs, proposes (in a bill he has prepared for consideration of congress) to place our precious lives wholly in the hands of the medical doctor.

It seems that the doctor has for several years felt himself slipping from his exalted position of holding a monopoly on the lives of mankind. In the first place his business is regularly called “practice,” and it seems he has followed it so diligently in the trimming of human “giblets” and bank rolls that the people are leaving him in a manner most alarming. This fact is set forth in an article in the Literary Digest of Sept. 22, 1923 [maybe 1933?], wherein a certain member of the A.M.A. set about to find out why they were their patients who had not died under treatment.

Several thousand citizens were accosted on the street, street cars, offices, etc., and asked two questions: “What would you do if you got sick, and why?”

He found that over 90 per cent would not call a doctor. In his paper read before the A.M.A. convention, he recommended that the doctor be not quite so ethical and treat his profession as a business and “get the money;” that a campaign be instituted through the press, for education of the gullible humans, and to admonish them to “see their doctor first.”

There are many people who sincerely believe that mutilation of the body by surgical operation is sinful.

Whenever you give an organization of people a monopoly over lives or rights of others, you have destroyed respect for the law that created such monopoly, and created contempt for those who enjoy such special privileges.

The number of people who die under medical and surgical treatment are several thousand fold greater than those who succumb from home remedies.

I am for a law that will take away the monopolistic powers already granted the doctor and give the individual a course of commonsense instruction in food, cleanliness, habits of living.

Over three billion dollars is the annual doctor bill, besides the loss of time from work. This becomes an economic problem besides the question of relief from suffering.

So, who is forgotten?

LOUIS BOND CHERRY.

El Paso Herald-Post (El Paso, Texas) Nov 3, 1933

Daily Inter Lake (Kalispell, Montana) Nov 8, 1932

The Forgotten Man

THINKING OUT LOUD:

We will let the gold and silver rust
And pledge our faith to the brain trust
If they will unfold a plan
To help the long forgotten man.

In honest sweat he toils for years
With fondest hopes and sadest fears
Now on the brink of dark despair
In nature’s bounty he cannot share.

Hungry, ragged, bare-foot and cold
He possesses not silver nor gold
Still believing “the Lord will provide”
But knowing mankind must divide.

Let us hope they will find a way
To bring to us a brighter day
Spreading happiness, spreading health,
Learn us that gold is not wealth!

M.M. OWENS,
Lordsburg, N.M.

El Paso Herald-Post (El Paso, Texas) Dec 20, 1933

El Paso Herald-Post (El Paso, Texas) Mar 17, 1933

Image from Cosmeo

REMEMBER FORGOTTEN MAN

New Dealers Give Him Bill to Pay, Coughlin Says.

PROVIDENCE, R.I., (AP). The Rev. Charles E. Coughlin declared that under the new deal “the forgotten man has been remembered” in time to pay the government’s bills. He spoke at an outdoor rally which he said was attended by 25,000 persons.

“With the new deal the forgotten man has been remembered,” he declared, “because every gallon of gas you buy, every pound of butter, every loaf of bread, all your groceries and drugs, have posted on them a mortgage to the United States in favor of international bankers.” He made his statement after saying “one day out of every three you work is taken out of your payroll for hidden taxes.”

NEW BEDFORD, (AP). The Rev. Charles E. Coughlin, discussing the administration of President Roosevelt, declared: “As I was instrumental in removing Herbert Hoover from the white house, so help me God, I will be instrumental in taking a communist from the chair once occupied by Washington.”

Evening State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) Aug 3, 1936

I hear Spain’s nice this time of year.

ILL CHOSEN.

Ackley (Ia.) World-Journal: For a man who has talked about the “forgotten man” as much as Roosevelt, it comes with very poor grace to go on a cruise that costs the American people half a million dollars; it comes with even poorer grace to include his three sons, the “crown prince,” the “heir apparent” and another in waiting.

Evening State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) Aug 11, 1936

NEW TAX COMING.

Jan. 1 will usher in the era of short pay checks. One percent will be deducted by order of the new deal. The forgotten man will be remembered by a new tax. The little fellow will pony up. One percent will be the deduction. It will affect the payrolls of thousands of industries and the well being of millions. Not content with the present tax rate, where it is figured that the average citizen gives one day’s pay out of every week for government, another one-hundredth of what the people earn is to be deducted from individual earnings for government use. It will be paid to the government and retained for the use of new deal administrators, and perhaps for the establishment of new bureaus to help to administer the funds that will be collected. The benevolent touch of a paternal government will be felt in a new effort with the beginning of 1937.

If at any time in the future the law should be repealed or declared unconstitutional that will not end the expense that has been incurred. Like the NRA and the FERA it will live on and on, the organization set up for its administration will continue and the government will pay the bill.

This is one of the new taxes made necessary by new deal management of public affairs. The tax may not be so obnoxious as the bureaucracy which it will help to enlarge and the complexity it will add to government.

Evening State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) Oct 19, 1936

El Paso Herald-Post (El Paso, Texas) Jul 5, 1933

A BIT INCONSISTENT

Time marches on! And today we find the federal government doing the things for which it condemned private citizens only three or four years ago. Such as, for example, foreclosing mortgages on the homes of persons unable to meet their interest and principle payments. It’s a strange world.

It is only good business, we suppose, for the Home Owners Loan corporation (a federal agency) to get its money when due. But, as we witness the numerous foreclosures by the HOLC, we recall the bitter denunciations, a few years ago, of private individuals who did the same thing. State governments then passed moratorium laws, making it impossible for mortgage holders to foreclose. And the moratoriums undoubtedly gave temporary relief to many farm and home owners. We found no fault with them then; we find no fault now. But, it would seem that the federal government now would practice what it preached to private lenders back in 1934-1935. If it is wrong for a private to put a man out of his home, it also is wrong for the government.

In Lyon county, right now, a man and wife who have passed middle age are losing their home, upon which they gave a mortgage to HOLC several years ago. The mortgage is due — and  HOLC wants its money, or else. Or else the couple moves into the street. The HOLC, as we get the story, refuses to compromise. Although the couple is able to raise half of the amount now due, HOLC officials have declared they want “all or nothing”.

It is a bitter awakening for those trusting souls who have been led to believe that the Man in Washington will chastise the bade, bad money-lenders and see the the “forgotten man” does not lose his home. The Lyon county couple to whom we have referred, as well as the rest of us, are beginning to realize that the grim realities of life are still with us; that they must be faced in the same old way. We are returning to the point where we again face such cold, hard facts as money borrowed, whether from private citizen or government, must be paid back. Also, that assurances of security by politicians seeking office often are merely a means of getting votes. Sad, but true.

Boyden Reporter (Boyden, Iowa) Oct 21, 1937

Boyden Reporter (Boyden, Iowa) May 14, 1942

National Debt Worries Farmers
[excerpt – Simon E. Lantz]

“Mr. Roosevelt promised to place the cost of government upon the shoulders of those most able to pay. In 1930, the wealth of the nation was paying 69 per cent of governmental costs and the laborers, farmers and common people were paying 31 per cent. But last year we found that the wealth of the nation was paying only 39 per cent while the ordinary people were paying 61 per cent. That is how Mr. Roosevelt took care of the forgotten man and soaked the rich.

Daily Inter Lake (Kalispell, Montana) Oct 24, 1940

WHITE COLLAR WORKER IS ‘THE FORGOTTEN MAN’

ON A BIG munitions plant being built with government money at Wilmington, Ill., carpenters are paid $25 a day; men trundling wheelbarrows or working with pick or shovel are paid $16 and $17 a day.

In Chicago, 50 miles away, the clerical forces working in the offices of business and industry are being paid from $17 to $35 a week.
The carpenters and laborers in Wilmington may, and do, dress in coveralls; they change shirts possibly once a week; they wear coarse, unshined shoes; they enjoy the lower rentals of the rural districts.

The clerical worker in Chicago, if he is to hold his job, must have a clean shirt every day; he must wear a white collar; there must be a crease in his trousers; his shoes must be kept cleaned and shined; he must pay the much higher rentals of the city. His income will average about one-sixth of that of the carpenter at Wilmington.

To meet the ever-increasing demand of taxes and labor, and to continue to operate, business and industry have been forced to economize in every possible way. The white collar man has paid the bill. He is the “forgotten man” of today.

Boyden Reporter (Boyden, Iowa) Dec 25, 1941

Cumberland Evening Times (Cumberland, Maryland) Nov 14, 1960

Morse’s Electro-Magnetic Telegraph: Truly One of the Wonders of the Age

Image from the White River Valley Museum – Morse Code History

THE MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH.

BY MRS. E.L. SCHERMERHORN.

The following beautiful verses were received by us from Washington by the Magnetic Telegraph; and though the lightning speed with which they were transmitted, adds nothing to their beauty, it was a happy thought to select the wonderful invention, of which they are in praise, as the medium of transmitting them: — [Baltimore Patriot.

Oh! carrier dove, spread not thy wing,
Thou beauteous messenger of air!
To waiting eyes and hearts to bring
The tidings thou were wont to bear.

Urge not the flying courser’s speed,
Give not his neck the loosened rein,
Nor bid his panting sides to bleed,
As swift he thunders o’er the plain.

Touch but the magic wire, and lo!
Thy thought it borne on flaming track,
And swifter far than winds can blow,
Is sped the rapid answer back.

The sage who woo’d the lightning’s blaze,
Till, stooping from the summer cloud,
It played around with harmless rays,
By Fame is trumpeted aloud.

And sure she has a lofty meed
For him whose thought, with seraph reach,
To language gives the lightning’s speed,
And wings electric lends to speech.

Nerved by its power, our spreading land
A mighty giant proudly lies;
Touch but one nerve with skillful hand
Through all the thrill unbroken flies.

The dweller on the Atlantic shore
The word may breathe, and swift as light,
Where far Pacific waters roar,
That word speeds on with magic flight.

Thoughts freshly kindling in the mind,
And words the echoes of the soul,
Borne on its wiry pinious, bind
Hearts sundered far as pole from pole.

As flashes o’er the summer skies
The lightning’s blaze from east to west,
O’er earth the burning fluid flies,
Winged by a mortal’s proud behest.

Through flaming cherubs bar the gate,
Since man by tasting grew too wise,
He seems again to tempt the fate
That drove him first from Paradise!

Daily Sentinel and Gazette (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) May 18, 1846

The Electro-Magnetic Telegraph.

Some remarkable experiments have been made with Morse’s Electro-magnetic Telegraph arrangements, and they have demonstrated surprising facts. Wires extending in length 158 miles were laid down, the Battery, &c., prepared, and matters communicated that distance in almost a second of time! In experiments to ascertain the resistance to the passage of the electric current it was proved that this “resistance increases rapidly with the first few miles, and less rapidly afterwards, until for very great lengths no sensible difference can be observed. This is a most fortunate circumstance in the employment of electro-magnetism for telegraphic purposes, since, contrary to all other modes of communicating intelligence, the difficulty to be overcome decreases in proportion to the distance.”

This is truly one of the wonders of the age.

Bangor Daily Whig and Courier (Bangor, Maine) Oct 26, 1843

Image from Encyclopedia Britannica Kids – Samuel F.B. Morse; Telegraph

THE MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH — ITS SUCCESS.

The miracle of the annihilation of space is at length performed. The Baltimore Patriot of Sunday afternoon contains the action of Congress up to the moment of its going to press — received from Washington by Magnetic Telegraph Despatch.

The Patriot says:

Morse’s Electro Magnetic Telegraph now connects between the Capitol at Washington and the Railroad Depot in Pratt, between Charles and Light streets, Baltimore. The wires were brought in yesterday from the outer depot and attached to the telegraphic apparatus in a third story room in the depot warehouse building.

The batteries were charged this morning, and the telegraph put in full operation, conveying intelligence to and from the Capitol. A large number of gentlemen were present to see the operations of this truly astonishing contrivance. Many admitted to the room had their names sent down, and in less than a second the apparatus in Baltimore was put in operation by the attendant in Washington, and before the lapse of a half minute the same names were returned plainly written. At half past 11 o’clock, A.M. the question being asked here, “what the news was at Washington?” – the answer was almost instantaneously returned — “Van Buren Stock is rising” — meaning of course that his chances were strengthening to receive the nomination on Monday next. The time of day was also enquired for, when the response was given from the Capitol — “forty-nine minutes past eleven.” At this period it was also asked how many persons were spectators to the telegraphic experiments in Washington? — the answer was “sixteen.” After which a variety of names were sent up from Washington, some with their compliments to their friends here, whose names had just been transmitted to them. Several items of private intelligence were also transmitted backward and forward, one of which was an order to the agent here not to pay a certain bill. Here however, the electric fluid proved too slow, for it had been paid a few minutes before.

At half past 12 o’clock, the following wan sent to Washington, “Ask a reporter in Congress to send a despatch to the Baltimore Patriot at 2, P.M.” In about a minute the answer cam back thus: “It will be attended to.”

2 o’clock, P.M. — The despatch has arrived, and is as follows:

One o’clock. — There has just been made a motion in the House to go into committee of the Whole on the Oregon question. Rejected — ayes 79, nays 86.

Half past one. — The House is now engaged on private bills.

Quarter to two. — Mr Atherton is now speaking in the Senate.

Mr. S. will not be in Baltimore to-night.

So that we are thus enabled to give to our readers information from Washington up to 2 o’clock. This is indeed the annihilation of space.

The Clipper of Saturday contains the following information regarding the construction and working of the Telegraph:

The wire, (perfectly secured against the weather by a covering of rope-yarn and tar,) is conducted on the top of posts about 20 feet high, and about 100 years apart.

We understand that the nominations on Monday next will be forwarded to Washington by means of this Telegraph. The following is the Alphabet used:

We have no doubt that government will deem it expedient to continue this Telegraph to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, when its utility shall have been fully tested. When understood, the mode of operation is plain and simple.

American Freeman (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) Jun 15, 1844

THE LATE CONVENTIONS.

A brief notice of the proceedings of the Tyler and Locofoco Conventions, held in the City of Baltimore on Monday the 27th of May and the following days —

….. [excerpt]

The Convention met again at four o’clock; when, after listening to sundry speeches, they proceeded to ballot for a candidate for the Vice Presidency, which resulted in favor of Silas Wright, of New York, who received 258 votes, and Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire, 8. Information of his nomination was immediately communicated through the magnetic telegraph, to Mr. Wright, then at Washington City, who immediately replied, that [he could not accept] — eleven minutes only being taken in forwarding the information, and receiving the answer.

Alton Telegraph and Democratic Review (Alton, Illinois) Jun 15, 1844

THE MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH

On Thursday, the 23d ult, says the New York Commercial, the experiment of carrying the wires of the electro magnetic telegraph across, or rather under the East river, was made with perfect success. The lead pipe through which this communication is made, weighs over six thousand pounds, and was laid at the bottom of the river from a steamboat employed for the purpose, though not with out great risk and labor. It is one continuous line, more than half a mile in length, without joint. Through this extensive line of heavy pipe are four copper wires, completely insulated, so as to insure the transmissions of the electro magnetic fluid. We understand that the various routs north, east, and west, have been delayed at the intervening streams, for the purpose of learning the result of this experiment. The whole work had bee effected under the superintendence of Mr. Samuel Colt engineer and of the proprietors of the New York and Offing Electro Magnetic Telegraph Line — Repub

Alton Telegraph and Democratic Review (Alton, Illinois) Nov 8, 1845

Image from The American Leonardo: A Life of Samuel F.B. Morse

The late experiment of carrying the wires of the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph across, or rather under, the East river, New York, which was at first supposed to have been entirely successful, seems to have failed — the pipes through which the communication was made, having been brought up a few days afterwards, by the fluke of an anchor. Whether the attempt will be renewed, with such improvements as shall appear calculated to remove the cause of the failure, we are unable to say.

Alton Telegraph and Democratic Review (Alton, Illinois) Nov 15, 1845

It is said that the American Magnetic Telegraph proves more efficient than those used in England and France — the former giving sixty signs or characters per minute, and the English and French not over one-fourth of that number. The impressions made by the American invention are likewise better, and more permanent, than those produced by its European rivals.

Alton Telegraph and Democratic Review (Alton, Illinois) Sep 11, 1846

ANSWER
To the Enigma that appeared in the “Telegraph” of last week.

Maine, one of the United States.
Arctic, the name of an Ocean.
Greece, a country in Europe.
Niagara, a river in North America.
Egina, a gulf in Greece.
Thai, a country in India.
Imerina, a country in Africa.
Chili, a country in South America.
Tigre, a State in Africa.
Erie, a lake in North America.
Lima, a city in South America.
Elmira, a town in New York.
Green, a river in Kentucky.
Runac, a river in South America.
Aar, a river in Switzerland.
Parma, a country in Europe.
Herat, a country in Asia.
My whole is a Magnetic Telegraph, a great modern invention.

H.W.W.

Alton Telegraph and Democratic Reivew (Alton, Illinois) Aug 13, 1847

Image from Telegraph History

From the West Jerseyman.
THE MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH.

Along the smoothed and slender wires
The sleepless heralds run,
Fast as the clear and living rays
Go streaming from the sun;
No peals or flashes heard or seen,
Their wondrous flight betray,
And yet their words are quickly felt
In cities far away.

Nor summer’s heat, nor winter’s hail,
Can check their rapid course;
They meet unmoved, the fierce wind’s rage —
The rough waves’ sweeping force; —
In the long night of rain and wrath,
As in the blaze of day,
They rush with news of weal and wo,
To thousands far away.

But faster still than tidings borne
On that electric cord,
Rise the pure thoughts of him who loves
The Christian’s life and Lord —
Of him who taught in smiles and tears
With fervent lips to pray,
Maintains his converse here on earth
With bright worlds far away.

Ay! though no outward wish is breath’d,
Nor outward answer given,
The sighing of that humble heart
Is known and felt in Heaven; —
Those long frail wires may bend and break,
Those viewless heralds stray,
But Faith’s least word shall reach the throne
Of God, though far away.

Alton Telegraph and Democratic Review (Alton, Illinois) Mar 17, 1848

Discontented People.

Philosophers have a good deal to say about the blessings of contentment, and all that sort of thing. Nothing, however, can be more uncalled for. Contentment is the parent of old fogyism, the very essence of mildew and inactivity. A contented man is one who is inclined to take things as they are, and let them remain so. It is not content that benefits the world, but dissatisfaction. It was the man who was dissatisfied with stage-coaches that introduced railroads and locomotives. It was a gentleman “ill at ease” with the operations of mail wagons who invented the magnetic telegraph. Discontent let Columbus to discover America; Washington to resist George III. It taught Jefferson Democracy; Fulton how to build steamboats; and Whitney to invent the cotton gin. Show us a contented man, and we will show you a man who would never have got above sheep skin breeches in a life-time. Show us a discontented mortal, on the contrary, and we will show six feet of goaheaditiveness that will not rest satisfied till he has invented a cast iron horse that will outrun the telegraph.

Alton Daily Telegraph (Alton, Illinois) Jul 13, 1853

The First Telegraph.

In 1844 when Professor Morse petitioned Congress to appropriate $30,000 to enable him to establish a telegraph between Washington and Baltimore, Ex-Governor David Wallace, of this State, was a member of the committee on ways and means, to which the petition was referred, and gave the casting vote in its favor. The Whig members of the committee all voted for the measure, and the Democratic members all opposed it. The members who voted with Gov. Wallace were Millard Fillmore, Joseph R. Ingersoll, of Pa., Tom Marshall, of Kentucky, and Sampson Mason, of Ohio. Those who voted against it were Dixon H. Lewis, of Alabama, Frank Pickens, of South Carolina, Charles G. Atherton, of New Hampshire, and John W. Jones, of Virginia.

The Indianapolis News says:

“Gov. Wallace’s vote for the appropriation defeated him the next fall when he ran again for Congress. His opponent was Wm. J. Brown. He was, I’ve been told, a shrewd Democratic politician — the father of Austin H. Brown. The Governor and Mr. Brown stumped the district together, and Mr. Brown, all through the campaign, used as his most effective weapon, against his Whig opponent, the fact that he had voted for this appropriation. Pointing his finger at the Governor, he would say, ‘and the man who now asks you for your votes has squandered $30,000 of the people’s money, giving it away to Professor Morse for his E-lec-tro mag-net-ic Tell-lie-graph,’ with a most ludicrous drawl on the word telegraph. With the rough backwoodsmen, and even the people of the towns, the telegraph in that day was considered some sort of a trick or humbug; and many of Mr. Wallace’s staunchest supporters feared there was something wrong in the old gentleman’s head when they heard from his own lips that he really had voted the subsidy. One honest old Shelby county farmer, Mr. Wallace said, took him by the hand and looked into his face with the tenderest pity. Finally his lip quivered, and the tears fell as he sobbed out, ‘Oh, Davy, Davy, how could you ever vote for that d—-d magnetic telegraph.'”

The bill did not pass the Senate until the last night of the session. The story of its passage by that body has been often told, but will bear repeating. We clip the following from a scrap book’ without knowing the name of the author:

There were only two days before the close of the session; and it was found, on examination of the calendar, that no less than one hundred and forty-three bills had precedence of it. Professor Morse had nearly reached the bottom of his purse; his hard-earned savings were almost spent; and, although he had struggled on with undying hope for many years, it is hardly to be wondered at that he felt disheartened now. On the last night of the session he remained until nine o’clock; and then left without the slightest hope that the bill would be passed. He returned to his hotel, counted his money, an found that after paying his expenses to New York, he would have seventy-five cents left. That night ne went to bed sad, but not without hope for future; for, through all his difficulties and trials, that never forsook him. The next morning, as he was going to breakfast, one of the waiters informed him that a young lady was in the parlor waiting to see him. He went in immediately, and found that the young lady was Miss Ellsworth, daughter of the Commissioner of Patents, who had been his most steadfast friend while in Washington.

“I come,” said she, “to congratulate you.”

“For what?” said Professor Morse.

“On the passage of your bill,” she replied.

“Oh, no; you must be mistaken,” said he. “I remained in the Senate till a late hour last night, and there was no prospect of its being reached.”

“Am I the first then,” she exclaimed joyfully, “to tell you?”

“Yes, if it is really so.”

“Well,” she continued, “father remained till the adjournment, and heard it passed; and I asked him if I might not run over and tell you.”

“Annie,” said the Professor, his emotion almost choking his utterance, “the first message that is sent from Washington to Baltimore, shall be sent from you.”

“Well,” she replied, “I will keep you to your word.”

While the line was in process of completion, Professor Morse was in New York, and upon receiving intelligence that it was in working order, he wrote to those in charge, telling them not to transmit any messages over it till his arrival. He then set out immediately for Washington, and on reaching that city sent a note to Miss Ellsworth, informing her that he was now ready to fulfill his promise, and asking her what message he should send.

To this he received the following reply:

WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT.

Cambridge City Tribune (Cambridge City, Indiana) Jan 1, 1880

Image of Sam Houston from Son of the South

MORSE OFFERED HIS TELEGRAPH TO TEXAS STATE

AUSTIN, Texas, Aug 5. — Samuel F.B. Morse offered the Republic of Texas his invention of the electro magnetic telegraph in 1828, but the offer never was accepted, according to a letter by Mr. Morse found in the state library.

The letter, dated 1860, was addressed to General Sam Houston, then governor of Texas, and withdrew the offer, which had been more than twenty years before General Houston was president of the Texan republic. The communication was written from “Po’Keepsie”, taken by librarians to be Poughkeepsie, New York. It is dated August 9, 1860. Starting with “May it please your excellency” the letter read:

“In the year of 1838 I made an offer of gift of my invention of the electro-magnetic telegraph to Texas, Texas being then an independent republic. Although the offer was made more than twenty years ago, Texas while an independent state, nor since it has become one of the United States, has ever directly or impliedly accepted the offer. I am induced, therefore, to believe in its condition as a gift it was of no value to the state, but on the contrary has been an embarrassment. In connection, however, with my other patent, it has become for the public interest as well as my own, that I should be able to make complete title to the whole invention in the United States.

“I, therefore, now respectfully withdraw my offer then made, in 1838, the better to be in a position to benefit Texas, as well as the other states of the Union.

“I am with respect and sincere personal esteem

“Your Obedient Servant,

“Samuel F.B. Morse.”

Librarians are looking for the letter of 1838 offering the electro-magnetic telegraph to Texas. They are also seeking to find out what “other patent” Mr. Morse spoke of.

Ada Weekly News (Ada, Oklahoma) Aug 10, 1922

This Standard Gasoline advertisement ran in the Abilene Reporter News in 1937