A Holiday for Presidents with a Handful of Quotes from Our First

When I was a kid we celebrated both Abe Lincoln's and George Washington's birthdays. For convenience the two were merged into a Federal holiday called President's Day.  The Washington illustration was created as part of my Mapped Life Series in which I painted faces on pages of a Rand McNally Atlas. Pennsylvania is where our Founding Fathers met to hammer out the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, one of the defining documents of our American experiment.

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Here are some George Washington quotes to ponder and enjoy on this day.

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"Example, whether it be good or bad, has a powerful influence."

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"We are either a united people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a Nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it."

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"There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery."
--Letter to Robert Morris

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"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth."
--Letter to James Madison

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"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."

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"It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one."
--Letter to his niece

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"Rise early, that by habit it may become familiar, agreeable, healthy, and profitable. It may, for a while, be irksome to do this, but that will wear off; and the practice will produce a rich harvest forever thereafter; whether in public or private walks of life."

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"It is infinitely better to have a few good men than many indifferent ones."
--Letter to James McHenry

Don't Know Much About History? Read All About It!

Daniel Boone by Chester Harding. National Portrait Gallery

This weekend I was talking with my brother about the birth of the oil industry and the period of history between the Civil War and WW1. He's been reading a history book that he picked up at a garage sale or somewhere that's been on his shelf. He'd gotten motivated to read this history book after reading a copy of the U.S. Constitution.

For me, history has always been fascinating. When I write about a subject I like to research the origins of ideas that preceded that subject. When I write about oil I learn the history of oil. I also ask questions and ask, "How did they lubricate things before there was oil?" Whale blubber, for example, produced an effective lubricating oil for wagon wheels.

Biographies are another way to learn about history. What makes biographies so interesting is that they give us insights into the men and women who created that history, what motivated them, and how they were shaped by earlier events in their lives. 

What's interesting is how new biographies can be written about people that shed new light on the person. For example, an early biography about president James Madison might include all the stories that had been written about him in the newspapers of his day. It is possible that the writer may have, out of deference, left out anything that would put the fourth president in a bad light. Later biographers who had access to all his personal correspondence and diaries might share much that casts the former president and co-author of the Constitution in a new light.

As a descendant of Daniel Boone I have read many books on the 18th century pioneer folk hero. None of the early books mention how one of his daughters was conceived by his brother while he was away on a hunting trip. Lest this sound shameful, consider that the usual "long hunts" were a matter of months. When Boone did not come back from one of his journeys it was assumed he was dead. Two years he was gone. His brother thus stepped in to be the head of the household.

Boone had actually been captured by a tribe of Native Americans in Ohio. The chief liked and respected him, and eventually gave him his daughter. When Boone learned that the tribe was planning to go wipe out the community he helped establish at Boonesborough, he left in the night and ran for three days to warn them of the impending attack. Before his arrival, his wife and brother worried about how Daniel would feel when he came home to see a daughter who was not his. Boone reportedly was completely magnanimous and welcomed Jemima as his own. 

EdNote: As I wrote that story I started wondering whether I may have combined two stories here. In any event, these two incidents were not included in early biographies and appear only in more recent books like Lawrence Elliott's The Long Hunter and John Mack Farragher's Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer.

Robert E. Lee was of stellar importance in the South that it was more than a century before anyone dared to say he may have made any strategic mistakes in the Civil War. Having been to Gettysburg, "Pickett's Charge" was inexcusable.

Meriwether Lewis very likely contracted syphilis during the famous Lewis and Clarke expedition to the Northwest, which was not included in early biographies of the explorer. 

In David McCullough's bio of John Adams there are many surprising details about Ben Franklin, who preached "Early to bed and early to rise" while actually doing otherwise.

Much more could be said, but for now it's time to start my day.

Related Links

Daniel Boone Was A Man

Democracy's Achilles Heel. Was Madison Right? 

Democracy's Achilles Heel: Was Madison Right?

Henrik Ibsen, 1870.

In the summer of 2018 I watched a film dramatization of Ibsen’s powerful play An Enemy of the People. Like many influential works, most people have heard of them but never read or experienced them first-hand, and in this case I numbered myself among the majority. Until then.

I’d just finished reading a biography of James Madison, who authored the Federalist Papers and was instrumental in creating the founding documents that formed the foundations of the United States, a beacon for Democracy. Our leaders and representatives are chosen. The people have power in the process of electing a representative government, via the voting booth and caucuses.

Though Madison accepted giving power to the people, he was uncomfortable with this notion. At the time, his belief was that this was only going to work as long as we had an elite (educated) voting public. Once derelicts figured out they could vote for reps who would serve their more base interests, democracy would be in trouble. The elite "knew what was best" and power should reside in "their capable hands."

You can read the rest of this essay here.

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Related Links
Why James Madison Hated Democracy
Why Democracy Doesn't Deliver
Excerpt: Voters generally favor policies that enhance their own well-​being with little consideration for that of future generations or for long-​term outcomes. Politicians are rewarded for pandering to voters’ immediate demands and desires, to the detriment of growth over the long term.Politicians are rewarded for pandering to voters’ immediate demands and desires, to the detriment of growth over the long term.

Audio Books of 2018: A Year In Review

It's that time of year. Magazines make lists of the top movies, most important books famous people who passed away, significant events and other such things. While looking over my past 11+ years of blogging I noticed how in 2010 I'd shared a list of audio books I'd listened to that year.

In case you haven't noticed, I like books. I like reading them, and when sufficiently motivated I like writing them. And, I especially enjoy sharing what I've been reading. So without further adieu, here are the audio books I have completed in 2018 (an exception is cited.) There have been at least two or three dozen additional audio books begun but abandoned for various reasons, most frequently because I did not want to remain in the company of the reader for one reason or another. Occasionally a book is so tedious it gets lost in the weeds, or rather its own minutia. And so, here is my list... (with hot links on those I have written about elsewhere.)

Audiobooks 2018

1. Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams

2. The Death of Ivan Ilyich . Tolstoy
This was my second reading. Am thinking I may read it again in 2019.

3. The Innovators:  How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution . Walter Isaacson

4. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men . David Foster Wallace
Wallace is a great writer. Was not my favorite book.

5. A Lowcountry Heart [Reflections on a Writing Life] .  Pat Conroy
Made me feel I have been missing something by not reading him sooner.

6. Invisible Man . Ralph Ellison
Blown away by its power.. I read about one-third intending to finish later... which I must do.

7. Shane .  Jack Schaefer
A childhood favorite. Have read it a couple times over course of a lifetime. This was third time.

8. Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success . Phil Jackson
You can read the review.

9. In Their Lives [Great Writers On Great Beatles Songs]
Rewarding.

10. Both Flesh and Not [essays] . David Foster Wallace
Wallace is superb.

11. Murder in the Mews: Three Perplexing Cases for Poirot . Agatha Chistie

12. My Life in Middlemarch . Rebecca Mead
A original memoir, a unique approach to sharing the meanings of one's life experiences.

13. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest . Kesey, Ken
Second reading, as I'd watched the film again this year. An incredible book.

14. Filthy Rich [A powerful billionaire, the sex scandal that undid him, and all the justice that money can buy : the shocking true story of Jeffrey Epstein] . James Patterson
How the other half live. That is, how justice is seldom served when it comes to people with power. Sad.

15. Endless Night . Agatha Christie

16. The Truth Matters : A citizen's guide to separating facts from lies and stopping fake news in its tracks . Bruce R. Bartlettought the paperback afterwards.
Useful and important. I b

17. Heart of Darkness . Joseph Conrad

18. Star Island . Carl Hiaasen
A romp like all his books.

19. Richistan: A journey through the American wealth boom and the lives of the new rich . Robert Frank

20. Razor Girl .  Carl Hiassen

21. Skinny Dip .  Carl Hiassen

22. Collected Fictions . Jorge Luis Borges
Same reader as LikeWar, which made me like LikeWar all the more.
Borges was a chief influence in my fiction writing.

23. James Madison: The Fourth President .  Garry Wills
Many insights about a president I knew little about.
 
24. Andrew Jackson .  Robert Remini

25. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less .  Barry Schwartz
Excellent book. Explains a lot of things we get frustrated with.

26. The Cold War Killing Fields: Rethinking the Long Peace . Paul Thomas Chamberlin
An important book for all of us, but especially Baby Boomers who lived through much of this.

27. The Untold Story of the Talking Book .  Matthew Rubery

28. We Die Alone .  David Howarth
A compelling read from start to finish. Superb writing, made all the more powerful because it really happened.

29. The Year of Less [How I stopped shopping, gave away my belongings, and discovered life is worth more than anything you can buy in a store] . Cait Flanders

30. The Flight [Charles Lindbergh's daring and immortal 1927 transatlantic crossing] . Dan Hampton

31. Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics, Explained by its Most Brilliant Teacher
This is a set of six lectures by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman

32. Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America . Walter Borneman
Another of the presidents I knew little about.

33. Dopesick [dealers, doctors, and the drug company that addicted America]
Some would call this unbalanced reporting as the author has an agenda. A lot of good research and insightful.

34. Never Trust a Liberal Over 3 - Especially a Republican . Ann Coulter
Same as #33.

35. LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media . P.W. Singer

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So many books, so little time.

My list of non-audio books is longer and shorter, many read for specific portions as research for other things. Some still in process. I found my re-reading of Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil to be a thought provoking and rewarding read this year, prompted in part by Gordon Marino's The Existentialist's Survival Guide, subtitled How to Live Authentically in an Inauthentic Age. 

An important idea set in motion this year was this one: In matters of virtue, one of the most needful virtues for our time is for courage.

Much more could be said, but that is always the case, is it not?  May your holiday season be rewarding and meaningful. Merry Christmas. And I'll catch you on the flip side. 

Tippecanoe and Something New

I just finished reading a biography of James Madison, our fourth president who played a significant role in the framing of the Constitution. To say it knocked my socks off would be an overstatement, but it made for an interesting read, this fourth volume in The American Presidents Series with an intro by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the book itself by Garry Wills.

At the outset, Schlesinger notes that Madison is not on anyone's top ten list of great presidents. Nevertheless, he was not our worst president and the well-researched book does have some fascinating insights into this fairly well forgotten section of our history. I mean, how many details do you know about The War of 1812? Here are a few. Madison was president at the time. There was a battle in New Orleans. Washington was burned to the ground. We fought the British.

Let's see if you can guess this: Name the five men whose fame in the War of 1812 led to their seats in the White House? O.K. that was a trick question. Back then the president's residence had another name until Teddy Roosevelt called it the White House at the outset of the 20th century.

Gary Wills begins the book with three chapters about Madison's failings and weaknesses. The rest of the book is devoted to convincing readers that Madison actually did make some significant contributions in spite of these.

I think it's the anecdotes that stick with me most when I read a book like this. An image is conveyed and you get a small aha, or something to catalog in your brain when you recall that concept or person again.

One of Madison's great achievements was his stand on the separation of church and state. He did not want New Englanders, like the Adams contingent, dictating the kind of faith everyone would have to accept. Madison believed we would be a better country if everyone worshipped as they wished. It's a counter intuitive idea. Do not allow the government to push religion, and you end up with more churches rather than less. Sure enough, America today has far more citizens who attend church on a regular basis than England, with its "State religion" has had in perhaps a hundred years.

The anecdote which I found quite interesting in the book, pretty much mentioned only in passing, was how William Henry Harrison, then governor of Indiana, turned a fiasco into a PR coup. Harrison led U.S. forces to quell the Tecumseh-led Native American uprising that was occurring in the Midwest. Harrison's troops fought a smaller group, yet lost more men and suffered more casualties. In addition, they lost still more of their troops due to malaria and morale was eroded. Yet the first message to the Capitol was that they won a great victory.

The press picked up the story, Harrison was suddenly a hero. Madison later learned a bit more about the truth of what happened, and seriously considered a federal investigation. Rising tensions with the British (we were blaming the Brits for inciting the Native peoples against us) kept Madison distracted enough so that he never followed through on that. Harrison was thus enabled to ride the waves of popular opinion to reach the presidency, his campaign slogan being, "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too."

The story reminded me of an incident in the Viet Nam War era bestseller The Ugly American in which falsified accounts of Viet Cong incursions were printed in the newspapers in order to influence funding of the war. The journalists were safely ensconced in Saigon while reports would be wired "from the front" that an attack occurred here or there in some remote region. The military had its agenda (to mislead the public) and the journalists got their "story."

Enough for today. The five men who reached the presidency were: James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler and Zachary Taylor. How'd ya do?

NOTE: The picture top right was based on an image of Andrew Jackson. I mention this only to avoid the accusation that I have no clue what James Madison looked like. The lower right fellow with a drooping mustache is.... just another guy. For more portraits and profiles, visit my art blog The Many Faces of Ennyman at http://ed-newman.blogspot.com