Ambushed by History

Philip Roth had a long essay in the Sunday New York Times book review section. The subject was his new novel, a sort of reimagining of American history if the isolationist, anti-semitic Hitler apologist Charles Lindbergh had been elected president in 1940 instead of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Most of the piece is an explanation of the book’s origins and an exploration of method. But he takes a detour near the end to puncture our most comforting national myth: That the purity of our devotion to freedom has made us somehow indestructible, immune from history:

“History claims everybody, whether they know it or not and whether they like it or not. In recent books, including this new one, I take that simple fact of life and magnify it through the lens of critical moments I’ve lived through as a 20th-century American. I was born in 1933, the year Hitler came to power and F.D.R. was first inaugurated as president and Fiorello La Guardia was elected mayor of New York and Meyer Ellenstein became the mayor of Newark, my city’s first and only Jewish mayor. As a small child I heard on our living room radio the voices of Nazi Germany’s Fuhrer and America’s Father Coughlin delivering their anti-Semitic rants. Fighting and winning the Second World War was the great national preoccupation from December 1941 to August 1945, the heart of my grade school years. The cold war and the anti-Communist crusade overshadowed my high school and college years as did the uncovering of the monstrous truth of the Holocaust and the beginning of the terror of the atomic era. The Korean War ended shortly before I was drafted into the Army, and the Vietnam War and the domestic upheaval it fomented — along with the assassinations of American political leaders — clamored for my attention every day throughout my 30’s.

“And now Aristophanes, who surely must be God, has given us George W. Bush, a man unfit to run a hardware store let alone a nation like this one, and who has merely reaffirmed for me the maxim that informed the writing of all these books and that makes our lives as Americans as precarious as anyone else’s: all the assurances are provisional, even here in a 200-year-old democracy. We are ambushed, even as free Americans in a powerful republic armed to the teeth, by the unpredictability that is history. May I conclude with a quotation from my book? ”Turned wrong way round, the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied as “History,” harmless history, where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable. The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic.’

“In writing these books I’ve tried to turn the epic back into the disaster as it was suffered without foreknowledge, without preparation, by people whose American expectations, though neither innocent nor delusional, were for something very different from what they got.”

A Real Infospigot

From The New York Times this morning: “A Walking, Wisecracking Encyclopedia,” a review of a book by a guy who set out to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, and did it:

“BRITANNICA

“The venerable encyclopedia that Mr. Jacobs chose to read from cover to cover. It comprises 32 volumes, or 44 million words. ‘Reading the Britannica is like channel surfing on a very highbrow cable system, one with no shortage of shows about Sumerian cities,’ he writes. To accommodate this exercise he decides to cut back on watching reality television.”

Disappointed Office-Seeker, redux

HarrisonAs I mentioned in today’s post on the James A. Garfield assassination, the stock phrase used to describe his killer is “disappointed office-seeker.” Google turns up a bit that comedian Robert Klein once did based on that cliche. But Garfield wasn’t the only elected official of his era done in by someone who expected an appointment that didn’t come through.

Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison was shot to death in October 1893, the day before the scheduled closing of the World’s Columbian Exposition in the city. The killer was an apparently mentally ill man named Prendergast who believed he he merited an appointment to a senior position for services rendered to Harrison. He didn’t get the job he fancied, general counsel for the city, so he went to Harrison’s home with a gun.

Harrison was a five-term mayor (though terms were just two years in his day). His death prompted an orgy of mourning. By one account, the day of his funeral, more than half a million people lined the route to the cemetery. Later, his son, Carter Harrison II, also won five mayoral elections (so the Richards Daley were not the first to pull off that feat).

The other day, when Dad and I went down to Randolph and Desplaines streets to take a look at the new Haymarket statue, he mentioned he thought the original Haymarket sculpture, which depicts a cop trying to calm the waters of unrest, might be over in a park a few blocks to the west. We drove by, and found Union Park. On one edge is Spaulding Elementary School, where my mom’s mom, Anne O’Malley Hogan, taught back in the 1920s. We could see driving by that there was a statue in the park, but it was obscured by trees and I couldn’t see whether it was the Haymarket cop.

Dad went back down there today and called from the statue to report his findings. It’s a statue of Carter Harrison, who it turns out lived nearby when he was assassinated. (And, to connect back to Haymarket, was on the scene of the bombing before it took place. The Chicago Historical Society has a great writeup of the event, and Harrison’s part in it, here.)

Infospigot: The Misinformation

Reading Minnesota Public Radio’s “Writer’s Almanac” today, I see a mention that today is the anniversary of the death, in 1881, of President James A. Garfield. Reading the item brings me face to face with the unpleasant truth that for years I’ve been spreading a spurious story about his death and in fact have confused certain details of Garfield’s assassination with the story of William McKinley‘s assassination 20 years later.

The story as I’ve told it: Garfield was visiting Buffalo. He was shot in the abomen by a “disappointed office-seeker” (the stock phrase) as he passed through a train station. Emergency surgery was performed by the only available doctor, who turned out to be a veterinarian. Garfield appeared to be recovering from his wounds, which included a damaged intestine; but the vet’s botched work led to infection, gangrene, and a horribly protracted death nearly three months after he was shot.

The “Writer’s Almanac” version of events was at odds with my tale, so I was compelled to check my “facts.” I discovered my story is an amalgam of the Garfield-McKinley events, with one wholesale fabrication thrown in. So from checking a couple of reliable-looking Web resources (here and here), here are the key points in the long and painful demises of the two presidents.

GarfieldFirst, Garfield:

–On July 2, 1881, Garfield was leaving Washington, D.C., on a trip. While preparing to board a train, the “disappointed office-seeker” — actually a nut job with a .44-caliber revolver, Charles Guiteau — shot him twice. One bullet grazed Garfield, the other struck him in the back.

–Garfield was taken back to the White House and doctors summoned. Not a veterinarian in the pack. The physicians believed it was crucial to determine where the bullet had lodged and whether it had struck any vital organs. To do this, and a veterianarian would have done just as well, they began sticking their unwashed fingers and other probes into Garfield’s deep back wound to see if they could feel the slug or damaged organs. They kept at that effort for days or weeks without finding the bullet. Their patient was conscious for most of the poking and gouging and subsequent pus-drainings.

–Despite initial optimism that Garfield would recover, the wound became infected, and the president died on Sept. 19, 1881, an astonishing and no doubt excruciating 80 days after he was shot.

–The most interesting detail of the efforts to treat Garfield is technological: At one point, Alexander Graham Bell was called in to use a metal detector he and aides had developed to try to find the bullet. The device was foiled, apparently, by an innovation in sleep technology: The test was conducted while Garfield was lying on a mattress equipped with newfangled metal springs.

MckinleyNow for McKinley:

–In September 1901, the president went to Buffalo to visit the city’s PanAmerican Exposition. After visiting Niagara Falls on the morning of Sept. 6, he returned to the fair to shake hands with the public.

–One of the people in the reception line was Leon Czolgosz. His abbreviated descriptor: anarchist. Call him a nut job with a .32-caliber pistol.

–Czolgosz, who would have changed his name to Lee Charles if he had had an agent, shot McKinley twice: one shot deflected off the president’s breast bone, the other struck him in the abdomen and tore through his stomach.

–McKinley was rushed to the rather poorly equipped hospital on the exposition grounds. Doctors were summoned, and they agreed immediate surgery was necessary to save McKinley’s life. Again, no veterinarians within scalpel’s reach of the presidential wounds. The doctor on the scene deemed most qualified to operate was a gynecologist, Dr. Matthew Mann. Contending with poor lighting in an improvised operating theater, he couldn’t find the bullet that had wounded McKinley, and settled for patching up the obvious damage and closing the president up again without draining the wounded area.

–Despite initial optimism that McKinley would recover, his wounds became infected, he developed gangrene, and died early on Sept. 14.

So it’s clear my Garfield story is mostly McKinley, with a dash of Garfield and a dollop of outrage — can you believe they let a veterinarian operate on the president?! One question I have for myself: Where did the fiction come from? I do make up stories occasionally — friends and coworkers will testify to that — but usually for the sophomoric pleasure of tricking someone or to make a point. I usually don’t knowingly pass off fanciful historical tales like this as truth; my guess is that, never really having read anything in detail about the Garfield and McKinley killings, I did something fairly common among us humans: jumble some vaguely remembered details together into a plausible narrative (and a narrative all the more entertaining for its key improbable element).

This all makes me wonder whether I’ve told my version of the Garfield story to someone who knew the actual details and thought, “What a load of crap!”

‘Jeb and George’

Jackandbobby

So, the “Jack and Bobby” billboards must be counted as effective advertising for the WB, because they’ve caught my attention. They make me think to myself, “What the hell’s that show going to be about?” Of course, the names, and the tease that one of them will be president, prod Kennedy memories (even if we have to wait till 2041 for the chosen one to become chief executive; will the war on terror still be raging?). When I look at the billboard, I have questions the designers probably didn’t intend: Are Jack and Bobby conjoined twins? And who in heaven’s name is the pensive woman in the background? And the WB probably answers this way: Who cares, as long as people tune in?

My puzzlement isn’t a compelling enough reason to break my record of never having knowingly viewed a WB production. Meantime, we’ve got the real-life drama of George and Jeb, who between them might leave nothing but a smoking crater for Jack and Bobby to preside over in 37 years.

Blog West

Back in California. Yeah, it’s a commonplace observation, but it really is amazing how far and how fast we can and do travel here, and how much we take it for granted. We think nothing of traveling across the continent, and are apt to be cross about it if anything delays us (same with this as in everything else about our lives; impatience and entitlement rule the day). Beyond the implicit sermonizing, I’ll just say it was great to see Kate and Tom when I got back on the ground in Oakland; and it was wonderful to have spent the last 10 days with Dad, Ann, Dan, Chris, Patty, Liam, Soren, Max, Ingrid, and Madeleine — in no particular order!

No pictures from the air this time — I couldn’t get a window. But more later on my trip.

WiFi: A Romance

Well, not a romance, really. But I’m sitting in my dad’s car in Evanston. I decided to check to see if there was an open node on the street before I went into S_______’s to pay to get online. Oh, yes, Evanston likes WiFi. I can see five nodes from where I’m sitting. The very first one let me on/in. The ethical and security issues involved in curbside surfing — we’ll talk about those later.

As far as the date goes, I can never see “September 17” without thinking “Antietam.” It’s an amazing place to visit. One news item: An annual vigil at the battlefield has been canceled, apparently due to Ivan-related weather.

Haymarket

Cimg2021_1

Saw in the Tribune on Wednesday morning that a new statue commemorating the Haymarket Riot (more politically correct designations, such as “Haymarket Affair,” have been adopted over the years) was unveiled the day before. It’s good to see that people in Chicago will still turn out to argue the disputes of 118 years ago:

At the dedication, angry calls of “Anarchists!” were heard as Chicago Federation of Labor President Dennis Gannon read a list of men executed or sent to prison after the riot. And hecklers, some who waved anarchist flags, booed and uttered obscenities at (Fraternal Order of Police) President Mark Donahue.

Dad and I went down to Randolph and Desplaines streets — the first time I ever visited the spot. The statue’s interesting, I guess: It’s an attempt to interpret the history of the moment rather than represent it literally. (An earlier statue on the spot, of a police officer holding up his hand and saying, “In the name of the people of Illinois, I command peace,” was attacked so frequently that it has been relocated to the city’s police academy). But I’m not an art critic. More interesting to me: An older couple showed up while we were out there. After a few minutes, I asked them what had brought them out. It turned out they have retired to the city and live on Randolph, over by the lake. They had seen the story in the paper, too, and decided to investigate. Cimg2023_1“When I read about this, I asked my kids, ‘What world-famous historical incident took place nine blocks west of where we live,” the man said. “One said, ‘It’s got somethng to do with labor.’ That was pretty good. Another one said, ‘Stop torturing your children.’ ”

Dad and I visited just in time. Chicago’s late-summer warm-wave was about to break, and thunderstorms had started to move across the city; five minutes after we were back in the car, it started to rain.

Cage Match: Ivan vs. Martha

IvanAnd the special Emmy for best free-form news comedy goes to … CNN, for its continuing coverage of Hurricane Ivan. The network’s guy in Mobile was on this morning, jabbering and/or gibbering about the monster storm headed straight for him. Rough transcript: “Florida Governor Jeb Bush was wearing a button saying., ‘I’ve survived damn near everything.’ And after Ivan, after Frances, and after Charley, this region has taken a full frontal.”

Huh? Full frontal? As in lobotomy?

Thankfully, the pre-Ivan terror report was pre-empted by breaking-news of live coverage of Martha Stewart announcing she’s going to begin her jail sentence as soon as possible, even though she’ll miss her pets (she actually said that) and even though this means she’ll this means she’ll be in stir for Halloween. Martha, we hardly knew ye!