May 2017 – Page 2 – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

Thomas Edison Embodied the American Spirit of Stick-to-itiveness

A signed photograph of Thomas Edison taken inside his Menlo Park Laboratory, circa 1887, sold for $3,734.38 at an October 2010 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

In April 1983, my Frito-Lay team toured a research laboratory in Delaware to view their facilities and new product development using polypropylene in our packaging systems. At one point, the national sales manager prodded their head scientist about the possibility of speeding it up and, memorably, the reply was a curt “We don’t schedule inventions.”

At the time, it seemed like a profound statement to me, but that was before I got to know Thomas Edison via his writings and others stories about his fabled career.

Edison’s invention factories were not torn over the merits of applied science versus basic research. They were always about applied research, but with a vengeance! “I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and invent it,” Edison said. And did he ever. When he was finished, he would have 1,093 patents in his own name alone, more than any other American in history.

His second patented invention, a stock market ticker, sold for $40,000 in 1869. The sale provided the money for a workshop in Newark, N.J., where he and a small group of workers produced stock tickers, ink recorders and typewriters for automatic telegraphy. In 1876, he moved the shop 12 miles to Menlo Park, where the first of the invention factories was built. The lab and workers were just a hundred yards from Edison’s home.

It was an eclectic group from all over the world: a German glass blower, an English mechanic, mathematicians, carpenters, and draftsmen. Menlo Park became the best private laboratory in the country. The atmosphere Edison created encouraged independent, creative thinking. “There ain’t no rules around here. We’re trying to accomplish something.”

He could be authoritarian and cranky, and set impossible deadlines, since he was there shoulder-to-shoulder with employees 18 hours a day for extended times. Balancing work and personal lives was not as issue; creation was. His approach to failure was the antithesis of other corporations that flourished and failed. “If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I now know 10,000 ways not to do it.”

The indefatigable nature of Edison and his workers was exemplified by the search for material that could make a durable filament essential to the incandescent light bulb. After trying numerous promising candidates, on Oct. 22, 1879, they tested carbonized cotton thread. It would glow for 13½ hours without bursting into flame, the common problem with all light bulbs at the time. Problem solved.

What a difference those invention factory ideas meant to our young nation: a viable incandescent light bulb, cylinder phonographs, nickel-iron-alkaline storage batteries, the electric pen for a mimeograph, the Ediphone, the Kinetoscope, etc. Edison even created inventions that improved other inventions: a simple carbon button transmitter for the mouthpiece on AGB’s telephone … eliminating the need to shout to be heard.

Edison was a charter member of that self-taught group that fervently believed that “if this doesn’t work, we’ll just try something else.” Edison may not have defined genius as 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration, but he certainly proved, without a doubt, that “Genius is hard work, stick-to-itiveness, and common sense.”

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell]

President Coolidge’s Inaction Opened White House Door for Herbert Hoover

A photograph of President Herbert Hoover and his Cabinet, signed, circa 1929, sold for $2,151 at an April 2012 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The first president born west of the Mississippi River was Herbert Clark Hoover in 1874. He was born in West Branch, Iowa, about 30 miles from the mighty river. He had a remarkable life, although there is little evidence of true joy other than the rewards from devoting all of his energy to work and public service … always striving for achievement.

It’s curious that he ended up the Cabinet of President Calvin Coolidge. “Silent Cal” was another taciturn man, “weaned on a pickle” and a work ethic that resulted in five-hour workdays, supplemented by naps in the White House. He did not like many people, especially Hoover, his Secretary of Commerce, complaining, “That man gave me unsolicited advice for six years, all of it bad.” Coolidge jeeringly called Hoover “Wonder Boy,” since Hoover’s reputation for saving lives in World War I had earned him an international title as “The Great Humanitarian.”

It was the Roaring Twenties and times were rosy.

By 1927, America was the most comfortable place in the world. Surrounded by sleek new appliances – radios, refrigerators, telephones, electric fans – that were all within reach of the common man. Eighty-two percent of all things produced were made in America, 80 percent of movies and 85 percent of all cars. America had 50 percent of the world’s gold and the stock market increased by one-third in one year.

But suddenly, there were rain clouds in the sky and for months, it rained steadily across the country. Southern Illinois received two feet of rain in three months and places in Arkansas got over three feet. People had never seen anything like it.

Rain-swollen rivers overran their banks; the San Jacinto in California; the Klamath and Willamette rivers in Oregon; the Snake, Payette and Boise in Idaho; the Neosho in Kansas; Ouachita in Arkansas; the Tennessee and Cumberland in the South; and the Connecticut River in New England.

Then on Good Friday, April 15, 1927, a mighty storm system pounded the middle third of the nation with an unprecedented rain of intensity and duration. From Western Montana to West Virginia and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, rain fell as one might envision what Noah experienced.

Nearly all of this water raced into swollen creeks and rivers and headed straight to the great central artery of the continent – the Mississippi River. The Mississippi and its tributaries drain 40 percent of America, almost 10 million square miles across 31 states. Never in recorded history had the entirety of it been this strained. People standing on the banks watched the carnage floating by. Houses, trees, dead cows, barn roofs. At St. Louis, the volume of passing water was an astonishing two million cubic feet per second.

On April 16, the first levee gave way and 1,300 feet of earthen bank ruptured and a volume of water equal to Niagara Falls passed through the chasm. By May 1, the flood stretched 500 miles from Illinois to New Orleans. The statistics of the Great Flood were staggering. Sixteen million acres flooded … 204,000 buildings lost … 637,000 people homeless, along with 50,000 cattle, 25,000 horses, 145,000 pigs and 1.3 million chickens.

The Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most epic natural disaster in American history. The Mississippi was at flood stage for 153 consecutive days.

President Coolidge sent Wonder Boy to clean up the mess, rolled over and went back to sleep. It would help Herbert Hoover win the 1928 presidential election, never suspecting that in 1929 the merry-go-round of good times would stop when the stock market crashed, followed by the Great Depression, which would last for 10 long years until we started gearing up for war.

Spanish Flu Actually Has Its Origins at a U.S. Army Base

*Kafka for Beginners* (also known as *R. Crumb’s Kafka*), an illustrated biography of the novelist and short story writer, includes a vignette about the Spanish Flu. This page of Robert Crumb’s original art for the book sold for $5,377.50 at a February 2014 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 most likely got started at Fort Riley, an Army installation in North Central Kansas.

At least according to John Barry, the author and historian who spent seven years researching the topic. His 2004 bestselling book The Great Influenza describes how the plague began in Kansas, moved east as World War I troops were shipping out, and in the process killed tens of thousands of Americans.

The armistice ending WWI was signed in 1919 and the year before saw a high number of casualties. Then there was this influenza pandemic, which became the worst infectious disease in recorded history. It struck some 500 million people across the globe, with updated estimates of between 50 million and 100 million deaths … up to 5 percent of the world’s population at the time.

Influenza is really a simple virus … usually.

We get the flu when somebody around us has it and coughs or sneezes. This makes it airborne and we typically just breathe it in. Or, you get the virus on your hands and then touch your nose, eyes or mouth.

The virus has to get into your lungs since it only has eight genes and needs to live off human cells. While in the lungs, its only job is to turn a cell into a virus factory. The virus takes over the cell’s machinery and forces it to make new viruses. Then the cell dies, the virus escapes, and infects new cells.

It is a simple little plan.

With the unusually deadly 1918 flu strain, people died quickly, sometimes overnight, as their lungs filled with liquid. The still-gasping-for-breath people died as their skin turned dark (black) due to a lack of oxygen.

Every year, the flu makes its way through a population, affects everyone exposed to it and then burns itself out. After it mutates, the new version spreads around all over again. That’s what it’s programmed to do.

The 1918 strain did that, too. It was just an unusually deadly version of the H1N1 virus and more virulent than the previous wave.

Practice, practice, practice.

The next time a particularly serious strain returns (everyone agrees it will be back), we will have vaccines and antibiotics to help combat it. Plus, we’ll be more educated about how to avoid its spread (hopefully).

That is about the extent of our protection.

How Can Catastrophe Fall From a Cloudless Sky?

British economist Norman Angell’s 1910 book *The Great Illusion*, which argued that war between industrial countries was futile, inspired the 1937 French film *La Grande Illusion*. A theater poster for the movie sold for $8,625 at a July 2006 auction.

“Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the face.” – Mike Tyson

By Jim O’Neal

Throughout history, armies have always made plans. Alexander the Great had one to invade the Persian Empire to capture or kill Emperor Darius III. Phillip II of Spain had a plan to defeat England in 1588 by sailing an armada up the Channel, load his troops and land in Kent. The Duke of Marlborough planned to save Holland in 1704 by luring the French army down the Rhine and defeat it away from their home base.

Another famous plan by Hannibal in the Second Punic War was evading Rome’s navy, crossing the Alps and confronting the Legions in their homeland. Even the United States had a plan in 1861 to strangle the South by blockading the Mississippi River and all southern ports (the Anaconda Plan).

All these plans were made in the midst of war or when war was imminent. By 1870, war planning evolved to abstract contingencies for use only if a war became a reality. It was a futile effort of the paranoid, since war can become a reality if an overwhelming force becomes available for use by some ambitious leader (O’Neal’s Rule).

The Second World War – when it inevitably started in 1939 – was simply a continuation of the First World War. It was tragic and unnecessary conflict. Unnecessary because the train of events could have been interrupted at any point during the five weeks that preceded the first clash of arms. Tragic because the war ended the lives of 16 million people, tortured the lives of millions more, and destroyed the benevolent and optimistic culture of the European continent.

The puzzlement, of course, was how such a catastrophe came out of a cloudless sky in 1914 to a population raised to believe that war could never trouble their continent again. In the summer of that year, Europe enjoyed peaceful economic prosperity, so dependent on international exchange and cooperation that the prevailing wisdom considered war an impossibility.

A bestseller in 1910, The Great Illusion was an analysis of economic interdependence. It confirmed that war would be deterred by any threat to the disruption of international credit, and both industrial and commercial society were unambiguous in agreement. Industrial output was strong. New categories of manufactured goods, chemical dyes and internal-combustion vehicles flourished as new sources of cheaply extracted materials became more widely available. Rising populations everywhere and the enormous expansion of overseas empires were followed by a second revolution in transportation – steamships overtook sailing-ship tonnage.

Banks recovered their confidence. Gold-backed capital was circulating freely and fueled Russian railways, South African gold and diamonds, South American cattle, Australian sheep, Malaysian rubber and Canadian wheat. Every sector of the United States’ enormous economy devoured European capital as fast as it became available.

Naturally, everyone had strategic alliances (just in case), armies built up to offset naval imbalances (just in case), and contingency plans. However, diplomatic communications had not kept pace, as their need was a quaint relic of the past. There was no need since there was no trouble. Everybody was too busy getting rich.

War? Not a chance (plus, everyone had a “plan”). Maybe boxer Mike Tyson is smarter than we give him credit for.

Mesoamerica’s Development of Corn Still a Mystery

A piece of carved jade, circa 750, depicting two enthroned Maya deities, including the Maize God (left), sold for $62,737.50 at a September 2006 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

I recently used the term “Mesoamerica” and someone asked me to define it a bit more.

Basically, it is a non-specific, geographical area that academics use for parts of pre-Columbian Mexico, Central America and an extension into South America. The indigenous peoples of these lands have a reputation for being the greatest cultivators in history, with amazing horticultural innovations, especially corn (maize).

The interesting thing about corn is that we still do not know exactly how they did it. Modern strains of barley, wheat or rice resemble their ancient counterparts, but corn is completely different. Beyond the basic level of chromosomes, there is no genetic kinship.

Even a worldwide conference in 1969 at the University of Illinois on the origin of corn ended up in a scientific brawl and debates are still commonplace. However they did it, Mesoamericans ended up with the first fully bioengineered plant.

Even today, corn is more relevant than most people know. Corn and its derivatives like cornstarch and high fructose corn syrup go into ice cream, embalming fluid, soap, deodorants, peanut butter, automobile paint and (literally) several hundred more food products.

In Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, he claims the roles have been reversed and we have become domesticated by it. That definitely includes me … given my earlier association with Fritos and Doritos!

Having secured their food supply, Mesoamericans then invented their own writing, astronomy and mathematics … including the use of zero … probably the first in recorded history.

Hope this adds a little clarity.

‘We Can Never Know Enough About the American Revolution’

The 1998-S Crispus Attucks $1 was struck to commemorate the 275th anniversary of the birth of Attucks and to honor the nation’s Black Patriots.

By Jim O’Neal

A friend, Oscar Robertson, NBA Hall of Fame player, gained notoriety in 1955 by leading Crispus Attucks High School to the Indiana state championship, becoming the first all-black school in the nation to win a state title. In 1956, Oscar and his teammates won the state championship again, and this time they became the first Indiana high school to complete a season undefeated.

Crispus Attucks was the first person killed in the Boston Massacre (March 5, 1770) and many consider the former slave the first casualty of the American Revolution. In the 1850s, he became a martyr for the abolitionist movement. His probable mixed-race heritage – African and American Indian – allowed both African Americans and Native Americans to leverage his fame in their struggles for justice.

Despite the many eyewitness accounts, scholarly research and dozens of highly acclaimed books, this period is filled with alternate versions and is a continuing source of debate and uncertainty.

A common denominator in many of the high-profile events of the era is the city of Boston, with the Stamp Act of 1765 being a convenient place to start. This was an egregious act of the British Parliament putting a tax on all printed matter – newspapers, books, playing cards and legal documents. It aroused a storm of protest in all the colonies, with Boston’s reaction particularly violent. A Stamp Act administrator was burned in effigy and a mob ransacked the governor’s mansion.

Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, but insisted they maintained the right to pass laws regulating all trade and issuing new taxes at will. This caused protests that were even more violent and into this highly volatile situation, Britain landed 4,000 troops in Boston, strictly “in anticipation of a crisis.”

By 1770, Boston was in an economic decline and the population of 15,000 was smaller than 30 years earlier in 1740. There was continual competition for scarce resources and tensions between British troops and citizens continued to increase. Finally, an argument over payment for a haircut escalated into an angry mob that challenged troops stationed at the Customs House.

The people taunted the soldiers with “Fire! Fire! Fire! We dare you to fire!” At some point, an order was given and they shot into the crowd. Four people were killed and several others wounded. The next day, British Captain Thomas Preston and a small group of soldiers were arrested and taken to Queen Street jail to await trial. Future President John Adams and Josiah Quincy Jr. agreed to be their lawyers. A little-known fact is that four citizens were accused of shooting into the crowd, but they were found not guilty along with all but two of the British soldiers.

Then came the famous Boston Tea Party (1773), when colonists dressed as Indians destroyed 342 chests of tea on three ships in Boston Harbor after the British Parliament levied taxes on tea and granted a monopoly to the British East India Company. All the elements were in place for a war and it lasted for seven years.

The 35 years from 1765 to 1800 are some of the most interesting times in American history and will continue to attract scholarly research and an unending parade of books. However, few have the insight of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough, who has said, “We can never know enough about the American Revolution if we want to understand who we are, why we are the way we are, and why we’ve accomplished what we’ve been able to accomplish that no other country has.”

I agree.

Jefferson Davis was a Genuine War Hero When He Arrived in the Senate

Jefferson Davis’ arrival in Washington, D.C., as a U.S. Senator from Mississippi was like a coronation.

By Jim O’Neal

Thirteen-year-old Jefferson Davis was tired of school. He returned home from Wilkinson Academy, a few miles from the family cotton plantation, put his books on a table, and told his father he would not return. Samuel Davis shrugged and told his youngest son that he would now have to work with his hands rather than his brain. At dawn the next day, he gave young Jeff a large, thin cloth bag, took him to the cotton field and put him in a long line with the family slaves picking cotton.

Three days later, he was back at Wilkinson, happily reading and taking notes with his bandaged hands.

By 16, Jefferson had mastered Latin and Greek, was well read in history and literature, and eager to study law at the University of Virginia. Instead, he spent four years at West Point, graduated in the bottom third of his class and then entered the Army. He was 20 years old and fighting in both the Black Hawk War and the Mexican-American War.

Jefferson Davis’ arrival in Washington, D.C., as a U.S. Senator from Mississippi was like a coronation. A true war hero at age 36, he was recognized by everyone and warmly greeted by all he met. After all, Jeff Davis was the first genuine war hero in the Senate in its entire 58 years!

His rise to prominence occurred as one generation of leaders died or retired – Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster – and a younger one was set to take over, led by Stephen Douglas (39), Andrew Johnson (39), Alexander Stephens (35), Salmon P. Chase (39) and William Seward (35).

Jeff Davis began to give important speeches in the Senate and everyone sensed he had a future in politics.

The Senate proved comfortable and prestigious, providing an intimate venue to discuss and debate the great issues of the time. Yet despite all the exciting opportunities facing the young nation, the hard fact was that slavery was a pernicious issue lurking in the shadows. It was like a cancer that seemed to grow more lethal after every “compromise” designed to resolve it.

An example was the fateful Compromise of 1850, intended to resolve the four-year controversy over the status of the new territories that accrued to the U.S. after the war with Mexico. California was admitted as a free state, and Texas had slaves, but had to surrender its claim to New Mexico. Utah and New Mexico were granted popular sovereignty (self-determination) and there was a more stringent Fugitive Slave Law (destined to be revoked by the Dred Scott reversal).

Jeff Davis felt so strongly that slavery was a 200-year tradition (to be decided by individual states) and detested the 1850 Compromise so much that he resigned his Senate seat to run for governor of Mississippi, confident this would enhance his national visibility, send a strong message to the North and bolster any wavering Southerners. The strategy failed when he lost the election, leaving him with no political office.

Davis bounced back into the Senate by one vote and new President Franklin Pierce (1852) selected him to be Secretary of War, a powerful position to resist the continuous threat from the North to impose their will on the South by any means necessary. The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act just roiled the opposing forces and thoughts of secession were like dry kindling waiting for the proverbial spark. First was President James Buchanan (1856), a Democrat who seemed helpless or resigned to the inevitability of war.

As abolition forces gained momentum and the South grew even more resolute that they would not concede a principle that states’ rights trumped Federal aggression, it was only a question of how or what set of events would tip the nation into a civil war. The answer was in plain sight.

In the critical election year of 1860, though still hopeful of a peaceful settlement on slavery, Davis told an audience that if Republicans won the White House, the Union would have to be dissolved. “I love and venerate the Union of these states,” he said, “but I love liberty and Mississippi more.” When asked if Mississippi should secede if another state did, he roared, “I answer yes!” And if the U.S. Army tried to suppress it? Davis answered even more vehemently. “I will meet force with force!”

Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860.

The slavery issue was simply not resolvable by anything but force. Few foresaw how much force would be needed and the enormous carnage and loss of life involved. War always seems to be much more than anticipated. The 20th century would really amp it up and the 21st century has gotten off to a rocky start, as well.

Webster Certainly Belongs on the List of Our Greatest Senators

This 1853-dated bronze statue of Daniel Webster, measuring 29.75 inches, sold for $11,950 at a March 2008 auction.

By Jim O’Neal

American poet Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943) is perhaps best known for his book-length narrative poem “John Brown’s Body” (1928), about the Civil War abolitionist who raided the armory at Harpers Ferry in 1859. Brown and a group of 20-plus co-conspirators captured several buildings and weapons they hoped to use to start a slave uprising.

U.S. Army Lieutenant Robert E. Lee led a contingent of Marines to quell the insurgency. Brown was captured, tried for treason and hanged. Harpers Ferry was at a busy crossroads, at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, and was the site of at least eight skirmishes while changing hands several times during the Civil War.

Benét also authored “The Devil and Daniel Webster” (1936), a fictional story about a farmer who sells his soul to the devil (Mr. Scratch) and then refuses to pay up even after receiving a three-year extension on the agreement. Benét has Webster defend him in court due to his prodigious real-life record as a famous lawyer, statesman and orator. There are many other films, books and stories about similar Faustian-type bargains, but the use of Daniel Webster was a brilliant choice due to his superior debating skills and outstanding oratory.

In Benét’s trial, despite overwhelming evidence, the jury finds in favor of Mr. Webster’s client.

In virtually every aspect, the real-life Daniel Webster (1782-1852) was almost a true larger-than-life character, at least in American politics and especially in the formative era between 1812 and the Civil War. He played a critical role in virtually every significant issue confronting the new United States government.

Webster had no equal as an orator, either in those turbulent times or in the 200 years since then. Whether in the Supreme Court (240-plus cases), the U.S. Senate, or out on the political stump, he was simply the finest; a golden-tounged spellbinder. He enthralled audiences three to four hours at a time, always in defense of the Union and the sacred U.S. Constitution.

He generated almost god-like respect and was universally considered to be a cinch to be president; particularly in his own mind. His weakness was aligning with the Whigs and a seemingly improvident inability to manage personal finances (and alcohol, as usual). He was also an elitist at a time when Andrew Jackson’s brand of populism was growing, much like the present. He was often referred to as “Black Dan” because of his political conniving.

He missed a perfect chance to be president by refusing to run as vice president in 1840 with William Henry Harrison, who defeated Martin Van Buren but died 31 days after his inauguration.

1841 was the first “Year of Three Presidents.” It began with the defeated Van Buren, followed by Harrison, and then Vice President John Tyler, who had himself sworn in immediately as president after a brief Constitutional crisis following Harrison’s death.

This phenomenon occurred again in 1881. After Rutherford B. Hayes finished his term, new President James A. Garfield took over. When Garfield succumbed to an assassin’s bullet in September, VP Chester A. Arthur moved into the White House … this time with little controversy.

So Daniel Webster never realized his ambition to become president, but any time there is a discussion about our greatest senators, you may be assured that Daniel Webster will be on everyone’s Top 5, along with Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun … two more who never quite got to wear the Presidential Crown. Sadly, we do not have any actual recordings of these great orators, but it is tantalizing to think of them in today’s contemporary politics and to judge them in this age of new media.