June 2017 – Page 2 – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

Julius Caesar Still Influencing Culture 2,000 Years Later

Many Romans in 44 B.C. must have been stunned to see the image of Julius Caesar stamped on newly issued silver denarii. This example sold for $57,500 at a September 2011 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Rome, “The Eternal City,” began as a cluster of small villages on seven hills by the River Tiber and grew into a city-state. According to legend, it was first ruled by kings, who were overthrown, before becoming a republic. A new constitution allowed the election of two senators to run the state. Their terms were limited to one year, as the office of king was prohibited.

It became remarkably successful between 500 and 300 B.C., extending its power through conquest and diplomacy until it encompassed the whole of Italy. By 120 B.C., Rome dominated parts of North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, Greece and Southern France. The conquered territories were organized into provinces ruled by short-term governors who maintained order and ensured the collection of taxes.

By the 1st century B.C., Rome was a Mediterranean superpower, yet its long tradition of collective government, in which no individual could gain much control, was challenged by the personal ambitions of a few immensely powerful military men. A series of civil wars and unrest culminated in the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, a brilliant general and statesman.

Gaius Julius Caesar was born in Rome in 100 B.C. to a family of distinguished ancestry. From an early age, he grasped that money was the key to power in a political system that had become hopelessly corrupt. He also learned that forging a network of alliances and patronage would be crucial to his success.

After serving in the war to crush the slave revolt led by Spartacus, he returned to Rome in 60 B.C. and spent vast sums of money buying influence and positions. Eventually, he teamed up with two other powerful Romans, Crassus and Pompey, to form the First Triumvirate. Then Caesar was first consul and two years later, governor of Gaul, which gave him a springboard to true military glory.

Over the next eight years, he conquered Gaul, bringing the whole of France, parts of Germany, and Belgium under his personal rule. Buoyed by his achievements, he then tried to dictate the terms for returning to Rome. Roman laws required military leaders to relinquish control of their armies before returning to Rome, a prerequisite for running for public office.

When Caesar refused, the Roman Senate declared him hostis (public enemy) and then came the unthinkable: He decided to march his army on Rome! En route, he paused at the border between the Gallic provinces and Italy proper … a small river called the Rubicon. Acutely aware that crossing that river would constitute a declaration of war, he announced “alea iacta est” (the die is cast) and led his army forward, telling them, “Even yet we may draw back, but once across that little bridge, and the whole issue is with the sword.”

“Crossing the Rubicon” is still in vogue today and represents making a difficult decision that cannot be reversed once taken.

Obviously, Caesar won the ensuing civil war, but soon a conspiracy developed with 60 senators planning to assassinate him on March 15, 44 B.C. (the infamous “Ides of March”). What is curious is that even after more than 2,000 years, we find Caesar references so often. The latest is the flap over a play in NYC’s Central Park, Julius Caesar, in which the title character bears a not-so-subtle resemblance to President Trump, with The New York Times questioning whether he can survive living in Caesar’s Palace.

Et tu, Brute?

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 chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

Tidbits: Bluebonnets, Sherlock Holmes, Bums and Booze

Julian Onderdonk’s *Texas Landscape with Bluebonnets* sold for $437,000 at a November 2015 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The bluebonnets in Texas are beginning to fade, but two names always come to mind when talking about the flowers: Claudia Alta Taylor (better known as “Lady Bird” Johnson ) and “Cactus Jack” Garner, who lobbied to make the prickly pear cactus the state flower (and lost).

Garner became the 32nd vice president of the United States in 1932 and concurrently was elected back to the House. So for one day, on March 4, 1933, he was both Psident of the Senate and Speaker of the House.

Earlier on Feb. 15, 1933, as VP-elect, he came close to being president when FDR just missed being assassinated in Miami.

Garner served two full terms as VP and died 15 days before his 99th birthday – making him the longest-living VP.

♦

“A Study in Scarlet” by Arthur Conan Doyle was the first story featuring Sherlock Holmes. It was published in 1887 in the magazine Beeton’s Christmas Annual – with only 11 copies known to exist today.

♦

The last heavyweight championship bout scheduled for 20 rounds was held in Detroit in 1941. Joe Louis TKO’d Abe Simon in 13 rounds. Simon was a member of Louis’ “Bum of the Month Club” – 13 opponents Louis defeated between 1939 and 1941.

After leaving boxing, Simon went to Hollywood, where he won roles in On the Waterfront, Never Love a Stranger and Requiem for a Heavyweight.

♦

Our 35th vice president, Kentucky lawyer Alben W. Barkley, was elected with Harry S. Truman in 1948 and is still the only one with the middle name of William (he was actually born Willie Alben Barkley).

One of his career highlights was his keynote address at the 1932 Democratic Convention, where he supported Franklin D. Roosevelt and denounced Prohibition (Kentucky bourbon?). It worked … FDR won and prohibition was repealed in 1933.

Although the oldest VP elected at age 71 (Joe Biden was 65 in 2008), Barkley is the only one to marry while in office … a woman half his age. Later, he denounced the 80th Congress as “Do Nothing,” but Truman often gets credit for the phrase.

Civil War Far Worse than Anyone Could Have Imagined

This *Charleston Mercury* broadside, dated Dec. 20, 1860, and announcing “The Union Is Dissolved!,” sold for $77,675 at a June 2009 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

James Buchanan as a lame-duck president did nothing to stem the tide of disunion. He officially held the reins of power in the four-month period between the presidential election in November and Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration in March 1861, but he had lost any popular mandate to govern.

Secessionists had anticipated his indecision and cited it as confirmation of their argument that disunion would be peaceable. Buchanan – reasoning that just as secession was unconstitutional, so was any attempt by the federal government to resist it by force – preferred to leave the problem to the Republicans.

He sincerely thought they were responsible for the crisis, and he said as much in his last annual message of Dec. 3, 1860. His policy was simply to do nothing that might provoke an armed conflict with any seceding states.

Republicans initially denied the existence of any crisis. They were acutely aware of the pattern of Southern bluster and Northern concessions that had characterized previous confrontations, and they were not about to surrender their integrity as an anti-slavery party by yielding to Southern demands.

At Lincoln’s urging, they drew the line at sanctioning the territorial expansion of slavery. Such a sanction was a crucial feature of the Crittenden Compromise, a package of six proposed constitutional amendments that came out of a Senate committee led by John J. Crittenden of Kentucky in mid-December. Slavery would be recognized south of 36 parallel 30 degrees in all present territories, as well as those “hereafter acquired.” To a man, Congressional Republicans rejected what they interpreted as a blank check for the future expansion of slavery into Mexico and the Caribbean.

The collapse of the Crittenden Compromise in late December eliminated the already slim possibility that the drive toward secession might end with the withdrawal of just South Carolina. Still, when Lincoln took office on March 4, Republicans had reason to believe that the worst of the crisis was over.

February elections in the Upper South had resulted in Unionist victories after five states had called for conventions in January and the secessionists had suffered sharp setbacks in all the elections. By the end of February, secession apparently had burnt itself out.

Throughout March and April, the Union remained in a state of quiescence, but the pressure was too high. A core of secessionists were more eager for war than anti-slavery forces were to making concessions. Besides, everyone knew that if armed conflict began, it would be over very quickly. When it came, however, it was worse than anyone could have possibly imagined (sigh).

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].

Transcontinental Railroad a Significant Achievement that United Nation

A cane celebrating the completion in 1869 of the Transcontinental Railroad, made of wood from the same tree as the last tie and the same gold used to case the “Golden Spike,” sold in June 2012 for $113,525.

“May God continue the unity of our country, as this railroad unites the two great oceans of the world.” – One of four engravings on the Golden Spike

By Jim O’Neal

The date was May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit in the Utah Territory and the occasion was a celebration for the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad.

Ex-California Governor Leland Stanford (founder of Stanford University) drove in the Golden Spike using a special silver hammer. This “Last Spike” was hooked up to telegraph wires so that news of the completion could reach both coasts as the spike was “tapped” into a hole. Supposedly, Stanford whiffed on the first try, but telegraph operators sent clicks to both coasts – “DONE” – which touched off wild celebrations as the United States was finally connected.

For perspective, the first American common carrier railroad began as a mere 13 miles of track, and formally was known as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (the B&O Line). It was begun in 1828 by a group of Baltimore businessmen and opened in 1830.

At the time, rivers, turnpikes and canals were the primary avenues for both travel and transport. So this was a major transition into the future.

When the Civil War started 30 years later, railroads had become a major American industry with many different companies and 30,000 miles of track. However, plans for broader geographic expansion were plagued with a plethora of issues. Major questions included route selection, right-of-way disputes, subsidies, capital financing sources (public or private), and even the gauge (width) of rails.

Abraham Lincoln was a major supporter of a transcontinental railroad, despite the distraction of the Civil War and other presidential commitments. He even got into the minutia, and he and his Cabinet voted to make the gauge 5 feet in an effort to help (it was later revised by Congress to 4 feet, 8½ inches). Lincoln even decided the eastern terminus should be Omaha, Neb. (a clear conflict of interest, since he owned several properties in nearby Council Bluffs).

On the West Coast, four familiar names – Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker and Collis Potter Huntington – formed the Central Pacific Railroad, which was to head east from Sacramento. They immediately ran into a major labor shortage since nearby mines were paying such high wages. In a creative but controversial decision, they brought in 12,000 Chinese laborers, primarily from Canton Province.

Next was the issue of how to get over the 7,000-foot Sierra Nevada mountain range (they simply blasted tunnel after tunnel despite cave-ins, nitro explosions and dead workers). This is a story unto itself!

But finally, the two great lines did come together (whew!).

The Golden Spike that Stanford pounded is housed in the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University in Palo Alto (no surprise there).

But in a major surprise, a second Golden Spike was discovered in 2005 – exactly like the one from the ceremony. It had been cast at the same time, and held secretly by the family of San Francisco contractor David Hewes for all the intervening years!

It is now in the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento.

Mussolini’s Reach for Power Ended in Total Failure, Disgrace

The clothing worn by Benito Mussolini and mistress Clara Petacci during their attempted escape sold for $6,325 at a September 2011 Heritage auction.

“Let us have a dagger between our teeth, a bomb in our hands, and an infinite scorn in our hearts.” – Benito Mussolini

By Jim O’Neal

Known as a man who possessed remarkable oratorical skills, Benito Mussolini often referred to himself as a “man of the people.” His father named him after Benito Juárez, the 26th president of Mexico, the most prominent 19th century Mexican leader and the only person whose birthday (March 21) is celebrated as a national holiday in that country.

Mussolini served in World War I and when he returned home, he began pushing the idea that only a dictator could lead Italy out of its economic and political problems. He was inspired by Plato’s “The Republic” – a series of writings on the role of man and government (circa 360 B.C.) that is considered a major influence on politics in most Western societies even today. As Mussolini’s ideas gained popularity, he developed support and modern Fascism was born.

By the early 1920s, Fascist groups led by Mussolini began gaining control of the country and these Black Shirts used tactics that included terrorizing local populations and attacking government institutions. In 1922, Mussolini was named Prime Minister, the youngest in history to that time (a record that lasted until 2014). In 1925, he dropped all pretenses and declared himself Italy’s dictator and took the title of “II Duce” … the leader.

He probably understood that peace was in the country’s best interest (due to its weak economic situation) and was ill prepared for a long war, but he allied himself with Adolf Hitler and signed the Pact of Steel in 1939, thus creating the Rome-Berlin Axis. While Germany and Italy were now linked militarily and politically, Italy was definitely the junior partner.

When the war started, it went badly for Italy almost immediately and the Italian people became increasingly disenchanted with their leader. Mussolini was forced to retreat and establish a new Fascist government in Northern Italy. His one-party dictatorship became a puppet government and he was deposed by King Emanuel III when Italian communists seized control. He tried to escape to Switzerland, but was captured by resistance fighters near Lake Como (one of my favorite spots on Earth) and executed by firing squad on April 28, 1945.

His body was taken to Milan and hung upside down in a public place to prove he was dead … and Fascism along with it.

Another prime example of history’s strongmen – with remarkable verbal skills and a ruthless ambition to gain control over gullible people – dumped on the ash heap.

Westward Migration Spurred by ‘Oregon Fever,’ California Gold

Dean Cornwell produced this preliminary illustration of the Lewis and Clark Expedition for New York Life Insurance Co., circa 1954.

By Jim O’Neal

In the 1700s, British fur traders in northern regions between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains came into conflict with Russian traders arriving from the north and the Spanish from the south. Then, Americans began appearing in the early 1800s after the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-06).

By this time, England had negotiated a boundary agreement with Spain, but not with the Russians. The British and Americans collaborated to gain leverage over the Russians by agreeing to joint sovereignty over a large area called Oregon Country. The agreement encompassed what is today Oregon, Washington, Idaho, British Columbia and parts of Wyoming, Montana and Alberta that were west of the Continental Divide.

By the 1840s, England and the United States were ready to formally separate their joint interests in Oregon Country, but couldn’t agree on a dividing line. The U.S. demanded it should be 54 parallel-40 degrees, however, this would have deprived GB of Vancouver, their major Pacific port. The dispute escalated into “54-40 or fight” – which became a major theme during the 1844 U.S. presidential election.

After James Knox Polk became president, he rather wisely avoided a war with England by conceding to their demand of 49 degrees. He had his eye on Mexico and decided the United States could only engage in one major skirmish at a time. After the annexation of Texas, war with Mexico seemed inevitable and it arrived right on time, eventually delivering the highly coveted areas of California, New Mexico and Arizona. The concession to England seemed prudent since westward migration had started earlier in 1836. The first migrant wagon train left Independence, Mo., along the Oregon Trail, a 2,170-mile east-west trip that connected the Missouri River to the lush valleys in Oregon.

Then on May 22, 1843, a massive wagon train with 1,000 settlers and more than 1,000 head of cattle set out for Oregon. They followed the Santa Fe Trail for 40 miles and then turned west to the Platte River to Fort Laramie, Wyo., and eventually over the Blue Mountains into Oregon territory. The Great Migration arrived in October, covering 2,000 miles in five months. The next year, four more wagon trains made the journey and in 1845, the number of emigrants exceeded 3,000. “Oregon Fever” seemed to have gripped the nation.

Then in 1848, gold was discovered in California and the flow of people headed there instead of Oregon. The population of California zoomed from 20,000 to 225,000 in four short years. The phrase that summed up America’s assertive development was coined by columnist and editor John O’Sullivan when he wrote, it was “our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”

Thomas Jefferson thought it would take 1,000 years to fill up the vast emptiness of the west, but of course, he didn’t know about the California gold, the Oregon Trail, and the basic restlessness of future emigrants and the transcontinental railroad. The $15 million he spent on doubling the size of the United States turned out to be one of best real estate deals in history.

Stephen Douglas Understood Rebels were Resolute

This Stephen A. Douglas campaign silk ribbon sold for $8,125 at a May 2014 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Stephen A. Douglas was known as “Little Giant” due to his diminutive stature and superb oratorical skills. During his successful campaign for reelection to the senate in 1858, he engaged in a series of historic debates with Abraham Lincoln.

The “Great Debates of 1858” were a series of seven debates where the main issue was slavery. Media coverage was intense and major newspapers in Chicago sent stenographers to create verbatim texts of each one.

At the time, state legislators elected U.S. senators. The efforts of both Douglas and Lincoln were designed to enhance the probability of their parties winning the Illinois legislature.

Douglas, as a Democrat, won the senatorial race, but the visibility of the debates significantly elevated Lincoln in national prominence. This led directly to Lincoln winning the 1860 presidential election … defeating Douglas, who ran a weak fourth in the electoral vote behind John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky and even John Bell of Tennessee.

Despite this loss, Douglas was an astute political strategist and quickly realized that supporting Lincoln (and the federal government) was critical to avoiding an all-out civil war. So he launched a grueling speaking tour on behalf of the Union, preaching the need for unity – an effort that was to no avail, as we know.

After Fort Sumter fell, Lincoln proclaimed a state of rebellion and called on Douglas for his advice regarding calling up 75,000 troops to quell it.

Douglas suggested one change: Increase troop size to 200,000, since “you do not know the purposes of these men as well as I do.”

He then died of typhoid fever on June 3, 1861, just weeks after the start of hostilities on April 12. The war would grind on for four years and result in 620,000 deaths.

Douglas was right. The purpose of those men was war.