November 2017 – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

Johnson’s Battles with Congress Strengthened Office of the President

This sepia-toned photograph of Andrew Johnson, signed as president, sold for $3,346 at a June 2010 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

On the night President Abraham Lincoln was shot, John Wilkes Booth and his little band of assassins had also planned to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. Booth’s fantasy theory was that decapitating the North’s leadership would cause enough chaos to bring the Civil War to an end. Seward survived a brutal stabbing and Johnson’s assigned assassin, George Atzerodt, got cold feet at the last minute. Johnson had gone to bed at the Kirkwood hotel unharmed.

Awakened by a friend, Johnson rushed to Lincoln’s bedside until the president was declared dead. Johnson then returned to the hotel, where he was sworn in as the 17th president by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. The members of his Cabinet assembled in the hotel parlor, where he told them: “I feel incompetent to perform duties so important and responsible as those which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.”

Despite Johnson’s humble tone, he was actually a fearless, even reckless, fighter for what he believed in. As a result, he became embroiled in the bitterest intra-governmental conflict the nation had ever seen. Like Lincoln, he favored a “mild reconstruction,” in effect turning state governments over to white citizens, with only the main leaders of the Confederacy excluded. However, the Radical Republican leaders demanded “radical reconstruction,” enfranchising former slaves and barring most former Confederates from government.

Initially, Republicans were pleased with Johnson, mistaking him as weak and easier to control than Lincoln. They were confident he would support their plans for severe treatment of the defeated South. “By the Gods! There will be no trouble now in running the government,” declared Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio. Two years later, this same man, now president pro tempore of the Senate, was so confident the Senate had the votes to evict Johnson from the White House that he had already written an inaugural speech and chosen his Cabinet!

But now, by the time Congress finally met in December 1865, the former states of the Confederacy had elected governors and state legislators. And although they approved the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery, they had also passed “Black Codes” binding ex-slaves to working the land. In his first annual message to Congress, Johnson railed against this situation, warning Congress of the dire consequences. But Northern Republicans had no intention of welcoming back Democrats from states that had seceded. Instead, they passed new legislation to reinstate military governments throughput the South. Then they established the Freedmen’s Bureau to assist the 4 million freed slaves.

Johnson promptly vetoed everything Congress had passed.

Republicans were not strong enough to override a presidential veto until early 1867, when they passed into law even more harsh Reconstruction Acts, with military governments replacing civil governments set up by Southern Democrats. Johnson warned they were fostering hatred and creating a state of permanent unrest. Radical Republicans answered by slashing back at Johnson and passing the Tenure of Office Act. This total rebuke now forbade the president of the United States from removing ANY federal official without the express consent of the U.S. Senate.

This was tantamount to a declaration of war and Johnson answered by firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. The House quickly voted to impeach the president on 11 counts. The Senate trial lasted two months and the final tally was 35 guilty and 19 not guilty … one short of conviction. Johnson served out his term, but his political career was over. His fortitude in the face of overwhelming Congressional pressure strengthened the office of the president and helped preserve the separation of powers intended by the framers of the U.S. Constitution.

Not bad for a former illiterate tailor who never spent a single day in a formal schoolroom.

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].

Truman Well Aware that Presidency was a Most Terribly Responsible Job

A Harry Truman signed and inscribed photograph, dated Jan. 17, 1953, sold for nearly $3,885 at a February 2006 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The news broke shortly before 6 p.m. on April 12, 1945. President Franklin Roosevelt had died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga. Within minutes, the bulletin had reached every part of the country. It was almost midnight in London, but in Berlin, it was already the next day, where it was (ominously) Friday the 13th. However, Joseph Goebbels interpreted it as a lucky turning point when he telephoned Adolf Hitler. He was already devising ways to turn this to Germany’s advantage, even as enemy troops closed in on the Third Reich.

By 7 p.m., Harry Truman, his Cabinet and Bess and Margaret were assembled in the Cabinet Room along with Chief Justice Harlan Stone to administer the oath of office. Within hours of Roosevelt’s death, the country had a new president.

Then the family and the Cabinet were dismissed. Secretary of War Henry Stimson lingered to brief the new president on a matter of extreme urgency. He explained that a new weapon of almost inconceivable power had been developed, but offered no details. Truman had just learned about the existence of the atomic bomb. He canceled a date to play poker and went to bed. It had been a long day.

It was also a long day for America’s top generals: Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton and Omar Bradley. The shock of losing their trusted commander-in-chief was compounded by genuine concern over Truman’s lack of experience. To make matters worse, they had just seen their first Nazi death camp. All were depressed, but Patton was especially emphatic about his concerns for the future.

The next morning, President Truman arrived at the White House promptly at 9 a.m. It was now April 13, 1945 – 27 years to the day since he had landed at Brest, France (Brittany), as a lowly 1st Lieutenant in the Allied Expeditionary Forces in WWI. Now he was the United States’ commander in chief in the century’s second world war. Everything in the Oval Office was eerily just as FDR had left it. He sat in the chair behind the desk and quietly pondered the challenges he had inherited. Downstairs, the White House staff was frantically coping with the press, the jangle of telephones, and wondering what to do next.

After a routine update on the status of the war, Truman surprised everyone by announcing he was going to the Capitol to “have lunch with some of the boys” … 17 congressmen to be exact. After a few drinks and lunch, he told the group he felt overwhelmed and emphasized he would need their help. Then he stepped out to meet the assembled press and made his now famous remarks: “Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don’t know whether you fellows ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me yesterday what had happened, I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me.”

Less than four months later, in August 1945, the man from Independence, Mo., now confident and in control, dropped his own bombshell when he broadcast to the nation:

“Sixteen hours ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima,” the president said, adding, “We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive and enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy Japan’s power to make war. … If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on this earth.”

The buck DID stop here, just as the little sign on his desk promised.

Sanctions Didn’t Stop Germany from Roaring Back After WWI

A 1939 political cartoon by Charles Werner (1909-1997) for *Time* magazine comments on the worldwide mood 20 years after the Treaty of Versailles. The original art sold for $836 at a February 2006 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

From 1939 to the winter of 1941, the German military won a series of battles rarely equaled in the history of warfare. In rapid succession, Poland, Norway, France, Belgium, Holland, Yugoslavia, Denmark and Greece all fell victim to the armed forces of the Third Reich. In the summer and fall of 1941, the USSR came close to total defeat at the hands of the Wehrmacht, losing millions of soldiers on the battlefield and witnessing the occupation of a large portion of Russia and the Ukraine. The German air force, the Luftwaffe, played a central role in this remarkable string of victories.

It was even more startling to those countries that had participated in WWI and taken draconian anti-war measures when it ended. This was simply something that was NEVER supposed to happen again, much less a mere 20 years later. How was it even possible?

The Allied powers had been so impressed with the combat efficiency of the German Luftwaffe in WWI that they made a concerted effort to eliminate Germany’s capability to wage war in the air. Then they crippled their civilian aviation capability just to be certain. The Allies demanded the immediate surrender of 2,000 aircraft and rapid demobilization of the Luftwaffe. Then in May 1919, the Germans were forced to surrender vast quantities of aviation material, including 17,000 more aircraft and engines. Germany was permanently forbidden from maintaining a military or naval air force.

No aircraft or parts were to be imported, and in a final twist of the knife, Germany was not allowed to control their own airspace. Allied aircraft were granted free passage over Germany and unlimited landing rights. On May 8, 1920, the Luftwaffe was officially disbanded.

Other provisions of the Versailles Treaty dealt with the limits of the army and navy, which were denied tanks, artillery, poison gas, submarines and other modern weapons. Germany was to be effectively disarmed and rendered militarily helpless. An Inter-Allied Control Commission was given broad authority to inspect military and industrial installations throughout Germany to ensure compliance with all restrictions.

However, one critical aspect got overlooked in the zeal to impose such a broad set of sanctions. They left unsupervised one of the most influential military thinkers of the 20th century … former commander-in-chief of the German Army Hans von Seeckt. He was the only one who correctly analyzed the operational lessons of the war, and accurately predicted the direction that future wars would take. Allied generals clung to outdated principles like using overwhelming force to overcome defensive positions, while Von Seeckt saw that maneuvers and mobility would be the primary means for the future. Mass armies would become cannon fodder and trench warfare would not be repeated.

The story of the transformation of the Luftwaffe is a fascinating one. Faced with total aerial disarmament in 1919, it was reborn only 20 years later as the most combat-effective air force in the world. Concepts of future air war along with training and equipment totally trumped the opposition, which was looking backward … always fighting the last war.

Cuban Missile Crisis ‘News’ Gave Us a Preview of the Internet Age

An original October 1962 news photograph of President John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy taken as tensions grew during the Cuban Missile Crisis sold for $527 at an August 2015 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

“I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over.”

An unusual statement, especially at an emergency session of the somber United States Security Council, and uncharacteristically bellicose for the speaker, U.N. Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson. It simply was the most dangerous time in the history of the world … the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Ambassador Stevenson was interrogating Soviet U.N. representative Valerian Zorin while accusing them of having installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, a mere 90 miles from the U.S. coastline. Tensions were sky high. The Joint Chiefs had recommended to President John F. Kennedy an airstrike, followed by an immediate invasion of Cuba using U.S. military troops.

Then with the world’s two superpowers eyeball to eyeball, as Dean Rusk commented, the other guy blinked. Cuba-bound Soviet ships stopped, turned back, and the crisis swiftly eased.

Over much of the world, and especially in Washington and New York, there was relief and rejoicing. With crucial backing from the United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS), nuclear war was averted. Success in avoiding a war of potential global devastation has gradually clouded the fact that the United States came perilously close to choosing the military option.

The arguments of those who fought for time and political negotiations have been blurred and gradually obscured by widespread euphoria. Even for Ambassador Stevenson, the sweet taste of success soon turned sour. First, there was the death of his dear friend Eleanor Roosevelt, quickly followed by a vicious personal attack on him that he never fully recovered from.

When Mrs. Roosevelt reluctantly entered the hospital, it was thought she was suffering from aplastic anemia. But on Oct. 25, 1962, her condition was diagnosed as rare and incurable bone-marrow tuberculosis. She was prepared and determined to die rather than end up a useless invalid. Her children reluctantly decided Stevenson should be allowed one last visit to his old friend, although daughter Anna warned she might not recognize him.

On Nov. 9, two days after her death, the U.N. General Assembly put aside other business and allowed delegate after delegate to express their personal grief and their country’s sorrow. It was the first time any private citizen had been so honored. Adlai told friends that his speech at the General Assembly and the one he gave at her memorial service were the most difficult and saddest times of his life.

Then a harbinger of a brewing storm started on Nov. 13 when Senator Barry Goldwater issued a sharp attack on Stevenson by implying he had been willing to take national security risks to avoid a showdown with the Soviets. The Saturday Evening Post followed with an article on Cuba that portrayed Stevenson as advocating a “Caribbean Munich.” The headlines at the New York Daily News screamed “ADLAI ON SKIDS OVER PACIFIST STAND ON CUBA.”

For months, Washington was abuzz with rumors that it was all a calculated effort by JFK and Bobby to force Stevenson to resign as U.N. ambassador. It was all innuendo, half-facts and untrue leaks, but it was still reverberating a quarter of a century later when the Sunday New York Times magazine, on Aug. 30, 1987, published a rehash of all the gossip.

In truth, all we were witnessing was a preview of things to come: the internet age of “Breaking News” (thinly veiled opinions parading as facts), 24/7 cable TV loaded with panels of “talking heads,” and a torrent of Twitter gibberish offering a full banquet of tasty goodies for any appetite.

Stevenson, born in Los Angeles in 1900 – the year his grandfather ran for vice president on a losing ticket with William Jennings Bryan – lost his own bid for the presidency twice (1952 and 1956). He died of a heart attack in 1965 in London while walking in Grosvenor Square – finally getting some peace.

The rest of us will have to wait.

Semmes One of Greatest Commerce-Raider Captains in Naval History

The oil on canvas *Sinking of the Alabama*, circa 1868, by American marine painter Xanthus Smith (1839-1929) sold for $38,837 at a June 2008 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

By the time Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated in March 1861, seven of the Southern slaveholding states had seceded from the Union before even hearings his inaugural address. In it, he declared, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”

During the run-up to the 1860 election, Lincoln had chosen not to actively campaign and simply refused to comment on the issue of slavery. However, his Democratic opponent, Stephen A. Douglas (the “Little Giant”) campaigned across the country. In the South, he denounced threats of secession, but warned that Lincoln’s election would inevitably lead to that tragic end.

I have often wondered if the Civil War could have been averted if Lincoln had taken his inaugural speech to the South before the election or if a civil war was the only alternative to end slavery permanently. I suspect emotions were too high and that many actually hoped for a war, especially after all the heated rhetoric in places like South Carolina.

It became a moot point when barely a month later on April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on the Union garrison Fort Sumter and forced it to surrender. Now president, Lincoln announced that part of the United States was in a state of insurrection and issued a call for military volunteers. Four states – Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina – refused to provide troops and instead joined the Confederacy.

As positions hardened, Lincoln proclaimed a naval blockade against the seceded states, however, this was a futile effort since the Navy only had 42 ships to monitor 3,500 miles of Confederate coastline. They started chartering ships for blockade duty and soon there were 260 warships in service. Their task was made easier since the Confederate “Navy” consisted of 10 river craft armed with a total of 15 guns and not a single ship on the high seas.

Even the South’s military mobilization was devoted almost exclusively to ground forces since this was clearly the most urgent short-term priority.

However, one man was determined to change that. His name was Raphael Semmes (1809-1877) from Mobile, and following Alabama’s secession from the Union, Semmes was offered a Confederate naval appointment. He resigned from the U.S. Navy the next day, Feb. 15, 1861, and set off to the interim Confederate capital of Montgomery. There, he met with Jefferson Davis – the newly inaugurated president of the Confederate States of America – and Stephen R. Mallory, Secretary of the Navy. He outlined his plan to take the war to the enemy … not the federal Navy (that was too large to challenge), but to the U.S. merchant fleet.

In 1861, the U.S. Merchant Marine was the largest in the world. No one surpassed the skill and ingenuity of Yankee shipwrights in the design and construction of wooden vessels. America’s carrying trade had steadily increased in the 1840s-50s, fueled by the discovery of gold in California, treaty ports in Japan and China, and the whaling fleet that operated from the North Atlantic to the Bering Straits.

Semmes theory was that if Confederate cruisers could disrupt the merchant marine, the powerful shipping interests in the North would force the Lincoln administration to reconcile with the South and end the war. After studying naval commander John Paul Jones, the American Revolution, and the War of 1812, Semmes was convinced a weak naval power could neutralize the merchant marine of a more powerful adversary.

President Davis approved the concept and thus launched the career of Raphael Semmes as one of the greatest commerce-raider captains in naval history. Along the way, he traveled 75,000 nautical miles without ever touching a Confederate port and is credited with 64 of the 200-plus Northern merchantmen destroyed by Confederate raiders, many as the commander of the cruiser CSS Alabama. (The warship was eventually sunk in battle with the USS Kearsarge in 1864.)

Fittingly, he is a member of the Alabama Hall of Fame and a monument by sculptor Caspar Buberl (1834-1899) still stands proudly in Mobile … unless, of course, Monument Marauders figure out who he was.

G.I. Bill Crucial to Creation of our ‘Greatest Generation’

Illustrator Mort Künstler’s depiction of D-Day, which began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe, went to auction in May 2017.

By Jim O’Neal

By 1944, it was clear that World War II would end the following year and America had a difficult question to answer: What to do with the 16.35 million men and women serving in the armed forces when they came home from the war?

One estimate from the Department of Labor was that up to 15 million of them would be unemployed since the economy (which was winding down) would not be able to absorb them, especially in an orderly fashion. A similar post-war situation of lower production and a bulge of returning veterans had resulted in a sharp depression after WWI, from 1921 to 1923. To further complicate things, the world was in worse economic shape following the devastation the war had produced. The government had tried a cash bonus program and it failed so miserably that many Americans were angry for the next decade.

President Franklin Roosevelt was well aware of the potential implications and determined to avoid a repeat performance. He proactively took to the nation’s airwaves, proposing a series of benefits for all the men and women who had sacrificed so much for the country. The veterans’ self-appointed lobby, the American Legion, grabbed onto the proposal with both hands – as did Hearst newspapers. Legion publicist Jack Cejnar came up with the term the “G.I. Bill of Rights,” officially passed as the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944.

Returning veterans could borrow up to $2,000 to buy a house, start a business or start a farm. They would receive $20 a week for 52 weeks, until they found a job. There would be lifelong medical assistance, improved services for those disabled in action, and a de facto bonus of $1,300 in discharge benefits.

The effect of the program was substantial and immediate. By 1955, 4.3 million home loans worth $33 billion had been granted. Veterans were responsible for 20 percent of all new homes built after the end of the war. Instead of another depression, the country enjoyed unparalleled prosperity for a generation.

However, few veterans bothered to collect their $20-a-week unemployment checks. Instead, they used the money for the most significant benefits of all: education and vocational training. Altogether, 7.8 million vets received education and training benefits. Some 2.3 million went to college, receiving $500 a year for books and tuition, plus $50 a month in living expenses. The effect was to transform American education and help create a middle class.

College was sheer bliss to men used to trenches and K-rations. By 1946, over half the college enrollments in the country were vets, who bonded into close, supportive communities within the wider campuses. Countless G.I. Bill graduates would go on to occupy the highest ranks of business, government and the professions, and even win Nobel Prizes.

The number of degrees awarded by U.S. colleges and universities more than doubled between 1940 and 1950 and the percentage of Americans with bachelor degrees or more rose from 4.6 percent in 1945 to 25 percent a half century later. Joseph C. Goulden writes in The Best Years, 1945-1950 that the G.I. Bill “marked the popularization of higher education in America.” After the 1940s, a college degree was considered an essential passport for entrance into much of the business and professional world.

Thanks to the G.I Bill, a successful entrance into that world was created for the millions of men and women who kept our world free and assured its future. Along the way, they also helped rebuild a world that had been ravaged.

I offer you the Greatest Generation!

United Airlines, China and Course Corrections

This United Airlines travel poster from the 1950s sold for nearly $900 at a July 2017 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

In 1985, a man by the name of Richard Ferris, CEO of United Airlines, developed an innovative one-stop shopping strategy (Fly-Drive-Sleep) and then bought Hertz and Hilton hotels to add the two legs he needed. The expected synergies did not materialize, but he did manage to alienate his pilots and their powerful union. Rumors circulated that he had to travel incognito – under an assumed name – to avoid “last-minute mechanical failures” if his employees discovered him onboard.

In April 1987, barely two years into the new program, the angry pilots’ union made a hostile takeover bid, which effectively put the entire company “in play” on Wall Street. A compromise was reached for Ferris to resign, sell Hertz and Hilton, and change the company name from Allegis back to United Airlines. Everyone was happy except Ferris and the customers, who had suffered through two years of lousy service due to the squabbling.

The new UAL management aggressively decided to rebuild their frayed customer relations. Nancy and I were invited to go on a multistep goodwill tour to China and back. This was our first (of many) long, international flights to Asia that included a stop in Hong Kong, Guangzhou (Canton), Beijing, Shanghai and back to Hong Kong. Everything was first class-plus and I met some interesting CEOs from several major corporations. There were only 20 people (plus crew) on a specially outfitted 747 with fully reclining seats … a novelty in those days.

The food and beverage service was exceptional. However, what impressed me the most was the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. I could finally grasp what Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) and his crew encountered when they miscalculated, ran out of food and were so desperate they survived on a tasty dish of rat droppings mixed with sawdust. There were also stories of men gnawing on the ropes that lashed the mainsail. Only 18 men survived, and that did not include Captain Magellan.

The Pacific Ocean is the oldest of the world’s seas, a relic of the once all-encompassing Panthalassan Ocean that opened up 750 million years ago. It is by far the world’s biggest body of water – all the continents could fit easily within its borders, with ample room to spare. It is the most biologically diverse and seismically active, and holds the planet’s greatest mountains and deepest trenches. Its chemical influences and weather systems affect the entire orb we call home.

Most think of the Pacific Ocean in parts … a beach here … an atoll there … a long expanse of deep water. Captain James Cook wrote that by exploring the Pacific, he had gone “as far as I think it is possible for man to go.” Cook was not aware that it is 64 million square miles and humans are still exploring it.

Even the highly revered British Admiralty’s chart room bible “Ocean Passages for the World” still cautions sailors embarking on a crossing: “Very large areas are unsurveyed … no sounding at all recorded … only safeguards are a good lookout …”

The Chinese have always had good lookouts and now view the Pacific Ocean as their next area for expansion and dominance. They tell me to consider the past 4,000 years when judging their progress and to view the 20th century as an anomaly. They made a course correction to compensate for Mao Zedong and are now back on track for the next 1,000 years. They studied the flaws in our last financial system meltdown (greed and overleverage) and decided to create their own World Bank. They view our form of democracy with disdain since we appear irreparably divided over every single important strategic issue, with our economy bankrupt and elected officials in Washington, D.C., as the only ones with good health insurance, pensions and job security … hopelessly gridlocked.

They think it is better to have a strong leader and a navy capable of dominating the South China Sea with impunity. The great battle for the 21st century is essentially over. However, what they don’t understand is that we always find a way, then come together as needed. Winston Churchill put it best: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

‘Huck Finn’ Established Enduring Hallmarks of Our National Sense of Humor

A first American edition, first issue of Mark Twain’s *Adventures of Huckleberry Finn*, with a tipped-in Twain signature, sold for $11,875 at an April 2016 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Here’s a good literary rule of thumb. Any book that someone has seen fit to ban has got to be worth reading. And when a book has been banned for so long and so often and for so many reasons – as has The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – that’s as compellingly an endorsement as you can hope for.

If anything, Huckleberry Finn has become even more disturbing since its first appearance in 1885. It’s a book that, even when you reread it, is never what you expect – by turns raw, sweet, funny, deeply principled and deliberately shocking.

It has been a lightning rod for the squeamish and for naysayers and prigs of every stripe. Huck Finn was a victim of political correctness long before there was such an imprecise, overused and contentious term. The indictment is by now tiresomely familiar and of some of the charges, at least, plainly guilty. Yes, it uses the “n” word – 215 times to be accurate. People used the word back then and still do today. However, who is allowed to seems to be fungible and the rules enforced for maximum social effect. And Huck – not to mention most of the book’s other characters, black and white – does engage in what we would call racist thinking.

But Huck is not Mark Twain, remember, and early on we discover he has a lot to learn. The story of Huckleberry Finn is, in part, the story of Huck’s education and he is taught by none other than Jim, the runaway slave who is in fact the book’s wisest and most humane character. Set at a time when America was still riven and corrupted by slavery, Huckleberry Finn is a depiction of racism at its most virulent, but it is itself among the most anti-racist novels ever written.

The charge of racism is so specious that it invites us to wonder if some other agenda isn’t at work in the minds of those who raise it. And the same is true of those 19^th century moralists like librarians, town fathers and custodians of the public weal who originally objected on grounds of vulgarity and sacrilegiousness. What really upsets people about Huck Finn is that it is so deeply skeptical – subversive even – of received wisdom and official pieties of every sort. It breaks all the rules and does so from its first sentence: “You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter.”

There had never been a sentence like that in American literature before. It is vulgar, in the way that everyday speech is vulgar, and it introduces us not to the familiar narrator of 19^th-century fiction, with measured cadences and worldly wisdom, but to a 14-year-old boy, a wiseass who takes nothing on faith, especially not what he’s been told by his elders. It’s a voice so authentically American that it’s startling that we never heard it in books until then. In an almost embarrassing way, it reveals as phony so much written until then.

Ernest Hemingway famously said of Huckleberry Finn that all American literature comes from it and that “there was nothing before” – which is a stretch, but not by much. What is certainly true is that all American comedy comes from Huck Finn and it established in an instant the two enduring hallmarks of our national sense of humor: a deadpan delivery and a take-no-prisoners attitude. We get taken on a tour down Twain’s beloved Mississippi through an America in the process of becoming a country. Filled with an incomparable gallery of rogues, swindlers and hypocrites, it’s Twain’s take on this nascent country … withering, but exact.

I suspect nothing would please Twain more – or surprise him less – to learn that his book still has the power to both amuse and make us wince … things that are in short supply as we hurry from one outrage to another by people that will probably always be angry, about something.

Passion, Singular Vision Form Foundation of Successful Projects

Models of the 1957 Chevrolet Corvette, like this 1.6 scale model of the classic V-8 finished in Venetian red, remain popular with collectors.

By Jim O’Neal

“For years, I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.” – Charles Erwin Wilson, CEO of General Motors, as a nominee for Secretary of Defense for President Eisenhower in 1953 confirmation hearings (often misquoted)

From 1931 to 2007, General Motors was always the biggest and then, as predicted, they couldn’t pay their bills. They chose to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy and gratefully accepted a federal bailout. The corporate name was formally changed to “Motors Liquidation Company,” an entity that allowed them to deal with their many creditors through a complex structure of four trust funds. Then voilà – a new General Motors was born. It issued an IPO in 2010 that raised $20.1 billion, and by 2016 established record sales of 10 million units.

“General Motors is alive and Osama bin Laden is dead” became a clever line used in the Obama vs. Romney presidential race.

Before all this happened, much earlier, the first Chevrolet Corvette rolled off the production line in Flint, Mich., in 1953. However, it wasn’t until spring 1956 that I recall seeing one. We were parked at Gene’s BBQ Drive-in on Long Beach Boulevard in Compton, Calif., when a smallish, white convertible pulled in. I’m not sure what model it was or even the year, but it didn’t impress anyone (yawn). I had a cherry red 1951 Mercury with 17 coats of hand-rubbed, lacquer paint that was way cooler.

His name, Zora Arkus-Duntov, seemed better suited for the ruler of a planet in a Buck Rogers comic strip than as the father of this little “Vette” that was destined to become a true American sports car. Duntov joined the GM-Chevrolet R&D group in 1953, but the Corvette (French for a small, highly maneuverable ship, smaller than a frigate) didn’t get his full attention until 1955.

The first cars were six-cylinder two-seaters and white, “Polo White” to be precise, and only 300 were produced in 1953. The next year, sales were projected to be 10,000, but only 3,640 were assembled and only two-thirds of those were sold by year’s end. Then, unexpectedly, sales in 1955 declined to a measly 700. The drop was worrisome, especially to those who truly believed in the destiny of a car with Corvette’s aspirations.

Duntov was born in Belgium to Russian parents. He was raised in Russia and, in retrospect, the signs of where he was headed were clear. He loved motorcycles and at the tender age of 14 designed a motor-driven ice sled. The family moved to Germany and at university, he wrote his thesis on supercharging.

When he left the Chevrolet R&D team for Corvette, he could see the car wasn’t quite right. “The first time I saw Corvette, I think … beautiful, beautiful car … but I was disappointed what was underneath … but visually, it was superb!” He believed in its future, as did the man who created it, Harley Earl. Earl’s 1927 LaSalle had placed him at the forefront of Detroit’s great stylists. But it was Duntov who transformed the Corvette into “a bat out of hell.”

The 1956 Corvette was the first model to feel the impact of Duntov’s influence. The 210-horsepower engine could be cranked to 225 with the optional twin, four-barrel carburetors. Then, for racing, you could add Duntov’s cam, 240 horsepower. This one reached 163 mph, which really got the automotive world’s attention!

Despite all the improvements, the team was still restless. Bill Mitchell succeeded Earl as head of design and when he saw the designs of Larry Shinoda, a young Japanese-American who created his first designs while in a WW II internment camp, he knew they had it – the most striking of all Corvettes, the 1963 Sting Ray. This marked Corvette’s true arrival and when combined with what Duntov put under the hood, it ensured them a place in history. Corvette would lose its way at various times over the years, but a sense of heritage and resilience always enabled it to come back.

If the new General Motors ever stumbles again, they would be wise to look back at their own Corvette history. They will be reminded that the cars we admire most (and buy) derive from true passion and a strong singular vision.

Peter the Great Modernized Russia and Opened its Path to Power

An extremely rare mint state Peter I Rouble 1723 sold for $63,250 at a May 2008 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2001, it didn’t seem to faze me. After reading all the literature on this pernicious disease, I was convinced of two things: First, surgery was the best option and second, the skill of the surgeon was the critical variable to ensure a positive result. I had heard the finest surgeon for this kind of procedure was a doctor at Johns Hopkins named Patrick Walsh and I had a connection that got me an appointment in June of that year.

After waiting in line behind the governor of Connecticut and the king of Spain, my operation was scheduled for Sept. 5 (it was a long line and Walsh performed only four procedures a week). Strictly by chance, I watched 9/11 unfold on CNN while recuperating in a rental recliner in a Baltimore hotel room.

PepsiCo made a healthy donation to a special research fund and invited Dr. Walsh to be a guest speaker at a boondoggle in 2003 in St. Petersburg, Russia, that coincided with the city’s 300-year anniversary. Pepsi-Cola had been the first western brand sold in the USSR (1972) since Chairman Don Kendall had a theory that trade was a better alternative than nuclear war. Since the Russians were short of hard currency, we traded Pepsi concentrate for Stolichnaya vodka. By the time I got to Europe, there were 26 Pepsi-Cola bottling plants in Russia.

St. Petersburg was always intriguing to me since it had been founded by Peter the Great in 1703. Peter (1672-1725) became ruler of Russia in 1682 (yes, he was 10 years old), at first jointly with his half-brother as co-Tsar and his mother as regent. In 1696, he became sole ruler of a vast empire. Seven years later, he founded St. Petersburg on the estuary of the River Neva and this new city, fortress and port by the Baltic Sea gave Russia direct access to Europe. This opened new opportunities for trade and military conquest, so Peter boldly made his new city Russia’s capital, stripping the title from the ancient seat of Moscow.

An admirer of Western palaces, Peter employed European architects to design the government buildings, palaces, houses and university in the fashionable baroque style. Labor was no problem with 30,000 peasants, Russian convicts and Swedish prisoners of war available for the construction gangs. More than 100,000 died, but those who survived could earn their freedom.

Peter proceeded to use his unchallenged power to make significant changes in Russia by founding the Russian navy and reforming the army along European lines, developing new iron and munition industries to equip it. By 1725, Russia had a first-rate army of 130,000 men. His court system was also transformed, adopting French-style dress. New colleges forced the nobility to educate their children and established a meritocracy for promotion. However, he treated rebels ruthlessly and adopted an aggressive foreign policy that gave him control of the Baltic Sea.

Although Peter wisely forged diplomatic ties with Western Europe, he failed to form an alliance against the Ottomans. His enlightened reforms established him as a powerful emperor of a vast empire and monarchy that survived until the bloody Russian Revolution in 1917.

“I built St. Petersburg as a window to let in the light of Europe!” Not a bad legacy and certainly superior to what has occurred in the past 100 years.