January 2018 – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

Taxing the Rich Never Seems to Quite Cure Society’s Ills

This 1920 President Wilson gold coin, struck to commemorate the July 16, 1920, opening of the Manila Mint, sold for $69,000 at an April 2008 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

In 1913, after nearly 16 years in the political wilderness, Democrats eagerly seized control of Congress, with Thomas Woodrow Wilson as their leader. They were more than jubilant to once again have a Southern president, but to their disappointment, the president ordered that celebrations be kept to a minimum. He proceeded to deliver a brief inaugural address, canceled the inaugural ball, and stoically suffered the inaugural parade.

By promising “to cleanse, to reconsider, to restore” after many years of perceived misrule, he was committed to an agenda that historian John Morton Blum called “the politics of morality.” This would shape his presidency from its brilliant launch to its disappointing crash-landing.

Under the 1912 campaign slogan of “New Freedom” lurked the greatest wave of social legislation Americans would ever experience. Wilson, ever the political scientist, likened it to the use of Hamiltonian strong-central government to achieve Jeffersonian ideals of egalitarianism. What Wilson envisioned was the creation of a new federally regulated banking system, lower tariffs on imports, aggressive new policies to curtail business collusion, and imposition of an income tax made possible by the new 16th Amendment to the Constitution. He firmly believed the federal government needed to slow corporate wealth and aggressively help ordinary men and women – the backbone of the American system – and he wasted no time in getting started.

The day after his inauguration, he personally convened a special session of Congress, the first presidential appearance in the Capitol since the days of Thomas Jefferson. Thus began a historic assault on the tariff system because “it was a general tax on the entire population for the benefit of private industry.” This was followed by the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, Clayton Antitrust Act, and the Federal Farm Loan Act.

The other highly contentious issue would be an income tax, missing since it was dropped in 1872 after the Civil War. However, it was now viewed as an absolute necessity to plug the loss of tariff revenue ($100 million), grow the federal government, and redistribute the wealth of Americans in a way that would be more fair and equitable (i.e., the “surplus” income of rich Americans over and above the amount necessary for “good living”).

This culminated in the Revenue Act of 1913, which imposed a graduated income tax (collected by employers) and a reduction in tariffs from 40 percent to 25 percent. President Wilson signed it into law on Oct. 3, 1913. The reformers were now ready to start building on their accomplishments and the newly established teamwork between Congress and the White House.

Then on June 28, 1914, a shot rang out in Sarajevo and an archduke was dead.

Few wars have transformed belligerent countries as extensively as World War I. It overturned social, economic and cultural order in Europe, Russia and beyond. It also transformed the American economic system, as the cost to the U.S. was $50 billion and the federal budget grew from $742 million in 1916 to $14 billion in 1918. Before WWI, more than 90 percent of federal revenues came from excise taxes and tariffs. Now, the income tax played a central role in revenues and would continue to increase in importance for the next 100-plus years. Today, over 80 percent of federal revenues come from income taxes and associated payroll taxes … and inequality has grown much worse.

For some reason, the “tax the rich” approach never seems to quite cure society’s ills.

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].

‘We Must Elect World Peace or World Destruction’

An original drawing of the New York City skyline by Donald J. Trump sold for $20,000 at a December 2017 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Bernard Baruch (1870-1965) was a financial wizard who earned his sobriquet as “The Lone Wolf of Wall Street” by sticking with his own brokerage firm. In addition to being a highly regarded financier, he became a trusted adviser to a series of U.S. presidents that included Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

On June 14, 1946, he made a speech to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission that included a proposal (the Baruch Plan) for the United States to turn over all of its nuclear weapons if all other nations pledged not to produce them. They would also have to agree to an adequate inspection system to ensure compliance. The Soviet Union rejected the plan – despite the fact that America still had the only nuclear weapon monopoly – primarily because Joseph Stalin was paranoid about the West’s control of the United Nations.

On that same day, the future 45th president of the United States was born in the New York borough of Queens. In 2017, Donald John Trump, the oldest (70) and wealthiest to assume office, became the 19th Republican to become president. The Republican Party has won 24 of the last 40 presidential elections, the most for any party. The first was Abraham Lincoln, who became the 16th president and served until his assassination in 1865.

The Republican Party was founded primarily by anti-slavery activists, ex-Free Soilers (a single-issue party) and ex-Whigs who had thrived from 1834-1854 (electing two candidates, William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor to the presidency). However, both of these Whig Party presidents died in office. Millard Fillmore, who became president after Taylor’s death in 1850, was the last Whig president.

History has not been kind to Fillmore and even the Wall Street Journal piled on in 2010 by declaring that Fillmore’s very name connotes mediocrity. One bright spot of his administration that is consistently overlooked is the mission he assigned to Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1852 to force Japan to open its ports to American trade (or else!). Perry and his fleet of American “Black Ships” with 1,600 men made gunboat diplomacy an effective strategy to force an isolationist country into international trade.

When Commodore Perry’s steamship Mississippi sailed into New York Harbor on April 23, 1855, and he hauled down his flag the following day, Fillmore was long gone. However, the expedition to the China Sea and Japan had been a rousing success. The locked gates of Japan had been opened by virtue of a trade treaty. Today, Japan is our fourth-largest trading partner (behind Canada, China and Mexico) and we have a long-standing, post-World War II security agreement where the United States is obliged to protect Japan in close cooperation with Japanese Self-Defense Forces.

Our current areas of focus are the South China Sea and the North Korean nuclear threat that (theoretically) could lead to world destruction.

The Baruch Plan was remarkably prescient in this regard, as Baruch started his speech in the most provocative way, saying, “We are here to make a choice between the quick and the dead,” and included the line, “We must elect world peace or world destruction.” The baby born while this was going on will be one of the few people directly involved in decisions that guide the outcome of these issues.

Dewey Had It All – Except Maybe a Genuine Connection with Voters

Two scarce Tom Dewey buttons sold for $1,075 at a May 2010 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The political tidal wave that washed over the American continent in November 1946 left in its wake a vastly altered landscape. The triumphant Republican Party had polled 3 million more votes than the Democrats, gaining 54 House seats and 12 in the Senate. Even Democratic President Harry Truman’s old seat would be occupied by a conservative Republican and Kentucky elected its first Republican Senator in 22 years.

It was a rout.

It was also a referendum on Truman’s two-year stewardship and a belated rejection of a New Deal without FDR. Senator J. William Fulbright suggested Truman appoint a Republican Secretary of State and then resign, turning the country over to a president the electorate preferred. U.S. News & World Report declared the president’s chances of winning another nomination at less than 50 percent and predicted Tom Dewey of New York would be in the White House in two years.

Dewey then went on the offensive, attacking the Truman Doctrine as inadequate – “Unthinkable we would surrender the fruits of victory after a staggering cost in blood and resources” – and citing the broken pledge to China, failure to give Chiang Kai-shek airplane parts, and grossly inadequate supplies of arms and ammunition. Also, allowing the Soviets to hold the northern half of Korea and building a well-trained army of 200,000, while the American half had no civil government and no military – a political void with ominous consequences. Dewey predicted “23 million Korean people would move from Japanese tyranny to Soviet tyranny and China would be next.”

America was in a hurry to disarm and Truman’s people were not standing up to the Soviets with sufficient conviction, distracted into debating Universal Military Training. Was it courage or inexperience?

Soon the answer would become apparent to everyone. First, labor leader John L. Lewis and 200,000 striking coalminers were humbled by a contempt citation, fined $3.5 million and ordered back to work immediately. “He couldn’t take the guff,” the president wrote. “No bully can. Now I have the autoworkers, steel workers and railroad men to look forward to. They will get the same treatment.”

This was followed by Truman’s promise to protect Greece and Turkey from the communist threat, the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (replacing the OSS) and the Marshall Plan to rescue Europe. Suddenly, the man who had seemed a political dead duck six months before was flying high. The polls reflected a remarkable comeback by the president. After trailing Dewey 50 to 28, he had drawn even with him in the polls!

Dewey was not naive. He knew the incumbent president would be a tough opponent and any future election would be closer than the pundits were predicting. But he was an experienced politician and had a terrific record of making government work on whatever level he was at. As New York’s famous district attorney, he made the judicial system work as he rounded up the city’s most powerful and infamous gangsters. As governor, he founded a state university, built a thruway, battled cancer and tuberculosis, and never submitted an unbalanced budget. When he left office, state taxes were 10 percent lower than when he had taken office.

Then, after he accepted the nomination to be the Republican candidate for president in 1948, he was buoyed by a steady stream of congratulations. Winston Churchill wired his discreet best wishes from “the English friend who met you on March 12, 1946.” The editors of Who’s Who sent an advance copy listing Dewey’s address as 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C. Pollsters and the press almost unanimously projected him as the winner. Ernest Lindley in Newsweek predicted “only a miracle or a series of political blunders not to be expected of a man of Dewey’s astuteness can save Truman from an overwhelming defeat.”

Even Truman’s closet advisors were worried. “We’ve got our backs on the one-yard line with only a minute to play,” explained presidential adviser Clark Clifford.

Amidst the euphoria, the “first lady of American journalism” Dorothy Celene Thompson – who in 1939 was recognized by Time magazine as the second most influential woman in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt – struck a cautionary note. She wondered aloud if Dewey was the man to rouse something more from voters. It takes understanding to really connect … human feelings, humor, compassion, loyalty – qualities that evoke affection and faith, which is different from confidence.

Thompson seemed to be saying only Dewey could defeat Dewey. We know now that may have happened in 1948, and it also may have happened again in 2016. Voters are savvy people and it takes a special quality to really connect – something polls can’t seem to capture.

‘Your Show of Shows’ a Classic Reminder of Television’s Potential

A Sid Caesar and Imogene Coco signed photo from *Your Show of Shows* went to auction in February 2003.

By Jim O’Neal

In the fall of 1949, inside a room on the 23rd floor of NBC’s Manhattan headquarters, an ensemble of comedy writers were preparing to give Americans a reason to stay home on Saturday nights, glued to their 10-inch televisions. Soon, their efforts would spread fear down Broadway, just as Hollywood was beginning to worry about the effects of television on box-office receipts.

But this seemed different. The sophisticated, rowdy and mainly 20-something staff was about to use the relatively new medium of television to create stay-at-home laughter that surpassed everything that came before. From its premiere on Feb. 25, 1950, the manic energy of Your Show of Shows, starring Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris, turned Saturday nights into a showcase for pure comedic genius.

Aside from launching legendary careers for Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and Larry Gelbart, the 90-minute revue provided a beacon of hope and direction to a medium that needed both.

It had started when NBC’s television programming chief, Pat Weaver, pitched Your Show of Shows in 1949 to Max Liebman, a veteran producer. Since television’s debut in 1946, networks attracted advertisers by allowing sponsors to buy entire timeslots and produce their own shows. A prime example was the Texaco Star Theater featuring Milton Berle.

Weaver had an entirely different concept. His network would air its own shows and sell “spots” of airtime to multiple companies. Liebman had been the first to pair Caesar and Coca when he directed a sponsor-driven program, the Admiral Broadway Revue, and he agreed to produce this new NBC-owned show. He quickly decided to reunite Caesar and Coca and then form the writing team around them.

A dream team as it turned out. Sid Caesar described it best: “This writing staff was pure magic. We were all a little bit crazy, but it somehow produced terrific material.” All that talent converged in the smoke-filled “writers’ room.” It was where the 21-year-old Mel Brooks would punctuate his chronic lateness by screaming, “Lindy has landed!” – much to the open anger of the demanding Sid Caesar.

Lucille Kallen, the lone female writer, is quoted as saying the team literally lived Your Show of Shows, working seven days a week, 39 weeks a year from that office … and loving every minute.

In what would later be known as television’s Golden Age, the incomparable staff created a gallery of memorable sketches, brought to life by Caesar, Coca, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris. There were movie parodies like From Here to Obscurity, Mel Brooks’ 2000 Year Old Man, and the extraordinary chemistry between Coca and Caesar, displayed in the saga of Doris and Charlie Hickenlooper’s floundering marriage. And, of course, Caesar’s portrayal of the “Professor.”

The show was so popular that Broadway movie and theater owners, after experiencing a dramatic box-office decline, pleaded with NBC executives to move the TV show to midweek. Even critics loved it. The notoriously harsh Larry Wolters of the Chicago Tribune wrote, “Sid Caesar doesn’t steal jokes, he doesn’t borrow ideas or material. A gag is as useless to him as a fresh situation to Milton Berle.” Alfred Hitchcock said, “The young Mr. Caesar best approaches the great Chaplin of the early years.”

What effect did the show, running over five years, have on television? Consider this: When it debuted in 1950, there were 4 million sets in American households. When the final curtain fell on the Hickenloopers and company, over half of the nation’s 48 million homes had a television.

Coincidence? Perhaps, but it’s also a reminder of what television at its very best could be … before the “vast wasteland” encroached.

Stephen R. Mallory Played Key Role in Developing Submarines, Torpedoes

An original oil painting by Rudy Simons depicting the 1862 battle between the CSS Virginia and USS Cumberland went to auction in June 2017.

By Jim O’Neal

Stephen R. Mallory was born in Trinidad, British West Indies. In 1850, the Florida legislature elected Mallory (1812-1873) to be a U.S. Senator and he was re-elected in 1856. He was appointed to the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs and was unsuccessful in appropriating funds for the development of an ironclad floating battery, a forerunner of armor-clad ships.

In 1858, President Buchanan offered to appoint him Minister to Spain, but he declined. Although a strong supporter of the South, he opposed secession. Nevertheless, he resigned on Jan. 21, 1861, after Florida left the Union.

Jefferson Davis quickly named Mallory head of the Confederate Naval Department on Feb. 25, 1861. He had not sought the office and was not even aware of the nomination. One reason for his appointment was that he came from Florida, which had been given a prominent Cabinet post as a reward for its early date of secession. However, the Florida delegation opposed his nomination over a misunderstanding about his actions involving Fort Pickens, but he was finally confirmed as Confederate States Secretary of the Navy on March 4.

Mallory’s department at the start of the war consisted of 12 smallish ships and 300 officers who had left the Union Navy. In May 1863, Mallory was able to persuade the Confederate Congress to create a Provisional Navy and this gave him the opportunity to recruit and train more sailors. Many of these men eagerly transferred from the Army, despite significant opposition from a series of Secretaries of War.

When the Civil War got under way, Union anchorages were crammed with wooden warships mostly obsolete. Unable to compete with the U.S. Navy on numerical terms, the South saw an opportunity to seize a technological edge to negate the advantage in timber and guns. Since Mallory had to purchase ships built abroad, he emphasized the building of several powerful ironclads, along with gunboats and other vessels.

Mallory also played an active role in the development and use of torpedoes (mines). These devices became one of the most successful aspects of the navy throughout the war. Confederate minefields helped keep the Union Navy from entering Charleston Harbor and delayed the attack on Mobile Bay. By the end of the war, torpedoes had sunk or damaged 43 enemy vessels, including four monitors. These devices destroyed more Federal warships than the entire fleet of Confederate gunboats.

Mallory also championed the development and employment of torpedo boats and submarines. One of the first submarines was Pioneer, which was built at New Orleans, but scuttled when the city fell, never having an opportunity to attack the enemy. The H.L. Hunley became the first submarine in history to attack and sink an enemy, the ocean steam sloop USS Housatonic.

But it was the showdown on March 8-9, 1862, between the CSS Virginia (a rebuilt frigate that never shook her original name, Merrimack) and the USS Monitor that generated the most news on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. The Battle of Hampton Roads was the most important naval battle of the Civil War and was an effort of the Confederacy to break a Union blockade that had cut off international trade from Virginia’s largest cities of Norfolk and Richmond.

It was the first combat meeting of the famous ironclad ships and they dueled for four hours with neither inflicting damage on the other. Despite this strategic draw, The New York Times ran 17 articles on the battle. Harper’s Weekly thrilled its readers with an action-packed cover story, while Currier & Ives issued three different lithograph versions titled “Terrific Combat.”

Of interest was that the commander of the CSS Virginia, Franklin Buchanan, an officer in the U.S. Navy, became the only full Admiral in the Confederate Navy. Earlier in 1845, at the request of the Navy, he submitted plans for a naval school that became the United States Naval Academy and Buchanan became the first superintendent.

He resigned his commission in 1861 in anticipation of Maryland seceding. When that didn’t happen, he tried to recall his resignation but Gideon Welles – President Lincoln’s Secretary of Navy – refused, citing “half-hearted patriots.”

Stephen Mallory spent several years in prison and then returned to Pensacola and his law practice. He and Confederate States Postmaster General John Reagan were the only two men who remained in their Cabinet positions throughout the entire war.

Complicated times.

‘America’s Hometown’ Now Empty Storefronts, Wal-Marts and Shuttered Factories

Milan High School’s state basketball victory over larger Muncie inspired the 1986 film *Hoosiers*.

By Jim O’Neal

The last time I was in Buffalo, N.Y., was in October 1974. We were on a tour of supermarkets to improve our code dating discipline. Anytime we spotted a bag with an illegible date or past the stale point, we simply crumpled the bag and asked the store manager to have the Frito-Lay salesman replace it with no charge to the store. I was aware that Grover Cleveland had been sheriff of Erie County and personally hanged two murderers, but didn’t know that the Ball Brothers glass manufacturing company had moved their company to Muncie, Ind., in 1889 due to the abundance of natural gas. And, of course, President William McKinley got himself assassinated in Buffalo in 1901.

Muncie has become newsworthy ever since a landmark sociological study was undertaken there in the 1920s. It had been identified as the representative American community worthy of the title “Middletown.”

It started after Robert Lynd, a young seminary student, accepted an assignment to analyze the effectiveness of ministries by studying a Wyoming oil-drilling camp owned by Standard Oil of Indiana. The camp was a dismal collection of tents inhabited by 500 discouraged workers and their families. Lynd was successful in forging them into a viable community. He then wrote an article for an obscure journal, detailing the appalling conditions and attacking John D. Rockefeller Jr. (personally) as the one responsible.

In a twist of fate, Rockefeller – a devout Baptist with liberal ideas – had just formed a committee to study America’s religious practices. He wanted to reconcile capitalism of the early 20th century with his personal Protestant beliefs. So Rockefeller picked Lynd to head the “Small City Study” to prove it was truly independent. Their charter was to look at social problems arising from industrialization – “ascertain[ing] the religious, ethical and capability of people” in a single industrial city.

Lynd chose Muncie since it fit certain criteria: small (38,000), Midwestern and economically diverse. Although 92 percent were “native white of native parentage,” Lynd claimed a homogeneous population permitted him to study cultural changes, unimpeded by racial or religious differences. It also reflected his deep belief that native-born Protestants represented the bedrock of American society and best hope for the country’s future success.

Robert and wife Helen Lynd arrived in Muncie in 1924 and quickly decided religion was too narrow and expanded the study to factory conditions, the Kiwanis and Rotary Clubs, and even the people’s reading habits. What they discovered was a city rushing into the 20th century, with rapid industrialization, farming to factories, kerosene to electricity, central heating, hot water in a tap and the telephone, automobile and railroads.

In 1929, they published Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture, 500 pages detailing a rigid class system and gradual erosion of values, with excessive materialism and consumerism in full bloom. Returning after the 1932 Great Depression, Lynd was totally disillusioned by American capitalism and looked with naive envy on the Marxist experiments in the Soviet Union.

Waves of subsequent sociologists have made their own journeys to Muncie, which today calls itself “America’s Hometown,” with a litter of empty storefronts, outlying Wal-Marts, factories shuttered, the Ball Brothers HQ now in Colorado, and a vibrant service economy. Locals have grown accustomed to being sampled and polled by outsiders. “Here, it’s something of a way of life,” said Muncie Star-Press editor Larry Lough.

I’d like to visit Muncie some day since I love Indiana basketball and in 1954, tiny Milan High School (enrollment 161) knocked off Muncie to win the state basketball championship. This was the inspiration for the 1986 film Hoosiers with Gene Hackman in one of my all-time favorites.

No President has been Removed by Impeachment, Conviction

A 1996 letter President Clinton sent to a journalist, regarding an article that had moved the president, sold for $10,755 at a February 2010 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

On Jan. 7, 1789, members of the Electoral College cast 69 votes for George Washington to become the first president of the United States, while John Adams, who finished in second place with 34 votes, became the first vice president.

These electors, who had been chosen by white men who were landowners in 10 states, also cast votes for John Jay (9), Robert Harrison (6), John Rutledge (6), Samuel Huntington (2), John Milton (2), Benjamin Lincoln (1), and Edward Telfair (1). Forty-four electors failed to cast a vote.

North Carolina and Rhode Island were ineligible since their statehood had not been ratified. New York did not appoint the eight electors they were eligible for since they were deadlocked in their state legislature.

We still use the Electoral College, as established by the Constitution, which has been modified several times and today gives all citizens age 18 and over the right to vote for electors, who in turn vote for the president and vice president (only). On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, each state’s electors simultaneously cast their ballots nationwide.

Then on Jan. 6, the electoral votes are counted before Congress and, finally, on Jan. 20, the president is sworn into office. In the case of George Washington, he wasn’t sworn in until April 30, 1789, since Congress didn’t count the electoral votes until April 6.

Exactly 210 years later, on Jan. 7, 1999, the impeachment trial of President William Jefferson Clinton began in the U.S. Senate, with senators sworn in as jurors and Chief Justice William Rehnquist sworn in to preside. President Clinton was formally charged with lying under oath and obstruction of justice.

Four years earlier, he had sexual relations with a 21-year-old unpaid intern in the White House before she was transferred to the Pentagon. Contrary to his sworn testimony in an unrelated sexual harassment case, President Clinton admitted to a grand jury (via closed-circuit television) that he had not been truthful.

On Dec. 11, 1998, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment. On Dec. 19, the full House approved two articles of impeachment: lying under oath to a grand jury and obstructing justice. On Feb. 12, the Senate voted on the perjury charge and 45 Democrats and 10 Republicans voted “not guilty.” On the charges of obstruction of justice, the Senate vote was split 50-50.

This was the third and last time the Senate Judiciary Committee had voted to impeach the president of the United States. Two were found not guilty (Andrew Johnston in 1868 and Bill Clinton), while a third, Richard Nixon, resigned to avoid what was an almost certain guilty verdict. (In 1834, the Senate voted to “censure” Andrew Jackson).

Thomas Hart Benton’s Influence Surpassed Nearly All Contemporaries

This $100 1882 Gold Certificate (Fr. 1214), featuring an image of Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton, sold for $88,125 at an April 2017 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

During the winter of 1886-87, cattle rancher Theodore Roosevelt lost a lot of his money as the Dakota weather wiped out his herd. The one-time boy wonder of New York politics was now neither a boy nor a wonder anymore. At age 28, Roosevelt decided to return to writing. Through his friend Henry Cabot Lodge, he got a contract with Houghton Mifflin for a biography of Thomas Hart Benton, the Missouri Senator and apostle of Western geographic expansion of the United States.

Like most authors, T.R. had moments of doubt, writing to Lodge, “I feel appalled over the Benton. Unsure if a flat failure or not. Writing is horribly hard work for me; and I make slow progress.” By June, he pleads with Lodge to send him some research material on Benton’s post-Senate time and receives enough help to finish the biography. The book didn’t break any new ground, but was a much better read than his ponderous Naval War of 1812.

Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) is a well-known American painter and muralist, and subject of an eponymous 1988 documentary by Ken Burns. However, Roosevelt’s biography was about a great-uncle, Senator Thomas Hart Benton (1782-1858), who was only slightly less well known and a giant when it comes to the topic of U.S. western expansion, commonly called Manifest Destiny (or God’s will).

Benton was a central figure in virtually all the major geographic additions after President Jefferson essentially doubled the U.S. land area in 1803 via the Louisiana Purchase from France. The modest $15 million price tag added areas that constitute 15 present states and small portions of two Canadian provinces.

T.H.B. was an aide-de-camp to General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812 and then launched his own political career after the Compromise of 1820. This agreement permitted Maine (free) and Missouri (slave) to become U.S. states without disturbing the delicate balance in the Senate. Benton was one of Missouri’s first two Senators and his Senate career lasted 30 years.

He became the first Senator to serve five terms in office. His strong anti-slavery position prevented him from winning a sixth term, so he became a member of the House of Representatives.

He was the principal supporter behind the annexation of the Republic of Texas (1846) despite the slavery issue, which was rectified by negotiations for the Oregon Territory and anti-slavery provisos for the new areas seeking statehood after the war with Mexico. Benton further encouraged western expansion by legislating the first Homestead Act that offered free land to those who agreed to settle and live there.

It is easy to understand why Roosevelt selected him for a biography. Benton was not a great orator or writer, or even an original thinker. But his energy and industry, his indomitable will and fortitude, gave him an influence that surpassed nearly all contemporaries. Courteous, except when provoked, his courage was proof against all fear and he shrank from no contest, personal or political. At all times, he held every talent he possessed completely at the service of the Federal Union.

John F. Kennedy included Benton as one of the eight Senators he highlighted in his book Profiles In Courage, citing how Benton sacrificed his re-election to the U.S. Senate in a vain attempt to avoid disunion.

I suspect Teddy Roosevelt may have unwittingly adopted some of these personal traits for himself. They seem entirely familiar to the T.R. I admire and respect so deeply.

General Lee’s Decision Avoided the ‘Vietnamization of America’

Robert E. Lee declined President Lincoln’s offer to head up the Union Army since it would require him to bear arms against his home state of Virginia.

By Jim O’Neal

In late 1955, the Tappan Zee Bridge – spanning the Hudson River in New York – was opened with seven lanes for motor traffic. Two months ago, it was closed and is systematically being demolished. The deteriorating bridge, known in the governor’s office as the “hold-your-breath bridge,” was featured in the documentary The Crumbling of America, the story of the infrastructure crisis in the United States.

Also in this same category is the Arlington Memorial Bridge, which connects the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington National Cemetery and is metaphorically described as what rejoined the North and South after the Civil War. First proposed in 1886 as a memorial to General Ulysses S. Grant, it was blocked in Congress until President Warren G. Harding got snarled in a three-hour traffic jam in 1921 en route to the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Congress quickly approved his request for $25,000 to build the bridge and it finally opened in January 1932.

Nearby is Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial. This was the home for the Lee family for 30 years and where R.E.L. made the fateful decision to resign his commission in the U.S. Army on April 21, 1861, and join the Confederate States. He had declined President Abraham Lincoln’s offer to head up the Union Army since it would require him to bear arms against his home state of Virginia.

In June 1862, Congress enacted a property tax on all “insurrectionary” land and added an amendment in 1863 requiring the tax to be paid in person. Ill and behind Confederate lines, Mary Lee was unable to comply and the Lees never slept there again. The property was auctioned off on Jan. 11, 1864, and the high bidder ($26,800) was the U.S. government.

Secretary of War William Stanton approved the conversion of the Lee estate to a military cemetery in 1864. On May 13, a Confederate POW was buried there (renamed Arlington National Cemetery) and more than 400,000 have joined him, including President Taft, President JFK and my dear friend Roger Enrico.

For 15 years, I passed a statue of Robert E. Lee driving to my Dallas office. It invariably invoked memories of the wisdom of this soldier who surrendered his army to General Grant at Appomattox in April 1865. Most of his top aides tried to dissuade Lee from surrendering, arguing they could disband into the familiar countryside and hold out indefinitely in a stalemate. Eventually, Northern soldiers would simply return to their homes and then the South could regroup.

Thus did Robert E. Lee, so revered for his leadership in war, make his most historic contribution – to peace! By this one momentous decision, he spared the country the divisive guerilla war that would have followed … a vile and poisonous conflict that would have fractured the country perhaps permanently. Or as newspaper columnist Tom Wicker deftly put it, “The Vietnamization of America.”

Alas, Dallas city leaders recently removed the Lee statue and I sincerely hope they find some relief from the anguish they have suffered from this piece of marble sequestered so long. However, I suspect they will just move on to some other injustice. It reminds me of feeding jellybeans to pacify a ravenous bear. When you (inevitably) run out of jellybeans, he eats you.

Louis Kahn’s Kimbell Art Museum is Magically Restorative

Paintings by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) are found in museums such as the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. This Bouguereau piece, *Fishing For Frogs*, 1882, realized $1.76 million at a May 2012 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

In the opening paragraph of his handwritten letter dated June 22, 1969, to Velma Kimbell, the architect Louis Kahn wrote, “I hope you will find my work beautiful and meaningful.”

Kimbell and her late husband wanted a great museum for the city of Fort Worth, Texas. They were part of that sliver of truly rich willing to give up artistic power to people who knew more. The Kimbells would pay for the entire museum, donate the nucleus of a fine collection, and leave an endowment of such magnitude that the Kimbell Art Museum would be among the handful of museums able to aggressively buy the best.

What they did, to pay them the highest compliment, was equivalent to what the Mellon family did 30 years earlier. Few people in the history of this nation have used their fortune on behalf of the arts as the Mellons, starting with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Andrew Mellon (1855-1937) wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 offering his superb collection and funds for a new museum to house it.

When it opened to the public on March 17, 1941 (Mellon was dead), the world-class collection consisted of 120-plus paintings and 26 sculptures given by his son Paul Mellon, another giant in the world of art philanthropy. Over the ensuing years, Paul and his wife Bunny donated more than 1,000 works of art! Bunny was famous for entertaining and insisted on serving bowls of perfect Lays chips (her secret was to have servants pick out broken chips).

Louis Kahn’s letter to Velma Kimbell, written four days before groundbreaking ceremonies (he could not attend), was polite, but was NOT representative of a deeply held conviction. “Even when serving the dictates of individuals, you still have no client in my sense of the word. The client is human nature.”

No museum has served that usually overlooked client better!

Kahn wanted light to have the luminosity of silver as it reflected off the distinctive cycloidal concrete vaults. The light provides a sense of the time of day (it reminds me of beach light) but avoids the enemy of art: direct sunlight – especially the ferocious light of Texas summers. Instead of inducing fatigue, as most museums do, the Kimbell is restorative. “The feeling of being home and safe,” said Kahn, explaining his own magnificent piece of art the museum represents.

The Kimbell is noted for the wash of silvery natural light across its vaulted gallery ceilings.

A prime, early policy directive was definitive excellence, not size of collection. With a collection size of 350 superb European Old Masters, that goal has been accomplished.

Personally, I prefer the nearby Amon Carter Museum for three small reasons. First, I prefer its Frontier West tone. Second, I am jaded about “Old European Masters” after living in Central London for five years (yawn). Third, it gives me an easy segue into two apocryphal stories about the Carters.

Amon Carter Sr. (1879-1955) was so disdainful of Dallas that he would bring a sack lunch so he would not have to spend any money when he visited the city. “Fort Worth is where the West begins – and Dallas is where the East peters out.”

Although I have owned coins and currency that Amon Carter Jr. once owned, I never met him. He died of a heart attack in 1982. But one of his advisers, a Dallas coin dealer, told me they were in a bar in NYC when a loudmouth asked Amon how big his Texas ranch was and scoffed when Amon replied 30 acres.

“Thirty acres? I thought all you Texans had BIG ranches. Where is yours?”

Amon answered softly. “All of downtown Fort Worth.”

Not all acreage is born equally.