January 2020 – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

Astonishing technologies will continue upending our world

Thomas Hart Benton’s ink, pencil and watercolor on paper titled “Poking Stick in Cotton Gin,” circa 1930, sold for $12,500 at a May 2018 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

A Luddite is an obscure term loosely used to describe people who dislike new technology. After a superficial self-assessment, I’ve concluded I’m probably a modern-day Luddite at heart. The evidence is abundant since I’ve scrupulously avoided Facebook, have zero interest in posting pictures or video on Instagram and consider Twitter an enormous thief of time. Social media is not a place I’m interested in wasting my remaining time on.

That said, I don’t know how to account for my iPhone 11, iPad Pro or the 75-inch Sony 4K LED that dominates our den (or the six other cable boxes on three floors). With my iPad, I rarely use my desktop computer except to print documents. I abhor texting and still have a Netflix account that sends me DVDs by snail mail. After spending the past 60 years questing for ever-larger TV screens, the idea of squinting at a cellphone or watch-size TV program is mildly abhorrent. Even more annoying is the spate of robo-calls offering new Medicare options. I routinely turn off my devices for hours (ah … peace).

The original Luddites were British weavers and textile workers who objected to the increased use of mechanized looms and knitting frames. It is popularly claimed that they named themselves after Ned Ludd, a young apprentice who was rumored to have personally wrecked a textile apparatus (“in a fit of rage”) in 1779. There is no evidence Ludd actually existed, but he eventually became the mythical leader of the movement. They even issued manifestos and threatening letters under his name.

The first major instance of malicious machine breaking took place in 1811 in Nottingham. The British government moved to quash the uprisings by making machine breaking punishable by death. The unrest finally reached its peak in April 1812 when a few Luddites were gunned down during an attack on a mill near Huddersfield. Finally, the army deployed several thousand troops and dozens of Luddites were either hanged or transported to Australia.

In the intervening years, astonishing new technologies have increased productivity, lowered costs and created hundreds of millions of new jobs. A few of the more obvious include:

The cotton en(gin)e that turned a marginally profitable farm crop into a bonanza by minimizing labor by over 90 percent while increasing workers from 700,000 to 3.2 million. Historians point out the South gained a 75 percent share of world demand, but also doomed them to remain an agricultural economy (with slaves). Others contend this single invention led directly to the Civil War.
Cyrus McCormick’s mechanical reaper helped convert millions of acres to food production and developed Midwest family farms with “wheat fields shining from sea to sea.” Presumably, American Indians, buffalo, dense forests and pristine rivers and lakes were unimpressed.
The Wright Brothers gave man the gifts of flight, aircraft factory jobs, cargo shipments and holiday travel for the masses. It also enabled two world wars and the ability to destroy entire cities.
Commercialization of the Bessemer process to supply the enormous steel demand for railroad tracks that crisscrossed the nation and enabled high-rise buildings with Otis elevators and office workers too numerous to count.
Henry Ford’s assembly line made automobiles affordable … in turn, creating more workers to stay up with demand and higher wages to buy the product. This was followed by oil-gas, tires, paved roads, motels and Uber/Lyft). Also smog, toll roads and clogged freeways in every city.
The Internet is obsoleting retail stores and shopping malls, while enabling Apple, Google, Amazon and global outsourcing that has raised 500 million people out poverty.

We are now challenged to reconcile population growth with climate change and plastic oceans; and robots and artificial intelligence with displaced workers and a K-12 Education System that is failing so many currently. Joseph Schumpeter’s 1942 theory of Creative Destruction is still valid.

The London Mensa Organization just accepted a 3 year old with an IQ of 142+. There will also be more Elon Musks and they will figure it out. One suggestion is to simply operationalize what’s known as “5G-based” nuclear power plants, which are 100 percent green (it will shut itself down if needed) and run on spent fuel stockpiles. Imagine unlimited clean power that will desalinate sea water and gobble up current waste. Bill Gates is an investor in the technology.

Just a casual idea as we watch the Washington Circus and the people we rely on for leadership.

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].

Here’s why Commodore Perry is known as ‘Father of the Steam Navy’

This silver Matthew Calbraith Perry “Treaty with Japan” medal, commissioned by a group of Boston merchants and struck at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia in 1856, sold for $26,290 at a May 2011 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Generally, James Watt (1736-1819) is credited with the invention of the steam engine. Perhaps this is due to the proximity of this brilliant Scottish engineer and chemist to Great Britain’s Industrial Revolution. His work certainly played a major role in the country’s transition to the world’s leading commercial nation in the early 19th century. However, Watt actually only improved existing steam engines by reducing waste and redesigning the basic technology of heating and cooling liquids.

The result was a dramatic improvement in cost-effectiveness that lowered production costs. England could deliver virtually anywhere cheaper than local production. In a relatively short time, England’s global trading empire stretched from Europe to the North American colonies, through the Caribbean and to the Indian subcontinent. In the process, the nation transformed from an agricultural economy into an industrial juggernaut. The old saying that “the sun never sets on the British Empire” has been used by historians to dramatize the vastness of land under British control. At its apex, it covered 25 percent of Earth’s landmass and daylight was present somewhere at all times.

Then the vaunted British Empire began a long, slow descent into what has become a tired monarchy, with a sclerotic Parliament stuck in the mire of Democratic-Socialism. The embarrassing Brexit erased the vestiges of the Thacker era and raised the specter of disunion in Scotland and a divided Ireland. Recent events have inevitably raised questions about the durability of the royal family. I’m betting Queen Elizabeth II will remain unfazed and continue her remarkable 68-year reign, despite her children’s many escapades.

The actual story of “steam power” stretches back to Hero of Alexandria (circa 10-70 AD), a Greek scientist credited with developing the aeolipile – a rocket-like device that produced a rotary motion from escaping steam. For the next 1,800 years, the world’s inventors, mathematicians and scientists were busy making incremental improvements.

A prominent example is Matthew C. Perry (1794-1858), the first authentic Commodore of the U.S. Navy. He was appointed commandant of the New York Navy Yard in June 1840 by Navy Secretary James Paulding (primarily a writer of note). Perry was an experienced seaman and recognized the critical need for improving the education of Naval personnel. He helped design an apprenticeship system to train new sailors that eventually led to the establishment of the United States Naval Academy in 1845. Near Annapolis, Md., they train 800 to 1,000 plebes (Roman slang) annually to be midshipmen who represent the best traditions of America’s elite military.

Commodore Perry also earned the moniker “Father of the Steam Navy” after organizing the nascent corps of Naval engineers and founding the U.S. Naval gunnery on the New Jersey seashore. He took command of the U.S.S. Fulton (the nation’s second steam frigate). Perry supervised the construction and his extensive naval experience provided an ideal platform to advocate for extensive modernization.

In 1852, President Millard Fillmore assigned Commodore Perry to carry out a strategic mission: Force the Japanese Empire to open all their ports that had been closed to foreigners for 250 years … using gunboat diplomacy if necessary. On July 8, 1853, the Perry Expedition sailed into Edo Bay (Tokyo) and opened trade negotiations. However, it took a second trip in February 1854, this time with 10 vessels and 1,600 men. Perry proceeded to land 500 men in 27 boat ships while bands played the Star-Spangled Banner.

Silently following along was the “Law of Unintended Consequences.” The Japanese quickly realized that Perry’s warships, armaments and technology so out-powered them that it would be prudent to throw open their markets to foreign technology. The feudal lord Shimazu Nariakira summarized it nicely by observing: “If we take the initiative, we can dominate; if we do not, we will be dominated!” They did take the initiative and over the next century defeated Taiwan, Russia and China … taking control of the entire Korean Peninsula from 1910 forward.

Ironically, 100 years later, on Sept. 2, 1945, our war with Japan formally ended. But, days earlier, the battleship USS Missouri glided into Tokyo Bay and anchored within cannon-shot range of Commodore Perry’s moorage of 1853. The Missouri’s deck was arranged with surrender documents, and displayed above was the 31-star flag that Perry had flown on the USS Mississippi, built under the personal supervision of the commodore. It has been on display in the Naval Museum. The Missouri flagstaff luffed the 48-star flag that had flown on the Capitol dome in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 7, 1941. America and Japan were finally at peace.

Now we are ensconced in the Middle East with no visible exit and the Navy is busy contending with China over Asian Oceans of questionable value. But we did sleep in a Holiday Inn after mooring a nuclear submarine.

Jackson arrived in D.C. and proceeded to upset the apple cart

A rare Andrew Jackson “pewter rim,” most likely dating to the War of 1812 and celebrating its heroes, sold for $20,000 at a June 2015 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, was ready to go home. After serving eight years, he rejoiced that his vice president would succeed him. Occasionally, Jackson had considered resigning to ensure a smooth transition and, more importantly, a continuation of Jacksonianism. VP Martin Van Buren had consistently opposed this and finally “Old Hickory” dropped the idea. The president’s health was failing and many descriptions painted a picture of an old man (he was 70 years old and frail).

Eight years earlier, the president-elect had slipped into Washington, D.C. A welcoming salute had been cancelled since counting the electoral votes was still before Congress. Four years before (1825), Jackson had been denied the presidency despite winning a plurality of popular and electoral votes. Absent a majority of electoral votes, the election had been decided by the House of Representatives in accordance with the 12th Amendment. They chose John Quincy Adams.

Now, while waiting for the final count, Jackson was in deep mourning over the death of Mrs. Jackson a few days before Christmas. The cause was deep depression followed by a heart attack. A bitter controversy had erupted during the campaign when political enemies charged their marriage was bigamous. Rachel Donelson Jackson was mortified to learn a divorce was in question from a prior marriage. Winning the presidency had magnified the embarrassment and she cried out to friends, “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than live in that palace in Washington.”

So began a new era in American politics as a strident, partisan president took office still seeking revenge. The new president was obsessed with attacking all special interest groups and their corrupt influence on Congress. Under his leadership, Democrats became the party of the common man. The mantle of populism rested easily on his shoulders and Washington politics would be transformed for an entire generation. The two-party system was now dominant as Democrats and Whigs shared power until the 1860 election.

The turbulence of AJ’s life carried over into the presidency as he defined his policies, not by enacting legislation, but by defiantly thwarting it! He vetoed more bills than the combined total of all six of his predecessors. He was a man in a hurry and Cabinet members either followed his orders or they were quickly dispatched. As an example, the national debt was $58 million when he assumed office in 1829 and by Jan. 1, 1835, it had totally been eliminated (for the first and ONLY time to this day).

Nothing was sacred from his reform crusade and that especially included the Bank of the United States (BUS). The original BUS was created by Alexander Hamilton in 1791 to get the new government operating despite heavy debts from the War of Independence. The bank had been chartered for 20 years with the expectation the charter would be renewed. A successor BUS was founded in 1816, again with another 20-year quasi-monopoly. Jackson believed the bank was unconstitutional (as had Jefferson). Jackson surprised everyone by attacking the bank in his very first message to Congress.

He then promptly vetoed the bill to renew the charter in 1836 by saying, “It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.”

However, since the bank charter wouldn’t expire until 1836, Jackson decided not to wait. He ordered his Treasury Secretary, William Duane, to withdraw all government funds from the bank and deposit them with state charted banks. Congress had just legislated against this and Secretary Duane refused Jackson’s edict. The president simply fired him and transferred Attorney General Roger Taney into the Treasury job. The Senate, now controlled by Whigs, was furious and refused to approve Taney’s nomination. But they were too slow and the damage was already complete.

Totally frustrated, in March 1834 the Senate adopted a resolution of censure of Jackson, charging him with “assuming authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both.” It was viewed as an impeachment, but without the Constitutional process.

The Whigs responded, “The resolution, then, was in substance an impeachment of the president, and in passage amounts to a declaration by the majority of the Senate that he is guilty of an impeachable offence. As such, it is spread upon the journals of the Senate, published to the nation and to the world, made part of our enduring archives, and incorporated in the history of the age.”

That enduring “history of the age” lasted less than three years. In January 1837, Democrats, back in control of the Senate, voted to expunge the censure resolution, writing boldly across the original record, “EXPUNGED BY ORDER OF THE SENATE THIS 16TH DAY OF JANUARY, IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD, 1837.”

Amen.