Americana – Page 5 – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

We Have Lost Something Sacred in Today’s Judicial Nomination Process

John Jay (1745-1829) was the first Chief Justice of the United States.

By Jim O’Neal

The Supreme Court was created in 1789 by Article III of the U.S. Constitution, which stipulates “the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court.” Congress organized it with the Judiciary Act of 1789.

John Jay of New York, one of the Founding Fathers, was the first Chief Justice of the United States (1789–95). Earlier, he was president of the Continental Congress (1778-79) and worked to ratify the U.S. Constitution by writing five of the Federalist Papers. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote the other 85-plus essays, which were published in two volumes called “The Federalist” (“The Federalist Papers” title emerged in the 20th century).

Nearly 175 years later, in 1962, President John F. Kennedy nominated Byron Raymond “Whizzer” White to replace Associate Justice Charles Whittaker, who became chief legal counsel to General Motors (presumably with a nice salary increase). Whittaker had been the first person to serve as judge at all three levels: Federal District Court, Federal Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court (a distinction matched by Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor).

White was the 1960 Colorado state chair for JFK’s 1960 presidential campaign and had met both the future president and his father Joe while attending Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship in London when Joe Kennedy was ambassador to the Court of St James. This was after White had graduated from Colorado University Phi Beta Kappa, where he was also a terrific athlete, playing basketball, baseball and finishing runner-up for the Heisman Trophy. He is unquestionably the finest athlete to serve on the Supreme Court.

He continued mixing scholarship and athletics at Yale Law School, where he graduated No. 1 in his class magna cum laude and played three years in the National Football League for the Pittsburg Pirates (now the Steelers). He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954.

Judge White was in the minority on the now-famous Roe v. Wade landmark decision on Jan. 22, 1973. Coincidentally, there was a companion case that has been virtually forgotten called Doe v. Bolton (Mary Doe v. Arthur K. Bolton, Attorney General of Georgia, et al.) that was decided on exactly the same day and on the identical issue (overturning the abortion law of Georgia). White was in the minority here, too.

White’s nomination was confirmed by a simple voice vote (i.e. by acclamation). He was the first person from Colorado to serve on the Supreme Court and it appears that one of his law clerks … Judge Neil Gorsuch, also from Colorado … most likely will become the second, although it is unlikely he will receive many Democratic votes, much less a voice vote.

Times have certainly changed in judicial politics and, unfortunately, for the worse … sadly. Advise and Consent has morphed into a “just say no” attitude and we have lost something sacred in the process.

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

Newspapers Have Been Rushing to ‘Break News’ for 150 Years

A Nov. 21, 1863, edition of the *New York Tribune*, which reprinted President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, sold for $632.50 at a June 2005 auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Today’s occasionally frenetic journalism began during the Civil War, for two basic reasons.

The first was the telegraph, since this was the first instant-news war in history, and the issue was much like we have with today’s internet. Reports could be filed almost immediately and it resulted in a mad rush to be first with “breaking news.”

The other was steam, used for steam-powered locomotives and the relatively new steam-powered printing presses. Reporters could hop on a train and return to their offices quickly if a telegraph office wasn’t handy. Either way, the demand for timely and accurate news from the front lines transformed American journalism. It was a culture of “Telegraph all the news you can get, and when there is no news, send the rumors.”

They did a lot of that, and the competition was ferocious. New York had 18 daily newspapers, with four or five focused on the war – including the New York Tribune (Horace Greeley), The New York Herald (James Gordon Bennett), and The New York Times (Henry J. Raymond). Of the three, Greeley was the acknowledged celebrity and well-known for his erratic views as opposed to straight news.

He would later challenge President Grant’s reelection in 1872 by splitting the Republican Party, which resulted in the Democrats cancelling their convention and throwing their support to Greeley. So it was Republican Grant against Liberal Republican Greeley … and no Democrats. Grant won easily and Greeley died before the Electoral College could vote (Greeley actually received three posthumous electoral votes).

Bennett may have been the first great genius in American journalism. He had migrated from Scotland after being trained as a Catholic priest, had the finest education, and was devoted to a balanced approach to the news. However, even he occasionally fell victim to rushing to print too fast.

An interesting feature of the “war newspapers” was that each copy was handed around and read by dozens of people. Another is that the armies – both sides – did not report casualties. There were no official lists of those killed, captured or wounded. This was done by individual reporters, who compiled lists and published them. This enhanced reader interest immensely when a reporter was covering specific units where loved ones were involved.

As a group, Civil War correspondents were a motley group of ruffians who called themselves the “Bohemian Brigade.” There was lots of criticism, particularly of The New York Herald, for sending out these hard-drinking characters into the field. Even so, simply substitute today’s gossipy and irresponsible websites for the Civil War telegraph and it becomes perfectly clear how little reporting the news has changed in 150 years.

Only Four Presidents Never Appointed a Supreme Court Justice

An 1840 silk banner depicting William Henry Harrison realized $33,460 at a May 2010 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

When Donald Trump’s appointee fills the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the chief executive will escape from a small group of presidents who did not appoint a single nominee confirmed by the Senate. Trump’s pick will join the other 117 justices, 17 chief justices and four women who have served on the court.

Presidents without a Supreme Court appointee:

William Henry Harrison (1841) – Died only 31 days after being inaugurated.
Zachary Taylor (1849-50) – Died 16 months after inauguration.
Andrew Johnson (1865-69) – Victim of a hostile Congress that blocked several nominees.
Jimmy Carter (1977-81) – The only president to serve a full term with no vacancies during his four years in office.

It seems clear that the Founding Fathers did not spend a lot of time considering the importance of the Supreme Court as an equal branch of government. That would come later during the tenure of Chief Justice John Marshall, who many credit with providing the balance to ensure that our fragile democracy survived.

One example is there are no legal or constitutional requirements for a federal judgeship. There does exist an unwritten prerequisite to have practiced law or to have been a member of the bar, but it is not mandatory. As a matter of historical record, no non-lawyer has ever been a member of the Supreme Court – and it is a virtual certainty that none ever will.

And, although the methodology for judicial appointments was subject to intense debate, the criteria for such appointments was apparently not a matter of significance. Those few delegates who did raise the issue of criteria did so by assuming merit over favoritism. Congress also did not foresee the role political parties would very soon come to play in the appointment and confirmation process.

Only John Adams clearly anticipated the rise of political parties but, of course, he was not a member of the Constitutional Committee. He summarized it rather well: “Partisan considerations, rather than the fitness of the nominees, will often be the controlling consideration of the Senate in passing on nominations.”

I suspect they would all be disappointed by the dramatic, partisan “gotcha” grilling that nominees face today.

Personally, I would prefer the old process the Scots used to select Supreme Court justices. The nominations came from the lawyers, who invariably selected the most successful and talented members of the legal community. This effectively eliminated their most fierce competition, which then allowed them to solicit their best customers. The court would then truly be assured of getting the best-of-the best, while the profession competed for clientele.

Monarch Butterflies Among the Most Intriguing of Earth’s Insects

This photo card of Sitting Bull was produced in the 1890s. Look closely and you can see a Monarch butterfly tucked into the brim of his hat.

By Jim O’Neal

For every single human being on Earth, there are 200 million insects. Both in terms of species and sheer numbers, insects outnumber all other animals on the planet. More than a million different species of insects have been described and named, and thousands more are discovered each year … some estimates exceed 30 million total in existence.

Over 70 percent of all known animal species are insects and almost half of them are in the beetle category. Among the more infamous are boll weevils, which crossed into the United States from Mexico in 1892. They proceeded to destroy great swaths of the cotton grown in the South. Even today, efforts to eradicate them in both countries is problematic.

Thanks to the amazing adaptation skills of insects, they flourish in every land habitat and play a key role in the global ecosystem, recycling dead plants and animals, pollinating flowering plants, and providing food for a host of animals. In fact, insects are so vital to life on Earth, we could not survive without them.

Insects are also the most numerous of the arthropods – animals with tough external skeletons and jointed legs.

A remarkable example of biodiversity is the beautiful Monarch butterfly, which starts life as a wingless caterpillar that spends most of its time eating. Its metamorphosis into a butterfly is one of the most dramatic changes in nature. Within two hours of emerging, the butterfly is ready for flight and launches into the air to start looking for a mate so it can breed and create a new generation.

Monarch butterflies spend the winter asleep in the warm woods of Mexico and California. In spring, they awake and fly north to find milkweed plants that do not grow in the warmer southwest. Then, they lay their eggs and die. The next generation then flies further north and does the same thing. After two generations, they reach the Canadian border. Then, the fourth generation migrates all the way back south again, clear across the United States.

It’s not clear if they seek approval from the Department of Homeland Security or simply rely on special TSA exemptions for frequent flyers. Hopefully, they make it safely, since our fortunes seem to be linked in some mysterious way.

Go Monarchs!

Appointments to Supreme Court Have a Long History of High Drama

Chief Justice Earl Warren swears in John F. Kennedy on the cover of the Jan. 27, 1961, edition of *Time* magazine. This copy, signed by Kennedy, sold for $1,135.25 at a December 2012 auction.

By Jim O’Neal

On June 25, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced Chief Justice Earl Warren’s intention to retire and the nomination of Associate Justice Abe Fortas to replace him. However, after three months of acrimonious, partisan debate, the Senate refused to vote on the Fortas nomination. When Fortas asked the president to withdraw his nomination, Chief Justice Warren withdrew his resignation. “Since they wouldn’t confirm Abe, then they will be stuck with me!”

And, true to his word, Chief Justice Warren did not retire until June 1969, when President Richard Nixon replaced him with U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Warren Earl Burger.

In a bizarre twist, Justice Fortas had come under intense scrutiny and it was revealed that he had a questionable relationship with Louis Wolfson, the first modern corporate raider, according to Time magazine. This led to the resignation of Fortas – the first Supreme Court Justice to do so under these ethical circumstances.

Nixon was ecstatic that he would get to make a second nomination and he carefully chose judge Clement Haynsworth from the U.S. Court of Appeals-Fourth Circuit as part of a “Southern Strategy.” Congress seemed supportive, but to the president’s anger, frustration and embarrassment, the Judicial Committee found clear evidence of financial improprieties. Like Fortas, nothing illegal, but he went down 55-45 in a display of principled equality.

The president quickly countered with Judge Harrold Carswell, an undistinguished ex-District Judge with only six months of experience on the U.S. Court of Appeals. It was clearly an act of vengeance, intended to teach the Senate a lesson and downgrade the Court. Then, suspicious reporters dug up a statement to the American Legion in 1948: “I yield to no man in the firm, vigorous belief in the principles of white supremacy.”

Oops, there went the Southern Strategy, and the Senate voted him down.

It was another bitter defeat for the president, so Nixon turned North and picked Harry Blackmun of Minnesota and an old friend of Chief Justice Burger. He sailed through 94-0 and there would be no further vacancies for 15 months, when Nixon found himself in yet another imbroglio.

In September 1971, terminal illness compelled the retirement of Justices Hugo Black and John Marshall Harlan II, the two most influential figures and veritable giants of the law. Rather than a diligent search, Nixon tried the trial-balloon strategy and floated the name of U.S. Representative Richard Poff of Virginia, but his civil rights skeletons were easy to uncover and he withdrew. Then Nixon sent six nominees to the American Bar Association for review, but they quickly criticized them as manifesting “a relentless pursuit of mediocrity” and urged the president to “add some people of stature.”

In a dramatic television broadcast, Nixon revealed his “formal nominees” … Lewis F. Powell Jr. and a youthful (47) William Rehnquist (approved after three months of wrangling), who would serve on the court for 33 years – 19 as Chief Justice.

Whew! Next stop: March 20, 2017. Good luck, Judge Neil Gorsuch. This is a tough crowd.

Gilded Age Created Super-Wealthy Americans and their Extremely Large Homes

Cornelius Vanderbilt at one point controlled 10 percent of all the money in circulation in the United States.

By Jim O’Neal

A recent New York Times edition has a follow-up story on America’s most expensive house – a 38,000-square-foot beauty listed at $250 million. The current all-time record is believed to be an East Hampton estate that sold for $147 million in 2014, followed by a California house that sold for $117.5 million in 2013. Apparently, there is another Bel Air project under construction that would dwarf all of these at $500 million.

This may seem like a modern-day phenomenon, but it hardly compares with the late 19th century – “The Gilded Age” – when truly vast fortunes were accumulated to the point it required “creative spending,” and real estate was a favored target. The Vanderbilts were a prime example, as shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt stood out among other famous names of the day, such as Morgan, Astor, Rockefeller, Mellon and Carnegie. At one point, “Commodore” Vanderbilt (as he liked to be called) personally controlled 10 percent of all the money in circulation in the United States.

Naturally, all these wealthy Americans built homes on a grand scale. Grandest of all were the Vanderbilts. They built 10 mansions in New York alone, all on 5th Avenue, one with 137 rooms. And everyone built more palatial homes outside the city, particularly in Newport, R.I. The super-rich even had the nonchalance to call them “cottages,” despite the fact that they were so big even the servants needed to have servants.

This gaudy ostentation generated such widespread disapproval that a Senate committee seriously considered introducing legislation to limit how much a person could spend on a house (but not how many). These were the days when John D. Rockefeller made $1 billion a year (adjusted for inflation) and paid no income tax. No one did. Congress tried to introduce a 2 percent income tax over $4,000 in 1894 and the Supreme Court promptly ruled it unconstitutional.

Warren Buffet thinks we are better off today since rich folks back then couldn’t buy televisions, luxury cars (with GPS), cellphones, jet travel, microwaves, talking movies, air conditioners, Starbucks lattes … or lifesaving CT scans, organ transplants or statins/vaccines – since they didn’t exist. All they had was money.

So like the Commodore’s grandson George Washington Vanderbilt, they turned to real estate and homes. This Vanderbilt heir decided to build a cottage of his own in 1888, when he was still in his 20s. He bought 130,000 acres in North Carolina and built a rambling 250-room mansion. He hired 1,000 workers to build a dining room with a 75-foot ceiling that seated 76. The estate had 200 miles of road and included a town complete with schools, a hospital, churches, banks, a railroad station and shops for 2,000 employees and their families. The surrounding forests were logged for timber and the many farms produced fruit, vegetables, eggs, poultry and livestock.

He had planned to live there part-time with his mother, but she died before it was complete. So he lived there alone until he finally married and had a daughter. Then he died.

As F. Scott Fitzgerald supposedly once said to Ernest Hemingway: “The rich are different from you and me.” To which Hemingway replied, “Yes, they have more money.” (And thus a famous quote/counter-quote myth was born … with many variations.)

Events Surrounding Rockefeller, AT&T Recall Story of Hydra

By Jim O’Neal

Few people who were alive when Martin Van Buren was president (1837-41) were still alive when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated for his second term (1937). John Davison Rockefeller was, and he took advantage of every single day, even preferring to work on his many birthdays.

Were he still alive, it’s almost certain he would be mildly amused to see a modern company – AT&T – seeking approval from a government department for an $85.4 billion acquisition of media giant Time Warner. In 1974, this same agency – the U.S. Department of Justice – filed an anti-trust lawsuit against AT&T. Eight years later, “Ma Bell” was forced to break up by spinning off seven “Baby Bells.”

Perversely, one of these spinoffs, SBC Communications (named Southwestern Bell Corporation until 1995) started methodically reconsolidating and eventually bought the original AT&T and assumed its name. Next, they acquired BellSouth for $85.5 billion, with full FCC approval.

Big ’ins always eat little ’ins (old Texas maxim).

John D. Rockefeller became the world’s richest person (ever) in a similar fashion: consolidating an industry to avoid competition.

The great industrial revolution that transformed America after the Civil War sparked an inflationary boom that resulted in an oversupply of goods. Naturally, this led to price declines that caused a deflationary spiral. The balance of the 19th century was plagued by these boom-bust cycles. As new markets developed, inexperienced businessmen failed to recognize the dangers of supply-demand imbalances as they rushed to make their fortunes.

Crude oil was a classic example, since there was no way to predict increases in supply, and oil refiners proliferated due to low barriers to entry. “So many wells were flowing, the price of oil kept falling, yet they went right on drilling.” Rockefeller was one of the first to recognize there was a need for a systemic solution. He cited the years of 1869-1870 as the start of his campaign to replace competition with “cooperation.”

A Standard Oil Trust stock certificate with two John D. Rockefeller signatures, dated April 5, 1882, sold for $7,500 at an April 2014 auction.

By the early 1880s, his Standard Oil Company controlled 90 percent of U.S. refineries and pipelines. In 1882, his clever lawyers created an innovative new kind of corporation that controlled all of the holdings in a “trust.” The trust controlled over 40 companies and it became easy to control production, distribution and refining (and, obviously, prices).

In 1911, the Supreme Court ruled these were illegal monopoly practices and ordered that it be broken up into 34 new companies. In a twist, John D. Rockefeller ended up with stock in all 34 companies, and over the next 10 years their combined net worth increased fivefold, as did Rockefeller’s personal fortune. Today, ExxonMobil Corporation is the largest of the world’s Big Oil companies and is consistently among the top five companies in revenue and profits.

The Greeks had a myth about Hydra, a multi-headed monster that grew two heads every time one was cut off. You can draw your own parallels.

Coolidge Focused on Creating Conditions Under Which Everyone Could Succeed

This rare “KEEP COOL-IDGE” campaign button, 1924, sold for $2,250 in February 2015.

By Jim O’Neal

The Republican Party’s 1924 presidential convention in Cleveland was the first to be broadcast on radio. Incumbent President Calvin Coolidge was a cinch to win the nomination as the nation was at peace, the country prosperous and the integrity of the executive branch restored after the Warren G. Harding scandals. “Keep Cool With Coolidge” captured the mood of the country and Democrats were so divided it took 103 ballots before they picked John Davis of West Virginia (“The Disaster in Madison Square Garden”).

The only real surprise was the selection of the Republican vice president candidate. Coolidge favored Senator William Borah of Idaho, who declined. On the second ballot, they nominated Governor Frank Lowden of Illinois, but he stunned everyone by refusing just as delegates were making the vote unanimous. Finally, Charles Dawes was nominated and he accepted. He would win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925 for his work on World War I reparations and is the only vice president to be credited with a No. 1 pop song (“It’s All in the Game,” 1958, performed by Tommy Edwards).

President Coolidge’s inaugural address in March 1925 was a ringing endorsement of his policies: encourage business and reduce taxes. “Economic legislation is not to destroy those who have already secured success, but to create conditions under which everyone will have a better chance to be successful.”

On Aug. 2, 1927, Coolidge surprised the nation with a terse announcement of his intent to retire. “I do not choose to run for president in 1928.” He explained his reelection would extend his presidency to 10 years … longer than anyone before … and too long in his opinion.

Some observers have speculated that he turned down reelection due to health concerns. Mrs. Coolidge claimed he told her that the next four years may have required greater federal spending … something he was too frugal philosophically to support. Others believe Coolidge retired because he sensed the coming economic crash and got out before his reputation for fostering prosperity was tarnished.

“You hear a lot of jokes about ‘Silent Cal Coolidge.’ The joke is on the people who make the jokes. Look at his record. He cut taxes four times and we probably had the greatest growth and prosperity we’ve ever known. I have taken heed of that because if he did that by doing nothing, maybe that’s the answer.” – President Ronald Reagan

Amen.

St. Louis World’s Fair Striking in its Arrogance of America’s Place in Humanity

This 1904 St. Louis Summer Olympics gold medal, awarded to four-mile men’s relay winner George B. Underwood, sold for $38,837.50 at a May 2013 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

America in 1900 was a provincial society of 76 million citizens. It is hard to contemplate a place of such innocence … a nation of dirt roads and horse-drawn carriages, of tight corsets and Victorian pretensions, of kerosene lamps and outhouses, of top hats and bowlers, McGuffey Readers and The Ladies’ Home Journal.

Cities were crowded with smoke-filled men’s clubs and ornate-paneled bars, while country towns were still home to 60 percent of the population, villages of stark simplicity and virtue. The average American had but five years of schooling and the nation only recently had made dramatic strides in improving literacy. Yet even in the absence of sophistication, most people were convinced America and its people were God’s chosen few.

The St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904 (the Louisiana Purchase Exposition), commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase (a year late), was striking in its arrogance of America’s place in humanity. In addition to the ice cream cone, hamburger/hot dog, and iced tea – all introduced here – the fair featured an anthropology exhibition to explain human progress via the general increase in the size of the human cranium, the principle of “cephalization.”

Anthropologist W.J. McGee designed a display of pygmies from Africa, Patagonian giants from Argentina, and Native Americans in ethnological settings – purportedly to demonstrate the peak of upward human development from savagery to barbarism to civilization. The implicit message was the distinctive American alchemy that had transformed people to a higher state of being.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a furious competition between scientists and pseudoscientists around the world to discover evolution’s “missing link.” All of them turned out to be bogus. The 1868 discovery in Albany, N.Y., of the Cardiff Giant turned out to be a gypsum statue aged with an acid bath. Then P.T. Barnum constructed his own Cardiff Giant, which he exhibited at his circus (a hoax of a hoax).

In perhaps the most celebrated of discoveries, Britain’s Piltdown Man, “unearthed in 1912,” established England as the cradle of civilization for 40 years. Then it was declared a phony, a mixture of orangutan bones assembled by an amateur paleontologist eager for fame.

Today, we still don’t know exactly how life began, but we do know, finally, how we got from there to here. One thing is certain: The path went through that 1904 fair in St. Louis – and I wish I had been there to attend the first Olympic Games held in the United States, eat a hot dog and end up in one of those bars with a mug of cold beer.

In Wartime, Leaders Made Sure Nation’s Treasures Remained Safe

An exact copy of the Declaration of Independence, commissioned by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams in 1820, sold for $597,500 at an April 2012 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Dwight Eisenhower was a five-star general in the U.S. Army and was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. On June 6, 1944, he directed the largest amphibious invasion in history by establishing a beachhead on Normandy on the northern coast of France.

Operation Overlord started with overnight parachute and glider landings, massive naval bombardments and air attacks … followed by amphibious landings on five beaches. They were code named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Gold and Sword. Then, the remaining elements of the airborne divisions landed.

The successful operation is now commonly called D-Day.

There was an elaborate plan formulated to convince the Germans that Normandy was not the focal point of the invasion and, despite several unfortunate leaks, it was generally successful. The use of code names helped to disguise the actual location and even extended to officers who had knowledge of real D-Day plans. None of them were to be deployed to areas where there was the slightest chance of being captured. They were given the security classification code name of BIGOTs, and if any were unaccounted for or captured, the invasion was to be canceled. In a little-known incident on April 27, 10 BIGOTs were missing after German E-boats attacked several American LSTs. But all 10 bodies were recovered and no changes had to be made.

Three months later, on Sept. 19 at 3:35 p.m., the Provost Marshall of Fort Knox, Ky. – Major W.C. Hatfield – ordered a heavily armed convoy to “move out” from the U.S. Bullion Depository. As the vehicles started rolling, there was a large truck in the middle. Inside were containers holding the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Gettysburg Address. They were going home!

President Roosevelt, the Joint Chiefs and the War Department had decided that bombings or sabotage on the U.S. mainland were now unlikely. It was time for these most precious documents to return to Washington. The Librarian of Congress – Archibald MacLeish – wrote, “They see no need to keep materials of this kind in the woods and hills any longer.”

The convoy headed to Louisville, Ky., and agents placed the cases aboard a Pullman sleeper car – No. 42 – on the 5:30 p.m. B&O train to Washington, D.C. When they arrived at the Library of Congress via armored truck (with extra guards), MacLeish personally supervised their transfer to the vault. Safe at last!

MacLeish resigned shortly after an ailing President Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented fourth term in 1944, defeating Republican Thomas E. Dewey, the governor of New York. However, FDR persuaded MacLeish to stay on as assistant Secretary of State for cultural and public affairs. His first assignment was to convince the American people that a United Nations was needed to ensure a lasting peace.

He did keep our most valuable treasures safe during the war, but lasting peace was more elusive. He died in 1982, just shy of his 90th birthday.