The Wages of War

book log
An autograph logbook of Captain Robert A. Lewis, co-pilot of the ‘Enola Gay’ – the only in-flight account of the bombing of Hiroshima – sold for $543,000 in a July 2022 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Air Force General Curtis LeMay landed on Guam Island on Jan. 7, 1945. He had been transferred there specifically to assume command of the 21st Bomber Command and lead the effort to force Japan to surrender. One of the younger generals in the Army, he constantly chewed a cigar butt to help mask a nerve disorder that made his mouth droop. Thought to be Bell’s palsy, it was probably the result of flying high-altitude bombing missions over Europe.

He was one of the first to abandon the tactic of precision bombing designed to minimize collateral damage to nonmilitary targets and noncombatants. In response to a question, his caustic reply was “I’ll tell you what war is about. You’ve got to kill people, and when you’ve killed enough, they stop fighting.”

In May 1864, during the American Civil War, General William Tecumseh Sherman said something similar. After burning Atlanta during his infamous March to the Sea, he declared, “War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”

General Sherman was convinced that the Confederacy should be defeated by the complete destruction of both its military and civilians’ ability to wage war. In his March to Savannah, he cut a wide swath destroying cities, plantations, livestock and crops. His intent was to break the spirit of everyone and everything that stood in his way. Today his name provokes animosity in the South for his cruel, wanton destruction, despite the fact that it helped bring the war to a conclusion.

With General LeMay now in Asia, the primary question involved how to convince Japan that surrender was the most prudent decision. The American military had fought their way across the Pacific Ocean to Japan’s doorstep, defeating Japanese troops on a series of islands with strange names like Saipan, Guadalcanal, Corregidor, Tarawa, Iwo Jima and, finally, Okinawa. The Battle of Okinawa’s initial invasion on April 1, 1945, was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. The 82-day battle lasted until June 22, 1944. The Allies intended to use the air base for Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands.

However, the battles in the Pacific had been bloody. The capture of Iwo Jima, less than 8 square miles of volcanic ash, had cost the lives of 25,849 Marines (one-third of the landing force). Okinawa’s price was 49,151, and kamikazes diving from the sky had sunk 34 U.S war ships and damaged an additional 368. If the Japanese could draw that much blood on the outer islands of their defense perimeter, how formidable would they be on the 142,000 square miles on their five home islands? The Joint Chiefs had estimated a minimum of 1 to 2 million deaths in a full assault.

When LeMay assumed command, he implemented the strategic bombing concept that had been so successful in defeating Germany. He also added two new technologies that seemed tailor-made for use against Japan’s predominantly flammable cities. The first was a highly efficient 6-pound incendiary bomblet developed by Standard Oil: the M-69 projectile. It spewed burning gelatinized gasoline that stuck to the ubiquitous wooden houses. The second was the B-29 Superfortress, a long-range, intercontinental bomber. Soon LeMay had 350 bombers parked in the Marianas, with more arriving every day. The 11-man crew bomber had a range of 4,000 miles at 35,000 feet. Importantly LeMay had perfected the optimum mix of explosives and incendiary bombs that resulted in firestorms that evolved into virtual thermal hurricanes that killed by heat suffocation.

The first raid consisted of 344 bombers that crisscrossed a target area and then merged into a sea of flames. They left 1 million homeless and 90,000 dead. In the ensuing five months, LeMay’s bombers attacked the 66 largest Japanese cities, killing 900,000 citizens. In addition, 1.3 million were injured, and 8 million houses were destroyed. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were intentionally spared.

Every Japanese citizen took a sacred vow to fight until the last person was dead.

They spent their time constructing 9,000-plus high-altitude incendiary bombs to float across the Pacific Ocean, using the strong trade winds, and drop them on the West Coast of the American mainland. Japanese schoolgirls labored to assemble the balloon bombs. An Oregon family of six were the only American mainland casualties of the entire war.

Meanwhile, Air Force Colonel Paul Tibbets went to Omaha to hand-pick his B-39 #82 off the production line of Glenn Martin. He renamed it Enola Gay, his mother’s name, and got it back in theater ready to go. President Harry Truman was at sea, returning from Potsdam. On Aug. 6, the White House issued a statement: “16 hours ago an American airplane dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima … harnessing the power of the Universe.”

Still the Japanese refused to surrender.

Only on Aug. 10, a day after a second nuclear explosion had devastated Nagasaki, killing an additional 70,000 people, did Japanese experts agree that their country was under an atomic attack. Emperor Hirohito recorded an announcement that was broadcast on the radio.

Most Japanese citizens had never heard his voice before.

This particular war was ended.

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].

For 40 years, Horace Greeley was the busiest, boldest editor in America

This Horace Greeley 1872 campaign banner with albumen photo and gold-leaf trim sold for $40,000 at a December 2016 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

“Go West, young man, go west and grow up with the country.”

This widely known quote is directly associated with the concept of Manifest Destiny, as Americans inexorably expanded from being huddled along the Atlantic Ocean, across a vast continent, to the shores of the magnificent Pacific Ocean. What is less agreed is the source of this exuberant exhortation. A vast majority attribute it to a man who could easily be crowned the Nation’s Newsman: Horace Greeley. However, there is no definitive evidence in any of his prolific writing or plethora of speeches.

By 1831, a young (age 20) Horace Greeley arrived in New York, devoid of most things, especially money, except for a burning desire to exploit his skills as a journeyman printer. The following year, his reputation was rapidly expanding, having set up a press to publish his modest first newspaper. At 23, he had a literary weekly and a relationship with the great James Gordon Bennett, founder of the New York Herald. The future beckoned the aspiring writer-orator to bring his encyclopedic skills to the masses in new and exciting ways.

Inevitably, using borrowed money, he started the New-York Tribune, publishing the first issue on April 10, 1841. Perhaps by coincidence or divine intervention, this was the same day New York City hosted a parade in honor of recently deceased President William Henry Harrison (“Tippecanoe and Tyler Too”), who had died on April 4. Harrison, the ninth president, had only served from March 4, the shortest tenure of any U.S. president.

The 68-year-old William Henry Harrison was the oldest president to be inaugurated until Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 at age 69 (both were young compared to the current president and president-elect). In this situation, Harrison had given a lengthy two-hour inaugural address (8,445 words – even after Daniel Webster had edited out almost half), opted not to wear a coat to demonstrate his strength, caught pneumonia and died four weeks later. His wife Anna was at home also sick and, in a first, Congress awarded her a pension – a one-time payment of $25,000 equal to the president’s salary. Their grandson – Benjamin Harrison – would become the 23rd president in 1889.

The new Greeley newspaper was a mass-circulation publication with a distinctive tone reflecting Greeley’s personal emphasis on civic rectitude and moral persuasion. Despite the challenging competition of 47 other newspapers – 11 of them dailies – the Tribune was a spectacular success. Greeley quickly became the most influential newspaperman of his time. From his pen flowed a torrent of articles, essays and books. From his mouth an almost equal amount. In the process, he revolutionized the conception of newspapers in form and content, literally creating modern journalism.

Then with the advent of steam-powered printing presses and a precipitous drop in prices from 6 cents to a penny, more people were clamoring for more news. The common man, ever eager for more information in any category, began to read about the financial markets and almost everything about everyone.

Greeley was intensely interested in Western emigration and encouraged others to take advantage of the opportunities he envisioned. “I hold that tens of thousands, who are now barely holding on at the East, might thus place themselves on the high road to competence and ultimate independence at the West.” Curiously, he made only one trip west, going to Colorado in 1859 during the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush, joining an estimated 100,000 gold-seekers in one of the greatest rushes in the history of North America. The participants, logically dubbed the “Fifty-Niners,” found enough gold and silver to compel Congress to authorize a Mint in 1862. The new Denver mint was opened in 1906.

Greeley developed a large group of followers who found in his raw eloquence and political fervor a refreshing perspective that fueled their appetite for more. For 40 years, Greeley was the busiest and boldest editor in America. Both men and women were attracted to his fiery perspective and guidance in all the great issues of the time. He spared no one, suffered no favorites and seemed to never let the nation or himself rest.

After becoming the first president of the New York Printers’ Union, he led the fight for distribution of public land to the needy and poor. He was a fierce advocate for government rescues during times of social issues, a new role for officeholders and the sovereign state as well. Others have remarked on the similarities between the 1837 depression and FDR’s New Deal response a century in the future. Still others consider him a trust buster, but 60 years before Teddy Roosevelt and his Big Stick threats.

Perhaps less skilled in the art of personal introspective, Greeley viewed himself as an “indispensable figure in achieving national consensus.” His lofty goal was nothing less than the eradication of political differences and a complete embrace of Whig principles and sensibilities. (We are still waiting for his version of transcendental harmony.) Alas, his yearning for consensus blunted his understanding of political events. He was surprisingly slow to grasp the moral dimension of slavery until the 1850s when violence erupted (i.e. Bleeding Kansas).

He abandoned his dream of consensus in favor of the North’s overwhelming strength to simply impose its will, saying “Let the erring states go in peace.” He then turned to badgering President Lincoln to negotiate a peace to stop the bloodshed – basically preserving slavery. Lincoln’s letter to the editor on Aug. 22, 1862, says it all: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.” The subtle wisdom not to expand the war into any of the border states is a point often overlooked.

In 1872, the famously eccentric editor from New York ran for president against Ulysses S. Grant, lost badly, and then died before the electoral votes were counted. Lincoln had likened Greeley to an “old shoe — good for nothing now, whatever he has been,” and Greeley himself perceived his failure. “I stand naked before my God, the most utterly, hopelessly wretched and undone of all who ever lived.”

Personally, I think not. (Seek thee proof … simply look around us today.)

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].

Two very different men somehow helped us through our first 50 years

In an 1817 letter, former President John Adams reflects upon his old literary acquaintances in London who “have departed to a World where I hope there are neither Politicks or Wars” and yearns to visit London but realizes he “must soon commence an Eternity in other Worlds as I hope and believe.” The letter sold for $20,315 at an April 2007 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

One of the better-known historical dates of synchronicity is July 4, 1826. The 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the deaths of presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. The lives and careers of these two men were uniquely intertwined many years before the formation of the United States and during the first 20 years of formal governance.

As the 50th anniversary of American independence grew near, there were widespread requests across the nation for people to share their perspectives on the events that led to this revolution and their personal memories, wisdom and the outcome of their actions. Many believed this was more divine intervention than mere coincidence. A special committee was formed to organize an event in Washington, D.C., featuring Adams, Jefferson and Charles Carroll of Maryland … the only three of the original 56 signatories still alive.

Both Adams and Jefferson were physical relics by then and unable to travel. Jefferson, however, managed to pen a reply in one final spasm of eloquence that electrified the Washington event attendees. He borrowed heavily from a speech by Englishman Richard Rumbold, a Puritan soldier convicted of treason and spoken from the gallows in 1685. This practice of using historical rhetoric to bolster effect was not viewed as literary theft or plagiarism. If Adams was “the voice” of revolution, then clearly Jefferson was “the pen.” During his second terms as president, the only known speeches were at his two inaugurations.

The third man, Charles Carroll (1737-1832), also did not attend, but is more than deserving of high praise and admiration. A Maryland planter, he was the wealthiest man in America with a fortune estimated at 2,100,000 pounds sterling. He was the only Catholic of the 56 men who were brave enough to sign the explosive Declaration at risk of British retaliation. He then went a step further and supported Washington’s forces using his personal wealth. There is a valid theory that the inclusion of religion per se in the First Amendment of the Constitution is due to Carroll’s actions.

He was considered to have been the best-educated Founding Father, speaking five languages fluently after 17 years of Jesuit education in France and England, where he joined the bar. He was born in Annapolis, Md., and was the first U.S. senator from that state. Although he owned 1,000 slaves on his 10,000-acre manor, he was vocal in supporting the ending of the practice, calling it “the most evil practice in America.”

There is a dramatic story involving his signing of the Declaration as plain “Charles Carroll” since there were many others with the same name. Upon hearing the comment, he returned to the document and added “of Carrolltown” to be sure the British knew which man to hang. He would later found the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), as well as build the Phoenix Shot Tower, which was the tallest building in the nation until the Washington Monument.

Adams and Jefferson started colliding in Washington, D.C., when the first presidential election was held in 1787. It was just assumed that George Washington would be the first president and he was elected unanimously with all 69 electoral votes. It made sense that someone from the North should be vice president and John Adams beat out 10 other contenders. However, few realized that he was humiliated when he only received 34 votes, less than half of Washington’s tally. President Washington started with a small cabinet: Thomas Jefferson (State), Alexander Hamilton (Treasury), Henry Knox (War), and Vice President Adams.

“The vice president of the United States,” stipulated Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution, “shall be president of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they are equally divided.” This is why many have looked on the position as “the most inconsequential position ever devised by man.” Except John Adams hadn’t been at the Constitutional Convention when the discussion was held. So he initially thought he would be debating with senators over policy, but only voting if there was a tie. There are recorded instances where Adams had the floor for nearly an hour! Can you imagine Mike Pence arguing with Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnel in Senate debates today?

To make the situation worse, President Washington didn’t want him in Cabinet meetings.

Historian David McCullough best describes John Adams as a “brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee Patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution.” My guess is we all have impressions about Thomas Jefferson: a tall, shy thinker who loved wine, books and admired the French. We know about Monticello, his many slaves and his relationship with Sally Hemmings. These were two very different men who somehow helped us through the first 50 years.

Where do you think our future leaders will take us?

I hope they serve Doritos!

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].

Story of America a tale worth telling to those who want to radically change it

A book from the personal library of George Washington, signed and bearing his bookplate, sold for $101,575 at an April 2012 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

I have never been to Mount Vernon, but if you want to pay your respects to George Washington, that’s the place to go. On the other hand, if you want to see Washington’s Tomb – and many thousands do each year – it is two stories below the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. A man named William Thornton (a British-American architect) designed the Capitol with a place for George and Martha to be interred, along with an appropriate statue for our first president.

However, Washington directed in his will that his body should be placed in a simple tomb at Mount Vernon and, as usual, he got his way. He also stipulated that his slaves were to be set free (one may have escaped earlier). Martha had brought 84 slaves into their marriage from a previous marriage and upon her death they and their dependents reverted back to her first husband’s estate.

Congress would later disagree and pass several resolutions to have him interred in the capital. Martha finally agreed. But, it took too many years to finish the Capitol Crypt and the new owners of Mount Vernon refused to let Washington’s remains be disturbed. This tug-of-war went on for several years, primarily between the Northern politicians and Southern legislators who definitely demanded the South due to his southern heritage. With George Washington, it is easy to forget that the “Father of our Country” was only 43 years old when he took over the American forces in the Revolutionary War … matching JFK’s age as the youngest man ever elected president. Teddy Roosevelt was 42 when he assumed the presidency, but that was only after President McKinley was assassinated in 1901.

From another perspective, the highly respected Ben Franklin was 26 years old when Washington was born, literally another generation. Even Washington’s death on Dec. 14, 1799, was not primarily related to old age since he was only 67. The story is he had been riding horseback for several hours at Mount Vernon in the rain and sleet, went home to join dinner guests … did not change the wet clothes … and woke up at 2 a.m. with a sore throat and trouble breathing. Three doctors were called since pneumonia was suspected.

George was a staunch believer in the therapeutic benefits of bloodletting (as were most doctors for 2,000 years) and some versions assert that some blood was drained before doctors arrived and they ended up taking about 40 percent of his blood over the next 10-12 hours until he grew weak and died. The current speculation is that the cause was epiglottitis – an infection of the cartilage covering the windpipe that swells and blocks the flow of air into the lungs. One thing is certain: Bloodletting was directly involved in the cause of death, irrespective of the specific set of circumstances that contributed to his death.

To fully appreciate Washington, it helps to go back to the period before the Constitution and the eight years of his presidency.

By 1787, it was clear that the Articles of Confederation would benefit from updating. Each state governed themselves with elected representatives and these same representatives had to elect a national government that was weak without an independent executive and a Congress without taxing power. Any amendments required all 13 states to agree and even important legislation required approval of nine states. So a weak minority could easily thwart the will of the many. George Washington wryly observed, “We are left with a shadow without substance.”

So began the push to create a stronger national government.

The story of the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain – a seven-year war against the most powerful country in the world, under-manned, out-gunned farmers with pitchforks and rocks, the formation of the Articles of Confederation to bring together a disparate group of migrants, scrapping it all to form a Constitutional Congress, with the world’s first Constitution – is a tale worth telling to those who want to radically change it.

It’s an American story!

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].

Late ’60s marked a dangerous era of tensions over Vietnam, Civil Rights

Posters by Walt Kelly with the popular slogan “We have met the enemy and he is us” (1970) occasionally appear at auction.

By Jim O’Neal

In 1968, we were living in San Jose when national politics got complicated after President Lyndon Johnson made a speech that concluded, “Accordingly, I shall not seek and will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

The date was March 31 and less than a week later, on April 4, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. The assassin, James Earl Ray, was on the loose and believed to have fled the country. Later, he would be apprehended at London’s Heathrow Airport and extradited to face first-degree murder charges. He pled guilty in return for a 99-year sentence and died in 1998 while still in prison.

The year had started off with an upset on Jan. 20 when the University of Houston, led by Elvin Hayes, defeated top-ranked UCLA, 71-69, in the Astrodome before 52,693 fans. It had been billed as the “Game of the Century” and was the first NCAA basketball game to be nationally televised in prime time, ultimately leading to “March Madness.” Although UCLA would go on to thrash Houston in the semi-finals (101-69) and defeat North Carolina in the championship game, the loss to Houston snapped a 47-game winning streak. Coach John Wooden simply commented, “I guess we’ll just have to start over.” From 1971 to 1974, UCLA won another 88 straight games.

Ten days after the UCLA upset, on Jan. 30, 1968, about 80,000 enemy troops launched a surprise attack on over 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam. It was the single most lethal day in terms of killed or mortally wounded U.S. military troops. Although the war would grind on for another six years, the “Tet Offensive” would turn out to be the beginning of the end, since it put the war into 50 million Americans’ living rooms every night on all three TV networks, which dutifully announced all the Viet Cong that had been killed. Even then, I never understood the logic on keeping track of enemy KIA and territory gained in the vain hope it would somehow boost public support (especially since it was the same territory we had won six weeks previously). It seemed analogous to fighting the Battle of Gettysburg (once a week) and then reporting on whether the North or South had won.

After the April murder of MLK, a wave of shock and distress spread across the nation, with riots and burning in more than 100 cities. Then two months later, disaster struck again when Bobby Kennedy was killed on June 5 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Tensions over Vietnam and Civil Rights were at a dangerous level and America’s leadership was being questioned. Walt Kelly’s frequently quoted Pogo line from that era – “We have met the enemy and he is us” – captured the mood of the country.

In August, we had dinner at the five-star Stanford Court Hotel on California Street on Nob Hill. Our host told us an amusing story about their last visit to the restaurant. Without mentioning any names, he explained that during dinner, the wife of his client had slipped a plate from the table into her handbag. Nothing was said, but when the check came, there was one line listed: “One dinner plate $75.” In a perverse way, it eased my concern that discretion and gentility were being eroded during all the domestic chaos.

Later I would learn that the hotel had been built on the same site that Leland Stanford (1824-1893) had built his magnificent mansion, which was legendary for its luxury and art collection. Finished in 1876 for the astonishing cost of $2 million, it was perched on two superb acres surrounded by a grand wall of basalt and granite. The Stanford manse was among the most elegant in the nation, but had been destroyed by fire in the 1906 earthquake.

Leland Stanford was one of the Big Four responsible for building the Central Pacific railroad that started in Sacramento and met the Union Pacific at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869. This was the joining of the first Transcontinental Railroad that completed an “iron belt” around the country. Leland Stanford and his wife Janie are responsible for creating Stanford University in honor of a son that died. Leland and his cronies – Mark Hopkins, Charles Crocker and Collis Huntington – were well known in 19th century history as “Robber Barons” and Stanford’s correspondence leaves no doubt that he used every trick in the book to cheat his partners, investors, the government and employees.

I suspect he never thought about stealing the silverware or china from restaurants.

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].

Let’s get this out of the way: Leisure suits were a disaster

Unopened test packs of Topps’ “The Six Million Dollar Man” trading cards from 1974 can fetch as much as $600.

By Jim O’Neal 

In 1960, I was delighted when Continental Can transferred me from the Bondware Division (paper cups, plates and cottage cheese tubs) to the flexible packaging plant in South Gate, Calif. It was a much shorter drive and I was finally off the wretched swing shift (3-11 pm). In addition to being a “day job” in charge of accounts payable, all the men wore suits and ties, even on Friday. The issue was I didn’t own a suit. 

However, I soon had five (one for every day) after Duke Snider recommended Academy Award Clothes in the garment district at 817 S. Los Angles St. On my first shopping trip, I spotted actor John Forsythe (Bachelor Father and later Charlie’s Angels). I had picked out a solid blue and a classic black plus three pinstripes and asked him for his opinion. He said they were OK, but added “with your build, you’d look much better in a Louis Roth.Since I was so naïve, I gave it some thought, but without a clue for what a Louis Roth was. A man or a brand? 

Roth (1884-1968) was born in Warsaw, Polandand emigrated to the United States when he was 17. He started out in New York and after a honeymoon in Southern California, decided to relocate to Los Angeles. He founded Louis Roth & Co. in 1924 and would subsequently acquire Kuppenheimer Clothes of Chicago, Burberry’s International of New York, and Baker Clothes of Philadelphia. 

Then on Aug. 23, 1976, in a cover story for New York magazine, author Tom Wolfe penned an essay that labeled the 1970s the Me Decade. In perhaps the most famous passage, Wolfe called presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, who was Born Again, a “missionary lectern-pounding Amen ten-finger C-major-chord Sister-Martha-at-the-Yamaha-keyboard loblolly piney-woods Baptist.” It didn’t seem to affect Carter, since he went on to defeat Gerald Ford in the only Democratic victory in a presidential election held between 1968 and 1992. Ford won 27 states, the most ever carried by a losing candidate. And the Me Decade name stuck, as well. 

Coming off the free-wheeling, funloving 1960s, many people embraced social decadence with an enthusiasm not seen since the roaring ’20s. It seemed that whatever your vice (drugs, sex or rock ’n roll), it was there for the tacking. However, the absolute nadir of the Me Decade was … the leisure suit … a fashion trend that tried to blend the classic respectability of the business suit with the comfort of casual Friday. Predictably, it ended with disastrous results. 

Typically made of polyester, leisure suits had buttoned jackets with wide lapels, large pockets and pants that flared into bell bottoms. Adding to their garish appearance was large, decorative stitching that contrasted with the suit color. Even worse were the colors: burnt orange, crimson, pink, saffron, cinnamon, tangerine and powder blue. Since ties were by definition passé, men complemented it with a silk or polyester shirt undone and the collars worn outside the jacket, with easy accessorizing with cheap bling. 

Surprisingly, although associated with the ’70s, it was actually introduced after the war as casual vacation wear for the affluent. And the first true leisure suits were produced by Louis Roth Clothing and made out of wool gabardine. They had belted jackets with a pleat in back and sold for $100-plus, four to five times what offtherack suits cost in fine men’s stores. 

Leisure suits had a great run on TV with The Six Million Dollar Man (Lee Majors) and in the movies, with Rollerball (James Caan). At their height, they were sold in virtually every department store and were ubiquitous in business and social scenes. Regardless of class or status, everyone was equal in a leisure suit. Then came the backlash from fashion experts like John Molloy, who declared leisure suits inappropriate for the office. The author of Dress for Success called them fads for fools! 

Louis Roth died in 1968 and is buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery, which is the final resting place for Tyrone Power, Douglas Fairbanks, Mickey Rooney and hundreds of Hollywood legends including Toto (The Wizard of Oz) and Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland). I never owned one of his suits with the sloping shoulders that were his unique design. He is still considered a master when it came to thread and needles. 

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]. 

Another milestone in American history just a few months away

This 1840 Silk Campaign Flag for William Henry Harrison realized $87,500 at a June 2018 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Every four years, Americans get an opportunity to choose who will be president of the United States. To vote, people must be citizens, 18 years old and registered to vote. The actual direct voting is by delegates to an Electoral College, generally representing the Republican or Democratic political parties. Since 1789, 44 different men have occupied the Oval Office and Donald Trump is the 45th. Grover Cleveland accounts for the difference since he was elected twice, once in 1884 (#22) and again in 1892 (#24); he is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms.

Of these 44 presidents, there is only one African-American and no women. One … John Quincy Adams … was selected by the House of Representatives in 1824 when none of the candidates received a majority of votes. In this century, George W. Bush and Donald Trump lost the popular vote, but had more votes in the Electoral College. Al Gore and Hillary Clinton placed second. Four of the presidents died in office and four were assassinated.

The first to die was William Henry Harrison in 1841 after serving only 31 days. John Tyler became the first vice president to assume the presidency without an election. To preclude any Constitutional uncertainty, Tyler immediately took the oath of office, moved into the White House and assumed full presidential powers. His political opponents argued (unsuccessfully) that he should be “acting president” until a new election was held. One president (Richard Nixon) resigned to avoid a trial in the Senate after the House of Representatives voted to impeach on three articles; he was virtually assured of conviction.

Each time, the nation withstood the shock of an unanticipated change and a safe transition was managed, almost routinely.

It is quite instructive to broadly categorize the men who have served in this office by analyzing their relationship with the people and the development of the nation. There are interesting correlations with the evolving role and power of the chief executive as the Union became more geographically diverse and ever-expanding. At times, it is arbitrary as the changes were often contentious, but society has flourished despite political discord. A few examples are all that space allows, but the story keeps getting more complex.

First consider the first five, from George Washington to James Monroe … both two-term presidents from Virginia (as were Thomas Jefferson and James Madison). Washington was elected unanimously twice, something Monroe nearly matched until one vote was cast to preserve GW’s record. Monroe served in the “Era of Good Feelings,” a time of harmony never to be replicated. These five presidents are easily labelled as “formative” in every sense of the word. There were few precedents to follow and the Constitution was uselessly vague on specifics.

Washington (1789-97) chose to meet primarily with the upper elite of society (eschewing the common man) and even assiduously avoiding shaking hands. He rode in a yellow chariot decorated with gilded cupids and his Coat of Arms. His executive mansion was staffed with 14 white servants and seven slaves. A different man might have easily assumed the role as king, irrespective of the war for independence. After all, that action was against King George III, the greedy British Parliament and taxation without representation. Further, he had been elected by a small group of mature (older) white men – and exclusively landowners, who numbered 6 percent of the total population.

Washington was acutely aware of the precedents he was setting and their historical importance. In 1789, he appeared before the Senate and presented an Indian treaty for approval. When the Senate decided to study it before approval, Washington huffed out after vowing to never appear before Congress again. It was a vow he kept. Similarly, when he refused to comply with a Congressional demand for his papers on the controversial Jay Treaty, he reminded Congress that the Constitution did not require their approval! Thus were the roots of executive privilege established.

When Washington declined a third term in 1796, George III famously declared, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.” He did and it was a precedent that spanned 144 years until Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared for the presidency a third time in 1940 (and won). From 1932 – with the Great Depression, the New Deal and the Second World War on the horizon – FDR had subsumed the federal government. To the common man, he epitomized the American landscape totally.

Other vivid examples include Jacksonian Democracy for the common man … the War with Mexico and the Western expansion of Manifest Destiny … Lincoln, his generals and the Civil War … Reconstruction without Lincoln’s wisdom … the Great War machine in the 20th century and the Cold War.

In a few months, we may have a chance to witness an inflection point in American history as another generation goes to the ballot box and votes. This time, voters will include women, blacks, Latinos, American Indians and Asians.

I plan to enjoy it.

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].

‘Peace, commerce, honest friendship with all nations … entangling alliances with none!’

This haunting World War I recruitment poster (Boston Public Safety Committee, 1915), featuring art by Fred Spear, sold for $14,400 at a November 2018 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

World War I officially erupted in Europe on July 28, 1914. The following month, British commentator and author H.G. Wells wrote a series of articles that blamed the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire) for starting the war. Wells also argued that eliminating militarism in Germany was essential to avoiding future wars. Subsequently, the articles appeared in a small book titled The War That Will End War. The book’s title was far too optimistic, but Mr. Well’s thesis about Germany’s military would prove to be eerily prophetic.

As the war inexorably spread throughout Europe, conventional wisdom dictated that the United States would never become directly involved due to long-standing political policies dating to its founding. George Washington’s famous Farewell Address in 1789 had warned us to “steer clear of permanent alliances” and Thomas Jefferson echoed these sentiments: “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations … entangling alliances with none!”

The Germans were confident America would remain on the sidelines. Their surprisingly broad network of spies in the United States kept reassuring them of the strong sentiment to avoid foreign wars and misinterpreted pacificism as a sign of weakness. It had only been 49 years since the end of hostilities in the Civil War and the ashes were still warm. Furthur, the American army was small (ranking 17th in the world), had not been involved in any major operations, and lacked the modern equipment of the 20th century.

President Woodrow Wilson had been re-elected in 1916 under the slogan “He Kept Us Out of War” and the promise of four more years of peace was comforting. It further emboldened the Germans and they became even more provocative by implementing an “unrestricted” policy for their fleet of U-boat submarines in the Atlantic. They pledged to attack any ship irrespective of cargo or innocent civilians to buy enough time to conquer Great Britain. However, the sinking of the Lusitania proved to be one step too far.

On April 2, 1917 at precisely 8:30 p.m., President Wilson assembled both Houses of Congress, the Supreme Court and his Cabinet. In a 36-minute speech, he outlined the vicious attacks by Germany on our ships and the innocent lives lost. Finally, he concluded by formally requesting Congress to declare war on Germany (only). The final words were lost or unheard amid the boisterous cheering and flag-waving. Later, back at the White House, he expressed his feelings of wonderment and commented to his aides: “Just stop and think about what they were applauding…” Finally alone, he wept almost silently.

On April 6, Congress declared war on Germany and by June 25, the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) arrived in France, led by General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing. On July 4, Independence Day, elements of Pershing’s force paraded in Paris. Pershing holds the distinction of being the first living general to be promoted to general of the Armies and allowed to select his own insignia. He chose four gold stars to distinguish his rank from generals who wore four silver stars. There is no record of any familial relationship to either of the Pattons.

Throughout the months that followed, fresh units continued to be added and World War I would end on the memorable point of time of 11 a.m. on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918. President Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize, but was unable to convince the U.S. Congress to join the League of Nations. Absent the United States, there was not much hope in helping Europe avoid another war. It was time to bring the boys home. Among them was a young lieutenant who would rise to prominence as the supreme commander of U.S. forces when we returned 20-plus years for the second round of fighting.

In comparison to the choices of today, I REALLY like Ike!

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].

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].

Yes, highly intelligent leaders with differing viewpoints can run a government

A signed carte de visite of Abraham Lincoln by photographer Mathew Brady sold for $81,250 at an October 2016 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

In 2005, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin published her award-winning book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. It begins with the presidential election of 1860 and focuses on the shrewd decision by Lincoln to form a Cabinet comprised of his three main competitors for the Republican nomination.

William H. Seward (Secretary of State), Salmon P. Chase (Treasury Secretary) and Edwin Bates (Attorney General) were molded into a formidable team in perhaps the most unusual Cabinet in history. They enabled President Lincoln to cope with incompetent generals, hostile congressmen, the secession of Southern states and the bloody Civil War that followed. Perhaps he was aware of the axiom to “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer” (often attributed to Chinese military strategist Sun-Tzu in The Art of War).

Team of Rivals was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and director Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film Lincoln was nominated for Best Picture; Daniel Day-Lewis won the Oscar for Best Actor (2013). Both are highly recommended.

The book attributes much of Lincoln’s remarkable accomplishments to his unique ability to help disgruntled opponents solve their differences by empathy – to sense or feel what others experience – and then put himself in their place. This is obviously a factor, but omits his basic wisdom, sense of humor and courage under extraordinary pressure. On the personal ego scale, he ranks at the bottom, along with Harry Truman … and the precise opposite of the current Oval Office occupant, who is off the scale (74-year-old billionaires rarely change their M.O.).

From the standpoint of presidential cabinets, this degree of executive freedom to choose individuals probably only existed one other time: during President Washington’s two-terms. However, the situations were vastly different on several dimensions:

  • The Constitution did not express the requirement for a “Cabinet” (a term coined by James Madison). However, there was a proviso for the president to obtain advice from others, as desired.
  • There were no formal political parties in either of Washington’s two terms that needed consideration.
  • When Washington took the oath of office on April 30, 1789, he had the unfettered flexibility to choose from the best minds in the nation, all of them well known by him. He chose wisely: Thomas Jefferson for State; Alexander Hamilton for Treasury; Henry Knox, War; and Edmond Randolph, Attorney General.

There was a general bias for a small federal government since the states were still leery of ceding any of their hard-won rights to a central entity. However, five months later, President Washington approved the Judiciary Act of 1789 and created a Supreme Court that consisted of a Chief Justice and five Associate Justices. This federal government was run by men responsible for the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. It was a generally harmonious time.

Further, Washington’s style of management was to meet individually with his Cabinet to seek their advice and counsel. This soon evolved into a group meeting that excluded Vice President John Adams, who never attended a single Cabinet meeting. The meetings were efficient and effective despite a low level of acrimony over issues where individuals differed. However, Washington welcomed debates to ensure he had the advantage of bright men with opposing opinions.

For example, in February 1791, Treasury Secretary Hamilton and Secretary of State Jefferson engaged in a debate that would have a significant impact on basic American law. The issue involved the U.S. Constitution that had been ratified two years earlier: Did it authorize the federal government to charter a bank?

The federal and state governments were in debt $100 million, primarily due to the Revolutionary War. Secretary Hamilton wanted to consolidate all the debt and form a federally chartered bank to pay off the debts. In 1790, an agreement had been reached to have the federal government assume all state debts. In a quid pro quo, the nation’s capital would relocate near the Potomac River in Virginia. Twelve months later, Congress passed legislation to create the federal chartered bank. This allowed the creation of a viable national currency, used by all states to pay taxes to retire debt. President Washington was now required to sign or veto the law.

His Cabinet was divided.

Jefferson, Madison and Randolph objected to the legislation, arguing the Constitution did not authorize the federal government to charter or incorporate an institution, let alone a bank. During the Constitutional Convention, Madison had supported giving the government limited power to grant corporations. However, corporations and banks were so divisive they were excluded in order to gain approval of the Constitution. It was argued that Hamilton’s bank would violate the relationship of state power versus federal power. This resulted in Washington asking Hamilton why the powerful trio was wrong?

The ever-energetic Hamilton worked all night to produce a 15,000-word Constitutional interpretation. He argued that the “necessary and proper clause” authorized Congress to make all laws, which shall be necessary for carrying into execution its duties under Article 1. He said that chartering a bank was “necessary for managing the nation’s currency, debt and credit,” which was the purview of the federal government via the clause “to coin money and regulate the value thereof.”

Jefferson had a visceral mistrust of paper money (a basic function of banks) and similar misgivings about incorporation. Since a federal bank was a de facto corporation, he argued their creation was simply a monopoly, like the Bank of England created by the British Monarchy. He and Madison asserted any power the Constitution did not forbid and which was not expressly granted to the federal government automatically stayed with the states, one and all, as dictated by the 10th Amendment. Surprisingly, Hamilton prevailed and Washington approved the legislation on Dec. 12, 1791, thus allowing the Bank of the United States. It opened in Philadelphia as the first central bank in the new nation, with a 20-year charter.

It is in this and many more examples of highly intelligent leaders with differing viewpoints on how best to organize and run a new nation, that we find the seeds of discontent that would lead to political parties. It helps explain how small rifts can grow into chasms over 200-plus years. Even as I finish writing this, a television in the background is chattering with some ruckus to impeach another president. If we ever truly had any political empathy, there is little evidence of it today (sigh).

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