Brock Yates’s article (February/March 1986) on the ten greatest American cars was so interesting that I find it difficult to choose which of his selections—the Stutz or perhaps the Chevrolet—to delete in order to insert the superb make he overlooked.
The Franklin, manufactured in Syracuse, New York, was the foremost example of air-cooled automotive motors. In addition, its four full-elliptic springs allowed it to reign supreme in its incredible ability to maintain speed over the usually very rough, unpaved roadways typical of its time.
A carefully crafted luxury car, it culminated in a magnificent V-12 that sunk in the depths of the Depression.
Ernest William Rossell
Troy, N. Y
Automobile Arguments
I must point out one glaring omission from Brock Yates’s list. If not the “greatest automobile of all time,” certainly the crowning automotive achievement of its time and a uniquely American work of engineering is the Doble (preferably series E) of the late 1920s.
It was (and still is, for most of them survive to this day) quieter than a RollsRoyce, would outrun a Duesenberg, required no gearshifting, and could in its day be run for less than any other remotely comparable car. The Doble was warranted for one hundred thousand miles. It would run quite happily on kerosene, heating oil, or other unrationed fuels during World War II, which kept it in daily use when Duesenbergs were being scrapped.
Obviously the Doble was a little different. Unlike all the other cars of its time, except the cantankerous Stanley, the Doble was a steam car. It had a boiler and ran its “engine” on steam pressure instead of burning it in the cylinders. The steam was recondensed, so the car only needed water every few hundred miles. To start it, you just turned the switch and in a minute or so were ready to drive off.
The Doble was not a great car because it was a steamer—nor in spite of it. It was a great car because of its capabilities and its exquisite workmanship. But the fact that it is a steamer has seemingly consigned it to history as an oddity and a cult object for steam freaks.
I personally would without hesitation choose a Doble if I were offered a choice of any collector car. If a Doble was good enough for Howard Hughes, it’s just fine with me.
Christopher Hawthorne
Lawrence, Kans.
Automobile Arguments
Brock Yates showed real courage in picking out ten of this country’s greatest automobiles. However, he also showed a real lack of knowledge by implying that the U.S. auto industry has suffered from a loss of creativity since the Great Depression. Is Mr. Yates unaware of the Lincoln Continental and its prestigious history? This automobile was displayed by the Museum of Modern Art as an example of artistic excellence and was proclaimed by Frank Lloyd Wright to be the most beautiful car ever designed. Please tell Mr. Yates that, for those of us living in the second half of the twentieth century, creativity in designing cars did not disappear with the running board.
B. B. Bleuins
Sacramento, Calif.
Mourning St. Nicholas
I dived into my first issue of American Heritage upon its arrival. I had ordered the subscription, hoping that it would stimulate my fourteen-year-old daughter’s fledgling interest in social history. I knew I would read every word, and your magazine lives up to all my expectations.
I cannot help but notice, after reading the fascinating article on St. Nicholas (“The Magazine That Taught Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Millay How to Write,” December 1985), how much our education system has dwindled in its capacity to produce articulate young people. My daughter is in all the Honors Classes at Alamo Heights High School, reportedly the “best” in San Antonio. I have taught school in various environments and at different grade levels and have been exposed to many bright young people. However, none of the students I know could produce work that would hold a candle to the simplicity and beauty of the small amounts of verse and artwork included in your article. Along with the author, I too wish that there were a comparable outlet for creativity for today’s young people. Thank you for revealing a picture of our past. This is an example of the kind of social history that will stimulate my daughter and continue to thrill me. I am delighted that I ran across your subscription form.
Garda Spickelmier
San Antonio, Tex.
She, Not He
In “Getting to Know Us” (February/March 1986), the Chinese historian Wenhui Hou mentions using as her American history text An Abridged History of the United States by Huang Shaoxiang, whom she identifies as China’s leading authority on American history. Perhaps it was a problem in translation, but your article had Professor Huang’s gender wrong She had been a guest at our schoo while collecting materials at the National Archives for a revised edition of her History of Early Development of America. A graduate student at Columbia University in the 1940s, Professor Huang was a pioneer in the study of American history in the early years of the People’s Republic of China. Persecuted during the Cultural Revolution for her devotion to forbidden scholarship, she persevered and, in the more open environment of Deng Xiaoping’s China, became the first president of the American History Research Association of China. I enclose a photograph of this dedicated and courageous scholar taken recently at Monticello.
Stuart J. Davis
The Madeira School
Greenway, Va.
Phonography
In the “Correspondence” section of your December 1985 issue, there is a letter about Edison’s phonograph. It is not remembered generally that Edison invented the phonograph not for the playback of music but primarily for the transcription of dictation. His first announcement of this apparatus in 1878 declared: “The apparatus now being perfected in mechanical details will be the standard phonograph.… The main utility of the phonograph, however, being for the purpose of letter-writing and other forms of dictation, the design is made with a view to its utility for that purpose.” Gen. Benjamin F. Butler wrote to the inventor about this; Edison replied on February 19, 1878: “I shall probably come to Washington in a few days with the Phonograph. … It talks clear and distinct, and I will give one of your stenographers a chance to take down 500 clearly articulated words in a minute.”
Edison’s letter to Butler is contained in the Butler repository of 377 manuscript boxes now in the Library of Congress.
Robert S. Holzman
Danbury, Conn.
Who Liked Ike?
Presidential images do change, and Dwight Elsenhower’s new image may be partly justified, but is the euphoria shown in “Why We Were Right to Like Ike” really warranted? Neal correctly mentions the matter of bias in presidential evaluation; but he seems particularly outraged that some partisan Democratic scholars, who had actually written speeches for Adlai Stevenson, participated in the 1962 Schlesinger poll. Since we are all biased to some extent, we should tread softly in accusing others of bias. Perhaps not surprisingly the Republican Chicago Tribune poll of 1982 (did columnist Neal conduct it?), with a different cast of academics (perhaps more Republicans, and a strange mix of Cold Warriors and Cold War revisionists), moved Elsenhower up from twenty-second to ninth on the list of presidential greats.
While the author cites those scholars who like Ike, or those whose views have changed, he is less explicit about what critics still say. He could at least have cited the third edition of James David Barber’s monumental study, The Presidential Character. (Professor Barber did not participate in the Chicago Tribune poll.) In responding to the Elsenhower revisionism, Barber finds that the new material only confirms Ike’s passivenegative character.
Finally, if historians are still as sharply divided on Elsenhower’s role in such matters as McCarthyism and civil rights, we need more precision from those who think he should be listed among the top Presidents.
George C. Roberts
Gary, Ind.
Who Liked Ike?
Steve Neal replies: In evaluating presidential performance, it’s often a matter of perspective. Harry Truman, for example, might have had more trouble getting a favorable rating from a panel of scholars that included some of the speech writers of his 1948 political opponents, Thomas Dewey and Henry Wallace. My premise that the 1962 Schlesinger poll was somewhat distorted because of the participation of Stevenson’s political associates has been reinforced by subsequent polls of historians and political scholars that have rated Elsenhower much differently.
As for the Tribune survey, Mr. Roberts is mistaken in suggesting that the newspaper’s editorial policy affected the outcome. I conducted the poll but didn’t have a vote, nor did anyone else on the Tribune staff. Of the ninety scholars invited to participate, forty-nine responded, including David Donald Dumas Malone, John Garraty, Garr Wills, Marcus Cunliffe, Margaret Coil Elwell, Carl Degler, David McCullough Edmund Morris, and Robert Ferrell. In short, a difficult group to categorize. Sh of the ten Presidents selected were Democrats and only three, including Ike, were Republicans.
I didn’t cite Professor Barber’s boot because it is “monumental” only in it pomposity. Barber’s track record in pre dieting presidential performance speak: for itself.
Cheerleader Huey
“FDR and the Kingfish” (October/November 1985) reminded me of seeing Huej Long myself nearly fifty-two years ago A friend and I went down to Nashville’ Murphy Road, which was near the olc North Carolina and St. Louis Railway tracks, to watch five special passen ger trains bringing the Louisiana Statt University football team and Huey Lonç to Nashville to meet the Vanderbilt Commodores in a football game at Dudley Stadium. It was a sight to behold as the trains, each with from twelve to fifteen coaches, roared up Dutchman’s Grade. The speed of the locomotives, the cinders and smoke, the waving and cheering of the students, and the knowledge that Huey Long would have only the best for LSU made this one of the most exciting exhibitions of power that I had ever witnessed.
As soon as the trains had passed, we went to the station, where a large crowd had gathered. Everyone wanted a glimpse of Huey. We didn’t have long to wait. Huey Long, ever the showman, suddenly appeared on the front steps of Union Station with his right arm around the shoulders of Abe Mickal, the AilAmerican quarterback of the LSU team. Huey, waving to the crowd and bouncing around like a Ping-Pong ball, was soon surrounded by a throng of students who were waving pennants and tossing confetti.
Police officers cleared Broadway for the LSU band to form, and who should appear but Senator Long with a baton, which he used to lead the band for a block or two down Broadway. He stopped somewhere near the spot where I had seen a world-renowned strong man pull a streetcar with his teeth a few years earlier. I thought to myself that here was a short, dumpy little man, who, in his way, was far stronger than the performing Hercules.
LSU won the game that day. Abe Mickal remained the best quarterback in the nation, and Huey Long proved to be one of the best cheerleaders on the field.
Clarence W. Johnson
Nashville, Tenn.
Cutesy Wutesy
Reading “The Rise of the Supermarket” (October/November 1985) reminds me about what happened in Ocean City, New Jersey. It was in the early thirties that a Piggly Wiggly came to Ocean City, and the druggist on the corner opposite the new store took it in stride. You guessed it! His pharmacy window soon boasted one of the newfangled neon signs proclaiming his “Drugly Wuggly.”
Herb Stockinger Los Angeles, Calif.
Why Not Arkansas?
First it was NBC’s Today show, then U.S. News & World Report, and now, it’s you. Big deal! Texas is one hundred and fifty years old!
The grand state of Arkansas will be one hundred and fifty years old, too, and I have heard zilch from any news media about it. It’s always Texas, Texas, Texas. Look, they’ve got two television shows on CBS (Dallas and Knots Landing), so let those publicize Texas. But I do hope that come June 15,1986, American Heritage will run at least two articles on Arkansas and her 150th birthday, or you’ll be out one subscription.
You might keep in mind, also, that it’s Arkansas where the next big boom in film making is going to be. Did you see The Blue and the Grey?
Phil Leslie
Booneville, Ark.
Captain of Clippers
What a pity your reference to the Pan American China Clipper flight of fifty years ago (“The Time Machine,” October/November 1985) failed to name the courageous pilot, Capt. Edwin C. Musick, who was the first to fly the famed Clipper ships. The anniversary on November 22 has restored Musick, dubbed the “Lindbergh of the Pacific,” to his rightful niche in the annals of aviation. Musick, since his 1935 air-mapping flights over the Pacific, was lost over Pago Pago aboard the Samoan Clipper just before World War II and after making an initial flight from the United States to New Zealand, where he is still hailed as a hero.
Michael McGovern
Westport, Conn.
Anthony Memorial
I was interested in the article “Susan B. Anthony Cast Her Vote for Ulysses S. Grant” in the December 1985 issue. May I invite your readers to visit the Susan B. Anthony memorial, her home of forty years, here in Rochester. It is the first National Historic Landmark in Rochester. The home is maintained, much as Miss Anthony left it, by the Susan B. Anthony Memorial, Inc. It is open to the public Wednesday through Saturday.
