January 2011

Since the end of World War II, I’ve closely perused all manner of material on Franco-American concerns without ever seeing mention of a brace of incidents that I’m certain largely shaped our relationship in Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s time.

In 1945 I was a midshipman at Annapolis, and the superintendent was Adm. Aubrey W. Fitch. (Jimmy Carter and Stansfield Turner were in the class ahead of me; I’m probably the only journalist in the world who was ever put on report by both a President of the United States and a director of the Central Intelligence Agency for not having his shoes shined.) De Gaulle, not yet in politics, was on a visit and, like all VIPs passing through Washington, was brought to the Naval Academy for one of the brigade’s regular Wednesday-afternoon parades. It was announced Fitch would receive the Legion of Honor, and the brigade wondered if the ceremony would include de Gaulle bestowing the traditional accolade on Fitch as well.

For those interested in the Arts and Crafts movement, the best time to
visit East Aurora is the month of June, when conferences take place. Call the Greater East Aurora Chamber of Commerce (1-800-441-2881) for a schedule of events. But for lovers of small-town America, almost anytime in spring, summer, or fall would make a good time to visit (it gets cold here in winter). You might want to get a calendar of events to ensure that you miss them all—the toy fairs and car shows are fine in their way, but they alter the small-town feel of the place.

Millard Fillmore’s house is open from two to four on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. It’s a modest, two-story affair, moved from Main Street to 24 Shearer Avenue to make room for the East Aurora Theater. I found the place interesting chiefly for the dedication of its guides, all of whom tried valiantly to engage visitors in history-oriented conversation.

The village of East Aurora, in New York, eighteen miles southeast of Buffalo, has everything we look for in a small town—a wide main street, Victorian houses on well-tended lawns, a classic five-and-ten-cent store, an Art Deco movie theater, a diner where, when you order a BLT on rye bread, the waitress asks, “Store bought or homemade?” There’s even the home of a U.S. President, Millard Fillmore.

It’s a story that has been told many times. The Hewlett-Packard Company was founded by two gifted tinkerers, David Packard and William Hewlett, in a garage in PaIo Alto, California, in 1938, with $538 in capital. Its first product was an audio oscillator for testing sound equipment. Walt Disney quickly ordered eight of the devices to help in the production of Fantasia, and the company never looked back.

I brag and chant of Bryan, Bryan,

Bryan, Candidate for president who sketched a silver Zion,

The one American Poet who could sing outdoors…

Neat stuff, in my opinion. Can you imagine anyone writing passionate poetry about either contestant in this November’s election? I certainly can’t. But, in 1896, sixteen-year-old Vachel Lindsay was set afire by his hero-candidate, even though he didn’t write “Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan” until 1919. I have enjoyed every line of the poem ever since running across it in my own youth, though I now know that it’s far from historically accurate. Despite that flaw, it’s still an important witness to the intensity of the Bryan-McKinley electoral contest of just a century ago, and the story of that canvass, its tempests and its legends, deserves retelling for the light it throws on what makes an election truly pivotal. Few candidates have been so openly feared and hated as was William Jennings Bryan, and few electorates have ever been so convinced that the fate of democracy hung on the outcome.

In “My Brush With History” (April) Mary A. Saalfield described Hitler as a “little fellow.” This is curious, as Hitler was a large-boned man about five feet nine inches tall. According to the late John Gunther, legions of women found him attractive. Charlie Chaplin, who portrayed Hitler, was certainly a little fellow, and so were Stalin and Franco. But not Hitler.

Two landmark events in America’s shift to the Sunbelt occurred this month: On October 1 Walt Disney World opened near Orlando, Florida, and on October 10 the antique London Bridge was rededicated in its new home of Lake Havasu City, Arizona. For centuries much of Florida had been steamy swampland and virtually all of Arizona had been barren desert. But as the country’s most inhospitable spots were watered, paved, and air-conditioned after World War II, it became clear that you can import anything except sunshine. Armed with this insight, developers acquired large tracts in warm places and let their imaginations run free.

In New York City the hometown Giants and Yankees played the first in a long string of Subway Series that would continue until the Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers moved to California in 1958. The Giants defeated the upstart Yankees, who had just won their first American League pennant, by five games to three. The World Series was played entirely in the Polo Grounds and was the first to be broadcast on radio. It was the last to be the best-five-of-nine; the next year’s fall classic reverted to today’s best-four-of-seven format.

On October 1 the Post Office inaugurated rural free delivery (RFD) in the area surrounding three West Virginia towns. For years the Post Office had been putting branches in increasingly remote locations, but many backcountry residents still had to travel long distances to send or pick up mail. Farmers envied the convenience of daily delivery that city dwellers had enjoyed since 1863, and with their growing political prominence, they were able to secure congressional appropriations and overcome bureaucratic inertia and an economic panic. Postmaster General William L. Wilson honored his hometown of Charles Town by making it one of three pilot sites, and the local carrier sneaked out a few days early to make sure he would have nearby Uvilla and Halltown beaten.

On October 24 hundreds of white Los Angelenos surrounded a Chinatown building and yelled for the massacre of its occupants. The rowdies had come seeking retribution for the murder of a policeman and several other citizens who had interfered in a dispute between Chinese gangs. The offenders in that crime were holed up in the Coronel Building, on Chinatown’s notorious Galle de los Negros. When they saw the numbers facing them, the killers tried to surrender.

The mob would have none of it. One Chinese man peeked out the door and was greeted with a fusillade of bullets. Another made a break and was shot dead; still another was captured, beaten, and hanged. The vigilantes then broke through the roof and proceeded to flush out any Chinese they could find, pausing only to steal what was left behind. Others lynched and looted their way down the street. Rioting continued for four hours before the sheriff could restore order. The final tally: four Chinese shot, fifteen hanged. Only one of the victims had any connection with the original killings.