January 2011

This spring, one of the largest unions in the country, the Teamsters, called a nationwide strike against the trucking industry. Much of the nation’s freight moves by truck, and its continuing to do so is vital to the economy.

Therefore, any latter-day Rip Van Winkle who had been asleep since the fifties might have expected blanket news coverage of the negotiations, presidential prodding to reach a settlement, and, finally, if no quick agreement was reached and the emergency deepened, the invoking of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, in some cases requiring an eighty-day cooling-off period while the workers returned to their jobs and government negotiators entered the talks. That’s the way big strikes were handled.

When Harry Hopkins first appeared at No. 10 Downing Street in January of 1941, Winston Churchill did not know what to make of him. His American visitor was rumpled, gaunt, deathly pale. Hopkins looked, a friend said, like“an ill-fed horse at the end of a hard day, and few in England knew much about him, other than that he was the personal representative of Franklin D. Roosevelt, had no military background, and had long been identified with the president’s most adventurous social legislation. Churchill, desperate for American help against Germany, had been told that both FDR and his closest aide were susceptible to flattery, and, so, began their talks with a lavish tribute to Roosevelt’s statesmanship. Hopkins kept quiet. Then, the prime minister launched into an even-more-eloquent monologue about the wonderful post-war world he planned for Britain’s humblest citizens, plans he hoped would appeal to one of the New Deal’s most prominent champions.

 

 

There is a fine and compelling sense of immediacy to this 1890s photograph, sent in by H. Peter Metzger, whose grandfather, Harris Filler, is the second man from the left. “Harris had neither skills nor education when he arrived in America,” Metzger writes, “so he went to work as a presser in the garment business on New York’s Lower East Side. About the only good thing that could be said for that job was that it was better than the future to which he was born: being a miner in Galicia.”

Born to Czar Alexander II’s daughter and Victoria’s son, the Duchess of Saxe, a.k.a. Duchess Royal of Coburg-Gotha, Princess of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Princess Royal of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen of Romania, when she arrived in America on October 18, 1926, was to come up at once against what the next day’s New York Times termed “probably the most relentless camera-bombardment that anyone has ever been called on to face in the world’s history.” She wasn’t even off the boat yet.

Thank you for the beautiful article on America’s grand hotels (“Palaces of the People”) by J. M. Fenster in your April issue.

In Spokane, Washington, we also have a “grande dame” in the Davenport Hotel built in 1914 by Louis Davenport—a friend of Louis Comfort Tiffany. During the 1920s mail addressed simply “c/o The Davenport, U.S.A.” promptly found its destination. The Davenport has a proud heritage, having entertained every U.S. President from William Howard Taft to William Jefferson Clinton except Elsenhower, as well as Will Rogers, John Philip Sousa, Charles Lindbergh, Mary Pickford, Clark Gable, and Queen Marie of Romania.

Colonel Wensyel replies : I’m sorry Mr. Tomknith was unable to find a guide at the battlefield on Sunday, March 27. We had 5,827 visitors that day (up from 3,073 the year before). Twentyfour guides (myself among them) were present, however, and accommodated most of the visitors who wished them. It’s impossible to predict the number of visitors we may get on a given day, particularly in the spring of a new season. Guides really don’t come and go as they please, and are required to do at least a specified minimum number of tours each season. But it’s true that no privately run business could operate this way; nor could it offer the quality provided by the Licensed Battlefield Guides, who spend at least two hours with the visitor. We added more guides this spring, but it’s always a good idea to come early—8:00 to 10:00 A.M. —when one is always available, or to consider reserving a guide for his second or third tour. I hope Mr. Tomknith may visit us again; if he will contact me through the Park, I’ll be glad to spend as long with him as he wishes.

The April article “Tales of a Gettysburg Guide” makes things there sound better than they are. I visited Gettysburg on a Sunday (March 27) and asked for a guide—even hoped for Mr. Wensyel.

Lo and behold! At 11:00 A.M. only two guides had reported in and no more were expected. Your readers should know that guides come and go as they please, when they please. Further, there seems to be no attempt to have a reasonable number of guides on hand. None responded to calls that were made for them: “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” was the attitude.

I wonder, would a privately run business operate this way?

directed by George Seaton, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, distributed by BARR Entertainment, 36 mins., $24.95 . CODE: BAR-1

The Story of a Patriot was made in 1957 as a sort of primer for tourists at the newly restored Colonial Williamsburg. It has been shown at the visitors’ center ever since. There’s a reason the foundation hasn’t seen fit to update the program. The half-hour film holds up remarkably well, thanks to a clever screenplay, good production quality, and a lead performance by Jack Lord, who went on to star as Detective Steve McGarrett in “Hawaii Five-0.”

directed by Steven Soderbergh, Gramercy Pictures, 109 mins., $95.98 . CODE: BAT-15

directed by William B. Styple, Belle Grove Films, 55 mins., $29.95 . CODE: BGV-2