January 2011

Much has been written about the magical appeal traveling circuses had for small-town America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but little of it is as eloquent as the tribute shown here: a miniature circus carved during the 1920s by Albert Kveck.

Born in Olivia, Minnesota, in 1903, Kveck took up woodcarving as a teenager. According to a hometown newspaper, he exhibited his work at county fairs, where it was “favorably commented upon by thousands of people.” Kveck attended art school in Chicago, but he seems to have been unable to translate his particular gift into a profession. He soon returned to Minnesota and began a career as a house painter, occasionally drawing or carving animals in his spare time. He died in 1977.

Large, visibly expensive objects are a quick and convenient way of expressing wealth. Kings in the seventeenth century were surrounded by silver furniture, and while the new American millionaires of the late nineteenth century did not go quite so far, they, too, liked to see the gleam of precious metal livening up their houses. That it adorned their dining room tables goes without saying, but there was also one key piece of silver without which social life in the era was impossible: the punch bowl.

This one, with its figures and silver gilt, is typical of the appropriation of earlier styles that was then so usual. Designed to resemble a sixteenth-century Italian vessel, it was fashioned in the 188Os during the Italianate revival whose red-brick Venetian palazzi with their emphatic cornices still adorn every American city.

In the summer the stretch of the Delaware River north of Trenton, New Jersey, is as alluring as any place in the country. It is green and happy and eloquent of generations of peace and prosperity: prosperity from the river traffic and from the canal; prosperity from the steady little farming communities nearby and, in more recent years, from tourism. It is only in the winter that the countryside suggests with any conviction that this was once fought-over land.

In the waning months of 1776, two armies—one well fed, well armed, well clad, eminently professional; the other half-naked, hungry, new to soldiering—struggled for control of this country; and for something far greater. It is hard to exaggerate the importance of the campaigning that took place here. You can go see where it happened in the summer, and you may have a prettier trip. But if you want to get the feeling of that extraordinary season of despair and triumph, go when the days are short and gray and the snow is on the ground.

1787 Two Hundred Years Ago 1812 One Hundred and Seventy-five Years Ago 1837 One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago 1862 One Hundred and Twenty-five Years Ago 1887 One Hundred Years Ago 1937 Fifty Years Ago

On December 20 Thomas Jefferson wrote a long letter to his good friend James Madison about the Constitution. At his post as minister to France, Jefferson had received a copy in November and had scrutinized it carefully since then. “I like much the general idea of framing a government which should go on of itself peacefully, without needing continual recurrence to the state legislatures,” he wrote. “I like the organization of the government into Legislative, Judiciary and Executive. I like the power given the Legislature to levy taxes.…” Madison must have sensed that this cursory listing of likes was building to an outburst of criticism. It soon came.

At the opening of the Twenty-fifth Congress on December 18, Rep. William Slade of Vermont rose to present several petitions for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Since the gag rule of 1836 had not yet been reenacted, the Southerners, who grew increasingly outraged by his attack on slavery, could do nothing to stop him. Some tried to interrupt, and others called him to order, but Slade shouted over them, refusing to be silenced. Men gathered in groups on the floor, ignoring the Vermonter and talking angrily among themselves. Finally Virginia’s Henry A. Wise let it be known that his state’s delegates were retiring to another room, and other Southern representatives joined him. That evening they discussed holding a Southern convention; several days later they passed a strengthened gag rule to prevent further abolitionist speeches.

Is there something in the nature of the American Presidency that leads itself to the type of behavior described in “The Presidential Follies” in the September/October issue? Or is there something in landslide political victories that leads presidential staffs into the extreme arrogance shown by those you describe. Grant, Harding, Nixon, Reagan—all won landslide victories. And you can add to this list the efforts to pack the Supreme Court during Roosevelt’s second term and Johnson’s rapid escalation of the Vietnam War after his overwhelming victory.

The feeling perhaps is that the country liked you, or liked your candidate, overwhelmingly over the “other guy,” so it will tolerate anything. Hubris is right, an arrogant and prideful belief in being the elect rather than just the elected.

Your article by Irwin F. Fredman entitled “The Presidential Follies” was most interesting, but in connection with incidents of which I have specific knowledge, it was inaccurate at the least but clearly defamatory in its conclusions as they relate to Maurice Stans, former Secretary of Commerce, and Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Nixon campaign during the period involved.

The objectionable and inaccurate language specifically referred to says, speaking of Watergate, “Secretary of Commerce Maurice Stans, who collected the money that made it all go , was fined five thousand dollars.”

Also, throughout the balance of the article, you lumped Stans together with those who were convicted of clear-cut Watergate offenses, for example, as one of “twenty-four directly linked to the White House.”