Historians of the future, looking back on the twilight years of the twentieth century, may designate the mid-1970’s as worthy of that supreme accolade accorded only the most significant dates in history: to serve as a dividing point between chapters in their textbooks. If they do, their judgment will be based not on the Watergate scandals (they would know that Grant and Harding had occupied the White House in the past and that human frailty could occasionally tarnish even a President), or even on the bitter conflict over the “Imperial Presidency” (they would be aware that Congress and the President traditionally had vied for power and that authority had fluctuated between the two in unpredictable cycles).
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January 2011
The man was Diego Rivera, seen from the rear on his scaffold in an uncharacteristically modest self-portrait at left, and what he was doing in America was expressing his gargantuan contempt for capitalism and its precepts. He was Mexico’s most celebrated muralist, and if his disdain for our system seemed larger than life, so did everything else about him: his girth (he weighed more than three hundred pounds); his energy (by the time of his death in 1957 he had painted the equivalent of a yard-high fresco that would have stretched more than two and a half miles); and his ego (he truly believed his crowded, angry “art for the masses” would change the world).
But perhaps greater than all of these was his gall. Pledged to help overthrow capitalism, he nonetheless came to the United States in 1931 and for two turbulent years accepted commissions from some of that system’s most illustrious captains-Fords, Rockefellers, the directors of General Motors.
On New Year’s Day each year, millions of Americans crawl out of bed bleary-eyed, fix a late breakfast, then stumble into the living room, turn on the television set, and sit transfixed while various celebrities attempt to describe the obvious. It is a national ritual.
What they are watching is called the Pasadena Tournament of Roses, and the fact that it has indeed become a national ritual is one of the most remarkable triumphs of promotion since Madison Avenue discovered Mother’s Day.
For thirty-five years, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker enjoyed her standing as the only woman ever to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor; then in 1917 they took it away from her; then in 1977 they gave it back. This was of little comfort to Dr. Walker, who died in 1919, but of more than a little to Anne Walker of Mt. Vernon, Virginia, a distant relative of Dr. Walker who campaigned for the reinstatement of the medal.
Dr. Walker had received the medal in 1865 for her work during the Civil War as the U.S. Army’s first female surgeon. The medal was recommended by Generals George H. Thomas and William T. Sherman, approved by President Lincoln, and presented to her by President Johnson after Lincoln’s death. She wore it proudly on many occasions.
It will be remembered that in a small feature accompanying “The Tallest Building in the World” by Spencer Klaw in our February, 1977, issue, we noted that much of the intricate stone facing on New York’s Woolworth Building had been dangerously weakened by a combination of weather and urban pollution. Some of it, in fact, was in danger of falling off, and to prevent the pedestrians below from becoming even more tense and irritable than usual, the building’s owners had hung steel nets around its towers and turrets and gargoyles while they figured out what to do about the problem. A solution has since been found. Practicing what might be called architectural dermatology, workmen will be repairing and, where necessary, replacing broken facing with a durable, synthetic mixture of materials. The job is expected to take nearly two years to complete, and the cost, according to J. R. Van Leuwen, executive director of construction, will run to “several million dollars.”
In our Readers’ Album feature (“High Camp”) for the August, 1977, issue, we were so concerned with getting the dogs Ned, Mose, and Rover correctly identified that we managed to misidentify the falls in front of which they and the rest of the Wyman Comedy Company were sitting in the Yosemite Valley. The falls were not Bridalveil Falls, as we stated, but upper Yosemite Falls, as a number of readers have let us know. Among them was Ivan Branson, historian for The Golden Chain Council of the Mother Lode, Inc., a California tourist organization: “Gosh, man, there are two and one-half million visitors a year to this place, and even the dogs know the difference. Bridalveil is three miles downstream from the 1,420-foot drop of upper Yosemite Falls. Incidentally,” Mr. Branson adds, “the entire valley has gone to the dogs this season—last week there wasn’t enough water falling from either of the two falls to be seen with the naked eye.”
To accompany E. M. Halliday’s “Carving the American Colossus” in the June, 1977, issue, we ran a photograph on page 27 of a Sioux “warrior” posed before Mount Rushmore and named, according to a tourist who took the picture, Black Dog. It now appears that we were ambushed, and several readers have written to rescue us, among them Dayton W. Canaday, director of the South Dakota Department of Education and Cultural Affairs. “The Sioux portrayed,” Mr. Canaday writes, “is none other than Ben Black Elk, a full-blood son of Black Elk, who gained national prominence from John G. Neihardt’s Black Elk Speaks . Ben Black Elk was a fixture at Mt. Rushmore for many years, posing for hundreds of thousands of tourists who visited this famous site. He was part of the Mt. Rushmore story and has been often called ‘the fifth face on the mountain.’ ”
At Ridgefield, Connecticut, on April 27, 1777, some two hundred militiamen led by Benedict Arnold valiantly tried to outfight two thousand British Regulars who were withdrawing to Long Island Sound after having destroyed American military stores at Danbury. The Americans were routed, but this year, the bicentennial anniversary of the little battle, twenty-three citizens of Ridgefield donated one hundred dollars apiece to have a medal struck off to honor Arnold’s bravery during the action.
Response to the gesture, predictably, has been mixed. The leaders of the local American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Marine Corps League were not amused, and one outraged citizen wrote to the Ridgefield Press: “What next-a medal for John Wilkes Booth?” Nevertheless, the demand for copies of the medal (silver: ten dollars; bronze: five dollars) has been heavy, and hundreds have been sold.