January 2011

Few places are more unpleasant ban Washington in the summer, and the summer of 1930 was worse than most. The pressures of the business downturn had kept Herbert Hoover a prisoner in the White House through a hot June and a hotter July —the stock-market crash was less than a year old—and in those days before air conditioning, editorial writers were beginning to express concern for the President’s health. Whenever he could break away for a weekend, Hoover would lead a caravan of Cabinet members and other influential guests to his Rapidan River fishing camp three hours away in the Virginia mountains; even there the heat was inescapable that summer. He had announced plans for an August vacation in the Rockies, where he proposed to make a leisurely tour of the national parks, and his most ardent critics could not deny that he certainly had earned the rest.

To most of our readers, Bruce Catton means Civil War. Mention his name and they hear tramping feet, the music of far-off bands, and, of course, that renowned stillness at Appomattox, where the great protagonists played out the last, gentlemanly scene. Somehow Catton makes all this come to such vivid life that it all seems only yesterday, so much so that about ten years ago one young lady in our company, breathlessly admiring but rather lightly instructed in American history, asked us which side Mr. Catton had fought on himself, the Union or the Confederate.

Key West, southernmost city in the mainland United States proper, was also in 1880 the largest and most prosperous city in Florida; by 1930, in dizzying contrast, it had become one of the most depressed areas in the United States. It has suffered not only from recurrent overexpectations—perhaps a national affliction—but from recurrent disasters, both human and natural. The wavy ups and downs of Key West’s spirits have left their traces on the sand and coral of the small island on which the city stands. On the upswings of its hopes the city produced what few American cities achieve: a distinctive style of architecture. The downswings of its disappointments have permitted its architectural achievement to remain undisturbed; faded, perhaps, but still there. As a result modern Key West is the somewhat startled custodian of a small but priceless architectural treasure.

In our issue of August, 1971, we offered to send complimentary copies of our extra issue The Nineties to readers who cited the most striking example of real persons named after places, things, or events. We got a lot of entries, most of them documented, and many with an entertaining anecdote about the individual cited. The following names, which are accompanied by the names of those who submitted them, struck us as prize winners:

THROUGH TRIAL AND TRIBULATION WE ENTER INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN LINDLOFF . (Mrs. Robin Lodewick, Eugene, Oregon) The lad, who was born about 1900, was happily known as Trib.

A number of the editors of this magazine happen to be graduates of Phillips Academy, the venerable preparatory school commonly known as Andover. One of them, going through a collection of Andover reminiscences recently, came upon the following brief memoir from the pen of Benjamin Spock, Andover ‘21, who later became famous as the author of a book on the raising of children that millions of parents have consulted as fervently as our ancestors did the Bible. Since Dr. Spock is known for his relaxed and liberal views about sexual education, among other things, we think “Andover and the Facts of Life” is a somewhat surprising as well as charming glimpse of the way things used to be.

Two rather unusual photographs have come into our hands. One is a profile of Ulysses S. Grant taken on June 2, 1875, when he occupied the White House. The photograph, which was called to our attention by Charles H. Branch of Memphis, Tennessee, shows the President without a beard or mustache, though still sporting mutton chops. According to one story, Grant’s wife requested that he shave off his beard and mustache so that his likeness could be cut on a cameo. Another story has it that Grant had divested himself of his ornamentation at the request of the Treasury Department, which wanted to use his picture on paper currency; this currency, however, was never issued. The photograph was taken when Grant was fifty-three years old.

THE P.O.W. ISSUE HISTORIANS AT ODDS CONTEST WINNERS OF BIRDS AND BEES RARE PORTRAITS

The genial treatment accorded the German officers and crew of the Kronprinzessin Cecilie at the outset of World War I (“The Sway of the Grand Saloon,” October, 1971) was not altogether unusual in American military annals. There are some of us today who remember how well German prisoners of war were treated in detention camps in this country during the logo’s. But nothing can quite match the gratitude expressed by a Spanish infantryman who was captured when the American Army won the battle for Cuba in the summer of 1898. On the eve of being returned home to Spain that August, Private Pedro Lopez de Castillo wrote the following letter:

Soldiers of the American Army:

In our October, 1971, issue we printed part of a letter from Thomas J. Fleming, author of a history of West Point, criticizing “A Black Cadet at West Point” (August, 1971), by John F. Marszalek, Jr., for “a severe lack of historical perspective.” Not surprisingly, Mr. Marszalek has reacted with equal vehemence. “Mr. Fleming’s criticisms,” he writes, “while presented with spirit and flourish, are not valid. … his knowledge of the entire matter, judging by his book’s bibliography, was based mainly on a contemporary article written by a West Point professor before the court martial had met. As for the reversal of the decision, it came at a time when the nation had tired of the case and [it] won or lost few votes for the Arthur administration. … Mr. Fleming’s insistence that the cadets would not have been stupid enough to make such a blunder as tying Whittaker, etc., is supposition and nothing more. It is just as logical to offer the supposition that Whittaker was not stupid either. Facts not suppositions determine truth. …”