The United States was first introduced to the vexations of large-scale guerrilla warfare forty years ago in the mountain jungles of Nicaragua. There for the first time Americans were confronted by an elusive partisan leader of a type to become bitterly familiar not only in the Caribbean but in Southeast Asia, a man who pioneered techniques of warfare when Che Guevara and Fidel Castro were in rompers and Mao Tse-tung was an obscure revolutionary. “Mr. Coolidge’s War,” the affair has been called. More formally, it was the American intervention in Nicaragua of 1927-28—and though it was not one of the thunderclaps of history, its significance is evident.
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January 2011
Besides its lasting art, every age has its kitsch, and because there is so much of it, this cheap popular art is pretty durable too. Consider this fine collection of holiday post cards, kindly lent to us by Mrs. Earl Moore of Weston, Connecticut. Cliché after cliché, these chromos march through the year’s calendar of feast and folly, carefully missing the real point of every holiday—yet somehow, perhaps because sixty or seventy years have passed since they were mailed in their millions for a penny each, a certain charm has crept over them. There’s George and his cherry tree, Abe, and a scoop of other fond figures. See that sneaky young man with the mistletoe? Wake up, Jane, wake up!
An academic eavesdropper, bugging college classrooms, would hear endlessly repeated the lecturer’s phrase “a matter of the utmost importance is …” The conclusion of the sentence, accompanied by a squeak of chalk, might be almost anything: “the Occasional Conformity Act of 1711,” or “the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713,” or “the Molasses Act of 1733.” The cultural spy would observe the forward quarter of the class eagerly noting down what sounds like an examination question of the utmost importance, while the rearward three quarters, asprawl and aslump, indicate in every limb that the matter is of no importance at all. The teacher is mistaken, or possibly lying. If his pronouncement were of actual importance, his hearers would rouse, gape, cry approval, or protest. The teacher should properly qualify his statement to read, “A matter of the utmost importance to me personally is this or that,” or, “A matter of the utmost importance to those who wish to get a good grade in the course is…” The teacher might in his gloomier moments amplify his reservations; he might ask himself what, if anything, is important in history.
“At a Court of general Sessions of the Peace, holden at Claverack, in and for the county of Columbia, it is presented that Harry Croswell, late of the city of Hudson, in the county of Columbia aforesaid, Printer, being a malicious and seditious man, and of a depraved mind and wicked and diabolical disposition, and also deceitfully, wickedly and maliciously devising, contriving and intending, Thomas Jefferson, Esquire, President of the United States of America, to detract from, scandalize, traduce, and vilify, and to represent him, the said Thomas Jefferson, as unworthy of the confidence, respect and attachment of the People of the said United States, … and wickedly and seditiously to disturb the Peace and tranquility as well of the People of the State of New York as of the United States; … the said Harry Croswell did on the ninth day of September, in the year of our Lord 1802, with force and arms, at the said city of Hudson, in the said county of Columbia, wickedly, maliciously and seditiously print and publish and cause and procure to be printed and published, a certain scandalous, malicious and seditious libel, in a certain paper or publication enti
On an unseasonably warm evening in April, 1866, a well-tailored gentleman with a drooping mustache and a long, thin, face, obviously a member of the “upper ten,” stood at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-third Street in New York City, watching the tangle of traffic where Broadway slants across Fifth Avenue. A wilder individualism than we know today prevailed among the horsecars and omnibuses, the struggling carriages, drays, vans, and butchers’ carts of New York. Every wheel was turned, of course, by horsepower. Suddenly the observer stepped off the curb and threaded his way toward a teamster who was giving his weary workhorse an unmerciful beating.
“My friend,” he said, “you can’t do that any more.”
“Can’t beat my own horse,” the teamster shot back, “—the devil I can’t,” as he fell to again.
“You are not aware, probably, that you are breaking the law,” said the interloper, “but you are. I have the new statute in my pocket; and the horse is yours only to treat kindly. I could have you arrested. I only want to inform you what a risk you run.”
Many a book, a magazine, a play, a movie, has been banned in Boston. But Christmas?
From 1659 to 1681, Christmas was banned in Boston by the Massachusetts Bay Colony to prevent "disorders and superstition."
Yes, Virginia, Christmas was banned in Boston. On May 11, 1659, the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony enacted the following: “For preventing disorders arising in severall places within this jurisdiceon, by reason of some still observing such ffestivalls as were superstitiously kept in other countrys, to the great dishonnor of God & offence of others, it is therefore ordered … that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labour, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shillings, as a fine to the county.”
A soldier in the American army being unfortunately surprised at a game of cards by a sergeant who owed him an old grudge, was carried before the colonel of the regiment, that he might be punished for gaming, against which general orders were very severe. The soldier being asked what he had to say in his defence, replied: That having been religiously educated, and well instructed in the Bible by his parents, and his pay so small that with the greatest economy he had not been able to save enough to buy one, he had therefore purchased an old pack of cards for a few dollars of one of his comrades, which not only served him for a Bible, but made a most excellent almanac besides; then taking out his cards he proceeded thus: “When I see a one, it reminds me that there is but one God; a , two, of the Father and Son; a three, of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; a four, calls to my remembrance the four evangelists.
That George Washington drove the British out of Boston in early March 1776 is known to almost every schoolboy who has studied the American Revolution, but a disturbing aspect of this crucial event is not recognized even by most of the experts. One may read biographies of Washington, and military histories of the Revolution, without coming on more than a stray hint. This omission has undoubtedly occurred because the story flies in the face of the traditional Washington legend. But a thorough study of the facts makes abundantly clear how innocent Washington was of military know-how in the early stages of the war, before he taught himself in the school of experience to be a soldier vastly superior to his professional opponents.
The readers of A MERICAN H ERITAGE , many of whom, of course, are history buffs, tend to be sharp observers, and now and then we realize that among them are some whose eyes and memory would qualify them as secret agents of 007 caliber. Such a one is Mr. Joseph E. Mainous, who writes to us from Lexington, Kentucky: