I heard it said once that in the shtetls of Eastern Europe in the old days, when a young Jewish boy began his studies, his teacher would put a drop of honey on the page and have him kiss it so that ever after he would associate the sweetness of the honey with the study of the Talmud. The drop of honey that got me hooked on politics was a baseball game I saw 72 years ago. (I have told this story before but retelling old stories is what old men do so you will have to bear with me.)
1948 was the year in which Harry Truman ran against Thomas E
Dewey, Strom Thurmond, and Henry Wallace.
On September 9, Johnny Brown and I decided to go to a Wallace rally
being held in Yankee Stadium. Wallace was the standard bearer of the
Progressive Party, and more for reasons of family tradition than deep
understanding, he was my candidate. The real attraction for me, I think, was
the announcement that Pete Seeger would be performing. When Johnny and I got
there, it was raining and people were leaving the stadium. But the rain let up
and since we had come all this way, we decided to walk across the bridge to the
Polo Grounds, pay our way into the cheap seats, and watch the Dodgers play the
Giants. We were both rabid Dodgers fans, of course. The rain held off for the
most part and we watched Rex Barney pitch a no-hitter – the only no-hitter I
have ever seen in my entire life. That was my drop of honey and ever since
politics has left a sweet taste in my mouth.
The young are serious but the old are not frivolous,
ReplyDeleteThey see what they saw in the days of their youth,
Yet all things appear to them in different proportion . . .
The young are impatient, but the old are not desperate,
Though they see in the distance the rock which divides.
[W.J.Turner, as quoted Ronald Blythe in "The View fro Winter"]
Just a note for context, Wallace and his supporters established the Progressive Party and launched a third-party campaign for president, after Truman fired him for delivering a speech urging conciliatory policies towards the Soviet Union. The Progressive party platform called for conciliatory policies towards the Soviet Union, but also, some other things, while we are at it -- a national health insurance program, and other left-wing policies. Desegregation of public schools, racial and gender equality. He received just 2.4 percent of the nationwide popular vote. Accusations of Communist influences undermined his campaign. And also, some other things, while we are at it -- Wallace's association with Nicholas Roerich.
ReplyDeleteI guess, just, while we are at it, Roerich claimed that his spiritual masters, the "Mahatmas" in the Himalayas, were communicating telepathically with him, through his wife, Helena, who was a mystic and a clairvoyant. These beings from an esoteric Buddhist community in India were said to have told Roerich that Russia was destined for a mission on Earth. This led him to formulate his "Great Plan", envisaging the unification of millions of Asian peoples through a religious movement using the Future Buddha, or Maitreya, into a "Second Union of the East." Here, the King of Shambhala would make his appearance to fight a great battle against all evil forces on Earth. The Bolsheviks assisted Roerich with logistics while he was traveling through Siberia and Mongolia, so, we have, so to speak, Roerich's attempts to stir the Buddhist masses of inner Asia to create a highly spiritual cooperative commonwealth under the patronage of Bolshevik Russia. Ambitious.
The New Deal and the guru, and diplomatic havoc, personal humiliation, and embarrassment for the administration, but Wallace was himself somewhat mystically inclined. He viewed the Depression as an opportunity for a spiritual reformation; the “fundamental cure” for it, Wallace believed, entailed a renunciation of selfishness and greed. Wallace also dabbled in astrology.
Nicholas Roerich died on his estate in India. Note the Treasury Department’s claim that he owed $48,758.50 in back taxes,
It seems walls have gone up at the White House...
ReplyDeleteMany posts before, I wrote that Herman Melville could be considered a prophet like Nostradamus if his 4-line Quatrain came true this election year. I believe a Muslim man made the comment that the prophecy already came true during the Fall election of 2000 between Gore and Bush for President and the war in Afghanistan later on. It was such an excellent contextual placement that I believed it could be true. But now it is time to see if the 'Grand Contested Election' truly is between Trump & Biden or Bush and Gore. Here again is the Quatrain...
"GRAND CONTESTED ELECTION FOR THE
PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES.
"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL.
"BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN."
Never heard of Roerich. I guess my knowledge of mid-20th cent. U.S. political history is not quite as thorough as it might be.
ReplyDeleteI did run across an amusing quote from Adlai Stevenson recently. If I have time later this evening, I'll relay it...
Re the rain in the OP story: So you (RPW) did see the baseball game but never heard Wallace speak, having gotten there late it sounds like? (Of course given that it was 72 years ago, you can be excused if some details have gotten blurry.)
ReplyDeleteLFC,
ReplyDeleteI’m going to guess that your Stevenson quote is to the effect that when he lost the election to Eisenhower, it was like stubbing his toe, and it was too painful to laugh, but he was too old to cry.
Actually MS, that one does ring a bell but it's not the one I have in mind. Need to have dinner etc, will come back w quote later tonight. I need to look up the place where I found it so the proper ref will be there.
ReplyDeleteOk, in the late conservative sociologist Robert Nisbet's book Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary (1982), he argues in the entry for "Wit" that a "good case can be made for the proposition that those who live by the quip are more likely to be themselves slain than to slay others with it." Whether or not one agrees w this proposition, Nisbet goes on to tell a few amusing stories that purportedly illustrate it.
ReplyDeleteW/r/t Stevenson, he writes: "Adlai Stevenson is the candidate par excellence in the list of politicians who sank by their levity.... Very probably the fatal burst of wit for Stevenson occurred after Norman Vincent Peale, a clergyman nationally revered for his radio and television sermons and his best-selling books, had indicated his own preference for Eisenhower. Stevenson, in Saint Paul and with a vast radio audience before him, could not resist saying: 'Saint Paul is appealing and Saint Peale is appalling.' Amusing, without question, but costly." (In the sentence I've omitted with the ellipsis dots, Nisbet suggests that Eisenhower, less given to wit, looked "more and more responsible to the American people." As an analysis of why Eisenhower won, that's probably dubious. But in a "philosophical dictionary" published toward the end of his career, Nisbet obvs. felt free to say pretty much whatever he wanted and perhaps (?) to indulge in a bit of wit himself.)
Actually, LFC, the rally was rescheduled for the next night so I saw the game but did not hear Wallace. The entire story is rather nice. You can find it in my autobiography.
ReplyDeleteOk thanks.
ReplyDeleteIt's the Hebrew alphabet not Talmud. A drop of honey or a candy is placed on a paper near each letter (I experienced this.) By the time they start Talmud, they have already pretty learned in Bible.
ReplyDelete