Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Unable to find a match for him in the ring, white authorities arrested Johnson in 1912. The charge: Violation of the Mann Act, which prohibited the transport of women across state lines “for immoral purposes.” Known as the “White Slave Act,” the law had been created to stop interstate prostitution rings. The white woman Johnson was convicted of crossing state lines with was Lucille Cameron, his fiancée. The judge who convicted him was Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who, as Commissioner of baseball, would later work tirelessly to keep black players out of the major leagues.

  Rather than face prison, Johnson fled to Europe, where he continued to box, fighting exhibition bouts all across the continent. After three years, he began to tire of the strain and agreed to defend his title against the new Great White Hope, the six-foot, seven-inch Jess Willard. Some writers believe the promoter convinced Johnson that a pardon could be arranged if he took the fight. Whether this is true remains uncertain. What is certain, however, is that no real pardon was ever offered.

  ON THE ROPES

  The fight was held close to home, but not quite on American shores—in Havana, Cuba, on April 5, 1915. It was a grueling bout, scheduled to last 45 rounds in 100-degree heat. But in the 26th round, Willard knocked out the 37-year-old Johnson.

  In later years Johnson claimed to have thrown the fight. As evidence, he pointed to films that show him lying on his back using his arms to shade his eyes from the sun as the referee counts him out. Was Johnson really knocked out, or was he faking? It didn’t matter: he lost the fight, and white America felt redeemed.

  How ’boat you? 26% of kids prefer toy boats to rubber duckies in the bath.

  FINAL ROUND

  Johnson returned to the United States in 1920 and spent a year and a day in Leavenworth Prison, where he served as athletic director. On his release, he returned to the ring, where he earned decent money fighting exhibitions and non-title fights. He also continued his extravagant lifestyle, complete with white wives and fast cars. It was in such a fast car that Jack Johnson met his end in 1946. On his way to New York to watch the second black heavyweight champion, Joe Louis, defend his title against young Billy Conn (who also bore the Great White Hope burden), Johnson crashed his car in North Carolina and died at the age of 68. He is buried in a family plot in Chicago next to his two wives, in an unmarked grave to prevent vandalism.

  RANDOM FACTS

  •On April 18, 1922, Jack Johnson received U.S. Patent #1,413,121 for a type of wrench he invented.

  •When Howard Sackler’s play The Great White Hope opened in 1967, the actress playing Johnson’s wife received hate mail and death threats over a scene depicting the interracial couple in bed. (James Earl Jones played Jack Johnson.)

  •During World War I, a heavy artillery shell was referred to as a “Jack Johnson.”

  •“The possession of muscular strength and the courage to use it in contests with other men for physical supremacy,” said Johnson, “does not necessarily imply a lack of appreciation for the finer and better things in life.” Johnson was a man of refined tastes: he wrote two memoirs, played the cello, acted in plays and in vaudeville, and was romantically linked to exotic figures such as Mae West and German spy Mata Hari.

  •Other celebrities arrested for violating the Mann Act: Charlie Chaplin in 1944 and Chuck Berry in 1962. Chaplin was acquitted. Berry served two years in prison. The act was repealed in 1986.

  The ancient Romans thought unibrows were sexy.

  THE PINKERTON FILES

  Before there was an FBI, Secret Service, or any other national law-enforcement organization, there was the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Founded by Allan Pinkerton in 1850, it existed for 145 years, sleuthing for government and big business, and chasing bank robbers, mobsters, and spies. Here are a few of Pinkerton’s high-profile cases. (For more on Pinkerton, see page 265.)

  SAVING PRESIDENT LINCOLN

  Background: Weeks before Lincoln was to be sworn into office, a Pinkerton agent named Timothy Webster learned of a secessionist plot to assassinate the president-elect when he switched trains in Baltimore on the way to his inauguration.

  What Happened: Pinkerton told Lincoln about the plot, and the future president agreed to change his travel plans. At the appointed hour, Lincoln, wearing a soft felt hat and an overcoat on his shoulders to disguise his features, slipped out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, hours ahead of schedule on a secret chartered train. When it left the station, Pinkerton had the telegraph lines cut so no one could warn the plotters that Lincoln was on his way.

  Aftermath: Lincoln made it to Washington without incident, but his political enemies mocked him for sneaking into the capital. “I did not then, nor do I now, believe I would have been assassinated, had I gone through Baltimore as first contemplated,” Lincoln later admitted. “But I thought it wise to run no risk, where no risk was necessary.”

  IN McCLELLAN’S SECRET SERVICE

  Background: Following the start of the Civil War in April 1861, General George McClellan, who commanded the Army of the Potomac, asked Pinkerton to head his personal “secret service”—he wanted Pinkerton detectives to gather intelligence on Confederate forces. Pinkerton agreed; he and his men went to work, spying behind enemy lines and interrogating captured Confederate soldiers to find out what they knew.

  What Happened: It was the single biggest failure of Pinkerton’s career. He routinely overestimated enemy troop strength. In 1861, for example, he estimated that there were 150,000 Confederate troops near Manassas, Virginia, when there were only about 50,000. In April 1862, he estimated 120,000 troops near Yorktown, Virginia, when fewer than 17,000 troops were actually there. Two months later he calculated that General Robert E. Lee was leading a force of 180,000 men, when in fact they numbered only 50,000.

  Three top-selling towel colors: navy, burgundy, and hunter green, in that order.

  How did Pinkerton get the numbers so wrong? He was a great admirer of McClellan, who was obsessed with the idea that he was consistently outnumbered. Pinkerton willingly tailored his estimates to suit his boss. Even then McClellan wasn’t above throwing out Pinkerton’s numbers and making up his own higher ones.

  Aftermath: At best, Pinkerton’s failure helped the general lose his job—when McClellan botched the battle of Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln removed him from command. At worst, Pinkerton’s inflated estimates may have caused the Civil War to drag on until 1865 when it might have been ended in 1862.

  JESSE JAMES

  Background: During the Civil War, Jesse and Frank James were members of a Confederate guerrilla group known as Quantrill’s Raiders. They used hit-and-run tactics to terrorize Union troops and civilians along the Kansas-Missouri border, and when the war ended they used some of the same tactics against banks, trains, stagecoaches, and other targets.

  What Happened: In March 1874, Pinkerton sent two of his top detectives, John W. Whicher and Louis Lull, to go undercover and try and get close to the James gang. Both men were found out and murdered; Pinkerton swore revenge against the Jameses.

  He never got it. If anything, Pinkerton’s vendetta against the James boys helped turn them into even bigger folk heroes than they had been before. In 1875 Pinkerton agents, acting on a tip, raided the Missouri farm of Frank and Jesse’s mother, Zerelda. One of the agents threw an incendiary device into the house—Wild West buffs still argue over whether it was a bomb or just a flare—and it exploded, killing Zerelda’s eight-year-old son, Archie. Public sympathy shifted to the James family, and Pinkerton detectives began to be seen as symbols of the ruthlessness of the giant railroads and the eastern money men who controlled them.

  Aftermath: Pinkerton detectives were still chasing Jesse James when he was murdered in his own home by two members of his gang—brothers Robert and Charles Ford—while he turned his back to adjust a picture hanging on the wall. The Ford brothers hoped to collect the $10,000 reward on Jesse but instead only narrowly escaped being hanged for the crime. Fearing he was next, Frank James surrendered to the
governor of Missouri, was tried for two different murders, and was acquitted both times.

  Holy Mackerel! A bluefin tuna can weigh over 1,000 pounds.

  THE MOLLY MAGUIRES

  Background: The early 1870s were a time of labor unrest in the coalfields of Pennsylvania. Railroad cars were sabotaged, buildings were burned, and mine superintendents (as well as German and English miners) were beaten and killed. A secret society of Irish immigrant coal miners called the Molly Maguires was suspected of the violence, and in 1873 the Reading Railroad, which owned many of the mines, hired the Pinkerton agency to break up the group.

  What Happened: In 1873 Pinkerton agent James McParland got a job in the coalfields posing as James McKenna, an Irish immigrant on the lam for a murder charge in Buffalo. Over the next two years he worked the mines while working his way up the ranks of the Molly Maguires, all the while sending written reports back to Pinkerton headquarters. By 1875 the Mollies knew they had an informer in their midst, and suspicion fell on McParland. He slipped out of town, having gathered enough evidence to shatter the Molly Maguires and send 10 of their leaders to the gallows.

  Aftermath: The operation was a tactical success, but it further stigmatized the Pinkerton agency as the hired gun of big corporations, a reputation that would dog it for years to come.

  JOINING THE MAFIA

  Background: The American Mafia got its start in New Orleans in the 1870s. In 1890 members of that city’s Provenzano crime family assassinated Chief of Police David Hennessey as he was preparing to testify in court against them. The police arrested 19 Provenzano mobsters and threw them in jail, but the case against them was weak and it looked like they were going to get away with murder.

  What Happened: The Pinkertons joined the case. They arranged for detective Frank Dimaio to assume the identity of Anthony Ruggiero, a real Mob counterfeiter doing time in Italy, then staged an arrest so that he was thrown in jail with the Provenzanos. Only six other men knew his true identity: three at the Pinkerton Agency, two at the U.S. Secret Service, and the district attorney. That made the assignment very dangerous: without the guards’ protection, the mobsters were certain to kill Dimaio if they ever found out who he was. In his four months in jail, Dimaio contracted dysentery and malaria and lost 40 pounds, but he also gradually won the confidence of one of the Provenzano gang—Emmanuel Politz. Dimaio tricked Politz into admitting his role in the murder and then implicating the others.

  China consumes an average of 130,000,000 tons of rice annually.

  Aftermath: Dimaio’s evidence helped to build an ironclad case against the mobsters, but they still managed to intimidate witnesses and the jury, which returned a verdict of not guilty. The mobsters beat the rap, but not for long: the next morning an angry crowd stormed the jail and murdered them.

  THE SCOTT-DUNLAP RING

  Background: On January 25, 1876, a group of masked men stormed the home of John Whittelsey, chief cashier of the Northampton, Massachusetts, National Bank, and forced him to hand over the combinations to the bank’s three safes. The robbers then went to the bank and made off with $1.2 million. It was the largest bank robbery in U.S. history and would remain so until 1950.

  What Happened: While interviewing bank employees, Robert Pinkerton learned that William Edson, a representative from the vault company, had recently been to the bank. Edson was the one who had talked the bank into entrusting all three safe combinations to Whittelsey. Before that the bank had divided them among different employees, a much safer arrangement. Pinkerton put Edson under 24-hour surveillance. Another clue—that one of the robbers shrugged his shoulders continuously—led to the identification of the ringleaders, “Hustling” Bob Scott and his partner, Jim Dunlap. They were put under 24-hour surveillance, too, and when they were followed to a meeting with Edson, Pinkerton knew he was on the right trail. Detectives “interviewed” Edson several days in a row until he cracked and turned state’s evidence against the gang.

  Aftermath: Scott and Dunlap got 20 years; Edson went free.

  General Santa Anna insisted on a daily siesta for his troops...even in the midst of battle.

  BY THE TIME WE GOT TO WOODSTOCK, PART II

  By August 15, 1969, the stage was set for one of the largest gatherings of the 20th century. No one knew how large it would be until the event unfolded. It was evident early on, though, that this was more than a mere rock festival. (Part I is on page 375.)

  FRIDAY

  Close to half a million hippies had converged on the site by evening, and estimates say that half a million more tried to get to Woodstock, but never made it past the 20-mile traffic jam leading into Bethel. Woodstock Ventures blamed the police for purposefully not maintaining the traffic flow in the hopes of ruining the event. In the end, thousands of people just abandoned their cars and walked to the farm. And when they got there, instead of going in through one of the two gates, the kids trampled the fence and walked right in. While Woodstock Ventures were overjoyed by the turnout, they were equally dismayed when they found out that very few of the concertgoers had paid. The largest concert of the century had suddenly become a free concert. And Rosenman, Lang, Kornfeld, and Roberts had no clue how they were going to pay for it.

  When word got out on Friday afternoon that the bands could not make it through the gridlock, Woodstock Ventures rented a fleet of Army helicopters to ferry them in. But that would take time, and hundreds of thousands of kids were screaming for music. The only artist who had shown up—folkie Richie Havens—was ushered onto the stage at 5:00 p.m. His band hadn’t arrived yet, so he played solo...for three hours. Every time he tried to stop, the promoters threw him back onstage. Next up was John Sebastian, who wasn’t even scheduled to perform, but happened to be there. Lang was afraid that if the music stopped, the kids might riot. For that reason, the plan to stop playing every night at midnight was abandoned. If all went well, the music would go nonstop until Sunday evening.

  Benjamin Franklin was a practicing nudist. (He got pretty good at it.)

  SATURDAY

  When the sun rose on Max Yasgur’s field on Saturday morning, Woodstock was the third largest city in New York State. It was also one of the muddiest: five inches of rain had fallen in about three hours during the night. On the surface, the entire event looked like a mess. Greil Marcus, a reporter who covered the event for Rolling Stone, described the troubles:

  The sanitation facilities (600 portable toilets had been spotted across the farm) were breaking down and overflowing; the water from six wells and parked water tanks were proving to be an inadequate supply for the long lines that were forming, and the aboveground water pipes were being crashed by the humanity; the food concessions were sold out and it was impossible to ferry in any more through the traffic; the chief medical officer declared a “medical crisis” from drug use and subsequent freak-outs; police reported a shortage of ambulances, and those that were available had difficulty getting back to local hospitals through the metal syrup of the traffic jams.

  Against All Odds

  But even with all of the adversity, the music kept going through the afternoon and people banded together for survival. The Hog Farm, a group of communal hippies, was hired to manage the crowds, run interference, help people make it through bad drug trips, and keep the message of love flowing through the crowd. Their leader, known as Wavy Gravy, when asked how he intended to maintain law and order, replied, “With seltzer bottles and cream pies.” Instead of the police force, they called themselves the “Please force.” Woodstock Ventures would later maintain that the $16,000 they spent to get the Hog Farm to Woodstock was the best money they ever spent.

  Even the locals, many of whom had tried to stop the event, pitched in when they heard how little food there was for so many people. Churches, the Boy Scouts, and even the local Air Force base went on food drives and donated provisions by the ton. Through it all, the music kept playing. And then at five in the afternoon on Saturday, it started raining again. Heavily.

  No Pay,
No Play

  But the rain was the least of their problems. The three main acts for Saturday night—the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and The Who—informed Woodstock Ventures that they wouldn’t play unless they were paid in advance, in cash. That added up to more than $30,000. Roberts didn’t have that kind of money on him, so he pleaded with Charlie Prince, the owner of a local bank, to give him a cash advance. Roberts promised that he was good for it (he had a trust fund of more than $1 million). But Prince was still skeptical. Then Roberts told him that if the music stopped, they might have to deal with the largest riot in American history. Prince conceded, and the music went on.

  Where’d they go? Between 1918 and 1993, 76 patents were granted for flying cars.

  SUNDAY

  As the sun came up, The Who were just concluding the performance of their rock opera Tommy. Arriving by car (barely) the night before, they didn’t realize how big the crowd was until dawn. As they were singing “Listening to you, I feel the music,” the band saw almost half a million people looking back at them. Pete Townshend says it’s one of the most amazing things he’s ever experienced. (Less than an hour before, Townshend had another strange experience: yippie activist Abbie Hoffman ran onstage during The Who’s set and started preaching politics to the crowd. Townshend, not recognizing Hoffman, bonked him on the head with his guitar.)

  By noon on Sunday, torrential rain had given way to baking sun. All of the extra space at the festival, even the dressing rooms, had been converted to hospitals. Someone had spiked the water supply with LSD, so the Hog Farm was helping thousands of kids (and many band members) through bad trips. Local medics were treating people for heatstroke, cut feet from all of the broken glass, pneumonia from being drenched for two days, and even blindness—several tripped-out kids had been lying on their backs and staring at the sun.