Stupid American History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions
Page 10
ELEVATING OTIS
James Otis [1725–1783] could be considered the lost founding father. He was a Boston lawyer and the man who came up with the battle cry of the American Revolution, “Taxation without representation is Tyranny.” It was Otis who first fought against British authority by defending a group of sixty-three Boston merchants against the “writs of assistance,” basically Parliament’s legal way of sanctioning unwarranted search and seizure. But the reason Otis is swept under the historical carpet is that he went a little wacky [some historians believe he suffered from bipolar disorder or schizophrenia] and became an embarrassment. Otis didn’t die on July 4 as did two of the other founding fathers. He went out with more of a bang, having been struck by lightning in May 1783.
WARREN G. HARDING AND JOHN F. KENNEDY WERE THE ONLY
PRESIDENTS TO HAVE BEEN SURVIVED BY THEIR FATHERS.
THE LIZARD KING
During James Madison’s second presidential term in 1812, two new political traditions were created. First, no sitting president has lost a reelection campaign during a time of war; and second, Madison’s vice president, Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was the first politician to redistrict, or carve up, a state to give his party an advantage during the next election. His opponents complained the districts weren’t symmetrical and had the shapes of slithering salamanders. A new word entered the political lexicon: “gerrymander.”
THE REAL SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS
In the early 1940s, he warned Jews in America to “shut up” and accused “Jewish-owned media” of trying to push the United States into World War II. Sounds like Adolf Hitler, but it was actually the beloved national hero Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh, along with Henry Ford, was very conservative. Both were isolationists and held strong anti-Semitic political views. Lindberg visited Germany on several occasions to inspect the Luftwaffe [German air force] and, in 1938, was presented with a medal by Hermann Goring, founder of the Gestapo and Hitler’s air minister. Not to be outdone, Henry Ford received a medal from Hitler himself in 1938.
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME
When one thinks of the most notorious traitors in American history two names leap to mind: Benedict Arnold and Tokyo Rose. But there’s one major difference between these two—Tokyo Rose never existed. The woman whom most would associate with the personification of Tokyo Rose would be Iva Toguri D’Aquino, who broadcast as “Orphan Ann” on Radio Tokyo [NHK]. Other women who might have claimed the moniker were Ruth Hayakawa [who substituted for D’Aquino on weekends], June Suyama [“The Nightingale of Nanking”], or Myrtle Lipton [“Little Margie”].
A report from the U.S. Office of War Information published in the New York Times in August 1945 announced “There is no Tokyo Rose; the name is strictly a GI invention… Government monitors listening in twenty-four hours a day have never heard the word ’Tokyo Rose.’”
JACK OF ALL TRADES
George Washington was more than just the father of our country; he was the father of the first Mammoth Jackass. The existing jack donkeys during Washington’s times were short in stature and didn’t have the stamina Washington needed. So he imported donkeys from Spain and France. One donkey he received from the Marquis de Lafayette, named “Knight of Malta,” was only about four-and-one-half feet tall, and Washington was very disappointed. So Washington bred Knight of Malta to his jennys and the outcome was the first American line of Mammoth Jacks—a breed name including both females and males.
JUST ADD SEX
Howard W. Smith, a Democratic congressman from Virginia, indicated his intention to keep the 1964 Civil Rights Act bottled up indefinitely and had what he thought was a foolproof plan. To the laughter of his House colleagues, Smith decided to add the word “sex” to the list of “race, color, religion, or national origin” that the bill had been designed to protect. Smith thought it would be the bill’s death knell because he assumed nobody would vote to protect equality of the sexes, but he was wrong. The bill not only passed Congress, but it also passed the Senate and was then signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964.
WAIT A MINUTE, MAN
As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it in commemorating the Battle of Concord, “Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.” Part of the romantic imagery of the American Revolution is that of the Minuteman. Ever ready, the Minuteman was a middle-class, dedicated sharpshooter who could be called out in a minute’s time to come to the defense of the new nation. But these beliefs have little foundation in fact. Scholars have shown that most Minutemen came from the ranks of the poor and were paid for their services. They weren’t sharpshooters; in fact, they weren’t very good shots at all. But they could quickly assemble—mainly because they didn’t have jobs and had nothing else to do.
WHAT ABOUT THE WHITES OF THEIR EYES?
Captain John Parker, who commanded the Lexington militia at the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775, was quoted as saying, “Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.” It’s doubtful he ever said it. The quote didn’t surface until 1858 and was brought to everyone’s attention by Parker’s grandson, Theodore.
Civil War Union General Lew Wallace [1827–1905] gained his greatest fame not from activities on the battlefield but as the author of the novel Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ.