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Reflections on a Silver Screen

I don’t go to the movies often these days. It has been over a year since I saw a film on the big screen in a theater. Among the many reasons are that with DVDs and the high-definition TV, it is possible to get the same quality of view at home, where you don’t have to pay exorbitant prices for popcorn, can stop the movie for calls of nature, and not have to suffer rude jerks who insist on taking calls or sending text messages constantly.

Fifty years ago, however, that wasn’t the case. Color television existed, but a receiver set was very expensive, and television stations did not broadcast all of their programs in color. The NTSC standard 525-line vertical resolution and picture ratio limited its quality (and would until the late 1990s). The quality of programming was uneven at best. Video recording existed but, also expensive, was not available to the general public. When movies were released to be shown on television, they had to be re-formatted to fit the TV viewing screen. In short, the motion picture theater was the principal entertainment venue for most of us.

Here in Dallas, first run movies were shown mainly in the downtown theaters on Elm Street. The Majestic (which still exists as live venue), the Palace, the Tower, and the Melba, all since closed and demolished, were within a few block of one another. Their existence enlivened that part of an otherwise somnolent downtown. After the initial run, a film that did well would be released to the neighborhoods. There were many neighborhood theaters like the Inwood and the Lakewood, both of which still exist in a somewhat modified state. The Texas on Jefferson in Oak Cliff, to become notorious the next year as Lee Harvey Oswald’s attempted hideout, was but one of several in that part of the city. Then, of course, there were the drive-ins. There must have been about a dozen scattered throughout the city. They had a reputation for being date venues for couples who had something other than watching a movie in mind.

From 1961 through my graduation from high-school in 1963, along with a couple of friends, I had a part-time job working at a neighborhood theater. Except for the summer months and during the holidays, when the job became more or less full time, this theater was only open on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. One of the fringe benefits was that employees were given free admission to other theaters in town. My friends and I became even more avid moviegoers. Going to the flicks for free was our main leisure activity, not that there were many others available to teenagers at that time.

Looking back, I have the impression that there were an extraordinary number of really good films in 1962. I am sure, of course, that I have not seen them all, either at the time of subsequently. For example, I never saw Lolita, which was the talk of the media at that time. Just never go around to it; no other reason. I did get around to a number of the films, which I mention and briefly describe here. One noteworthy item: Many of the films were in monochrome, not color. Using black & white film as a medium turns out to have been entirely appropriate for these; they would not have been the same in color, and would not have created the same mood in the viewer.

Here are the ones I remember. I have indicated the ones filmed in monochrome.

Lawrence of Arabia

The story of T. E. Lawrence, the British army officer who helped instigate the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks in World War I is one of David Lean’s memorable epics. Both Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif broke into motion picture stardom with this film. The desert scenery was stunning. It won the “Best Picture” Academy Award for the year. Memorable scene and/or line:

Prince Feisal: “Gasim’s time has come, Lawrence. It is written.”

T.E. Lawrence: “Nothing is written.”

Sherif Ali: “Truly, for some men nothing is written unless THEY write it”


What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Part mystery and part psycho-drama. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford’s tour de force together about two sisters who were each in their own time successful actors. Davis won a Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of an alcoholic crazy woman Jane who abuses her crippled sister Blanche. Memorable scene and/or line: When Blanche lifts the cover off of her dinner tray and see’s a dead rat on her plate. (B&W)

The Music Man

A musical comedy about a con man who comes to an Iowa town in 1912 to sell the citizens on forming a boys’ band. “Professor” Harold Hill is himself snared by Marian, the town librarian. Faithful to the Broadway play of the same title, and with the same leading actor. Memorable scene and/or line: “It’s as clear as a buttonhook in the well water!”

Dr. No

The first film of Ian Fleming’s James Bond thrillers, that were reportedly President Kennedy’s favorite light reading. Didn’t have as many of the techno props as some of the later ones. Ursula Andress became the first “Bond Girl” and the film was Sean Connery’s introduction to American audiences.

To Kill a Mockingbird

This one will be a classic when the rest are forgotten. Mockingbird was nearly as faithful to the book as a film can be. The themes are almost countless, and it really defined Gregory Peck’s career. Before his role as Atticus Finch, he was an exceptionally successful movie star; afterward, he became an icon. For anyone other than Peck to have received the Oscar for “Best Actor” that year would have trivialized the award (not that it isn’t often so). Memorable scene and line: After his client was convicted of rape, palpably unjustly, Atticus leaves the courtroom alone, with the black spectators standing in respect. The minister says to Scout “Stand up, Miss Jean Louise, your father’s passing.” Other memorable line: Speaking of the villain, who appears to have been killed by the town recluse while attacking the Finch children, Sheriff Tate says: “To my way of thinking, taking the one man who’s done you and this town a big service and dragging him with his shy ways into the limelight – to me that’s a sin… it’s a sin. And I’m not about to have it on my head. I may not be much Mr. Finch, but I’m still sheriff of Maycomb County and Bob Ewell fell on his knife. Good night, sir.” (B&W)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

John Wayne and James Stewart starred together with Lee Marvin playing the villain Liberty Valance as only he could. A Western with many subtle themes. Memorable scene and/or line: “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” (B&W)


The Manchurian Candidate

Political thriller of the first order. Laurence Harvey is Raymond Shaw, the brainwashed former POW, whose handler is his mother, played by Angela Lansbury. Shaw is programmed by the Soviets and Chinese Communists to assassinate a Presidential candidate years later. Nightmares about the brainwashing experience prompt Shaw’s former company commander, played by Frank Sinatra, to suspect something is wrong. Lansbury was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Golden Globe for “Best Supporting Actress.” Memorable Scene: Shaw hearing a bartender speak the words that trigger his brain to obey instructions, obeys the next instruction he hears and goes down to Central Park and jumps into the lake. Quote: “It’s a terrible thing to hate your mother. But I didn’t always hate her. When I was a child, I only kind of disliked her.” (B&W)


Advise and Consent

Allen Drury’s political novel about the intrigue in the United States Senate surrounding the confirmation process for a controversial nominee for Secretary of State. This film brought together a coterie of some of the most prominent male stars of the time. Memorable performance by Charles Laughton as the fictional Senator Seabright B. Cooley of South Carolina. Memorable quote/scene: “Son, this is a Washington, D.C. kind of lie. It’s when the other person knows you’re lying, and also knows you know he knows.” Some things do not ever change. (B&W)

The Birdman of Alcatraz

The rather romanticized story of Robert Stroud (played by Burt Lancaster), whose death sentence for murder in territorial Alaska was commuted to life by President Wilson in 1920. Stroud spent the rest of his life in prison (most of the time in Leavenworth, not Alcatraz) studying and becoming an expert in ornithology. (B&W)

Cape Fear

Robert Mitchum’s character Max Cady is an ex-con seeking revenge against Sam Bowden, played by Gregory Peck, who testified against Cady at trial. Mitchum is believably creepy as Cady, and the movie is alternately suspenseful and startling. Memorable scene: Bowden’s daughter runs away from Cady and is almost hit by a car. (B&W)


The Counterfeit Traitor

World War II spy drama. An American expatriate working for a Swedish company is blackmailed by British intelligence into using his business contacts in Germany to target bombing targets. William Holden plays the part of Erickson, the reluctant spy. Memorable scene/line: “Strange… You can read about a hundred atrocities, hear about a thousand, but you only have to see one.”

Days of Wine and Roses

Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick play a young couple who begin as social drinkers and descend into the depths of alcoholism. One is redeemed; the other ?? One of my close friends was highly offended when Jack Lemmon lost out to Gregory Peck for the “Best Actor” Academy Award. Memorable scene/line: Jack Lemmon’s character in a padded cell with the DTs. (B&W)


Experiment in Terror

Lee Remick plays a teller who is being terrorized by a robber to steal from her bank. She manages to contact an FBI agent, and a cat and mouse game ensues. Notable for its startling scene shifts. Memorable scene: The FBI interviews the robber’s Chinese-American girlfriend who consults with her lawyer in Mandarin in front of the agent. When she finishes she addresses the agent in English, and he answers in Mandarin. (B&W)

Ride the High Country

Veteran Western actors Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea partner up to guard a gold shipment. One has a young protégé who he plots with to steal the gold. Memorable scene/line: Elsa Knudsen: “My father says there’s only right and wrong – good and evil. Nothing in between. It isn’t that simple, is it?” Steve Judd: “No, it isn’t. It should be, but it isn’t.”

Walk on the Wild Side

One of Jane Fonda’s earliest films. Dove Linkhorn, a country boy from Texas, played by Laurence Harvey goes to New Orleans in search of his love, only to find her working in a brothel as the main attraction for the customers. Based on a novel by Nelson Algren. (B&W)

Sergeants 3

A remake of the 1939 film Gunga Din (itself inspired by Rudyard Kiplings poem) transported to the Western Frontier. The five “Rat Pack” members (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford , and Joey Bishop) star in this movie.

Hell is for Heroes

One of Steve McQueen’s earliest and best portrayal of an iconoclastic loser, his signature role.

How the West Was Won

Pre-revisionist Western chronicling the stories of three generations of frontier families settling the 19th Century American West.

Lonely are the Brave

Kirk Douglas plays a modern day Western drifter riding a horse cross-country to escape the law.

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They were children once.

The oldest practicing lawyer in Alabama is Monroeville’s Alice Finch Lee, 100.  She is Harper Lee’s sister.  Now you know where the author of To Kill a Mockingbird got her protagonist’s name.

See this link.

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Beautiful virtue? Ugly sin?

Ada Brown, a Community Voices columnist for the Dallas Morning News is a former prosecutor and criminal court judge here in Dallas County. She makes an interesting observation concerning our perception of persons accused of crime. Do criminals look the part? See: What do criminals look like? published today.

In her column, Ms. Brown relates a murder she prosecuted murder where there was overwhelming evidence of the accused’s guilt, but nevertheless the trial ended with a hung jury. Afterward, she learned that some jurors refused to convict because the defendant didn’t look like a murderer. (She obtained a conviction on re-trial where the prosecution specifically addressed the appearance issue.)

This phenomenon is not unknown to anyone. Art, folklore, and literature are replete with depictions and descriptions of good and evil personified. Heroes are beautiful and physically perfect; villains are ugly and deformed – monsters. From the images of St. Michael versus Satan, Shakespeare’s portrayal of Henry Tudor and Richard III, through the stories of handsome princes and hideous trolls of Brothers Grimm, it has been easy to spot the intended villains simply by their appearance. Some of us remember the long running comic strip Dick Tracy, where the square-jawed, chiseled-featured detective pursued numerous grotesque caricatures of bad guys. The simile “ugly as sin” has been around for a long time, and aptly reflects our attitude.

Human beings rely on their eyes more than any other sensory organ. Other species have a higher developed sense of smell or hearing, but we have our sight. This is a product of evolution and environment. Those who avoid early death based on their apprehension of danger live to reproduce; those who do not so perceive will not, over time anyway. Smells and sound may be more useful in certain surroundings, but the human milieu depends on the perception of reflected light.

While reliance on stereotypical appearance and experience can be protective in this regard, it quite often produces unhappy and unjust results. I recall an instructor in the police academy emphasizing that out on the street you don’t see persons with “criminal” stamped on their forehead (which might be an argument for bring back the medieval practice of branding convicts – just kidding). The lesson there was primarily safety; be careful when approaching anybody out there, regardless of appearance. Appearance, however, can indicative of a lot of latent characteristics. Profiling persons is legitimate and necessary in all walks of life, sometimes even when it involves, in part, the apparent race of a person. Survival may depend upon it, as Jesse Jackson once famously observed.

This may be true on the street, but not in the courtroom, the legislature, or the office. Appearance alone does not reveal character; behavior over time quite often does. As Ms. Brown points out, appearances have been much made of in the Florida case where one person is accused of unjustifiably killing another, while maintaining he was justified. Early photos of the deceased as a smiling child doubtless raised the ire of many; later photos of him as an almost adult have the opposite impact. One can also make a similar observation in viewing different photos of the accused. While the end result should be based on the behavior of the deceased and the accused at the critical time, it is a safe bet that both men’s appearance will have some effect. Both the prosecutors and defense counsel must take that into account and present their cases accordingly. Injustice will continue to occur so long as courts and juries make judgments based on what someone looks like rather than what they did.

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My Favorite Liberal

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz has been known as a liberal, and many of his ideas and proclivities are certainly left of center. I like him nonetheless, and not just because he’s a nice guy. I don’t even know if he is one. Nevertheless, he is dead right about at least two issues.
First of all, I believe he is a patriot, and he knows that it is in America’s interest to support and protect Israel. I don’t know how much of his support in that regard comes from his Jewish background, but I don’t care. The State of Israel is the only real friend the U. S. has in the Middle East. There is not one Arab or Muslim state that would fail to throw America under the bus if they had half a chance. That they do not have that chance is due in no small part to our friends in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
The other issue Dershowitz seem to come down correctly on is his take on criminal law. Now, I do not like crooks any more than any one. For six years I put myself in harm’s way for the citizens of Dallas to help keep crime down to a manageable level, and regret not one second of that time. I remain an unwavering supported of the death penalty, so long as we can be sure we have the right guy. Getting the right guy is important any time we seek to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property as a punishment for a criminal act. That is why we have the safeguards in a bills of rights, and procedural rules. It is true that there have been police officers who would, in police jargon, “bad rap” someone because they believed he was a bad guy generally, or even, because they didn’t like his complexion or ancestry, but in my experience, there were not many. The prosecutors were, and most doubtless still are, also careful about who they filed formal charges against and took to trial. It has been my observation, however, that the high profile case is where prosecutors get a little crazy and go off the deep end. Whether it’s adrenalin overdose or the prospect of fame and fortune, DA’s, U.S. attorneys, and their underlings become zealots and wannabe avenging angels. Sometimes their zealotry causes them to overreach and screw up a case they should have won, like those who tried O.J. Simpson; sometimes they get themselves in serious trouble, like Nifong in the Duke lacrosse team case. Now we have Angela Corey who was appointed a special prosecutor to try George Zimmerman in the Travon Martin homicide case in Florida.
Professor Dershowitz weighed in on early on Corey’s apparent overcharge, and use of a probable cause affidavit that was so flawed that a first year law student or rookie cop would have been ashamed of. He was right to do so. Unlike most of us, Dershowitz has national standing as a criminal law expert, and demonstrably knows what he is talking about. I was willing to take Corey at her word that she was assessing the facts and applying the law in good faith when she charged Zimmerman with second degree murder. After I read the affidavit she relied upon (and probably had a hand in drafting), and the evidence that has since come out, particularly regarding Zimmerman’s and Martin’s injuries, I will not even grant her that. I can just imagine being a fly on the wall in the meeting when she was appointed. The winks and nods that indicated her career might just take off if she provided cover for the politicians during an election year must have been revealing.
Now Corey wants to sue Dershowitz for defamation. Dershowitz actually said he would welcome a lawsuit, so he could show the nation and the world how wrong Corey is. Good luck on that, as there is the little matter of the New York Times v. Sullivan that in 1964, pretty much made public officials fair game for nearly any criticism unless actual malice as to the untruth of a statement could be proven by the person allegedly defamed. That suit won’t happen. Corey might be full of herself – a bit of a narcissist — but I don’t thinks she is stupid.
Yes, Alan Dershowitz is right about this one too. He might have been a cheerleader for the so-called social justice crowd; he might think a nanny state is a good idea; he might think conservatives, especially social conservatives, are troglodytes. But on the Zimmerman case, he is on the side of the angels – not Angela. He’s my favorite liberal: a classic liberal.  
See the story at this link.
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June 3, 1967

Forty-five years ago this summer, this was a number one single, and the album later displaced the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” on Billboard.

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin’ cotton and my brother was balin’ hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And Mama hollered out the back door “y’all remember to wipe your feet”
And then she said “I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge”
“Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”
“Ode to Billy Joe” – music and lyrics by Bobbie Gentry (born Roberta Lee Streeter).

Naturally, it being the Sixties, everyone had to find a “meaning” in the lyrics.  Some came up with fantastic explanations.

It was pretty much a one-hit wonder.  Although, Gentry put out four or five subsequent albums, the songs mostly based on rural Mississippi folk life.  She had another gold album with Glen Campbell.

One of the albums contained a respectable cover of the Beatles’ “Fool on the Hill”

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Political Shift?

In the May issue of Commentary magazine, Michael Medved, a nationally syndicated talk show host and writer wonders whether many Jewish voters will cast their ballot for the liberal President Barack Obama, with whom they are deeply disappointed, or “overcome their own discomfort with Christian evangelicals and vote for the Republican candidate.” See the article at What the Evangelicals Give the Jews.  Many American Jews realize and argue that the evangelicals are indispensable source of support for Israel, without whom U.S. policy in the Middle East could easily tilt toward the Palestinians and Arab nations. Others insist that the “ardent evangelical embrace of the Zionist project only encourages the most intransigent and fanatical elements in Israel, thereby undermining chances for a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians.” The latter group also fears that the evangelicals are motivated by apocalyptic vison of a mass conversion of the Jews, and the establishment of a Christian theocracy in the United States.
It is a commonplace that Jews in America generally tend to be left of center in their politics. There are a lot of historical reasons for that, not the least that many are descended from Russian Jews who emigrated from late 19th Century Russia as an alternative to being murdered in frequent pogroms tolerated, and even sponsored by the conservative regime and Orthodox Christian establishment. It also goes without saying that the Nazi Holocaust has been ensconced in  Jewish consciousness as a product of right-wing fascism. As to the latter, though, it seems to me as a result of my study of history that the German “National Socialism” had more in common with the left than with the right, as it is understood today.
Norman Podheretz, in his 2009 book Why Are Jews Liberals? answers that Jews have adopted that he calls the “‘torah’ of liberalism” which essentially means that leftist ideology has become central to Jewish identity. This identification persists even in the face of unrefutable evidence that free market capitalism and the reverence for the primacy of the individual enabled so many hardworking Jewish immigrants and their progeny to prosper in the United States.
This may be changing. Medved, who remains an observant Orthodox Jew, is an admitted convert to the political right. Podheretz, Bill Kristol, and quite a few other Jews have come over to the right, if they weren’t there all along. In a recent post on his blog in The American Interest, Peter Berger writes of the “The Relocation of Anti-Semitism” to the left wing of American politics. Support for the State of Israel is widespread among American Christians, no matter their denomination, Catholic or Protestant. One reason is that the story of modern Israel has much in common with the story of America, especially the frontier.
There might not be a sea-change this election – old ways die hard. Most humans tend cling to our cherished beliefs long past the time that their validity or usefulness is over. But it will come. In another generation, I dare to predict, an American Jewish liberal will be a black swan.
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Menial is meaningful

One proposed solution for alleviating the economic distress and raising the income and wealth level in this country is improving the education system. It seems that there is agreement across the political spectrum on this general point. There is little or no agreement on how to do this, or even what we mean by education.
Economist Thomas Sowell writes to the latter point in a column published yesterday in the Jewish World Review, where he is a regular contributor. See this link  (also reprinted in the Dallas Morning News today here). 
“‘Education’ is a word that covers a lot of very different things, from vital, life-saving medical skills to frivolous courses to absolutely counterproductive courses that fill people with a sense of grievance and entitlement, without giving them either the skills to earn a living or a realistic understanding of the world required for a citizen in a free society.”
Sowell is right, of course. I would add that “education” in the broadest sense means learning how to think and the basic tools of the process; that is the “3Rs.” Learning a specific skill, whether it’s plumbing, computer programming, or brain surgery, is what I would call “training.” Both are essential for real life success, but good education is a necessary prerequisite for training in most particular skills. Furthermore, a highly developed ability to think can keep one from being trapped when a particular skill becomes obsolete in a world of rapid technological advance. More to Sowell’s point is what passes for education today fails to provide either specific skills or an ability to think. He continues:
“The lack of realism among many highly educated people has been demonstrated in many ways.
“When I saw signs in Yellowstone National Park warning visitors not to get too close to a buffalo, I realized that this was a warning that no illiterate farmer of a bygone century would have needed. No one would have had to tell him not to mess with a huge animal that literally weighs a ton, and can charge at you at 30 miles an hour.
“No one would have had to tell that illiterate farmer’s daughter not to stand by the side of a highway, trying to hitch a ride with strangers, as too many college girls have done, sometimes with results that ranged all the way up to their death.”
There is much complaint among the general populace about the “elites” mucking up education, the economy, and the socio-cultural milieus by using government power to impose with their pet notions on us all. Some of this may be overstated, but there is a lot of truth in the gripe. The faculties of most universities justify their existence (and obtain government grants) by coming up with all kind of schemes for social and economic engineering. Most full time academics would describe themselves as liberal or progressive. When wondering why, keep in mind that nearly all of them came directly from high school to college and then into graduate school and barely saw the world outside of academia. As students, they aimed to please the professors, even if their own ideological bent leaned right. Once into the professoriat, they lobbied for tenure. Once tenured, they danced with who brung them – thus a self perpetuating oligarchy. Many of those who do not stay in academia, go into government employment. Of course, students with rightward ideology tend to seek the real world and can’t wait to get out of school, thinning the ranks of rightist academics even more.
“The dangers that a lack of realism can bring to many educated people are completely overshadowed by the dangers to a whole society created by the unrealistic views of the world promoted in many educational institutions.” Sowell continues.
“It was painful, for example, to see an internationally renowned scholar say that what low-income young people needed was “meaningful work.” But this is a notion common among educated elites, regardless of how counterproductive its consequences may be for society at large, and for low-income youngsters especially.” (My emphasis.)
Sowell continues by rhetorically asking what is “meaningful work.” In short, he answers, that the average ivory tower intellectual would answer “work that is satisfying.”
“At the very least, many intellectuals do not want the poor or the young to have to take ‘menial’ jobs. But people who are paying their own money, as distinguished from the taxpayers’ money, for someone to do a job are unlikely to part with hard cash unless that job actually needs doing, whether or not that job is called “menial” by others.”
Recall the furor that Newt Gingrich caused by having the temerity to suggest that inner-city high-school students might benefit (and make a few bucks to boot) by performing janitorial services for their schools. I wrote in this blog not too long ago about a student who did just that to defray his tuition – and later became a lawyer, army general, Congressman, and President of the United States.
Sowell concludes by observing that “Telling young people that some jobs are ‘menial’ is a huge disservice to them and to the whole society. Subsidizing them in idleness while they wait for “meaningful work” is just asking for trouble, both for them and for all those around them.”
Many of our most able leaders worked in the so-called menial jobs on their way up. Many of those drudge jobs were an education – its called the School of Hard Knocks” with graduate work at Screw U. In recent years, most have gone into business rather than politics – why put up with the abuse on the political campaign trails, although that is really nothing new.
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A crisis? Or a conundrum?

“A crisis is a situation in which a previously tolerable set of circumstances is suddenly, by the addition of another factor, rendered wholly intolerable. Whether the additional factor is political, economic, or scientific hardly matters: the death of a national hero, the instability of prices, or a technological discovery can all set events in motion.” — Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain (1970).
Columnist Steven Pearlstein, recently wrote a piece “Identity Crisis for American Capitalism” in the Washington Post. His column can be found here.
Is there a crisis? What is the additional factor renders the previous set of circumstances intolerable? It seems that the identity problem, if there is one, for American capitalism is more an ongoing conundrum that a crisis. But Pearlstein is right about one thing.  Reasoned debates are always useful.
The author asks what “kind” of capitalism do we want, apparently conceding that an alternative such as socialism of some degree is unacceptable, or at least impossible in this country. Pearlstein opines that capitalism, like ice cream, comes in many flavors. These flavors may be taken by themselves or combined, and amid this year’s political campaign we should have a debate about which flavor, or combination thereof, we want in this country.
Pearlstein identifies seven varieties of capitalism: robber baron capitalism, managerial capitalism, state capitalism, entrepreneurial capitalism, worker capitalism, shareholder capitalism, and financial capitalism. He never defines what he means by generic capitalism, though, which should have been a starting point.
One could go into a long winded dissertation about the nature, nuances, contours, and ramifications of capitalism. In fact, many have. Adam Smith was the first exponent of it although he did not use the word. More recently, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Ayn Rand, and Milton Friedman have written about it comprehensively. Karl Marx did too, though not approvingly. For these purposes, let’s just say that capitalism means a free market in production, trade, and consumption based on private property and the absence of coercive central planning.
Pearlstein’s attempt at delineating different types of capitalism, with some exceptions. is actually describing aspects of a mixed economy, with free trade emphasized or limited depending on time and place.
This author gives away his bias with his use of the pejorative Robber Baron capitalism which he alleges is the first kind of modern capitalism. He refers to the 19th Century entrepreneurs such as Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Stanford, and others who managed to identify early the potential for new technologies and create entire new industries. One of the reasons they were able to do it was their relative freedom from government interference. These businessmen made fantastic fortunes mainly because they were there first, not unlike of like some of our present day information technology entrepreneurs. Not sure who they were robbing, if anyone. The benefits, both short and long term, far exceeded the wealth they accumulated. And they didn’t shovel their wealth into a money bin for it to languish and stink, it went back into the economy and created more entrepreneurship and consequent wealth. I’m reminded here of Clint Murchison’s quip that money is like manure; pile it up and it stinks to high heaven; spread it around and it does a lot of good. (Don’t believe he hand Huey Long’s or President Obama’s method of spreading in mind, though.)
Pearlstein’s latter day entrepreneurial capitalism is really the same thing. Like the 19th Century innovators, the computer information industry has had the benefit of light regulation and interference, at least up until recently.
Worker capitalism is nothing new. The first capitalists were workers. Farmers, merchants, artisans and craftsmen, and small time community moneylenders have been around for a long time. These capitalists existed in antiquity, feudal times, and even under communism in the Soviet Union in micro economies. Pearlstein touts a “fad in the 1980s” where employee-owned firms were either bought from a retiring entrepreneur or brought out of bankruptcy by workers looking to save their jobs. That did happen more often in that era. Any of these businesses that succeeded, however, were really run, not by the rank and file workers, but by managers. Try running a business like classical Greek democracy – you get modern day Greece for sure.
What happened is that the workers became shareholders, and many of the businesses became publicly owned corporations. They ultimately became companies in the mode of Pearlstein’s shareholder capitalism. Large numbers of shareholders invest in publicly held corporations as a means of getting in on the profits, and hoping for increase in value to fund retirement, or even future financial independence. These investments are crucial for businesses to accumulate capital for growth and innovation.
The financial capitalists are the current bogeymen for the American left. Maybe they should be across the political spectrum. They are not the favorites of libertarians. In some ways, we have now “monster banks” akin to the Bank of the United States that President Andrew Jackson destroyed in the 1830s. If they are “too big to fail” they are too big — period. They got that way through cronyism, and regulatory capture. But this may be a too broad brush. Financial markets perform a useful function in directing money to the places that are likely to put it to the highest and best use. But if they are protected against failure, the incentive to make riskier investments is higher, and the quick buck is always more attractive. The sub-prime real estate market collapse is a perfect example. The government encouraged lenders to make loans they never should have made, and bailed out the ones with pull when that market collapsed. The millions of investors who were to small to be bothered with and were not member of the aristocracy of pull are the ones who got the shaft.
The final constructed category, state capitalism appears somewhat of an oxymoron – because it is. One economist described the European model as welfare state capitalism. I can work to provide a tolerable living standard for most everyone, and a darned opulent lifestyle for those who run the show. Come to think of it, free market capitalism does the same thing, only has the added benefit of allowing upward (and downward) mobility.
Nevertheless, unlike many of my libertarian friends, I believe the government has a role to play in the national economy. Obviously, it should enforce contracts through the judicial system. It should also seek to deter and to punish lying cheating and stealing. It has a traffic cop role in some activities and industries; air transport comes to mind. Where the government goes wrong when it tries to pick winners, and compensate losers, and uses coercion, either carrot or stick, to effect certain results.
Pearlstein’s main complaint about capitalism is that it produces casualties. Some participants lose. That is true; risk entails the possibility of failure – duh! For the able bodied and able minded, however, really losing means giving up, not occasional setbacks. The freedom and opportunity to succeed, and do it big, is what America is all about.
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Memorial Day

Memorial Day. My grandmother, like most of her generation as well as the prior one, used to refer to it as “Decoration Day” because it was the day to go to the cemetery and put flowers on the graves of military veterans, and others who had passed. The present name was ensconced when it became an official holiday. The protocol is to fly your flag half-staff until noon, then raise it.

There are plenty of articles, columns, speeches, and so forth published today. I can’t add much, if anything. Here is a cartoon that says it all.

Scott Stantis of the Chicago Tribune in memory of George Stantis.

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The President’s Lady

The drive from downtown Nashville to Andrew Jackson’s home at the Hermitage takes about 20 minutes if the traffic is light to medium. In Jackson’s day, however, it was a difficult four hour trek through the wilderness. So the plantation is aptly named.
Unlike a number other Presidential homes, there is nothing palatial or noteworthy about the Hermitage mansion. It is not much different from the homes of other prominent persons in the ante bellum period. One noteworthy feature in Jackson’s bedroom is on the wall opposite his bed. It was the first thing he would see waking up; the last thing he would see before falling asleep. Indeed, it was the last thing he would see on this earth: a portrait of his wife of 38 years, Rachel Donelson Jackson.
Had he never become President, Andrew Jackson nevertheless would be in the pantheon of American history. Commanding a rag-tag assembly of state militias and a few regulars of the U.S. Army, he managed to defeat the world’s most powerful army – an army which had only recently captured Washington, D.C. and burned the Capitol and White House – in a toe-to-toe battle near New Orleans in January 1815. Jackson had also successfully campaigned against the Indian tribes of the southeast U.S. who were allied with the British in the War of 1812. But President he did become, and one of the most effective, some might say great, of the forty-four men who have held that office.
Jackson, whose father had died before he was born, had been caught up in the vortex of the American Revolution when scarcely a teenager. The British effort to suppress the rebellion was particularly brutal in the Carolinas where the family had settled. Both his mother and brothers died as a direct or indirect result of the conflict. Briefly captured by the British, Jackson was beaten allegedly for refusing to shine an officer’s boots. As a result, he bore a scar on his face for the rest of his life. These experiences instilled a loathing of the British in him. Because Indian tribes were allied with the British in the Revolution, and later in the War of 1812, Jackson had little use for them. Most of his wrath, however, was saved for those who would disparage Rachel. The source of that disparagement and anger is not commonly known outside of Jacksonian scholars and others with a particular interest in his life and times. Thus, I share here what I know about it.
Rachel Donelson was the tenth child of John Donelson and his wife, also named Rachel. The Donelson family was wealthy by the standards of the day, being landowners in Kentucky and Tennessee. The young Rachel was well educated for a young frontier woman, and was said to be exceptionally attractive. When she was 17 in 1785, she married Lewis Robards, a captain of militia and merchant of equivalent social and economic standing. It was, however, a “marriage made in hell” according to one author, and in 1788 Rachel had left, or was thrown out of, Robards’ household and went to her widowed mother’s home in Nashville. There she met Andrew Jackson, then age 22, who was boarding with the Donelson family. Robards is said to have attempted a reconciliation, but when that failed sought a divorce. In those days, divorce was not easy to come by and required a special “bill of divorcement” to bring such an action. Since Kentucky was still part of Virginia at that time, it required an act by the legislature in Richmond which was not easy to obtain. Robards had the connections to obtain one, but he still had to prove grounds to a court and jury, which at that time were limited to adultery, abandonment, or extreme cruelty. The time-line is confused, but Rachel and Andrew, reportedly believing that Robards had obtained the divorce and she was free to marry, eloped to Natchez, at the time in Spanish territory. Whether they were formally married or merely held themselves out as married (“common law” marriages occurred frequently on the frontier) is unclear, but upon returning to Nashville, they learned that Robards had not yet actually obtained the divorce, and thus their marriage was legally void. Robards proceeded obtain a divorce without Rachel’s participation from a Kentucky jury on the grounds of adultery and abandonment. Jackson and Rachel then entered into a ceremonial marriage in Nashville in 1794.
It is difficult today for us to understand the mores of two centuries ago. Nowadays, sexual improprieties of public figures generate little more than a yawn for most of us. Then, however, even on the frontier where the social conventions were looser, marriage was for life, and adultery, especially for wives was a serious matter. Happy or not, a marriage was supposed to be endured, at least by the distaff side. A wife who left her husband, no matter how bad the situation, was a fallen woman. If she took up with another man before having the benefit of a divorce, she had the status of a prostitute; her paramour was a rake and adulterer.
The downstream effects ultimately turned out to be extremely unpleasant for the couple. The finding of adultery in the public record, technical or not, would come to haunt them. When Jackson entered public life, his political opponents continuously used the questionable circumstances of his and Rachel’s marriage against him. John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee, and Jackson nearly dueled over a reference to the situation Sevier once voiced. In 1806, Jackson fought a duel with one Charles Dickinson over the latter’s character attacks. Jackson killed Dickinson after being serious wounded himself. During the 1828 campaign for President, John Quincy Adams and his ally Henry Clay vociferously attacked Jackson’s and Rachel’s character. The idea of the First Lady of the nation an adulteress, no matter that nearly 40 years had gone by since the occurrence, was unthinkable.
Unfortunately, the unthinkable did not happen. Jackson won the 1828 Election handily, ousting John Quincy Adams from the White House, and was President for eight years. Rachel is listed in histories as First Lady, but she was never to live in the White House. Though she knew her husband had been elected despite the scurrilous attacks on his and her character, she died, probably of a heart attack, two days before Christmas of that year.
Andrew and Rachel Jackson’s remains rest under a Greek-styled gazebo monument on the grounds of the Hermitage.

For those interested: See H. W. Brands, Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times (2005); Robert V. Remini, The Life of Andrew Jackson (1988) (abridgment of Remini’s e volume biography) Patricia Brady, A Being So Gentle (2011). There is a fictional account by Irving Stone The President’s Lady (1950).
Next: The Smokies.