Today in History – Page 41 – Historical Easter Eggs

February 11, 1812 Gerry-mander

In 1842, Federal law required that voting districts be compact, and contiguous. That worked out for about a hot minute.

The dictionary defines “Gerrymander” as a verb: “To divide (a geographic area) into voting districts in a way that gives one party an unfair advantage in elections”. In the Old Country the practice goes way back, the earliest instance in the American colonies dates back to early 1700s, Pennsylvania.

In 1788, Virginia voted to ratify the Constitution and join the Union. Former Governor Patrick Henry persuaded the state legislature to reconfigure the 5th Congressional District, thereby forcing his political adversary James Madison to run against a powerful opponent named James Monroe. Henry’s redistricting tactic failed and Madison won, anyway. One day he would become the nation’s fourth president. All was not over for the loser, though. James Monroe would become #5.

Elbridge Gerry was born in 1744, in the north shore Massachusetts town of Marblehead. Gerry spent most of his adult life in public office, excepting a ten-year period in the family codfish packing business. First elected to the state legislature in 1772, Gerry died in office in 1814, while serving as Vice President under President James Madison.

Politics are as ugly these days as any time in living memory, but that’s nothing new. Back in 1812, parties were split between Federalists supporting strong central government and favoring business & industry, pitted against Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans, suspicious of centralized power and favoring small landowning family farmers to secure the well-being of the nation. Both parties believed the other would destroy the young nation, and campaigns were as nasty as they get.

Elbridge Gerry was elected Massachusetts Governor in 1810. Soon, his Democratic-Republican supporters were doing everything they could to get the man re-elected. The redistricting plan that emerged on February 11, 1812 confined Federalist precincts to a handful of congressional districts, while Democratic-Republican precincts were spread across many. In the end, 50,164 Democratic-Republican votes resulted in 29 seats in the state legislature and only 11 Federalist Party seats, despite a favorable vote tally of 51,766.

Benjamin Russell was a newspaper editor, and ardent Federalist. The painter Gilbert Stuart commented on the new district map hanging over Russell’s desk, saying “That will do for a salamander.” “Better say a Gerry-mander!” was Russell’s reply. A cartoonist added head, wings, and claws. The cartoon map and the name appeared in the Boston Gazette within the month.

Ever since, “gerrymandering” has been a bi-partisan favorite for keeping “public servants” firmly ensconced at the public trough.

In 1842, Federal law required that voting districts be compact, and contiguous. That worked out for about a hot minute. In the 1870s, Mississippi gerrymandered a “shoestring” district some 300 miles long and only 32 miles wide. Other states have “packed” voters into districts shaped like frying pans, dumbbells, and turkey feet.

In the 1960s, gerrymandering was used to “crack” the voting strength of black and urban voters. A 1962 Supreme Court decision ruled that electoral districts must reflect the principle of “one man, one vote”. A 1985 decision ruled it unconstitutional to alter election districts to favor of any political party.

These days, voting districts are intentionally drawn up to favor or disfavor parties, racial, and other “interest” groups, ensuring that we look on one another as “us and them”, rather than just, plain, fellow Americans. Talk about “the conduct of public affairs for private advantage”. (Hat tip to my favorite curmudgeon, Ambrose Bierce, for that one).

Here in the home of the Gerrymander, Barney Frank’s old 4th congressional district resembles nothing so much as a grasping hand. I’m not sure if the new congressional map is much of an improvement, but hey. It seems to work for the ruling class.

In 2000, California’s two major parties worked together to redraw state and Federal legislative districts, in such a way as to preserve the status quo, in perpetuity. It worked. 53 congressional, 20 state senate, and 80 state assembly seats were at risk in the 2004 election. Not one of them changed parties. 28th state senate district Senator Jenny Oropeza (D) won re-election in 2010. About a month, after she died.

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February 10, 1920 Lena Blackburne’s Famous Baseball Rubbing Mud

The age of one-ball-per-game died with Ray Chapman, the only player in the history of Major League Baseball, to die from injuries sustained during a game.. The lively ball era had begun. Batters loved it, but pitchers complained about having to handle all those shiny new balls.

The former Boston Braves pitcher Max Surkont, once said “Baseball was never meant to be taken seriously — if it were, we would play it with a javelin instead of a ball”.

I’m not sure about javelins, but this I know. There’s nothing more fun at a baseball game, than watching a home run head for the bleachers.

Yet, as much as we all like to see a home run, that’s not always how the game was played. The “Hitless Wonders” of the Chicago White Sox won the 1906 World Series with a .230 club batting average. Manager Fielder Jones said “This should prove that leather is mightier than wood”. Fielder Allison Jones, that’s the man’s real name. If that’s not the greatest baseball name ever, it’s got to be one of the top five.

This was the “dead-ball” era, when an “inside baseball” style of play relied on stolen bases, hit-and-run plays and, more than anything else, speed. Cumulative Major League batting averages stayed between .239 and .279 in the National League. American League averages remained between .239 and .283. In 1908, every team in Major League Baseball combined for an average of only 3.4 runs per game.

That’s not to say there were no power hitters. In some ways, a triple may be more difficult than a home run, requiring a runner to cover three bases in the face of a defense still in possession of the ball. Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Owen “Chief” Wilson set a record of 36 triples in 1912. “Wahoo” Sam Crawford hit a career record 309 triples in his 18 years in Major League Baseball, playing for the Cincinnati Reds and Detroit tigers between 1899 and 1917. 100 years later, it’s unlikely that either record will ever be broken.

In a time when Barry Bonds holds the single season home record at 73, it’s hard to get your head around what a spectacular feat it was, when Babe Ruth hit 29 in 1919.

In his 1994 television miniseries “Baseball”, Ken Burns explains “The moment a new ball was thrown onto the field, part of every pitchers job was to dirty it up. By turns they smeared it with mud, licorice, tobacco juice, it was deliberately scuffed, sandpapered, cut, even spiked. The result was a misshapen earth-colored ball that traveled through the air erratically, tended to soften in the later innings. And as it came over the plate, was very hard to see.”

Spitballs lessened the natural friction with a pitcher’s fingers, reducing backspin and causing the ball to drop. Sandpapered, cut or scarred balls tended to “break” to the side of the scuff mark.

Balls were rarely replaced in those days. By the end of a game, the ball was scarred, misshapen and entirely unpredictable. Major League Baseball outlawed “doctored” pitches on February 10, 1920, though entire games continued to be played with the same ball.

The first-ever game to be played “under the lights” was forty years in the past in 1920, but it would be another 15 before the practice became widespread.

On the late afternoon of August 16, the Cleveland Indians were playing the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds. Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman took the plate in the top of the 5th, facing “submarine” pitcher Carl Mays.

Submarine pitches are not to be confused with the windmill underhand pitches we see in softball. Submarine pitchers throw side-arm to under-handed, their upper bodies so low that some of them scuff their knuckles on the ground, the ball rising as it approaches the strike zone.

Chapman may not have seen the pitch coming, because he never moved. The crack of the ball as it hit his head was so loud that Mays thought he had hit the end of the bat, fielding the ball and throwing to first for the out. Wally Pipp, the first baseman best known for getting a headache and losing his starting position to Lou Gehrig, immediately knew something was wrong. The batter made no effort to run, collapsing slowly to the ground with blood streaming out of his ear.

29-year-old Ray Chapman had said this was his last year playing ball. He wanted to spend more time in the family business he had just married into. The man was right. Raymond Johnson Chapman died 12 hours later, the only player in the history of Major League Baseball, to die from injuries sustained during a game.

The age of one-ball-per-game died with Ray Chapman, and with it the era of the dead ball. The lively ball era, had begun. Batters loved it, but pitchers complained about having to handle all those shiny new balls.

MLB rule #3.01(c) states that “Before the game begins the umpire shall…Receive from the home club a supply of regulation baseballs, the number and make to be certified to the home club by the league president. The umpire shall inspect the baseballs and ensure they are regulation baseballs and that they are properly rubbed so that the gloss is removed. The umpire shall be the sole judge of the fitness of the balls to be used in the game”.

Umpires would “prep” the ball using a mixture of water and dirt from the field, but this resulted in too-soft covers, vulnerable to tampering. Something had to take the shine off the ball without softening the cover.

Philadelphia Athletics third base coach Russell Aubrey “Lena” Blackburne took up the challenge in 1938, scouring the riverbanks of New Jersey for just the right mud. Blackburne found his mud hole on the banks of the Delaware River, describing the stuff as “resembling a cross between chocolate pudding and whipped cold cream”. By the time of his death in the late 1950s, Blackburne was selling his “Baseball Rubbing Mud” to every major league ball club in the country, and most minor league teams.

In a world where classified government information is kept on personal email servers, there are still some secrets so pinky-swear-double-probation-secret that the truth may Never be known. Among them Facebook “Community Standards” algorithms, the formula for Coca Cola, and the secret fishing hole where Lena Blackburne’s Baseball Rubbing Mud comes from.

Nobody knows, but one thing is certain. The first pitchers will show up to the first spring training camp, a few short days from now. Every baseball thrown from pre-season to the last pitch of the 2018 World Series, will first have been de-glossed with Lena Blackburne’s famous, Baseball Rubbing Mud.

Go Sox.

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February 9, 1945 Operation Caesar

The most unusual confrontation of WW2 occurred on this day in 1945, in the form of a combat action between two submerged submarines.

In 1939, the impending Nazi invasion of Poland was an open secret. That August, representatives of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact, pledging mutual non-aggression for a period of two years.

Two days later, representatives of the United Kingdom signed the Agreement of Mutual Assistance with Poland, aligning Great Britain with the Franco-Polish Military Alliance. Should Poland be invaded by a foreign power, England and France were now committed to intervene.

The first fourteen “Unterseeboots” (U-boats) left their bases, fanning out across the North Atlantic. Hitler’s invasion of Poland, began, three weeks later. Even then, Hitler believed that war with England and France could still be avoided. The “Kriegsmarine” was under strict orders to follow the “Prize Regulations” of 1936.

England and France declared war on Nazi Germany on Septemebr 3. Hours later, U-30 Oberleutnant Fritz Julius Lemp fired a torpedo into the British liner SS Athenia. Lemp had mistakenly believed it to be an armed merchant vessel and fair game under Prize Regulations, but the damage was done. The longest and most complex naval battle in history, had begun.

As in WWI, both England and Germany were quick to implement blockades on one another. For good reason. By the time that WWII was in full swing, England alone would require over a million tons a week of imported goods, in order to continue the fight.

The “Battle of the Atlantic” lasted 5 years, 8 months and 5 days, ranging from the Irish Sea to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Caribbean to the Arctic Ocean. Winston Churchill would describe this as “the dominating factor all through the war. Never for a moment could we forget that everything happening elsewhere, on land, at sea or in the air depended ultimately on its outcome”.

Thousands of ships were involved in more than a hundred convoy battles, with over 1,000 single ship encounters unfolding across a theater thousands of miles wide. According to http://www.usmm.org, the United States Merchant Marine suffered the highest percentage of fatalities of any service branch, at 1 in 26 compared to one in 38, 44, 114 and 421 respectively, for the Marine Corps, Army, Navy and Coast Guard.

New weapons and tactics would shift the balance first in favor of one side, and then to the other. In the end over 3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships would be sunk to the bottom of the ocean, compared with the loss of 783 U-boats.

The most unusual confrontation of the war occurred on this day in 1945, in the form of a combat action between two submerged submarines. Submarines operate in 3-dimensional space, but their most effective weapon does not. The torpedo is a surface weapon, operating in two-dimensional space: left, right and forward. Firing at a submerged target requires that the torpedo be converted to neutral buoyancy, introducing near-insurmountable complexity into firing calculations.

The war was going badly for the Axis Powers in 1945, the allies enjoying near-uncontested supremacy over the world’s shipping lanes. At this time, any surface delivery between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan was likely to be detected and stopped. The maiden voyage of the 287’, 1,799 ton German submarine U-864 departed on “Operation Caesar” on December 5, delivering Messerschmitt jet engine parts, V-2 missile guidance systems, and 65 tons of mercury to the Imperial Japanese war production industry.

2655041787_639d9fb20a_b — WW2 U-boat pens, Bergen, Norway

The mission was a failure, U-864 having to retreat to the submarine pens in Bergen, Norway, for repairs after running aground in the Kiel Canal. The sub was able to clear the island of Fedje off the Norway coast undetected on February 6. By this time British MI6 had broken the German Enigma code. They were well aware of Operation Caesar.

The British submarine Venturer, commanded by 25-year-old Lieutenant Jimmy Launders, was dispatched from the Shetland Islands, to intercept and destroy U-864.

6868162_f496 — A four dimensional firing solution accounting for time, distance, bearing and target depth was theoretically possible, but had rarely been attempted under combat conditions.

ASDIC, an early name for sonar, would have been far more helpful in locating U-864, but at a price. That familiar “ping” would have been heard by both sides, alerting the German commander that he was being hunted. Launders opted for hydrophones, a passive listening device which could alert him to external noises. Calculating his adversary’s direction, depth and speed was vastly more complicated without ASDIC, but the need for stealth won out.

Developing an engine noise which he feared might give him away, U-864’s commander, Ralf-Reimar Wolfram decided to return to Bergen for repairs. German submarines of the age were equipped with “snorkels”, heavy tubes which broke the surface, enabling diesel engines and crews to breathe while running submerged. Venturer was on batteries when the first sounds were detected, giving the British sub the stealth advantage but sharply limiting the time frame in which it could act.

A four dimensional firing solution accounting for time, distance, bearing and target depth was theoretically possible, but had rarely been attempted under combat conditions. Plus, there were unknown factors which could only be approximated.

A fast attack sub, Venturer only carried four torpedo tubes, far fewer than her much larger adversary. Launders calculated his firing solution, ordering all four tubes firing with a 17½ second delay between each pair.

With four incoming at as many depths, the German sub didn’t have time to react. Wolfram was only just retrieving his snorkel and converting to electric, when the #4 torpedo struck. U-864 imploded and sank, instantly killing all 73 aboard.

Surface actions were common enough between all manner of vessels, but a fully submerged submarine to submarine kill occurred only once in WWI, on October 18, 1914, when the German U-27 torpedoed and sank the British sub HMS E3 with the loss of all 28 aboard. To my knowledge, such an action occurred only this one time, in all of WWII.

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February 8, 1960 Of Dogs and Dolls

If you’ve ever loved a dog, I need not explain the final stanza.

At 256 tons with a barrel of 111′ 7″, the German super gun hurled 38″ shells into the city of Paris, from a range of 75 miles. If you were there in 1918, you may never have heard of the “Paris gun”. You’d have been well aware of the damage it caused. You never knew you were under attack from this thing, until the explosion. The lucky ones were those who lived to see the 4’ deep, 10’-12’ wide crater.

Parisian children made little good luck charms, as “protection” from the Paris gun. They were tiny pairs of handmade dolls, joined together by scraps of yarn. Their names were Nénette and Rintintin

The dolls were said to provide protection for their owners, but only under certain circumstances. You couldn’t make your own and you couldn’t buy them, they had to be given to you, as a gift. They also had to remain attached, or else the little dolls would lose their protective powers.

That July, one observer noted: “It is taking a long chance in these wild days of war . . . to go about unprotected by a Nénette and Rintintin. Curious little mascot dolls they are, that have taken Paris by storm. . . . But their charm is not to be purchased. Until you have been presented with a Nénette and Rintintin, you have not their sweet protection; and if you have the one without the other, the charm is broken.”

US Army Air Service Corporal Lee Duncan was in Paris at this time, with the 135th Aero Squadron. Duncan was aware of the custom, he may even have been given such a talisman himself.

In the wake of the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, Corporal Duncan was sent forward to the small village of Flirey, to check out the area’s suitability for an airfield. The village was heavily damaged by shellfire, and Duncan came upon the shattered remains of a dog pound. Once, this kennel had provided Alsatians (German Shepherd Dogs) to the Imperial German Army. Now, the only dogs left alive were a starving mother and five nursing puppies, so young that their eyes were still closed.

Corporal Duncan cared for them, selling several once the puppies were weaned. He sold the mother to an officer and three puppies to fellow airmen, keeping two for himself. Like those little yarn dolls, Duncan felt those two puppies were his good luck charms. He called them Nanette and Rin Tin Tin.

Returning home after the war, Duncan placed the dogs with a police dog breeder and trainer in Long Island. Nanette contracted pneumonia and died, the breeder giving Duncan a female puppy, “Nanette II”, to replace her.

Etzel von Oeringen was born on October 1, 1917 in Quedlinburg Germany, trained as a police dog and serving in the German Red Cross, during WW1. Left impoverished after the war and unable to support even a dog, his owner declined larger offers in preference to the most humane option, selling him to a friend in White Plains, New York.

Better known as “Strongheart”, Etzel appeared in silent films throughout the ’20s, becoming the first major canine film star and credited with enormously increasing the popularity of the breed.

A friend of silent film actor Eugene Pallete, Duncan became convinced that Rin Tin Tin could become the next canine movie star. “I was so excited over the motion-picture idea”, Duncan wrote, “that I found myself thinking of it night and day.”

Walking his dog on “Poverty Row”, 1920s slang for B movie studios, did the trick. Rin Tin Tin got his first film break in 1922, replacing a camera shy wolf in “The Man from Hell’s River”. His first starring role in the 1923 “Where the North Begins”, is credited with saving Warner Brothers Studios from bankruptcy.

Between-the-scenes silent film “intertitles” were easily changed from one language to another, and Rin Tin Tin films enjoyed international distribution. In 1927, Rin Tin Tin was voted Most Popular Actor by Berlin audiences.

There’s a Hollywood legend that may or may not be true, that Rin Tin Tin received the most votes for Best Actor at the 1st Academy Awards, in 1929. Inclined to take themselves oh-so seriously and wanting a human actor, the Academy threw out the ballots. German actor Emil Jannings got Best Actor on the 2nd ballot.

Rin Tin Tin appeared in 27 feature length silent films, 4 “talkies”, and countless commercials and short films. Regular programming was interrupted to announce his passing on August 10, 1932, at the age of 13.

An hour-long program about his life was broadcast the following day.

Suffering from the Great Depression like so many others, Duncan couldn’t afford a fancy funeral. By this time, he couldn’t even afford the house he lived in.

Duncan sold the house and returned the body of his beloved German Shepherd to the country of his birth, where Rin Tin Tin was buried in the Cimetière des Chiens et Autres Animaux Domestiques, in the Parisian suburb of Asnières-sur-Seine.

K9_unit — WW2 K-9 Recruiting poster, featuring Rin Tin Tin III

Duncan continued breeding the line, careful to preserve the physical qualities and intelligence of the original, while avoiding the less desirable traits that crept into other GSD bloodlines.

Duncan may have been obsessive about it, at least according to Mrs. Duncan. When she filed for divorce, she named Rin Tin Tin as co-respondent.

Rin Tin Tin and Nanette II produced at least 48 puppies.

Unique among the belligerents of WW1, the United States was the only country with no service dogs among its military forces. The next war, was a different story. The United States Armed Forces had an extensive K-9 program in WW2, when private citizens were asked to donate their dogs to the war effort.

One such dog was “Chips”, the most decorated K-9 of the war. Rin Tin Tin III, reputed to be grandson to the original but likely a more distant relation, helped to promote the program.

Rin Tin Tin was awarded his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8, 1960. Lee Duncan passed away later that same year.

At some point, Duncan had written a poem, one man’s tribute to a beloved companion animal, who was no more.

ap580923087_custom-5ca70bd1b125030809eeff742ae70fabb486c74a-s400-c85 — “Lee Duncan, 67, holds a pair of Rin Tin Tin’s descendants, Rin Tin Tin 5 and 6, in 1958”. H/T NPR.org, for this image

If you’ve ever loved a dog, I need not explain his final stanza.

“…A real unselfish love like yours, old pal,
Is something I shall never know again;
And I must always be a better man,
Because you loved me greatly, Rin Tin Tin”.

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February 7, 1775 Bringing A Knife to a Gunfight

It is often said that you should never bring a knife to a gunfight. You probably don’t want to draw a rhetorical popgun, either. Not if the other guy is carrying a cannon.

In early 1775, Benjamin Franklin was on an extended diplomatic mission to England. The balance had not yet tipped toward Revolution, though things were headed in that direction.

An unnamed British military officer felt the need to run his mouth before the Parliament, at the expense of his fellow British subjects in the American colonies. “Americans are unequal to the People of this Country”, he said, “in Devotion to Women, and in Courage, and worse than all, they are religious”.

On this day in London, February 7, 1775, the man who would be called “The First American” for his early and tireless campaign for colonial unity, published his response.

Franklin himself was not the most religious man, but he reminded his readers that it was the zealous Puritans who rid Great Britain of the hated King Charles I.

Franklin went on to relate a history of the Seven Years’ War, in which the colonial militia were forever saving inept and blundering British regulars from themselves.

“Indiscriminate Accusations against the Absent are cowardly Calumnies”, he wrote, but old Ben saved his best for the crack about American men not liking women. Franklin noted that the British population was declining at the time, while in the American colonies, numbers were increasing. American men, he concluded, are clearly more “effectually devoted to the Fair Sex”, than their counterparts across the pond.

It is often said that you should never bring a knife to a gunfight. You probably don’t want to draw a rhetorical popgun, either. Not if the other guy is carrying a cannon.

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February 6, 1788 Founding Documents

That original 2nd amendment, which read “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened”, took effect in 1992 as the 27th amendment, following a ratification period stretching out 202 years, 7 months, and 12 days.

Early discussions of the American experiment in self-government began almost 20 years before the Revolution, with the Albany Congress of 1754, and Benjamin Franklin’s proposed Albany Plan of Union. The 2nd Continental Congress appointed a drafting committee to write our first constitution in 1776, the work beginning on July 12. The finished document was sent to the states for ratification on November 15 of the following year.

Twelve of the original thirteen states ratified these “Articles of Confederation” by February, 1779. Maryland held out for another two years, over land claims west of the Ohio River. In 1781, seven months before Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown, the 2nd Continental Congress formally ratified the Articles of Confederation. The young nation’s first governing document.

The document provided for a loose confederation of sovereign states. At the center stood a congress, a unicameral legislature, and that’s about it. There was no Executive, there was no Judiciary.

In theory, Congress had the authority to govern foreign affairs, conduct war, and to regulate currency. In practice, these powers were limited since Congress had no authority to enforce requests made on the states, for either money or manpower.

The Union would probably have broken up, had not the Articles of Confederation been amended or replaced. Twelve delegates from five states met at Mann’s Tavern in Annapolis Maryland in September 1786, to discuss the issue. The decision of the Annapolis Convention was unanimous. Representatives from all the states were invited to send delegates to a constitutional convention in Philadelphia, the following May.

The United States won its independence from England four years earlier, when 55 state delegates convened in Philadelphia to compose a new Constitution.

Delegates from 12 of the 13 original colonies, only Rhode Island abstaining, met at Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania State House on May 25, 1787. The building is now known as Independence Hall, the same place where the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation were drafted.

The assembly immediately discarded amending the Articles, crafting in their stead a brilliant Federal system of checks and balances over three months of debate. The Federal Republic envisioned by the framers delegates specific, limited powers to the Federal Government, with authority outside those specific powers devolving to the states.

Even at the convention, there was concern about the larger, more populous states governing at the expense of the smaller ones. The “Connecticut Compromise” solved the problem, creating a bicameral legislature with proportional representation in the lower house (House of Representatives) and equal representation of the states themselves in the upper house (Senate).

The Constitution was signed by 38 of 41 delegates on September 17, 1787. As dictated by Article VII, the document would become binding following ratifiication by nine of the 13 states.

Five states: Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut, ratified the document in quick succession. Some states objected to the new Constitution, especially Massachusetts, which wanted more protection for basic political rights such as freedom of speech, religion, and of the press. These wanted the document to specify, that those powers left undelegated to the Federal government, were reserved to the states.

A compromise was reached in February, 1788 whereby Massachusetts and other states would ratify the document, with the assurance that such amendments would be immediately proposed.

With these assurances, Massachusetts ratified the Constitution by a two-vote margin on this day in 1788, followed by Maryland and South Carolina. New Hampshire became the ninth state on June 21. The new Constitutional Government would take effect on March 4 of the following year.

On September 25, the first Congress adopted 12 amendments, sending them to the states for ratification.

The states got rid of the first two, so it is that the Congress’ original 3rd amendment became 1st, of what we now call the “Bill of Rights”. Today, the United States Constitution is the oldest written national constitution in operation, in the world.

It’s interesting to note the priorities of that first Congress, as expressed in their original 1st and 2nd amendments. The ones that were thrown out. The first had to do with proportional representation, and would have led us to a 6,000 member House of Representatives, instead of the 435 we currently have. The second most important thing in the world, judging by the priorities of that first Congress, was that any future Congress could not change their own salaries. Any such change could effect only future Congresses.

That original 2nd amendment, stating that “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened”, took effect in 1992 as the 27th amendment, following a ratification period stretching out 202 years, 7 months, and 12 days. One must not not be too hasty about these things.

February 3, 1943 Greater Love Hath No Man Than This

As the ship upended and went down by the bow, survivors floating nearby could see the four chaplains. With arms linked and leaning against the slanting deck, their voices offered prayers and sang hymns for the dead and for those about to die.

The Troop Transport USAT Dorchester sailed out of New York Harbor on January 23, 1943, carrying 904 service members, merchant seamen and civilian workers. They were headed for the the Army Command Base at Narsarsuaq in southern Greenland, part of a six-ship convoy designated SG-19, together with two merchant ships and escorted by the Coast Guard Cutters Comanche, Escanaba and Tampa.

Built as a coastal liner in 1926, Dorchester was anything but graceful, bouncing and shuddering her way through the rough seas of the North Atlantic.

German U-Boats had already sunk several ships in these waters. One of the Cutters detected a submarine late on February 2, flashing the light signal “we’re being followed”. Dorchester Captain Hans Danielson ordered his ship on high alert that night. Men were ordered to sleep in their clothes with their life jackets on, but many disregarded the order. It was too hot down there in the holds, and those life jackets were anything but comfortable.

Some of those off-duty tried to sleep that night, while others played cards or threw dice, well into the night. Nerves were understandably on edge, especially among new recruits, as four Army chaplains passed among them with words of encouragement.

They were the Jewish rabbi Alexander David Goode, the Catholic priest John Patrick Washington, the Reformed Church in America (RCA) minister Clark Vandersail Poling, and the Methodist minister George Lansing Fox.

At 12:55am on February 3rd, the German submarine U-223 fired a spread of three torpedoes. One struck Dorchester amidships, deep below the water line. A hundred or more were killed in the blast, or in the clouds of steam and ammonia vapor billowing from ruptured boilers. Suddenly pitched into darkness, untold numbers were trapped below decks. With boiler power lost, there was no longer enough steam to blow the full 6 whistle signal to abandon ship, while loss of power prevented a radio distress signal. For reasons not entirely clear, there never were any signal flares.

Those who could escape scrambled onto the deck, injured, disoriented, many still in their underwear as they emerged into the cold and darkness.

The four chaplains must have been a welcome sight, guiding the disoriented and the wounded, offering prayers and words of courage. They opened a storage locker and handed out life preservers, until there were no more. “Padre,” said one young soldier, “I’ve lost my life jacket and I can’t swim!” Witnesses differ as to which of the four it was who gave this man his life jacket, but they all followed suit. One survivor, John Ladd, said “It was the finest thing I have seen or hope to see this side of heaven.” Rabbi Goode gave his gloves to Petty Officer John Mahoney, saying “Never mind. I have two pairs”. It was only later that Mahoney realized, Rabbi Goode intended to stay with the ship.

Dorchester was listing hard to starboard and taking on water fast, with only 20 minutes to live. Port side lifeboats were inoperable due to the ship’s angle. Men jumped across the void into those on the starboard side, overcrowding them to the point of capsize. Only two of fourteen lifeboats launched successfully.

Private William Bednar found himself floating in 34° water, surrounded by dead bodies and debris. “I could hear men crying, pleading, praying,” he recalled. “I could also hear the chaplains preaching courage. Their voices were the only thing that kept me going.”

Rushing back to the scene, coast guard cutters found themselves in a sea of bobbing red lights, the water-activated emergency strobe lights of individual life jackets. Most marked the location of corpses. Of the 904 on board, the Coast Guard plucked 230 from the water, alive.

The United States Congress attempted to confer the Medal of Honor on the four chaplains for their selfless act of courage, but strict requirements for “heroism under fire” prevented it from doing so. Congress authorized a one time, posthumous “Chaplain’s Medal for Heroism”, awarded to the next of kin by Secretary of the Army Wilber M. Brucker at Fort Myer, Virginia on January 18, 1961.

John 15:13 says “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”. Rabbi Goode did not call out for a Jew when he gave away his only hope for survival, Father Washington did not ask for a Catholic. Neither minister Fox nor Poling asked for a Protestant. Each gave his life jacket to the nearest man.

Carl Sandburg once said that “Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure whether they have it until the test comes.” If I were ever so tested, I hope that I would prove myself half the man, as any of those four chaplains.

February 2, 1887 Groundhog Day

Midway between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox and well before the first crocus of spring has peered out across the frozen tundra, there is a moment of insanity which helps those of us living in northern climes get through to that brief, blessed moment of warmth when the mosquitoes once again have their way with us.

Here on sunny Cape Cod, there is a joke about the four seasons. We have “Almost Winter”, “Winter”, “Still Winter” and “Bridge Construction”.

The ancient Romans observed their mid-season festival on February 5, the pagan Irish on February 1. For Christians, it was February 2, Candlemas day, a Christian holiday celebrating the ritual purification of Mary. For reasons not entirely clear, early Christians believed that there would be six more weeks of winter if the sun came out on Candlemas Day.

Clergy would bless and distribute candles needed for winter, their length representing how long and cold the winter was expected to be. Germans expanded on the idea by selecting an animal, a hedgehog, as a means of predicting weather. Once a suitable number of Germans had come to America, they switched over to a more local rodent: Marmota monax. The common Groundhog.

Groundhogs hibernate for the winter, an ability held in great envy by some people I know. During that time, their heart rate drops from 80 beats per minute to 5, and they live off their stored body fat. Another ability some of us would appreciate, very much.

The male couldn’t care less about the weather. He comes out of his burrow in February, in search of a date. If uninterrupted, he will fulfill his groundhog mission of love and return to earth, not coming out for good until sometime in March.

But then there is the amorous woodchuck’s worst nightmare in a top hat. The groundhog hunter.

In 1887, there was a group of groundhog hunters in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, imaginatively calling themselves the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club. One of them, a newspaper editor, declared on February 2, 1887, that their groundhog “Phil” was the only True weather forecasting rodent.

There are those who would dispute the Gobbler’s Knob crowd and their claims to Punxsutawney Phil’s weather forecasting prowess. Alabama has “Birmingham Bill”, and Canada has Shubenacadie Sam. New York can’t seem to decide between Staten Island Chuck and New York City’s very own official groundhog, “Pothole Pete”. North Carolinians look to “Queen Charlotte” and “Sir Walter Wally”, and Georgia folks can take their choice between “Gus”, and “General Beauregard Lee”.

Since the eponymously named Bill Murray film from 1993, nothing seems to rise to the appropriate level of insanity, more than Groundhog Day drinking games. For the seasoned Groundhog enthusiast, “beer breakfasts” welcome the end of winter, across the fruited plain. If you’re in the Quaker state, you can attend the Groundhog day “Hawaiian Shirt Beer Breakfast”, at Philadelphia’s own Grey Lodge Public House. If you’re in Des Moines, stop by the The High Life Lounge, where free Miller High Life beers will be served from 6am, to eleven. And for the late sleeper, there is the annual screening of the Bill Murray Masterpiece, at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Beer Dinner.

Fun fact: Bill Murray was bitten, not once but twice, by the groundhog used on the set.

It appears that there is no word for groundhog in Arabic, accounts of this day in the Arab press translate the word as جرذ الأرض. “Ground Rat”. I was pretty excited to learn that before al Jazeera gets carted off, toe tag first.

If anyone were to bend down and ask Mr. Ground Rat his considered opinion on the matter, he would probably cast a pox on all their houses. It’s been a long winter. Mr. Ground Rat’s all dressed up for a date. He has other things on his mind.

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February 1, 1968 A Moment in Time

Eddie Adams won his Pulitzer in 1969, but came to regret that he had ever taken the picture. Years later he wrote in Time Magazine. ‘The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths”.

During WW2, the average infantry soldier saw 40 days of combat, in 4 years. In Vietnam, the average combat infantryman saw 240 days of combat, in a year.

By 1967, the Johnson administration was coming under increasing criticism, for what many of the American public saw as an endless and pointless stalemate in Vietnam.

Opinion polls revealed an increasing percentage believed it was a mistake to send more troops into Vietnam, their number rising from 25% in 1965, to 45% by December, 1967.

The Johnson administration responded with a “success offensive”, emphasizing “kill ratios” and “body counts” of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. Vice President Hubert Humphrey stated on NBC’s Today show that November, that “We are on the offensive. Territory is being gained. We are making steady progress.”

In Communist North Vietnam, the massive battlefield losses of 1966-’67 combined with the economic devastation wrought by US Aerial bombing, causing moderate factions to push for peaceful coexistence with the south. More radical factions favoring military reunification on the Indochina peninsula, needed to throw a “hail Mary” pass. Plans for a winter/spring offensive began, in early 1967. By the New Year, some 80,000 Communist fighters had quietly infiltrated the length and breadth of South Vietnam.

One of the largest military operations of the war launched on January 30, 1968, coinciding with the Tết holiday, the Vietnamese New Year. In the first wave of attacks, North Vietnamese troops and Viet Cong Guerillas struck over 100 cities and towns, including Saigon, the South Vietnamese capitol.

Initially taken off-guard, US and South Vietnamese forces regrouped and beat back the attacks, inflicting heavy losses on North Vietnamese forces. The month-long battle for Huế (“Hway”) uncovered the massacre of as many as 6,000 South Vietnamese by Communist forces, 5-10% of the entire city. Fighting continued for over two months at the US combat base at Khe Sanh.

While the Tết offensive was a military defeat for the forces of North Vietnam, the political effects on the American public, were profound. Support for the war effort plummeted, leading to demonstrations. Jeers could be heard in the streets. “Hey! Hey! LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?”

Lyndon Johnson’s Presidency, was finished. The following month, Johnson appeared before the nation in a televised address, saying “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

In the early morning darkness of February 1, 1968, Nguyễn Văn Lém led a Viet Cong sabotage unit in an assault on the Armor base in Go Vap. After taking control of the camp, Nguyễn arrested Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Tuan with his family, demanding that the officer show his guerillas how to drive tanks. The officer refused, and the Viet Cong slit his throat, along with those of his wife and six children, and his 80-year-old mother.

The only survivor was a grievously injured 10-year-old boy.

Nguyễn was captured later that morning, near the mass grave of 34 civilians. He said he was “proud” to have carried out orders to kill them.

AP photographer Eddie Adams was out on the street with NBC News television cameraman Võ Sửu, looking for something interesting. The pair saw a group of South Vietnamese soldiers dragging what appeared to be an ordinary man into the road, and filmed the event.

Adams “…followed the three of them as they walked towards us, making an occasional picture. When they were close – maybe five feet away – the soldiers stopped and backed away. I saw a man walk into my camera viewfinder from the left. He took a pistol out of his holster and raised it. I had no idea he would shoot. It was common to hold a pistol to the head of prisoners during questioning. So I prepared to make that picture – the threat, the interrogation. But it didn’t happen. The man just pulled a pistol out of his holster, raised it to the VC’s head and shot him in the temple. I made a picture at the same time.”

The man with the pistol was Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, Chief of the national police. Loan had personally witnessed the murder of one of his officers, along with the man’s wife and three small children.

Nguyễn Văn Lém was guilty of major war crimes. He was out of uniform and not involved in combat, when he murdered the General’s own subordinates and their families. The man was a war criminal and terrorist with no protections under the Geneva Conventions, legally eligible for summary execution.

Loan drew his .38 Special Smith & Wesson “Bodyguard” revolver and fired. The execution was barely a blip on his radar screen.

General Nguyễn was a devoted Patriot and South Vietnamese Nationalist. An accomplished pilot who led an airstrike on Việt Cộng forces at Bo Duc in 1967, Loan was loved and admired by his soldiers.

In February 1968, hard fighting yet remained to retake the capitol. As always, Nguyễn Ngọc Loan was leading from the front, when a machine gun burst tore into his leg.

Meanwhile, Adams’ “Saigon Execution” photograph and Võ’s footage made their way into countless papers and news broadcasts. Stripped of context, General Nguyễn came to be seen as a “bloodthirsty sadist”, the Viet Cong terrorist his “innocent victim”.

di_05292 — Composite sequence published by the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History of the University of Texas, at Austin.

Adams was well on his way to winning a Pulitzer prize for that photograph, while an already impassioned anti-war movement, lost the power of reason.

The political outcry reached all the way to Australia, where General Nguyễn was recuperating from his amputation. An Australian hospital refused him treatment, and he traveled to America, to recover.

American politics looked inward in the years to come, as the Nixon administration sought the “Vietnamization” of the war. By January 1973, direct US involvement in the war, had come to an end.

Military aid to South Vietnam was $2.8 billion in fiscal year 1973. The US Congress placed a Billion dollar ceiling on the number the following year, cutting that to $300 million, in 1975. The Republic of Vietnam collapsed, some fifty-five days later.

d182757927d3e71bd2be3c3ce011ff94 — Scenes from the final evacuation of Saigon, April, 1975

General Nguyễn was forced to flee the country he had served. American immigration authorities sought deportation on his arrival, in part because of Eddie Adams’ picture. The photographer was recruited to testify against the General, but Adams spoke on his behalf.

Nguyễn was permitted to stay. He and his wife opened a pizza shop in the Rolling Valley Mall of Virginia, “Les Trois Continents”. The restaurant was a success for a time, until word got out about the owner’s identity. Knowing nothing about Nguyễn except for that image, locals began to make trouble. Business plummeted as the owner was assaulted in his own restaurant, his life threatened.

The last time Adams visited Nguyễn’s pizza parlor, the words “We know who you are, fucker“, were scrawled across a toilet wall.

The couple was forced to close the restaurant in 1991. Nguyễn Ngọc Loan died of cancer, seven years later.

Eddie Adams won his Pulitzer in 1969, but came to regret that he had ever taken the picture. Years later he wrote in Time Magazine. ‘The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn’t say was, “What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?”‘

Before Nguyễn died, Adams apologized to the General and his family, for what that image had done to the man’s reputation. “The guy was a hero”, he said, after his death. “America should be crying. I just hate to see him go this way, without people knowing anything about him.”

January 31, 1945 Deserter

“They’re not shooting me for deserting the United States Army”, he said, “thousands of guys have done that. They just need to make an example out of somebody and I’m it because I’m an ex-con”.

When Eddie Slovik was little, his neighbors must have considered him a bad kid. His first arrest came at the age of 12, when he and some friends were caught stealing brass from a foundry. There were other episodes between 1932 and ’37: petty theft, breaking & entering, and disturbing the peace. In 1939 he was sent to prison, for stealing a car.

Edward Donald “Eddie” Slovik was paroled in 1942, his criminal record making him 4F. “Registrant not acceptable for military service”. He took a job at the Montella Plumbing and Heating company in Dearborn, Michigan, where he met bookkeeper Antoinette Wisniewski, the woman who would later become his wife.

There they might have ridden out WWII, but the war was consuming manpower at a rate unprecedented in history. Shortly after the couple’s first anniversary, Slovik was re-classified 1A, fit for service, and drafted into the Army. Arriving in France on August 20, 1944, he was part of a 12-man replacement detachment, assigned to Company G of the 109th Infantry Regiment, US 28th Infantry Division.

Slovik and a buddy from basic training, Private John Tankey, became separated from their detachment during an artillery attack, and spent the next six weeks with Canadian MPs. It was around this time that Private Slovik decided he “wasn’t cut out for combat”.

The rapid movement of the army during this period caused difficulty for many replacements, in finding their units. Edward Slovik and John Tankey finally caught up with the 109th on October 7. The following day, Slovik asked his company commander Captain Ralph Grotte for reassignment to a rear unit, saying he was “too scared” to be part of a rifle company. Grotte refused, confirming that, were he to run away, such an act would constitute desertion.

That, he did. Eddie Slovik deserted his unit on October 9, despite Private Tankey’s protestations that he should stay. “My mind is made up”, he said. Slovik walked several miles until he found an enlisted cook, to whom he presented the following note.

“I, Pvt. Eddie D. Slovik, 36896415, confess to the desertion of the United States Army. At the time of my desertion we were in Albuff [Elbeuf] in France. I came to Albuff as a replacement. They were shelling the town and we were told to dig in for the night. The following morning they were shelling us again. I was so scared, nerves and trembling, that at the time the other replacements moved out, I couldn’t move. I stayed there in my fox hole till it was quiet and I was able to move. I then walked into town. Not seeing any of our troops, so I stayed over night at a French hospital. The next morning I turned myself over to the Canadian Provost Corp. After being with them six weeks I was turned over to American M.P. They turned me loose. I told my commanding officer my story. I said that if I had to go out there again I’d run away. He said there was nothing he could do for me so I ran away again AND I’LL RUN AWAY AGAIN IF I HAVE TO GO OUT THERE. — Signed Pvt. Eddie D. Slovik A.S.N. 36896415”.

Slovik was repeatedly ordered to tear up the note and rejoin his unit, and there would be no consequences. Each time, he refused. The stockade didn’t scare him. He’d been in prison before, and it was better than the front lines. Beside that, he was already an ex-con. A dishonorable discharge was hardly going to change anything, in a life he expected to be filled with manual labor. “I’ve made up my mind”, he said. “I’ll take my court martial”.

Finally, instructed to write a second note on the back of the first acknowledging the legal consequences of his actions, Eddie Slovik was taken into custody.

1.7 million courts-martial were held during WWII, 1/3rd of all the criminal cases tried in the United States during the same period. The death penalty was rarely imposed. When it was, it was almost always in cases of rape or murder.

2,864 US Army personnel were tried for desertion between January 1942 and June 1948. Courts-martial handed down death sentences to 49 of them, including Eddie Slovik. Division commander Major General Norman Cota approved the sentence. “Given the situation as I knew it in November, 1944,” Cota said, “I thought it was my duty to this country to approve that sentence. If I hadn’t approved it–if I had let Slovik accomplish his purpose–I don’t know how I could have gone up to the line and looked a good soldier in the face.”

On December 9, Slovik wrote to Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, pleading for clemency. Desertion was a systemic problem at this time. Particularly after the surprise German offensive coming out of the frozen Ardennes Forest on December 16, an action that went into history as the Battle of the Bulge. Eisenhower approved the execution order on December 23, believing it to be the only way to discourage further desertions.

72541363 — Movie poster – “The Execution of Private Slovik”

His uniform stripped of all insignia with an army blanket draped over his shoulders, Slovik was brought to the place of execution near the Vosges Mountains of eastern France. “They’re not shooting me for deserting the United States Army”, he said, “thousands of guys have done that. They just need to make an example out of somebody and I’m it because I’m an ex-con. I used to steal things when I was a kid, and that’s what they are shooting me for. They’re shooting me for the bread and chewing gum I stole when I was 12 years old.”

Army Chaplain Father Carl Patrick Cummings said, “Eddie, when you get up there, say a little prayer for me.” Slovik said, “Okay, Father. I’ll pray that you don’t follow me too soon”. Those were his last words. A soldier placed the black hood over his head. The execution was carried out by firing squad. It was 10:04am local time, January 31, 1945.

Edward Donald Slovik was buried in Plot E of the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery, his marker bearing a number instead of his name. Antoinette Slovik received a telegram informing her that her husband had died in the European Theater of war, and a letter instructing her to return a $55 allotment check. She would not learn about the execution for nine years.

grave2 — “Bernard Calka, a former Macomb County commissioner, fought to have Pvt. Eddie Slovik’s remains brought back from France to be reburied next to his wife” Detroit News Blog

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan ordered the repatriation of Slovik’s remains. He was re-interred at Detroit’s Woodmere Cemetery next to Antoinette, who had gone to her final rest eight years earlier.

In all theaters of WWII, the United States military executed 102 of its own, almost always for the unprovoked rape and/or murder of civilians. From the Civil War to this day, Eddie Slovik’s death sentence remains the only one ever carried out for the crime of desertion. At least one member of the tribunal which condemned him to death, would come to see it as a miscarriage of justice.

Nick Gozik of Pittsburg passed away in 2015, at the age of 95. He was there in 1945, a fellow soldier called to witness the execution. “Justice or legal murder”, he said, “I don’t know, but I want you to know I think he was the bravest man in that courtyard that day…All I could see was a young soldier, blond-haired, walking as straight as a soldier ever walked. I thought he was the bravest soldier I ever saw.”

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