Sunday Book Review #68 – Grant’s Final Victory

The first book in my to-do queue list this week was On What Matters, a book with in-depth discussions of various philosophical issues.  The book’s table of contents was irresistible – rationality, morality, values, universal laws, etc.  A few hours into the book, however, I realized that it contained much more depth than I was able to handle, and I pushed it aside.  Part of the ease in doing this probably had to do with the next book in queue – Grant’s Final Victory by Charles Bracelen Flood.  After recently reading and greatly enjoying Bill O’Reilly’s book on Lincoln and Glenn Beck’s book on Washington, the Grant book promised to be a lot lighter than a dense 500-page book on philosophy.

Grant’s Final Victory was incredibly light.  Although I don’t know enough about Grant to challenge the author’s credibility, I am highly skeptical that Grant walked on water like this book suggests he did.  The book focuses on the last year of Grant’s life, when he was afflicted with tongue and throat cancer shortly after his betrayal by two financial criminals had left him penniless.  That story arch reminds me of Texas governor John Connally. 

Like Connally, Grant faced his financial and health crisis with courage and dignity.  During his last year, while under great pain, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which provided for his family’s financial salvation and is sometimes recognized as one of the best American memoirs every written.  As Grant himself sardonically noted shortly before he died, his writing skills had greatly exceeded expectations, just as his soldiering and political skills had done.      

But the book does not focus exclusively on the final year of Grant’s life.  Instead it often refers back to earlier times in Grant’s life.  And although it does not completely over-look Grant’s failures, such as his early military-career setbacks or his dismal business career just prior to the Civil War, these items are given only a few sentences.  Even the financial incident that left him penniless after the presidency is depicted as Grant having reasonable faith in two close associates who betrayed him.  By contrast, most facts in the book suggest that Grant was nearly a saint with respect to his character. 

Grant’s Final Victory was an enjoyable read, but I suspect the author did as much spinning as Beck and O’Reilly do.

 

 

 

Sunday Book Review #63 – Great Soul, Mahatma Gandhi and his struggle with India, by Joseph Lelyveld

One of my best friends emigrated from India to America when she was 13-years old.  Because of my affection for her, I have read some Indian history and a biography of the nation’s first president, Jawaharlal Nehru.  But I didn’t really know much about the “father of India,” so when this new biography on Mahatma Gandhi came out, I decided to read it. 

I’m not an expert on types of biographies, but my impression is that Great Soul is a psychological biography.  As the author notes:

• “This is not intended to be a retelling of the standard Gandhi narrative.  I merely touch on or leave out crucial periods and episodes – Gandhi’s childhood…., his coming-of-age in nearly three formative years in London, his later interactions with British officials on three continents, the political ins and outs of the movement, the details and context of his seventeen fasts – in order to hew in this essay to a specific narrative that I’ve chosen.  These have to do with Gandhi the social reformer, with his evolving sense of his consistency and social vision, a narrative that’s usually subordinated to that of the struggle for independence.”

Gandhi’s “evolving sense of his consistency and social vision” is what most impressed me.  Like Nelson Mandela in Africa, Gandhi was treated almost like a god by his constituents, yet he remained humble about himself and his views.  His continually evolving positions reminded me of the famous quote from philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson:

• “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.  With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.  He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.  Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.”

Incidentally, Gandhi’s first name was actually Mohandas; “Mahatma” is an honorific Hinduism that literally means “great soul.”  Traditionally, it is given to a person regarded with reverence or loving respect.  Of course, it’s only coincidental that Emerson referred to a “great soul” in this quote that he authored in the 1800s before Gandhi was born. 

Gandhi once established an ashram (a religious retreat for Hindus) with the following rules:

• Celibacy (even if married);
• Minimal eating (only enough to sustain the body);
• Non-possession of material things (if you don’t need a chair, don’t use one); 
• Vow against untouchability (and eventually the entire caste system); and
• Take up spinning (to become self-sufficient and financially independent, a precursor to micro-loans).

The cornerstone of Gandhi’s philosophy is called “swaraj,” a term that generally means self-governance or self-rule.  According to Gandhi, swaraj would have four pillars – (1) forming an alliance of Muslims and Hindus, (2) wiping out untouchability (the so-called Dalits), (3) accepting the discipline of nonviolence as more than a tactic, rather as a way of life, and (4) promoting spinning as self-sustaining cottage industries.

Because of Gandhi’s constantly evolving positions, he often frustrated his allies and disciples because they couldn’t predict his course.  Among the most frustrated were not only his political heir who became India’s first president, Jawaharlal Nehru, but also Bhimrao Ambedkar, who was the modern leader of the untouchable Dalits, and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the first president and “father of Pakistan.”

India finally achieved self-governance from Great Britain in 1947, but the achievement was diminished because the nation was partitioned into two states – Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan.  Although untouchability and discrimination based on caste were prohibited in 1950 by India’s new constitution, some of the country’s caste system appears to have survived to this day, especially with respect to marriage between classes.  Untouchable Dalits comprise almost 20% of India’s population and workforce and are affirmatively protected by law. 

Following India’s independence, Gandhi continued to work for an accommodation of Hindus and Muslims, and ironically he was assassinated in 1948 by a Hindu who thought Gandhi was too pro-Muslim.

p.s., toward the end of his life (at age 80), Gandhi became concerned when he would occasionally get an erection or have a wet dream, so he decided to subject himself to a test of  brahmacharya – the practice of sexual continence or celibacy.  According to Wikipedia, “At its most basic level, brahmacharya means abstinence from sexual intercourse, by eight types of sexual contact. For a male practitioner of Buddhist, Jain or Hindu monasticism, it refers more specifically to refraining from voluntary loss of semen. At more subtle levels, brahmacharya includes greater physical and mental sexual discipline, until ultimately the practitioner experiences complete absence of sexual desire despite the most alluring stimuli.”  To test himself, Gandhi took on as his personal assistant a nephew’s young daughter, Manu Gandhi.  In addition to attending to his daily personal needs, including a one-hour daily massage, Manu slept naked with Gandhi and cuddled with him.  Apparently, Gandhi passed the test, but he decided to continue testing himself up to his death. 

p.s., my Indian best-friend often scolded me for incorrectly using Hindi as a generic adjective for things associated with the Hindu religion or culture.  According to her, Hindi should be used only when referring to the language.  In all other contexts, use the adjective Hindu.

Where is Lincoln when you need him?

I have been totally preoccupied the past few days with Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals.  This Lincoln biography was suggested to me by one of my best friends, who went to law school with me and is now studying Lincoln while pursuing a doctorate at UT-Austin.  The subject of his dissertation is whether Lee and Davis should have been tried for treason.

In previous discussions with my Austin friend, I have expressed skepticism about the greatness of Lincoln. All I knew was that he refused to let the Southern states leave the Union (something I disagree with) and that he was an ineffective commander in chief who took four years to defeat a much weaker opponent.  My Austin friend suggested that I dig a little deeper, and when I asked him for the title of a book to read, he said, Team of Rivals.

Although Team of Rivals is 750 pages long, it is not a comprehensive biography.  Rather, as suggested by its subtitle, “The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” it focuses on Lincoln’s unsurpassed ability to deal with conflicting demands and still achieve his objectives.  Lincoln’s presidential objectives were simple – namely, to keep the Union together and to stop the spread of slavery beyond the Southern states – and the author makes a convincing argument that no other person could have done that.  A lesser politician would have either lost the Union or allowed the spread of slavery westward.

Unfortunately, Lincoln’s assassination just as the Civil War was ending deprived America of those skills that were sorely during the Reconstruction, and you can’t avoid wondering how much better off America would have been if Lincoln had served four more years.

Which brings me to the title of this entry – Where’s Lincoln when you need him?  In Washington today, the parties are behaving more like Union and the Confederacy leading up to the Civil War.  First Boehner and Obama failed, and now that the Super Committee is giving up, you can’t avoid wondering whether a person with Lincoln’s political skills could save America from its impending economic disaster.  Lincoln was a master of keeping the middle together despite the competing demands from the abolitionist Republicans and the appeasing Democrats/Whigs.  The situation today in Washington certainly has a large middle ground for resolving our current problem, but no politician seems to have the ability to control the radicals who are pulling us apart.  Perhaps the 2012 election will bring us our Lincoln.

 

 

 

 

Chris Matthews’ and the Kennedy quote

Some afternoons, I like to get a head start on an evening filled with listening to political talk shows.  I can do that by listening to Chris Matthews’ show called Hardball on MSNBC at 4pm.  Although Matthews is reputed to be less far-left than the other hosts in the MSNBC stable, I’ve found him to be less rational and more emotional than the others.

He comes across as a northestern working-class Catholic, and his biography includes two years in the Peace Corps, running unsuccessfully from Congress from PA before he was 30, and a series of jobs for Washington politicians before he “made a commitment to covering politics in a liberal way, starting in 1987, and [he is] honoring that commitment, not getting involved in it.”  Sounds like Jon Stewart.

For the past couple of weeks, Matthews has been appearing on a lot of other shows hawking his new book on John Kennedy titled Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero.  Not surprisingly, Matthews idolizes Kennedy, who happened to be Catholic and implemented the Peace Corp that Matthews served in.  Talk-show hosts, of course, don’t limit their book hawking to other shows.  They also spend a significant amount of time on their show peddling their book.  O’Reilly, Hannity, and Beck are particularly egregious about this.

Today, Matthews peddled his Kennedy book on Hardball by showing a clip of his appearance last night on Letterman’s Tonight Show.  The clip has Matthews bragging about his painstaking research that led to a significant literay revelation – i.e., the source of Kennedy’s most famous line in his inaugural address:

• “And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

According to Matthews, Kennedy had attended Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut, and its headmaster during Kennedy’s time had a notebook whose first page contained an essay by a Harvard dean that the headmaster read for his chapel sermons.  The last line in the essay read:

• “As has often been said, the youth who loves his Alma Mater will always ask not ‘What can she do for me?’ but ‘What can I do for her.’”

While researching this matter, I stumbled across a posting in January by Matthews in the Huffington Post bragging about this literary discovery.  The reason I was researching the quote was that I remembered reading a long time ago that Kennedy had borrowed the phrase from someone else, but I didn’t recall it being a Harvard dean.

Sure enough, according to various sources on the internet, the quote originated with Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese American poet and writer in the early 20^th century who is famous for writing The Prophet.  He also wrote the following line in a 1925 article titled, “The New Frontier.”

• “Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert.”

Although there are multiple sources noting that Kennedy’s inaugural line was borrowed from a line in Gibran’s article, I haven’t seen any mention that Kennedy had already put the title of the article to significant use.  Specifically, in his 1960 acceptance speech as follows, Kennedy used the phrase, “New Frontier”:

• “[W]e stand today on the edge of a New Frontier -— the frontier of the 1960′s, the frontier of unknown opportunities and perils, the frontier of unfilled hopes and unfilled threats. … Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus.”

The phrase “New Frontier” was subsequently developed into a label for the Kennedy administration’s domestic and foreign programs.  Let’s hope Gibran has no pride in authorship.  Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

Jackie’s oral history of the Kennedy presidency

In two days, Jackie Kennedy’s 1964 oral history of the Kennedy presidency will be released.  Based on an article in the NY Times, the history promises to be a must-read book for us baby boomers:

• “The transcript and recording, obtained by The New York Times, offer an extraordinary immersion in the thoughts and feelings of one of the most enigmatic figures of the second half of the 20th century — the woman who, as much as anyone, helped shape a heroic narrative of the Kennedy years. Though the interviews seem unlikely to redraw the contours of Mr. Kennedy or his presidency, they are packed with intimate observations and insights of the sort that historians treasure.”

The preceding passage pinpoints an irony of the Kennedy presidency – i.e., although Jackie had little substantive influence on the presidency, she played a huge role in creating the image of Camelot.  If history comes to view her as a catty snob, then Camelot may be tarnished.

Jackie’s daughter Caroline seems to recognize that this history does not put Jackie in a good light, and she explains that her mother was only 34 and in “the extreme stages of grief.”  To her credit, Caroline authorized the publication because “it would be a disservice, she said, to allow her mother’s perspective to be absent from the public and scholarly debate.”

According to the NY Times article, Jackie is highly critical of many famous people who she encountered, but is invariably generous toward her husband Jack, other than noting he had a “civilized side” and “sort of a crude side.”  This is consistent with the prissy image that Jackie she projected.  When Jackie claimed to get her political opinions from her husband, historian Michael Beschloss, who wrote the book’s introduction, has suggested – “I would take that with a warehouse of salt.”

Full disclosure – I’ve always been a Nixon man, and still have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about the Kennedy Camelot.  To me, Jackie was never much more than the Paris Hilton of her time.

 

p.s., an article in USA Today, provided some additional background on Jackie’s negative comments about Martin Luther King:

• “I just can’t see a picture of Martin Luther King without thinking, you know, that man’s terrible.”  She said the president “told me of a tape that the FBI had of Martin Luther King when he was here for the Freedom March. And he said this with no bitterness or anything, how he was calling up all these girls and arranging for a party of men and women, I mean, sort of an orgy in the hotel, and everything.”  Caroline Kennedy, in an interview with ABC, blames those remarks on “the poisonous activities” of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and says, “If you asked her what she thought of Martin Luther King overall — I mean she admired him tremendously.”

As I said previously, Caroline Kennedy deserves credit for releasing this politically incorrect information, but this attempt to spin-control history is lame.

George Friedman on the future of Africa

I recently blogged about The Next Decade, a book by George Friedman that attempts to predict the major geopolitical events of the next ten years.    In the book, Friedman characterized America as an empire and examined trouble-spots that had the potential to affect that empire.  Although Africa is clearly a trouble-spot, Friedman suggested that it had no potential to affect America and therefore should not distract us.  In fact, the Africa chapter was titled, “Africa: A Place to Leave Alone.”

Based on Friedman’s suggestion, my review of The Next Decade did not include a discussion of Africa, but upon further reflection I decided that Friedman made several interesting insights about Africa that I wanted to memorialize in my blog:

1. A nation is group of people with shared values, identity, and interests; whereas a state is the established government in an area.
2. Most regions of the world are divided into nation-states.
3. Occasionally, a nation is governed by multiple states (the Koreas) or a state governs multiple nations (the Soviet Union), but generally the boundaries of the nation and state should coincide.
4. Outside of Egypt, the nation/state boundaries in Africa do not coincide.  Rather, the states of Africa are a reflection of the administrative boundaries established by the European empires that have now vacated the continent.
5. Chaos will remain in Africa until power is consolidated in states that govern coherent nations.
6. There are three possibilities for Africa’s future:

• Continued global charity, which may ameliorate some local problems, but it “enhances corruption among both recipients and donors…. Truth be known, few donors really believe that the aid they provide solves the problems.”
• “Reappearance of a foreign imperialism that will create some foundation for stable life, but this is not likely.”
• “Several generations of warfare, out of which will grow a continent where nations are forged into states with legitimacy.  As harsh as this may sound, nations are born in conflict, and it is through the experience of war that people gain a sense of shared fate.”

Friedman provides a dismal prognosis for Africa because the third possibility is the most likely to occur: “Africa’s wars cannot be prevented, and they would have happened even if there had never been foreign imperialism.  Indeed, they were being fought when imperialism interrupted them.  Nation building does not take place at World Bank meetings or during the building of schools by foreign military engineers, because actual nations are built in blood.  The map of Africa must be redrawn, but not by a committee of thoughtful and helpful people sitting in a conference room.  What will happen, in due course, is that Africa will sort itself out into a small number of major powers and a large number of lesser ones.  These will provide the framework for economic development and, over generations, create nations that might become global powers, but not at a pace that affects the next generation.”

Despite this dismal prognosis, Friedman suggests that America should continue sending aid to Africa for the good will that it creates with other countries – “The United States, like all nations, is brutally self-interested.  But there is value in not appearing that was, and some value in being liked and admired, as long as being liked isn’t mistaken for the primary goal….  Again, the aid itself will not solve Africa’s
problems, but it might ameliorate some of them, at least for a time….  But if doing some good merely convinces Europe to send more troops to the next U.S. intervention, it will be a worthwhile investment.”

A special relationship with Cadel Evans

An exciting Tour de France concluded today, with Australian Cadel Evans winning the yellow jersey by having an outstanding time trial in the penultimate stage of the three-week event.  As the time trial unfolded, I realized that I was rooting for Evans to prevail over the two German brothers (Frank and Andy Scheck) who were ahead of him.

The thought occurred to me – my heritage is German, so why was I rooting for an Australian to defeat the Germans?  My heritage is also Norwegian, so why wasn’t I rooting for Thor Hushovd, the so-called God of Thunder?

Upon reflection, I concluded that I am thoroughly assimilated into America and place little stock with my personal heritage.  I believe that America and the British commonwealth have what Winston Churchill called a “special relationship” based on shared history, culture, language, and values, and, all other things equal, that relationship causes me to root for an Australian over a German or Norwegian.

A cross-country trek

A friend of mine, Barbie Rojas, recently completed a cross-country bike ride across America.  She did one-third of the ride each summer during a three-week vacation – starting one year in San Diego, the next in Albuquerque, and the last in Springfield, IL to Boston.  About six hours and 80 miles of riding every day – wow.

Shortly after Barbie finished her ride, I teased her by sending her a news article about a cross-country ride – The Race Across America – that didn’t include stopping for sleep.   The winner finished the 3000-mile route in less than 9 days – eight days, eight hours, and six minutes to be precise – and that total included eight hours of sleep.  That is incomprehensible.

Today, as I was performing my estimable 19-mile bike ride, I wondered how today’s bike riders would stack up alongside yesterday’s horse riders.  I remembered a TV show called “The Pony Express,” and it occurred to me that I could compare their cross-country times.  I guessed that people on bikes are faster than men on horses.

According to Wikipedia, the Pony Express route extended 1900 miles from St. Joseph’s, MO to Sacramento, CA, and that distance was traveled in less than 10 days, or almost 200 miles a day.  To accomplish this result, the Pony Express needed 120 riders (who weighed no more than 125 lbs.) 184 stations, and 400 horses.

Isn’t it amazing what one strong rider on a good bike and a smooth road can accomplish?

Was American immigration policy racist before 1965?

During the annual meeting of the State Bar of Texas, I attended a session that discussed American immigration policy.  One of the speakers, a professor from Rice University, charged that American immigration policy was shameful and racist prior to the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965.  I recalled that, until 1965, there was a quota on immigrants-per-country based on that country’s population in the U.S., but I didn’t think that amounted to racism.  The Rice professor didn’t elaborate on his charge, so I decided to verify.

I confirmed that the Immigration Act of 1924 included a National Origins Formula, which restricted immigration on the basis of existing proportions of the population.  The admitted goal of the Formula was to maintain the current ethnic and religious composition of the United States, and it had the effect of giving low quotas to Eastern and Southern Europe (Italians, Catholics, and Jews).  The law’s impact varied widely by country – e.g., immigration from Great Britain and Ireland fell 19%, while immigration from Italy fell more than 90%; of the 155,000 permitted entries, 86% were from Northern European countries, with Germany, Britain, and Ireland having the highest quotas.  Ironically, immigration from Latin America was not restricted.

The 1924 Act also limited immigration to persons eligible for naturalization, and since Asians were not eligible for naturalization under the Naturalization Act of 1790 (because they were non-white), they were effectively banned from immigration.  Chinese immigration had been prohibited since 1882.  The Asian ban was repealed in 1943, but only small numbers of Asian immigrants were authorized until the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965.  The Act of 1965 abolished the National Origins Formula and replaced it with a preference system that focused on immigrants’ skills and family relationships with citizens or residents of the U.S.

The preference system doesn’t sound very different from a National Origin Formula, although it would shift preference toward those nationalities that immigrated more recently.  Principal sponsor Senator Teddy Kennedy argued:

• “First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same…. Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset…. Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia…. In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think…. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.”

Upon signing the Act of 1965, President Johnson took a more high-minded tone:

• “This [old] system violates the basic principle of American democracy, the principle that values and rewards each man on the basis of his merit as a man. It has been un-American in the highest sense, because it has been untrue to the faith that brought thousands to these shores even before we were a country.”

Contrary to Kennedy’s assurances, according to Wikipedia, the 1965 Act “resulted in new immigration from non-European nations which changed the ethnic make-up of the United States.  Immigration doubled between 1965 and 1970, and doubled again between 1970 and 1990.  The most dramatic effect was to shift immigration from Europe to Asia and Central and South America.”

Based on this information, one can reasonably conclude that the National Origins Formula was not a racist policy.  In fact, I believe that admitting immigrants to ensure the ethnic and religious status quo makes more sense than limiting immigration to those with recent family connections in America.  Contrary to LBJ’s claim to taking the high road, I think the National Origins Formula allows for meritocractic selection, whereas the family-preference law provides for legalized nepotism.  Tell me which is more American.

There is no denying, however that the Chinese and Asian Exclusion Acts were racist, and those policies were not fully repealed until 1965.  Thus, the Rice professor correctly charged that American immigration policy was racist until 1965.  But he levied his charge during a discussion of illegal immigration from Mexico, and he might have elaborated that his charge applied to Asian immigration.

Kill All The Lawyers?

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,” is a line from Shakespeare’s “Henry VI,” and it is often quoted to suggest that lawyers have been a bane to civilization for hundreds of years.  But the NY Times has pointed out that the quote has been taken out of context:

• “Dick the Butcher was a follower of the rebel Jack Cade, who thought that if he disturbed law and order, he could become king. Shakespeare meant it as a compliment to attorneys and judges who instill justice in society.”

Regardless of what Shakespeare intended, there is no question that the prestige of the legal profession is not what it should be.  Proof – while surfing the net, I came across a fascinating 2006 article that ranked 23 professions in America:

1. Firefighters
2. Doctors
3. Nurses
4. Scientists
5. Teachers
6. Military officers
7. Police officers
8. Clergyman
9. Farmers
10. Engineers
11. Congressmen
12. Architects
13. Athletes
14. Lawyers
15. Entertainers
16. Accountants
17. Bankers
18. Journalists
19. Union leaders
20. Actors
21. Business executives
22. Stock brokers
23. Real estate agents

During the annual meeting of the State Bar of Texas, we were told by the new bar president that the major focus of his one-year tenure will be improving the stature of lawyers.  One of his tools for accomplishing that objective is a new video, which he demoed to us.  Unfortunately, the well-produced video is not yet available to the public.  Suffice it to say that the video describes great things done by a long list of great Americans and then closes each bio with the phrase, “and he/she was a lawyer.”  The video shows that the legal profession does more than chase ambulances or look for loopholes to crawl through, but rather it is the means for civilized people to pursue justice.

In one of the final sessions during the annual meeting, author H.W. Brands built on the theme of lawyer relevance.  According to Brands, lawyers in 19^th century America made two invaluable contributions:

1. The legal profession afforded talented people a means to rise socially and economically.  In other countries,
   mobility was severely limited because of aristocracy to those in the military and clergy.
2. The legal system, particularly the Northwest Ordinance, allowed territory to be added to the country as equals, not as subservient parts of an empire, and this policy was critical to the expansion of America.

I wish the president of the bar well in his efforts to increase the prestige with the legal profession.  But this is something that has to be marketed to the membership as much as to the public.  Historically, the profession has done much to make this country what it is today, but too many lawyers act unprofessionally.