Journal Notes

Okay, it’s not a tale about an Old West figure, but it is one that seems to fit the season in a way. A child was born to suffer and die for our sins. Pontius Pilate, the Bible tells us, played one of the crucial roles in the history of religion-he ordered the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. But the Bible never says what became of him afterward. Pilate, as procurator of Judea, ruled the region on behalf of the Roman Emperor Tiberius for ten years, from A.D. 26 to 36. He was considered a harsh ruler and incited trouble among his Jewish subjects from the start. After he installed symbols of the Emperor the Jews complained to Rome that the emblems represented false idols and got Pilate to remove them. He turned around and issued coins with pagan symbols, and caused riots when he took money from the Jewish temples to build and aqueduct. By the time the Jewish priests pressured him to execute Christ, some say, Pilate obliged them in order to avoid further confrontation. If so, his acquiescence didn’t last long. In A.D. 36 Pilate finally was recalled by Rome to answer charges of cruelty and oppression after he massacred a group of Samaritans. Pilate arrived in Rome to find the Emperor Tiberius dead and Caligula in his place. Soon after, according to the fourth-century writer Eusebius, Pilate committed suicide. It is unclear whether Caligula ordered Pilate to kill himself or whether Pilate did it in anticipation of the vicious Emperor’s sentence. There is a legend that Pilate’s body was thrown into the Rhone River, where he caused the same trouble. His body finally was put to rest, it is said, in a deep pool in the Alps. Among some early Christians, Pilate’s suicide was seen as repentance for his execution of Christ. In other news, be one of the first five people to request a copy of the Bedside Book of Bad Girls: Outlaw Women of the Midwest and the book shall be yours. For those you know who like true tales of western baddies this will make the perfect gift.

Of all the justices of the peace in the frontier west, the most publicized was Roy Bean, who held court in a rickety saloon in the arid chaparral country of southwestern Texas. Bean, of Kentucky birth, had been a trader in Mexico until settling at San Antonio. In the early 1800’s the Southern Pacific began building westward from the town, and Merchant Bean followed the construction camps to sell food, cigars, and liquor to the workers. Bean had little book learning, but his beard and his dignified appearance led some to bring their disputes to him for decision. Before long, with the nearest court nearly two hundred miles away, even the Texas Rangers began bringing prisoners to him for judgment. Late in 1882 the Rangers obtained his appointment as a justice of the peace. When the rail line was completed, Roy Bean settled at a dusty village named Langtry, near the Rio Grande and at the eastern edge of the mountainous Big Bend area. In 1884 his status as justice of the peace was continued by election. He obtained a blank book in which he wrote he “statoots,” along with his poker rules. With no jail at hand, Bean kept prisoners chained to a nearby mesquite tree and let them sleep in the open, with gunnysacks for pillows. Trials regularly opened and closed with drinks at his bar, and any long session probably would be interrupted with recesses for quenching thirst. Once an Irishman was brought before him on a charge of having killed a Chinese railroad worker and some of the defendant’s husky friends came along and made it plain to Bean that a wrong decision would lead to the boycotting or wrecking of his bar. Faced with this threat, the justice gravely thumbed through his law book and announced that he found no statute against the killing of a Chinaman. The drinks, he quickly added, would be on the Irishman. Bean lived comfortably from his sale of beer and from his fines, which he pocketed. Even a dead man was not immune from being fined. When the body of Pat O’Brien, killed by falling from a high bridge, was brought before Bean, the judge found that the dead man had a six-shooter and forty dollars. Quickly he confiscated the gun and fined the dead man forty dollars for carrying a concealed weapon.

Of all the women I’ve written about that have left their mark on politics or politicians, Joan of Arc is the most admirable. She made political and royal figures nervous and questioning their beliefs. The fifteenth century woman became a much talked about figure when she made public that she was hearing voices. To her, God had a message of insider military information, instructing her to drive the English out of France. She dressed for battle and showed up for war, and by her conviction (others called it madness) she rallied the troops and achieved a long sought victory of a key occupied city in just nine days. French King Charles VII, his own lineage rife with frequent bouts of insanity, dubbed her and her family nobility. A year later she was captured by the English, tried for heresy by the clergy of the Inquisition, and burned at the stake at age nineteen in 1431. Charles VII made no effort to free her. Five hundred years later she was canonized as a saint. Between 1450 and 1600, records indicate at least 30,000 were burned or executed as heretics or witches. The torture devises used during this period go beyond what the cruelest of masochistic minds could imagine, including water torture, racks, fingernail pullers, skull-and-limb crushing vices, burning feet machines, and metal chambers shaped like statues of the Virgin Mary lined with spikes in which the accused was enclosed to elicit a confession of heresy. The instruments were blessed prior to use; however in 2002, Pope John Paul II issued a general apology for this and for the “errors of his church for the last 2000 years.”

Mata Hari might not been politically involved, but she most assuredly was involved with politicians. At one time she had the world by its tail-until it turned around and bit her. How else to describe the Dutch officer’s wife who fled to Paris in 1904, changed her name from Margaretha Geertruida Zelle to Mata Hari, and pranced naked onstage while convincing the capitals of Europe that she was an exotic Indian dancer? “I never could dance well,” even she admitted. “People came to see me because I was the first who dare to show myself naked in public.” Just a few years later Mata Hari was despised as the most notorious spy of World War I. Her trouble may have been that she was too popular, so that when war broke out the French and English immediately became suspicious of her German acquaintances. Those “acquaintances” included lovers who had kept her clad in jewels and furs-offstage-throughout her career, and one of them happened to be the German chief of intelligence in Spain. She was followed constantly throughout Europe, and finally, in February 1917, she was arrested at her hotel in Paris and charged with espionage. There is much speculation as to whether Mata Hari really was engaged in passing secrets to the enemy. She had a gift for talking her way into things-it was the foundation of her career, after all-so it could be that she simply got carried away with her own imaginative tales. She claimed she actually meant to spy for the French, even though they hadn’t requested her assistance. Whatever the case, France, on the brink of defeat, was not much in the mood to give her the benefit of the doubt. In a prison outside of Paris, Mata Hari was put in a padded cell to prevent her from committing suicide. Her many appeals were denied, even by her own Dutch government, to which she wrote, “Jealousy-vengeance-there are so many things that crop up in the life of a woman like me, once people know that she finds herself in a difficult position.” On October 15, Mata Hari was awakened at 5 a.m. and informed that she would be shot that morning. “It’s unbelievable!” she said weakly, but otherwise remained composed. She put on a gray dress, a straw hat, and a white veil, then was driven to the Chateau de Vincennes, a military compound outside of Paris. It was just above freezing and foggy when she was led in front of a firing squad of twelve soldiers. She refused to be tied to the pole and refused also to be blindfolded. It is said that as the soldiers raised their rifles, Mata Hari smiled at them, even winked. After she collapsed an army surgeon walked over, checked her briefly, then fired a final shot-the coup de grace-into her head to make sure she was dead. Her body, which had been no secret to much of Europe, was taken to a city hospital in Paris, where it was dissected for medical research.

The focus of this month’s journal entries have been political in nature. Today’s entry is no exception. I can write about such things because we have freedom of speech. Our Founding Fathers were supreme champions of freedom of speech. But we should never forget that Alexander Hamilton was shot over something he said. Because in their infinite wisdom our Founding Fathers also gave us the second amendment, the right to bear arms, which is a reminder that while we can pretty much do and say whatever we want-you better watch it, buddy! I own two guns and am a big supporter of the second amendment as well. But I digress… No one knew the hazards of freedom of speech better than Victoria Woodhall, a leader in the woman’s suffrage movement in the early 1870s. Woodhall was the editor of her own newspaper and ran articles about how to perform abortions, the best way to operate a brothel, and how to talk to the dead. She was arrested in 1872 on federal obscenity charges. Woodhall is one of the women included in the book the Bedside Book of Bad Girls: Outlaw Women of the Mid-west. She pushed, bent, and stretched the boundaries of free speech further than any other woman I’ve ever researched. If she were alive today she would be voicing her opinion about free speech as much as the law would allow. I believe she would have taken the side of those free-speechers who always argue the slippery-slope: if you muzzle free speech, before you know it, we’re living in 1984 and Big Brother is picking out our ties. Those seeking to control free speech, on the other hand, argue that if we allow Johnny Soulpatch to burn the flag, before you know it, we’re living in “Lord of the Flies” and Piggy is fighting for his life. But I have to believe there is a middle ground between government rule and mob rule. A place where only those who can make obscure references to literature, art and pop culture on their weekly cable show will be allowed to speak freely. A utopia… if you will. Throughout history many country have not agreed with our freedom of speech practice. Even in the late 1800s it seems America’s enemies saw our diversity of opinion regarding that right as evidence that we’re weak and divided, (that’s what Woodhall thought too and one of the items she pointed out when she ran for President of the United States) but it is the very presence of a vibrant marketplace of ideas that ensures our continued survival. That, and the high-tech weapons that can lock in on the glint off a scimitar from five thousand miles away. What annoys me about all this is why even the most repugnant ideas, like some of those Ms. Woodhall clung to, receive the same freedom of expression as more accepted ones? Perhaps it’s because the American system is less a “free marketplace” of ideas than it is a playground. And the best way to dispense with unpopular ideas is to let them roam free, so they can be kicked up and down the jungle gym by the cool ideas. I have no problem with people who respond to what they don’t agree with. I enjoy the drama of a toppled podium and the sound of microphone feedback as much as the next guy. What I do have a problem with are the people who fail to see the glaring hypocrisy of screaming the words “shut up” into a bullhorn. Take for example a young woman who was once my niece. She has the right to tell me that she “hates me, never wants to have anything else to do with me ever,” and demand that I stop “cyber stalking her.” The hypocrisy is that several days later she’s reviewing my entry on Linkedin. We’re not always going to like what someone has to say to us or put in print, but I, along with people like Victoria Woodhull would fight to the death their right to do so.

Whether it is Ford pardoning Nixon or Bush never catching Bin Laden, there is a consistent theme in the American character. We want the hero to get the girl, and the bad guy to get what’s coming to them. We are willing to deal with adversity along the way, but we have to believe that the good guy wins out in the end. I do not believe it is possible here. That truth haunts me. It keeps me up nights. My sleep is so near waking at times it’s hardly worth a name. The only thing that’s going to help right now is some hard hitting dialogue from a few good westerns, the kind of westerns where the bad guy NEVER wins. First, from the 1937 film The Plainsman. Gary Cooper as Wild Bill Hickok to a gang of outlaws – “Take your hands off your guns-or there’ll be more dead men here than this town can afford to bury.” From the 1956 movie The Maverick Queen. Kit Banyon, the Maverick Queen (Barbara Stanwyck) to undercover Pinkerton cop Jeff Younger (Barry Sullivan), “The only way you leave the Wild Bunch is feet first.” From the 1955 western The Man from Laramie. “You’ve got no cause to shoot me!” “Shooting is too good for you.” Ranch foreman Vic Hansbro (Arthur Kennedy) and Will Lockhart, “The Man from Laramie” (James Stewart). And finally, from the 1955 flick The Kentuckian. “You coming peaceable?” “I ain’t comin’ at all.” Sheriff (bit player) and frontiersman Eli Wakefield (Burt Lancaster). I guess I feel a little better.

This particular entry doesn’t have anything to do with the Old West. For me, however, the spirit of the tale is reminiscent of the heart of those who braved the rugged frontier and struggled to make it their own. It reminds me of those that fought at the Alamo, women who fought for the right to vote, and every lawman who battled to keep order in a rugged cattle town. This story, a famous anecdote about the Spartans’ bravery, is from the time of Philip of Macedon (382-336 B.C.), who forcibly unified most of Greece’s cities. Long ago the people of Greece were not united, as they are today. Instead there were several cities and states, each with its own leader. King Philip of Macedon, a land in the northern part of Greece, wanted to bring all of Greece together under his rule. So he raised a great army and made war upon the other states, until nearly all were forced to call him their king. Sparta, however, resisted. The Spartans lived in the southern part of Greece, a area called Laconia, and so they were sometimes called Lacons. They were noted for their simple habits and their bravery. They were also known as a people who used few words and chose them carefully: even today a short answer is often described as being “laconic.” Philip knew he must subdue the Spartans if all of Greece was to be his. So he brought his great army to the borders of Laconia, and sent a message to the Spartans. “If you do not submit at once,” he threatened them, “I will invade your country. And if I invade, I will pillage and burn everything you hold dear. If I march into Laconia, I will level your great city to the ground.” In a few days, Philip received an answer. When he opened the letter, he found only one word written there. That word was “IF.”

Abraham Lincoln wrote this letter to his stepbrother, John D. Johnston, who had written Lincoln that he was “broke” and “hard-pressed” on the family farm in Coles County, Illinois, and needed a loan. Lincoln’s offer of a matching grant, as we call it today, was a recognition that “this habit of uselessly wasting time, is the whole difficulty,” and that getting into the habit of working was far more important to Johnston than getting a loan. “December 24, 1848. Dear Johnston, Your request for eighty dollars, I do not think is best to comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a little, you have said to me, “We can get along very well now,” but in a very short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now this can only happen by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is, I think I know. You are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether since I saw you, you have done a good whole day’s work, in any one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and till you do not work much, merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. The habit of useless wasting time, is the whole difficulty; it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break this habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and keep out of an idle habit before they are in it, easier than they can get out after they are in. You are now in need of some ready money; and what I propose is, that you shall go to work, “tooth and nail,” for somebody will give you money for it. Let father and your boys take charge of your things at home – prepare for a crop, and make the crop, and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get. And to secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of May, get for your own labor either in money or in your own indebtedness, I will give you one other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your work. In this, I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines, in California, but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages you can get close to home – in Cols County. Now if you will do this, you will soon be out of debt, and what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. But if I should now clear you out, next year you will be just as deep in as ever. You say you would almost give your place in Heaven for $70 or $80. Then you value your place in Heaven very cheaply, for I am sure you can with the offer I make you get the seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months’ work. You say if I furnish you the money you will deed me the land, and if you don’t pay the money back, you will deliver possession. Nonsense! If you can’t now live with the land, how will you then live without it? You have always been kind to me, and I do not now mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eighty dollars to you. Affectionately, Your Brother, A. Lincoln.”

Family loyalties involve certain obligations. They are duties we perform out of love. Many Old West characters practiced such loyalties – the Earps, the Mastersons, the Tilghmans, the Woodhall sisters, the James boys. This simple story illustrates allegiance between siblings during World War II. It’s seems appropriate that this story be shared on Veteran’s Day. One of two brothers fighting in the same company in France fell by a German bullet. The one who escaped asked permission of his officer to go and bring his brother in. “He is probably dead,” said the officer, “and there is no use in your risking your life to bring in his body.” But after further pleading the officer consented. Just as the soldier reached the lines with his brother on his shoulders, the wounded man died. “There, you see,” said the officer, “you risked your life for nothing.” “No,” replied Tom. “I did what he expected of me, and I have my reward. When I crept up to him and took him in my arms, he said, ‘Tom, I knew you would come-I just felt you would come.’” There you have the gist of it all; somebody expects something fine and noble and unselfish of us; someone expects us to be faithful.

A member of Virginia’s House of Burgesses and the first Virginia Committee of Correspondence, fierce opponent of the Stamp Act, and delegate to the Continental Congress in 1774-1775, Patrick Henry (1736-1799) was one of the colonies’ foremost patriots in the growing revolutionary cause. His oratory gave him lasting fame, and today he is remembered mainly for the fiery speech he gave to the Second Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775, at St. John’s Church in Richmond. The question before the Convention was whether to arm the Virginia militia to fight the British. Patrick Henry knew the moment had come for the colonies to gather their strength and commit themselves to action. “Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth-and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it… There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free-if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending-if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engage, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained-we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms, and to the God of Hosts, all that is left us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak-unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when the British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of Hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can sent against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged, their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable-and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come! It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace-but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased by the chains of slavery? Forbid it. Almighty God! I know not what course other may take; but for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”