Frank Beacham's Journal

At Kent State University on this day in 1970 — 52 years ago — 100 National Guardsmen fired their rifles into a group of students. Four were killed and eleven wounded

At Kent State University on this day in 1970 — 52 years ago — 100 National Guardsmen fired their rifles into a group of students. Four were killed and eleven wounded.

This incident occurred in the aftermath of President Richard Nixon's April 30 announcement that U.S. and South Vietnamese forces had been ordered to execute an "incursion" into Cambodia to destroy North Vietnamese bases there. In protest, a wave of demonstrations and disturbances erupted on college campuses across the country.

At Kent State University in Ohio, student protesters torched the ROTC building on campus and Ohio Governor James Rhodes responded by calling on the National Guard to restore order.

Under harassment from the demonstrators, the Guardsmen fired into the crowd, killing four and wounding eleven. The Guardsmen were later brought to trial for the shootings, but found not guilty.

President Nixon issued a statement deploring the Kent State deaths, but said that the incident should serve as a reminder that, "When dissent turns to violence it invites tragedy." The shooting sparked hundreds of protests and college shutdowns, as well as a march on Washington, D.C., by 100,000 people.

The National Student Association and former Vietnam Moratorium Committee leaders called for a national university strike of indefinite duration, beginning immediately, to protest the war. At least 100 colleges and universities pledged to strike. The presidents of 37 universities signed a letter urging President Nixon to show more clearly his determination to end the war.

Thanks History.com

Neil Young performs "Ohio," 2010

A 60 Minutes piece on the shooting at Kent State, 1977

Pete Seeger was born 103 years old today

Pete Seeger, Carnegie Hall, New York City, 2009

Photo by Frank Beacham

Pete Seeger was born 103 years old today.

A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene," which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950.

Members of The Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, Seeger re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights and environmental causes.

As a song writer, he is best known as the author or co-author of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" (with Joe Hickerson), "If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)," (composed with Lee Hays of The Weavers) and "Turn, Turn, Turn!," which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement and are still sung throughout the world.

"Flowers" was a hit recording for The Kingston Trio (1962), Marlene Dietrich, who recorded it in English, German and French (1962) and Johnny Rivers (1965).

"If I Had a Hammer" was a hit for Peter, Paul & Mary (1962) and Trini Lopez (1963), while The Byrds popularized "Turn, Turn, Turn!" in the mid-1960s, as did Judy Collins in 1964 and The Seekers in 1966.

Seeger was one of the folksingers most responsible for popularizing the spiritual "We Shall Overcome" (also recorded by Joan Baez and many other singer-activists) that became the acknowledged anthem of the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. It came soon after folk singer and activist Guy Carawan introduced it at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960.

In the PBS "American Masters" episode Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, Seeger says it was he who changed the lyric from the traditional "We will overcome" to the more singable "We shall overcome."

Pete Seeger was one of the earliest backers of Bob Dylan and was responsible for urging John Hammond to produce Dylan's first LP on Columbia. Seeger invited him to perform at the Newport Folk Festival, of which Seeger was a board member.

In 1948, Seeger wrote the first version of his now-classic, “How to Play the Five-String Banjo,” a book that many banjo players credit with starting them off on the instrument. It has been said that when Seeger was blacklisted and was forced to teach banjo to make a living, his students took the instrument and created the folk music revival of the 1960s and thus took his cause to far greater numbers than Seeger would have otherwise.

Seeger died on January 27, 2014 at age 94.

Here, Seeger performs “What Did You Learn in School?” in 1964

Pete Seeger, New York City, 2009

Photo by Frank Beacham

 

Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park in New York City, was born 200 years ago

Painting by John Singer Sargent, 1895

Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park in New York City, was born 200 years ago.

Olmsted was a landscape architect, journalist, social critic and public administrator. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture.

Olmsted was famous for co-designing many well-known urban parks with his senior partner, Calvert Vaux. They included Central Park and Prospect Park in New York City, as well as Elm Park in Worcester, Massachusetts, considered by many to be the first municipal park in America.

His work, especially in Central Park, set a standard of excellence that continues to influence landscape architecture in the United States.

His second line of achievement involves his activism in conservation, including work at Niagara Falls, the Adirondack region of upstate New York and the National Park system.

Historic New England - Gift of Joseph Hudak, Firm of Olmsted Brothers, Brookline, Mass.

During the Civil War, Frederick Law Olmsted ran an agency called the United States Sanitary Commission, which delivered medical supplies, food and clothing for wounded Union troops, sometimes faster than the Army did.

Before all that, Olmsted did something completely different. In his early 30s, he was a correspondent for a not-yet major metropolitan newspaper. It would be called The New York Times.

But don’t look for his byline. The name that accompanied his dispatches was “Yeoman.” Like many newspapers in the 19th century, The Times used pseudonyms.

Yeoman’s dispatches in 1853 and 1854 were widely read and enduring. Half a century later, a correspondent for The Times of London said Olmsted’s work had been “more powerful and convincing than ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’”

Some historians call that an exaggeration, but his writing was impressive, considering that Olmsted’s claims to fame had been owning a farm on Staten Island and writing a book about his travels in England. He had no newspaper experience.

Olmsted was hired after a five-minute job interview with Henry Jarvis Raymond, who had founded The New-York Daily Times in 1851 with the banker George Jones.

Running a newspaper wasn’t Raymond’s only job. He was also the speaker of the New York State Assembly, and before long, he was nominated for lieutenant governor. He then played a significant role at the brand-new Republican Party’s first national convention in 1854.

Raymond went on to draft much of President Abraham Lincoln’s re-election platform in 1864, the year Raymond became the chairman of the Republican National Convention and was elected to Congress.

A.M. Rosenthal, who was the managing editor of The Times, wrote in 1971: “No, they don’t make editors like Henry J. Raymond anymore, and is that good or bad?”

An editor who doubled as an elected official? It wouldn’t happen now. “Journalists have no place on the playing fields of politics,” The Times’s handbook on ethics says — and, to its credit, The Times noted even when Raymond was in charge, the paper “was never used to promote its editor’s political fortunes.”

Raymond sent Olmsted to the South before the Civil War with instructions to send back his “personal observations,” and Olmsted did, sometimes with dense passages packed with details — too many details, Raymond complained.

Still, as John Stauffer, a cultural and literary historian at Harvard, said: “Olmsted illuminated the South for the North.” Olmsted portrayed conditions that belied the South’s reputation for elegant affluence. “One of the things that struck Olmsted in the South was the backward nature, the lack of roads, the lack of hotels for a stranger going to interview people,” Stauffer said. The contrast with a rapidly modernizing North was inescapable.

On the job, Olmsted did not always tell the people he encountered that he was a journalist. Anne Neal Petri of the National Association for Olmsted Parks — which is overseeing Olmsted200, the bicentennial celebration — told me that Olmsted essentially worked undercover and that not saying he was representing a Northern newspaper served him. (How different was this from what a correspondent should do now? The Times’s ethics handbook says that “staff members should disclose their identity to people they cover,” although it also says they “need not always announce their status as journalists when seeking information normally available to the public.”)

Olmsted could charm people into opening up in a way they probably wouldn’t have if he had shown up with a press card. “He was very disarming,” Stauffer said. “He didn’t alienate people. He showed this genuine curiosity. He came across as someone who didn’t have any preconceived ideas. He was antislavery, but he didn’t say that to planters. He probably would have been kicked out” if he had.

If Olmsted’s dispatches affected his readers, his travels for The Times also affected him. Stauffer told me that Central Park was what Olmsted wished a plantation in the South could have been, a place where everyone could mingle. But, as has been widely noted, when the land for the nation’s first great municipal park was cleared, the city moved out one of its first Black settlements.

Thanks New York Times

Shirley MacLaine is 88 years old today

Shirley MacLaine

Photo by Bert Stern

Shirley MacLean Beaty, known professionally as Shirley MacLaine, is 88 years old today.

A film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author, MacLaine has won awards for her roles in The Apartment, Irma la Douce, Terms of Endearment and Madame Sousatzka. She was nominated for an Academy Award five times before winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1983 for her role as Aurora Greenway in Terms of Endearment.

In 2012, she received the 40th AFI Life Achievement Award, the highest honor for a career in the U.S. film industry by the American Film Institute. In 2013, received the Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts.

MacLaine's younger brother is Warren Beatty, the actor and director.

Known for her New Age beliefs and interest in spirituality and reincarnation, she has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career.

Here, MacLaine performs in “Shirley MacLaine at the Lido"

Shirley McClaine with Jack Nicholson

Michael Moore is 68 years old today

Michael Moore is 68 years old today.

A documentary filmmaker, screenwriter, author, journalist, actor and political activist, Moore is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush and the War on Terror, which is the highest-grossing documentary at the American boxoffice of all time and winner of the Palme d'Or.

His film, Bowling for Columbine (2002), which examines the causes of the Columbine High School massacre, won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature.

Both Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko (2007), which examines health care in the United States, are among the top ten highest-grossing documentaries.

In September, 2008, he released his first free movie on the Internet, Slacker Uprising, which documented his personal quest to encourage more Americans to vote in presidential elections. He has also written and starred in the television shows, TV Nation, a satirical newsmagazine television series, and The Awful Truth, a satirical show.

Moore's written and cinematic works criticize topics such as globalization, large corporations, assault weapon ownership, U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the Iraq War, the American health care system and capitalism.

In 2005, Time magazine named Moore one of the world's 100 most influential people.

John Muir, naturalist and early advocate of preserving wilderness in the United States, was born 184 years ago today

John Muir, naturalist and early advocate of preserving wilderness in the United States, was born 184 years ago today.

A Scottish-born American naturalist, activist and author, Muir’s letters, essays and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas.

The Sierra Club, which he founded, is now a leading conservation organization in the United States. One of the most well-known hiking trails in the U.S., the 211-mile John Muir Trail, was named in his honor. Other places named in his honor are Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, Mount Muir, Camp Muir and Muir Glacier.

In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to the preservation of the Western forests. He petitioned the U.S. Congress for the National Park bill that was passed in 1890, establishing both Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. Because of the spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings, he was able to inspire readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas.

He is today referred to as the "Father of the National Parks," and the National Park Service produced a short documentary on his life.

Muir's biographer, Steven J. Holmes, states that Muir has become "one of the patron saints of 20th century American environmental activity," both political and recreational. As a result, his writings are commonly discussed in books and journals, and he is often quoted in books by nature photographers such as Ansel Adams.

"Muir has profoundly shaped the very categories through which Americans understand and envision their relationships with the natural world," wrote Holmes.

Muir was noted for being an ecological thinker, political spokesman and religious prophet, whose writings became a personal guide into nature for countless individuals. His name is ubiquitous in the modern environmental consciousness.

According to author William Anderson, Muir exemplified "the archetype of our oneness with the earth," while biographer Donald Worster says he believed his mission was "...saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism."

Thanks History.com

Here is part one of a documentary on John Muir

The hallucinogenic effects of LSD were discovered 79 years ago today

The hallucinogenic effects of LSD were discovered 79 years ago today.

In Basel, Switzerland, Albert Hoffman, a Swiss chemist working at the Sandoz pharmaceutical research laboratory, accidentally consumed LSD-25, a synthetic drug he had created in 1938 as part of his research into the medicinal value of lysergic acid compounds.

After taking the drug, formally known as lysergic acid diethylamide, Dr. Hoffman was disturbed by unusual sensations and hallucinations. In his notes, he related the experience:

"Last Friday, April 16, 1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant, intoxicated-like condition characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination.

In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away."

After intentionally taking the drug again to confirm that it had caused this strange physical and mental state, Dr. Hoffman published a report announcing his discovery. LSD made its entry into the world as a hallucinogenic drug.

Widespread use of the "mind-expanding" drug did not begin until the 1960s, when counterculture figures such as Albert M. Hubbard, Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey publicly expounded on the benefits of using LSD as a recreational drug.

The manufacture, sale, possession and use of LSD, known to cause negative reactions in some of those who took it, were made illegal in the United States in 1965.

Image of Hoffman by Alex Gray

Thanks History.com

On April 10, 1866 — 156 years ago today — the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was founded in New York City by philanthropist and diplomat, Henry Bergh

On April 10, 1866 — 156 years ago today — the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was founded in New York City by philanthropist and diplomat, Henry Bergh.

In 1863, Bergh, 54, had been appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to a diplomatic post at the Russian court of Czar Alexander II. It was there that he was horrified to witness work horses beaten by their peasant drivers.

En route back to America, a June, 1865 visit to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in London awakened his determination to secure a charter not only to incorporate the ASPCA, but to exercise the power to arrest and prosecute violators of the law.

Back in New York, Bergh pleaded on behalf of “these mute servants of mankind” at a February 8, 1866, meeting at Clinton Hall. He argued that protecting animals was an issue that crossed party lines and class boundaries.

“This is a matter purely of conscience; it has no perplexing side issues,” he said. “It is a moral question in all its aspects.” The speech prompted a number of dignitaries to sign his “Declaration of the Rights of Animals.”

Bergh’s impassioned accounts of the horrors inflicted on animals convinced the New York State legislature to pass the charter incorporating the ASPCA on April 10, 1866.

Nine days later, the first effective anti-cruelty law in the United States was passed, allowing the ASPCA to investigate complaints of animal cruelty and to make arrests.

Bergh was a hands-on reformer, becoming a familiar sight on the streets and in the courtrooms of New York. He regularly inspected slaughter houses, worked with police to close down dog- and rat-fighting pits and lectured in schools and to adult societies. In 1867, the ASPCA established and operated the nation’s first ambulance for horses.

As the pioneer and innovator of the humane movement, the ASPCA quickly became the model for more than 25 other humane organizations in the United States and Canada.
By the time Bergh died in 1888, 37 of the 38 states in the Union had passed anti-cruelty laws.

Bergh’s dramatic street rescues of mistreated horses and livestock served as a model for those trying to protect abused children.

After Mary Ellen McCormack, 9, was found tied to a bed and brutally beaten by her foster parents in 1874, activists founded the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Bergh served as one of the group’s first vice presidents.

On April 8, 1935 — 87 years ago today — Congress voted to approve the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a central part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal"

On April 8, 1935 — 87 years ago today — Congress voted to approve the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a central part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal."

In his inaugural address on March 4, 1933, Roosevelt promised Americans that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" and outlined his New Deal — an expansion of the federal government as an instrument of employment opportunity and welfare.

In April, 1935, the WPA was established under the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, as a means of creating government jobs for some of the nation's many unemployed.

Under the direction of Harry L. Hopkins, the WPA employed more than 8.5 million persons on 1.4 million public projects before it was disbanded in 1943. The program chose work that would not interfere with private enterprise, especially vast public building projects like the construction of highways, bridges and dams.

However, the WPA also provided federal funding for students, who were given work under the National Youth Administration.

The careers of many important American artists were also launched thanks by WPA endowments. Although its scale was unprecedented, the WPA never managed to serve more than a quarter of the nation's unemployed. Its programs were extremely popular, though, and contributed significantly to Roosevelt's landslide reelection in 1936.

Among the artists that the WPA assisted were Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Orson Welles, Arthur Miller, Burt Lancaster, Arlene Francis, Katherine Dunham, John Cage, John Houseman, Marc Blitzstein and Burgess Meredith.

Famous writers, who didn’t need assistance, included Eugene O’Neill and George Bernard Shaw, who offered their plays to the WPA for no money.

Photographers included Berenice Abbott, Andreas Feininger, August Sander, Dorothea Lange, Eadweard Muybridge, Edward Steichen, Gordon Parks, Lewis Hine, W. Eugene Smith, Walker Evans and William Gottlieb.

Lesser known artists also flourished under the WPA. Many veterans of the program went on to major motion picture studios and animation operations like Walt Disney Studios.

It was Congress that pulled the plug on the WPA when unemployments lessened due to World War II. It never came back even though it could rescue many creative people in the continuing recession since 2008.

Rehearsal for The Cradle Will Rock, 1937

The musical by Marc Blitzstein, was originally a part of the Federal Theatre Project of the Works Progress Administration. It was directed by Orson Welles and produced by John Houseman.

The musical is a Brechtian allegory of corruption and corporate greed and includes a panoply of societal figures. Set in "Steeltown, USA," it follows the efforts of Larry Foreman to unionize the town's workers and combat wicked, greedy businessman Mr. Mister, who controls the town's factory, press, church and social organization.

The Cradle Will Rock was to begin previews on Broadway June 16, 1937 at the Maxine Elliott Theatre with elaborate sets and a full orchestra. The production was shut down four days before its opening by the WPA.

The government claimed that due to budget cuts, the WPA was reorganizing its arts projects, and all openings of WPA plays, musicals, concerts and art galleries were to be delayed until after July 1. However, many asserted that the musical had been censored because the pro-union plot was "too radical."

The theatre was padlocked and surrounded by security guards to prevent anyone from stealing props or costumes, as these were considered U. S. Government property.

Welles, Houseman and Blitzstein, seeking a way to privately produce the show, rented the much larger Venice Theatre and a piano just in time for the scheduled preview on June 16, 1937.

The 600 audience members, who had gathered outside the Maxine Elliot Theatre for the preview, travelled 21 blocks north to the Venice Theatre. Many were on foot.

The sold-out house grew even larger when the show's creators invited people off the street to attend for free.

The musicians' union refused to play for the show unless Houseman could provide their full salaries, and Actors' Equity Association said that its members could not perform onstage at the new theatre without approval of the original producer (the federal government).

The show's creators thus planned for Blitzstein to perform the entire musical at the piano. Just after beginning the first number, Blitzstein was joined by Olive Stanton, the actress playing Moll, from the audience.

During the rest of the performance, various actors joined in with Blitzstein and performed the entire musical from their seats in the house.

Orson Welles told me the story during a long lunch in 1985. After his death later that year, I decided to option the property.

I took it to Tim Robbins, who wrote the script and directed the film. I was executive producer. “Cradle Will Rock” was released by Touchtone Films in 1999.

Daniel Ellsberg is 91 years old today

Daniel Ellsberg is 91 years old today.

Ellsberg is an activist and former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and other newspapers.

The Pentagon Papers was a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War.

Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 along with other charges of theft and conspiracy, carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years.

Due to gross governmental misconduct and illegal evidence gathering, and the defense by Leonard Boudin and Harvard Law School professor, Charles Nesson, Judge Byrne dismissed all charges against Ellsberg on May 11, 1973.

Since the end of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg has continued his political activism, giving lecture tours and speaking out about current events.