Frank Beacham's Journal

On this day in 1944 — 77 years ago — President Franklin D. Roosevelt had to answer critics who made his Scottish terrier, Fala, a campaign issue in the heat of his re-election race

Fala with President Roosevelt

On this day in 1944 — 77 years ago — President Franklin D. Roosevelt had to answer critics who made his Scottish terrier, Fala, a campaign issue in the heat of his re-election race.

They claimed that Roosevelt had left Fala behind after a visit to the Aleutian Islands, and then sent a military ship to rescue the dog. The accusation was never proved.

“I don’t resent attacks, and my family doesn’t resent attacks, but Fala does resent them,” Roosevelt said, in a rebuttal inspired by his friend, Orson Welles.

“You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I'd left him behind on an Aleutian island and had sent a destroyer back to find him — at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars — his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself ... But I think I have a right to resent, to object, to libelous statements about my dog,” the president said.

Roosevelt’s words delighted the public and the controversy was dropped.

Fala often slept at the foot of F.D.R.’s bed and was close to him until the end of the president’s life. The dog attended the Roosevelt funeral.

After the president’s death, Fala went to live with Mrs. Roosevelt in Val-Kill. The dog survived Roosevelt by seven years and was buried beside him. The relationship of Roosevelt and Fala is immortalized by a statue at Roosevelt’s memorial in Washington, D.C.

Thanks New York Times!

About 100 years ago, a fashion faux pas led to The Straw Hat Riot in New York City

About 100 years ago, a fashion faux pas led to bedlam in New York City.

The Straw Hat Riot emerged from the idea that they should not be worn very far into September. (Men usually wore hats outdoors in those days, and straw was popular for summer.)

Every year after the cutoff (which moved around a bit), men would lose their hats to gangs, so newspapers printed reminders. On Sept. 13, 1922, with the date still two days away, some gang members went further. They knocked straw hats off men’s heads, stomping on them and even starting “straw hat bonfires.”

For days, the mobs “terrorized whole blocks,” The Times wrote. Some carried sticks with nails at the end to snatch hats. Others stood along train tracks and swiped hats off passing riders. There were injuries and arrests before the trouble died down.

Three years later, President Calvin Coolidge essentially put an end to the cutoff rule by going for a mid-September stroll in the “tabooed headgear.”

Thanks New York Times!

Above, a sea of straw hats at a baseball game in about 1920

Photo from Bettmann Archives

Today is Uncle Sam’s birthday — the real one that is...

Today is Uncle Sam’s birthday.

Legend has it that the man who gave rise to the iconic symbol of the United States was born on Sept. 13, 1766 — 255 years ago — in Arlington, Massachusetts. His name was Samuel Wilson, a meatpacker in upstate New York.

Wilson helped feed American soldiers in the War of 1812, the fight between the United States and Britain that also inspired “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

According to the legend, a worker wisecracked that the letters “U.S.” on Mr. Wilson’s shipping crates stood for “Uncle Sam” Wilson. The joke that the shipments came from Uncle Sam turned him into a stand-in for the federal government.

The somewhat random comment was picked up by others, and he started to appear in drawings in newspapers in the 1830s.

Thomas Nast, the cartoonist who gave us the donkey as a symbol for Democrats and the elephant for Republicans, made Uncle Sam’s goatee famous.

No matter that Mr. Wilson, who died in 1854, was clean-shaven. His name, but not his likeness, was turned into a patriotic symbol replicated forevermore in political cartoons, ads, posters and fine art.

Thanks New York Times!

Opened by screenwriter/director Preston Sturges during the summer of 1940, The Players at 8225 Sunset Blvd, next door to the Chateau Marmont, was one of Hollywood’s hot spots

Opened by screenwriter/director Preston Sturges during the summer of 1940, The Players at 8225 Sunset Blvd, next door to the Chateau Marmont, was one of Hollywood’s hot spots.

Humphrey Bogart often went there. Howard Hughes dined at the top floor alone, if not with a starlet. Other regulars were Barbara Stanwyck, Orson Welles, Charles Chaplin, Rudy Vallee, Joel McCrea, William Wyler and William Faulkner.

Sturges held court every night at The Players. The restaurant was on two levels and when, after the first season, it showed a loss, Sturges closed it and substituted a music and dance area called the Playroom which had a gala opening in the first part of 1942.

Sturges was Hollywood’s premier satirist of the ’40s, with such comic films as The Great McGinty (1940), The Lady Eve (1941), Sullivan’s Travels (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942), The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944) and Hail The Conquering Hero (1944) to his credit.

But that was just his day job. By night he was a commanding presence on the Sunset Strip as Hollywood’s most eccentric club-owner.

Sturges may have been a genius behind the camera, but he was no businessman. He regarded The Players as his private domain and closed its doors to the public whenever he wanted to be alone with his friends, which was often. He had customers thrown out just because he didn’t like their looks, and the regulars had to contend with their host’s caustic wit.

Needless to say, The Players never broke even, but Sturges kept pouring money into it even after his movie career nosedived in the late ’40s. By 1953, Hollywood had written Sturges off as an alcoholic has-been, and a burger stand was the only part of The Players still open for business.

Screenwriter Earl Fenton recalled seeing Sturges serving the greasy burgers himself, wearing a tattered dinner jacket, and “making loud, drunken jokes about how the mighty had fallen.”

Soon afterwards, The Players was sold out from under Sturges by his creditors.

The Players later became Imperial Gardens and then the Roxbury and Miyagi’s.

On this day in 1953 — 68 years ago today — Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy, the future 35th president of the United States, married Jacqueline Bouvier in Newport, Rhode Island

On this day in 1953 — 68 years ago today — Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy, the future 35th president of the United States, married Jacqueline Bouvier in Newport, Rhode Island.

Seven years later, the couple would become the youngest president and first lady in American history.

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy was born into a prominent New York family in 1929 and grew into an avid horsewoman and reader. In 1951, after graduating from George Washington University, Jackie, as she was called, took a tour of Europe.

That fall, she returned to the U.S. to begin her first job as the Washington Times-Herald's "Inquiring Camera Girl." Shortly afterward, she met a young, handsome senator from Massachusetts named John Kennedy at a dinner party in Georgetown.

They dated over the next two years, during which time Jackie mused at the idea that she might actually marry a man who was allergic to horses, something she never thought she would have considered. In 1953, the two were engaged, when Kennedy gave Jackie a 2.88-carat diamond-and-emerald ring from Van Cleef and Arpels.

"Jack," as Kennedy was called, and Jackie married on September 12, 1953, at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island. Jackie wore an ivory silk gown made by Ann Lowe, an African-American designer.

The Catholic mass was attended by 750 guests and an additional 450 people joined the wedding reception at Hammersmith Farm. The couple danced to the Meyer Davis Orchestra's version of "I Married an Angel." Davis had also performed at Jackie's parents' wedding and at Kennedy's inaugural ball.

Thanks History.com

On this day — 87 years ago — the Textile Strike of 1934 began. It nearly destroyed my hometown

On this day — 87 years ago — the Textile Strike of 1934 began.

It would be the largest strike in the labor history of the United States, involving 400,000 textile workers from New England, the Mid-Atlantic states and the U.S. Southern states.

The strike swept through Southern cotton mills, outpacing the union organizers and employing "flying squadrons" which traveled by truck and on foot from mill to mill, calling the workers out.

Textile workers in the North went out on strike in great numbers as well, although they were spread more evenly across different industries and had more diverse grievances than the Southern cotton mill workers. Within a week, hundreds of thousands of textile workers nationwide had left their jobs and the industry was shut down.

The mill owners were initially taken by surprise by the scope of the strike. They immediately took the position that these flying squadrons were, in fact, coercing their employees to go out on strike.

Gov. Ira Blackwood of South Carolina took up this theme, announcing that he would deputize the state's "mayors, sheriffs, peace officers and every good citizen" to maintain order, then called out the National Guard with orders to shoot to kill any picketers who tried to enter the mills.

Mill owners persuaded local authorities throughout the Piedmont region to augment their forces by swearing in special deputies, often their own employees or local residents opposed to the strike. In other cases, they simply hired private guards to police the areas around the plant. Violence between guards and picketers broke out almost immediately.

In Honea Path, South Carolina, my hometown, seven picketers were shot to death and more than twenty-seven others were wounded on September 6th. Most were shot in the back as they were fleeing the picket line.

There was no National Guard on duty — only anti-union workers deputized by my grandfather, Dan Beacham, who ran Chiquola Mill. The bloody riot at the town's cotton mill on that warm Thursday morning shaped the lives of two generations to follow — not because of the shock of what was known, but by what was unknown.

Fear, threats and intimidation were used to silence the story of the greatest tragedy in the town's history. My grandfather, who was also the mayor and town judge, organized the posse of gunmen who fired on their fellow workers in 1934. It was a communal town secret for more than 60 years.

Today is the 87th anniversary of the murders in Honea Path. Over time, I have learned more about the story and I found the answer to a burning question: How did friends and neighbors in my small hometown reach the point of killing each other over a labor dispute? It never made sense to me.

Essentially, from my research, the “why” was reduced to a simple formula: Religious Fundamentalism + Corporate Greed = Mass Murder. As modern industrial philosophy was being formed in the 1930s, fundamentalist preachers sided with the mill owners over their workers. An explosion was triggered.

I have written the full, updated story of the Chiquola Mill killings in the new fourth edition of Whitewash: A Southern Journey through Music, Mayhem and Murder. It is a compelling story and the first real history of Honea Path. It’s available here.

In order that the murders in Honea Path not be forgotten —on the 80th anniversary — I produced a 48-minute audio documentary. You can listen or download it here for free.

This window from the abandoned mill is where gunmen fired at the workers. It has since been destroyed.

Photo by Frank Beacham

Why Does Honea Path, South Carolina Not Acknowledge Its Own History?

If you visited my hometown of Honea Path, S.C. on this 87th anniversary of the most important event in its history, you will witness something very odd. There will be no acknowledgement by the town of the 1934 killings at Chiquola Mill. Total silence!

This tiny town never acknowledges the anniversary of the outright murder of seven mill workers or twenty-seven others, most shot in the back after demonstrating to establish a labor union at the mill. All were heroes who changed this country for the better, but it appears that Honea Path would rather forget the tragedy.

The story has been erased, not only from the history books, but from the public consciousness of those people most affected by it. An instrument of fear was so powerful that parents were afraid to tell the story to their own children. It formed a lifelong social contract for the entire community's survival.

Remnants of the old textile mill still stand, though years ago there was funding to tear it down. The town government was so incompetent, the money was wasted. A demolition company took what was valuable and then sold bricks from the mill on eBay as souvenirs of the “historic” mill. The town even turned down grants to turn the abandoned mill into a textile museum that could have brought tourists to the sleepy town.

So why does Honea Path refuse to remember its past? I’ve thought a lot about that question. I think it’s a combination of old time stubborn Southern pride, belief in corporate-generated myth and collective mendacity — the fog of lies created to hide the truth about the past. This silence comes down to the very essence of what history is about. It's the story of our lives. To hide it is to deny the forces that shaped our very being.

If you think all this is very passive, think again. During a visit to Honea Path over the Christmas holiday in 1996, my family’s long-time physician confronted me in a very public way at lunch hour in a local restaurant and proclaimed loudly that I should be shot for writing about the story. No jury, he shouted to the gathered diners, would convict the shooter. He wasn't kidding.

Due to the residual propaganda put out by the old mill owners — including my grandfather, who ran the mill — many in the town somehow feel ashamed about what happened in 1934. They shouldn't feel fear or shame at all. Though the workers efforts ended in defeat and much suffering to follow, the deaths of the Honea Path Seven were certainly not in vain. The disillusionment of the workers and the outrageous conduct by the mill owners made a strong impression on the Roosevelt Administration.

This helped spur passage of the Wagner Act in 1935 and the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. Out of these laws came reforms that vastly improved the lives of all workers in the United States. These laws abolished employment of children under sixteen in the mill, helping young people stay in school to get an education. The establishment of the minimum wage and the 40-hour work week came directly out of the Honea Path tragedy.

Though Honea Path has a rich history, the town has tried hard to forget. It’s a sad story. However, the good news is intelligent young students often call me, asking about the event they find so hard to understand. I try to help them learn the truth — one person at a time. In this environment, it is the only way to keep the story alive.

—

A few years back, I published a multimedia e-book of Mill Town Murder for e-book reading devices and computers. The format didn’t take off and publishers quit carrying the titles.

So, on this 87th anniversary of the Honea Path shootings, I am giving them away. Go here for the download for the computer of your choice. They still work on most computing devices.

Mill Town Murder-.ePub

Mill Town Murder-.Mobi

“Honea Path,” a song written and performed by Matthew Grimm and Red Smear

Funeral of textile workers killed in Honea Path, South Carolina during the Textile Strike of 1934. It was the largest funeral in the town’s history.

The mill management would not allow the funerals to be held in mill-owned churches.

On this day in 1951 — 70 years ago today — President Harry S. Truman's opening speech before a conference in San Francisco was broadcast across the nation, marking the first time a television program was broadcast from coast to coast

On this day in 1951 — 70 years ago today — President Harry S. Truman's opening speech before a conference in San Francisco was broadcast across the nation, marking the first time a television program was broadcast from coast to coast.

The speech focused on Truman's acceptance of a treaty that officially ended America's post-World War II occupation of Japan. The broadcast, using microwave technology, was picked up by 87 stations in 47 cities.

It’s hard to believe, with the deep the effects television has had on our culture, that the medium is still so young. Television, of course, is now in every nook and cranny of American life. It has not been with us forever, as many seem to think.

Today, television has mostly become a tool of political propaganda. It is long past time for a national debate and a critical reassessment of the effects television has had on our culture.

Thanks History.com

The "hotline," a vestige of the Cold War, began operating on this day in 1963 — 58 years ago

In the movies, the famous hotline between the United States and Russia was a red telephone. But, as might be expected, that was just myth.

The real hotline, a vestige of the Cold War, began operating with a test message on this day in 1963 — 58 years ago.

It was put in place to cut the risk of nuclear war through miscalculation, after the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 put the world on the brink of disaster. At the time, messages between President John F. Kennedy and the Soviet leader, Nikita S. Khrushchev, had taken hours to be delivered through regular diplomatic channels.

The famous hotline was actually a Teletype machine that transmitted 60 words a minute. The cable lines went through networks in the Pentagon and the Soviet Defense Ministry that could hook into the White House and the Kremlin.

The first message from Washington contained all the letters of the alphabet as well as digits: “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s back 1234567890.” The Russians sent a poetic description of Moscow’s sunset.

In 1984, the hotline was upgraded to a fax system, so that maps, charts, texts and photographs could be viewed. Today, it’s a computer network with a secure email system.

Since then, the hotline, which has been used several times, has been expanded to other nations, including China.

Thanks New York Times!

The real hotline in 1963

Fifty-seven years ago today, The Beatles and Bob Dylan met for the first time and smoked a joint together. Al Aronowitz introduced them.

Al Aronowitz at a Beat Generation conference at NYU, 1994

Photo by Frank Beacham

Fifty-seven years ago today, The Beatles and Bob Dylan met for the first time and smoked a joint together. The Beatles had just played a concert in Queens on August 28, 1964.

Later, at the Delmonico Hotel in Manhattan, they met Bob Dylan, who was introduced by a friend, a reporter named Al Aronowitz. It was on this day that the Beatles were first introduced to marijuana by Dylan and Aronowitz, who had brought along the joint.

Dylan had assumed The Beatles were well acquainted with the drug, after mishearing the lyrics to “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” He mistakenly thought the line went “… and when I touch you I get high, I get high … ” instead of “I can’t hide, I can’t hide.”

Years later, Aronowitz, who became a personal friend, told me the story and I didn’t believe him — that is until I checked it out and found it to be true.

Aronowitz was quite a character. He was the original manager of The Velvet Underground, getting the band their first gig at a high school auditorium. Members of Velvet Underground stole Aronowitz's tape recorder and dumped him weeks later when they met Andy Warhol.

Aronowitz also claimed that Dylan wrote the song, “Mr. Tambourine Man,” while staying in his home in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. That I could never prove.

Back in the mid 1990s, Aronowitz and I bonded when we began exploring the internet for our work. I got there first, and Al was impressed since he was a technophobe. He wrote this about me in his, “The Blacklisted Journalist” column, and published it on the net in the mid-1990s:

“I have found a spiritual brother in my journalism-in-exile. By putting his writings on the Internet, Frank is doing the same thing I'm doing: addressing the future. In other words, talking to posterity. I write my pieces as if I'm addressing a friend of mine in cyberspace a thousand years from now. But in Frank, I feel I've found a friend of mine in cyberspace RIGHT NOW! Writing in cyberspace is not the same as chiseling it in stone, but I think stone erodes more easily. I try to write stuff that's going to last and I think Frank does, too,” Al wrote.

“Therefore, it is with great pride and pleasure that I sneak myself the honor of featuring Frank Beacham's page as a pre-eminent link to my own. That's because, in reading his (material), I immediately felt his mind to be linked to my own. In that one essay, Frank Beacham saw things exactly the way I see 'em. Reading only one essay, I immediately felt my brain connected to his brain...it took me only one of his essays to persuade me that Frank's one of my men.”

Al died on August 1, 2005 at age 77.

Davy Crockett, 19th century folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician, was born 235 years ago today

Davy Crockett, 19th century folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician, was born 235 years ago today.

Crockett is commonly referred to as the "King of the Wild Frontier.” He grew up in East Tennessee, where he gained a reputation for hunting and storytelling. After being made a colonel in the militia of Lawrence County, Tennessee, he was elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1821.

In 1825, Crockett was elected to the U.S. Congress, where he vehemently opposed many of the policies of President Andrew Jackson, most notably the Indian Removal Act. Crockett's opposition to Jackson's policies led to his defeat in the 1831 elections.

He won again in 1833, then narrowly lost in 1835, prompting his angry departure to Texas (then the Mexican state of Tejas) shortly thereafter. In early 1836, Crockett took part in the Texas Revolution and was killed at the Battle of the Alamo in March.

Crockett became famous in his own lifetime for larger-than-life exploits popularized by stage plays and almanacs. After his death, he continued to be credited with acts of mythical proportion.

These led in the 20th century to television and movie portrayals, and he became one of the best-known American folk heroes. Walt Disney reprised the legend in his 1950s TV, which also introduced his legendary coonskin cap. The show starred Fess Parker as Crockett.

"The Ballad of Davy Crockett" from the Disney TV show had four different versions of the song hit the Billboard Best Sellers pop chart in 1955. The versions by Bill Hayes, Fess Parker and Tennessee Ernie Ford charted in the Top 10 simultaneously, with Hayes' version hitting #1.

Crockett died fighting at the Alamo on the morning of March 6, 1836 at the age of 49.

In the above photo, Fess Parker as the television version of Davy Crockett