Frank Beacham's Journal

On this day in 1961 — 62 years ago — President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the American people to keep a careful eye on what he called the "military-industrial complex"

In his farewell address to the nation on this day in 1961 — 62 years ago — President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the American people to keep a careful eye on what he called the "military-industrial complex" that began developing in the post-World War II years.

A fiscal conservative, Eisenhower had been concerned about the growing size and cost of the American defense establishment since he became president in 1953. In his last presidential address to the American people, he expressed those concerns in terms that shocked some of his listeners.

Eisenhower began by describing the changing nature of the American defense establishment since World War II. No longer could the U.S. afford the "emergency improvisation" that characterized its preparations for war against Germany and Japan. Instead, the United States was "compelled to create a permanent armaments industry" and a huge military force.

He admitted that the Cold War made clear the "imperative need for this development," but he was gravely concerned about "the acquisition of unwarranted influence...by the military-industrial complex." In particular, he asked the American people to guard against the "danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."

Eisenhower's blunt language stunned some of his supporters. They believed that the man who led the country to victory in Europe in World War II and guided the nation through some of the darkest moments of the Cold War was too negative toward the military-industrial complex that was the backbone of America's defense.

For most listeners, however, it seemed clear that Eisenhower was merely stating the obvious. World War II and the ensuing Cold War resulted in the development of a large and powerful defense establishment.

The outgoing President warned that this new military-industrial complex could weaken or destroy the very institutions and principles it was designed to protect. Only now can we be begin to appreciate the truth of Eisenhower’s words.

Here, Eisenhower issues his infamous warning.

On this day in 1762 — 260 years ago — an innkeeper named Samuel Fraunces bought a brick house in Manhattan. It became the Fraunces Tavern, former headquarters of George Washington

On this day in 1762 — 261 years ago — an innkeeper named Samuel Fraunces bought a brick house near the southern tip of Manhattan. He opened the Queen’s Head tavern there. The inn is still open.

But nowadays it is known as Fraunces Tavern, former headquarters of George Washington and one of the city’s preeminent landmarks. Over the centuries, the tavern endured fires, periodic closings and two bombings — one by the British in 1775 and one by Puerto Rican nationalists 200 years later.

Little of the original 1719 structure remains, following a 1907 reconstruction, but a few fragments can still be seen.

The tavern, at 54 Pearl Street, also houses a historical museum whose relics include a piece of one of Washington’s teeth.

Thanks New York Times!

A protest began in Washington, D.C. 106 years ago by the National Woman’s Party. It led to giving women the right to vote

A protest began in Washington, D.C. 106 years ago by the National Woman’s Party. It led to giving women the right to vote.

It all began on the eve of Woodrow Wilson’s second inauguration and drew more than a 1,000 people to circle the White House. The “silent sentinels” stayed on Lafayette Square protesting for months.

The civil disobedience by the National Woman’s Party was the main force behind the 19th Amendment, which gave women a national right to vote in 1920.

Some pickets were arrested on the charge of obstructing traffic, and in prison, some went on hunger strikes. Abusive treatment of the protesters, who called themselves political prisoners, angered some Americans and created more support for the suffrage amendment. They were released and their arrests were later declared unconstitutional.

After the women helped replace anti-suffrage senators in the 1918 elections, the 19th Amendment finally passed both houses of Congress and was sent to the states for ratification. The Amendment was ratified by enough states by 1920, thus giving women the right to vote.

But the party suffered from some of the same segregationist tendencies circulating in society at the time. It took the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s to finally secure full suffrage for black women.

In 1912, W.E.B. Du Bois of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called out the party’s parent group for rejecting black members and associations.

The following year, when the anti-lynching journalist, Ida B. Wells, led a contingent of black suffragists from Chicago to a march in the capital, organizers told them to stay in the rear.

Wells declined. She quietly walked alongside two white supporters with the Illinois contingent.

Thanks New York Times!

Evelyn Nesbit was a popular chorus girl and artists’ model whose liaison with renowned architect Stanford White immortalized her as "The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing"

Nesbit in a 1903 portrait by Gertrude Käsebier

Evelyn Nesbit was a popular chorus girl and artists’ model whose liaison with renowned architect Stanford White immortalized her as "The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing."

In the early part of the 20th century, the figure and face of Evelyn Nesbit was everywhere, appearing in mass circulation newspaper and magazine advertisements and on souvenir items and calendars. It made her a cultural celebrity.

Her career began in her early teens in Philadelphia and continued in New York, where she posed for a cadre of respected artists of the era, including James Carroll Beckwith, Frederick S. Church and notably, Charles Dana Gibson, who idealized her as a “Gibson Girl.”

She had the distinction of being an early “live model” in an era when fashion photography as an advertising medium was just beginning its ascendancy. As a stage performer, and while still a teenager, she attracted the attention of the then 47-year-old architect and New York socialite, Stanford White, who became her lover and dedicated benefactor.

Nesbit achieved world-wide notoriety when her jealous husband, multi-millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw, shot and murdered Stanford White on the rooftop theatre of Madison Square Garden on the evening of June 25, 1906, leading to what the press would call “The Trial of the Century.”

Nesbit died at age 82 in 1967.

 

“Stagecoach” Mary Fields (1832-1914) was born a slave in Tennessee and following the Civil War, she moved to the pioneer community of Cascade, Montana, where she delivered the mail

“Stagecoach” Mary Fields (1832-1914) was born a slave in Tennessee and following the Civil War, she moved to the pioneer community of Cascade, Montana.

In 1895, when she was around 60 years old, Fields became the second woman and first African American carrier for the U.S. Postal Service.

Despite her age, she never missed a day of work in the ten years she carried the mail and earned the nickname “Stagecoach” for her reliability.

Fields loved the job, despite the many dangers and difficulties such as wolves and thieves (she was an excellent marksman, defending her route with a revolver and a rifle).

The people of Cascade so loved and respected Fields, that each year on her birthday they closed the schools to celebrate the occasion. They even built her a new house when she lost her home in a fire in 1912.

Want to give your family one of the most enduring Christmas gifts of their life (and perhaps yours) for very little money?

Want to give your family one of the most enduring Christmas gifts of their life (and perhaps yours) for very little money?

Then do an oral audio or video “history” of the life of the oldest person in your family. I did an audio history with an elderly grandmother and discovered secrets I would never have known otherwise. Now, generations later, I am still asked for copies of the tape as new generations of the family want to learn of their past. It was one of the best ideas I ever had.

My grandmother lived a life that spanned the 20th Century. She was born in 1900 and died at the end of the century. To do the series of audio interviews, I used a published time line of the century I bought in a bookstore. It featured highlights from each year of dance, music, cooking, inventions — whatever was popular at the time.

When I asked her what dance she did when she was 16, she answered the Cakewalk. “Honey, I was the Cakewalk champion,” she told me. “I ran off and got married after a cakewalk.”

This was news to everyone!

On this day in 1881 — 141 years ago — the Earp brothers faced off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in the legendary shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona

On this day in 1881 — 141 years ago — the Earp brothers faced off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in the legendary shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.

After silver was discovered nearby in 1877, Tombstone quickly grew into one of the richest mining towns in the Southwest. Wyatt Earp, a former Kansas police officer working as a bank security guard, and his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, the town marshal, represented "law and order" in Tombstone, though they also had reputations as being power-hungry and ruthless.

The Clantons and McLaurys were cowboys who lived on a ranch outside of town and sidelined as cattle rustlers, thieves and murderers.

In October, 1881, the struggle between these two groups for control of Tombstone and Cochise County ended in a blaze of gunfire at the OK Corral.
   
On the morning of October 25, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone for supplies. Over the next 24 hours, the two men had several violent run-ins with the Earps and their friend, Doc Holliday. Around 1:30 p.m. on October 26, Ike's brother, Billy, rode into town to join them, along with Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne.

The first person they met in the local saloon was Holliday, who was delighted to inform them that their brothers had both been pistol-whipped by the Earps. Frank and Billy immediately left the saloon, vowing revenge.

Around 3 p.m., the Earps and Holliday spotted the five members of the Clanton-McLaury gang in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral, at the end of Fremont Street.

The famous gunfight that ensued lasted all of 30 seconds, and around 30 shots were fired. Though it's still debated who fired the first shot, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton point-blank in the chest, while Doc Holliday fired a shotgun blast at Tom McLaury's chest.

Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a shot in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few shots before collapsing, as did Billy Clanton.

When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Claiborne had run for the hills.

Sheriff John Behan of Cochise County, who witnessed the shootout, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder. A month later, however, a Tombstone judge found the men not guilty, ruling that they were "fully justified in committing these homicides."

The famous shootout has been immortalized in many movies, including Frontier Marshal (1939), Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994).   

On this day in 1957 — 65 years ago — the Soviet Union inaugurated the "Space Age" with its launch of Sputnik, the world's first man-made satellite

On this day in 1957 — 65 years ago — the Soviet Union inaugurated the "Space Age" with its launch of Sputnik, the world's first man-made satellite.

The spacecraft, named Sputnik after the Russian word for "satellite," was launched at 10:29 p.m. Moscow time on Oct. 4, 1957 from the Tyuratam launch base in the Kazakh Republic.

Sputnik had a diameter of 22 inches and weighed 184 pounds. It circled the Earth once every hour and 36 minutes. Traveling at 18,000 miles an hour, its elliptical orbit had an apogee (farthest point from Earth) of 584 miles and a perigee (nearest point) of 143 miles.

Visible with binoculars before sunrise or after sunset, Sputnik transmitted radio signals back to Earth strong enough to be picked up by amateur radio operators. Those in the United States with access to such equipment tuned in and listened in awe as the beeping Soviet spacecraft passed over America several times a day.

In January, 1958, Sputnik's orbit deteriorated, as expected, and the spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere.

Officially, Sputnik was launched to correspond with the International Geophysical Year, a solar period that the International Council of Scientific Unions declared would be ideal for the launching of artificial satellites to study Earth and the solar system. However, many Americans feared more sinister uses of the Soviets' new rocket and satellite technology, which was apparently strides ahead of the U.S. space effort.

Sputnik was some 10 times the size of the first planned U.S. satellite, which was not scheduled to be launched until the next year. The U.S. government, military and scientific community were caught off guard by the Soviet technological achievement, and their united efforts to catch up with the Soviets heralded the beginning of the "space race."

The first U.S. satellite, Explorer, was launched on January 31, 1958. By then, the Soviets had already achieved another ideological victory when they launched a dog into orbit aboard Sputnik 2.

The Soviet space program went on to achieve a series of other space firsts in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They included the first man in space, first woman, first three men, first space walk, first spacecraft to impact the moon, first to orbit the moon, first to impact Venus and the first craft to soft-land on the moon.

However, the United States took a giant leap ahead in the space race in the late '60s with the Apollo lunar-landing program, which successfully landed two Apollo 11 astronauts on the surface of the moon in July, 1969.

Thanks History.com

On this day in 1944 — 78 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

On this day in 1944 — 78 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!

On this day in 1940 — 82 years ago — the first peacetime draft in the history of the United States was imposed

Vietnam Veterans Against the War, 1972

Photo by Frank Beacham

On this day in 1940 — 82 years ago — the first peacetime draft in the history of the United States was imposed.

It came in the form of the Burke-Wadsworth Act, passed by Congress by wide margins in both houses. The measure gave birth to the Selective Service.

The registration of men between the ages of 21 and 36 began exactly one month later, as Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, who had been a key player in moving the Roosevelt administration away from a foreign policy of strict neutrality, began drawing draft numbers out of a glass bowl.

The numbers were handed to the president, who read them aloud for public announcement. There were some 20 million eligible young men — 50 percent were rejected the very first year, either for health reasons or illiteracy (20 percent of those who registered were illiterate).

In November, 1942, with the United States now a participant in the war, and not merely a neutral bystander, the draft ages expanded. Men 18 to 37 were made eligible.

Blacks were passed over for the draft because of racist assumptions about their abilities and the viability of a mixed-race military. But this changed in 1943, when a "quota" was imposed, meant to limit the numbers of blacks drafted to reflect their numbers in the overall population, roughly 10.6 percent of the whole.

Initially, blacks were restricted to "labor units," but this too ended as the war progressed, when they were finally used in combat.

"Conscientious objector" (CO) status was granted to those who could demonstrate "sincerity of belief in religious teachings combined with a profound moral aversion to war."

Quakers made up most of the COs, but 75 percent of those Quakers who were drafted fought. COs had to perform alternate service in Civilian Public Service Camps, which entailed long hours of hazardous work for no compensation.

About 5,000 to 6,000 men were imprisoned for failing to register or serve the nation in any form. These numbers were comprised mostly of Jehovah's Witnesses.

By war's end, approximately 34 million men had registered and 10 million served with the military. However, the draft laws remained intact.

Of the more than 72,000 men registering as conscientious objectors (CO), nearly 52,000 received CO status. Of these, over 25,000 entered the military in noncombatant roles, another 12,000 went to civilian work camps and nearly 6,000 went to prison.

Draft evasion only accounted for about four percent of the total inducted. About 373,000 alleged evaders were investigated with just over 16,000 being imprisoned.

The large cohort of Baby Boomers who became eligible for military service during the Vietnam War was responsible for a steep increase in the number of exemptions and deferments, especially for college students.

Besides being able to avoid the draft, college graduates who volunteered for military service (primarily as commissioned officers) had a much better chance of securing a preferential posting compared to less-educated inductees.

As U.S. troop strength in Vietnam increased, more young men were drafted for service there, and many of those still at home sought means of avoiding the draft.

Since only 15,000 National Guard and Reserve soldiers were sent to Vietnam, enlistment in the Guard or the Reserves became a popular means of avoiding serving in a war zone.

For those who could meet the more stringent enlistment standards, service in the Air Force, Navy or Coast Guard was a means of reducing the chances of being killed. Vocations to the ministry and the rabbinate soared, because divinity students were exempt from the draft.

Doctors and draft board members found themselves being pressured by relatives or family friends to exempt potential draftees.

Some conscientious objectors objected to the war based on the theory of Just War. One of these, Stephen Spiro, was convicted of avoiding the draft, but given a suspended sentence of five years. He was later pardoned by President Gerald Ford.

There were 8,744,000 service members between 1964 and 1975, of whom 3,403,000 were deployed to Southeast Asia.

From a pool of approximately 27 million, the draft raised 2,215,000 men for military service (in the United States, Vietnam, West Germany and elsewhere) during the Vietnam era.

The draft has also been credited with "encouraging" many of the 8.7 million "volunteers" to join rather than risk being drafted. The majority of servicemen deployed to Vietnam were volunteers.

Of the nearly 16 million men not engaged in active military service, 57 percent were exempted (typically because of jobs including other military service), deferred (usually for educational reasons), or disqualified (usually for physical and mental deficiencies but also for criminal records including draft violations).

During the 1968 presidential election, Richard Nixon campaigned on a promise to end the draft. He had first become interested in the idea of an all-volunteer army during his time out of office, based upon a paper by Martin Anderson of Columbia University.

Nixon also saw ending the draft as an effective way to undermine the anti-Vietnam war movement, since he believed affluent youths would stop protesting the war once their own probability of having to fight in it was gone.

There was opposition to the all-volunteer notion from both the Department of Defense and Congress, so Nixon took no immediate action towards ending the draft early in his presidency.

Instead, the Gates Commission was formed, headed by Thomas S. Gates, Jr., a former Secretary of Defense in the Eisenhower administration. Gates initially opposed the all-volunteer army idea, but changed his mind during the course of the 15-member commission's work.

The Gates Commission issued its report in February, 1970, describing how adequate military strength could be maintained without having conscription. The existing draft law was expiring at the end of June, 1971, but the Department of Defense and Nixon administration decided the draft needed to continue for at least some time.

In February, 1971, the administration requested of Congress a two-year extension of the draft, to June 1973. It was approved.

Meanwhile, military pay was increased as an incentive to attract volunteers, and television advertising for the U.S. Army began. With the end of active U.S. ground participation in Vietnam, December, 1972 saw the last men conscripted, who were born in 1952 and who reported for duty in June, 1973.

On February 2, 1972, a drawing was held to determine draft priority numbers for men born in 1953, but in early 1973 it was announced that no further draft orders would be issued.

In March, 1973, 1974 and 1975, the Selective Service assigned draft priority numbers for all men born in 1954, 1955 and 1956, in case the draft was extended, but it never was. Jeff Mellinger, the last drafted enlisted ranked soldier still on active duty, retired in 2011.

The pressures of the draft during the Vietnam war had a great effect on the music produced in the period and shaped the classic rock and roll that is still played today.