When “The Clansman” Came to the White House
By Ken Zurski
On Feb 18 1915, the first screening of a major motion picture took place inside the walls of the White House. President Woodrow Wilson instructed it at the request of a friend Thomas Dixon Jr., author of The Clansman, a radical novel published in 1905, which skewed the Reconstruction era by heroizing the Ku Klux Klan’s efforts against an illicit uprising by former slaves in the South.
Dixon’s book had just become a film version, retitled “The Birth of a Nation.” and directed by D.W. Griffith. Wilson was familiar with the book and its subject matter.
For months, in letters, Dixon had set up the President’s role in the film: “I have an abiding faith that you will write your name with Washington and Jefferson as one of the great creative forces in the development of our Republic,” he wrote. Wilson was flattered, responding: “I want you to know Tom, that I’m pleased to do this little thing for you.” Dixon and Wilson had been law students together at John Hopkins in the 1880’s.
In asking, Dixon was disingenuous at best: “What I told the President was that I would show him the birth of a new art – the launching of the mightiest engine for moulding public opinion in the history of the world.” Dixon was hoping to spread the message of white southern attitudes in the North. This, he explained, was”the real purpose of the film.” In securing a screening, however, Dixon stressed the importance of advancing the medium rather than the content. Wilson took the bait, or as one writer expressed, “fell into a trap.” An assessment, one can argue, was hardly befitting the President’s reputation at the time.
In addition, the President had recently lost his beloved wife to illness. He was in no mood to go – or be seen – in a public theater. So the film came to him.
Dixon set it all up. He along with a projection crew steamed by rail from California to Washington D.C. and lugged twelve reels of film from Union Station to Pennsylvania Avenue. On a chilly February evening the President, along with his family and several cabinet members, viewed the film in the East Room of the White House.
Historical facts get sketchy at this point, especially Wilson’s reaction.
A magazine writer claimed Wilson liked the film enough to contribute an ambiguous quote: “It’s like writing history with lightning. My only regret is that it is all terribly true.”
A Wilson biographer, however, disputes these claims, reporting some sixty years later, that the last living person to view the film that night told a vastly different story. Wilson left early before the movie was over, this person recalled, and didn’t utter a word.
In retrospect, what likely happened is this: It was late, the film was long, and Wilson stepped out to retire to bed.
None of this mattered at the time. Just screening the controversial movie in the White House was awkward enough. And regardless of what Wilson did or did not do, having his presence in the flickering light of the projector prompted Dixon and Griffith to proclaim “the presidential seal of approval.”
For Wilson it was another political embarrassment and solidified views by many that the President had policies that were designed to separate rather than mix the races.
When the sharp protests began, Wilson was stuck. He tried to remain indifferent, but that was impossible. The NAACP demanded an explanation. Wilson wrote a few letters, eventually disowned any words attributed to him, and left it at that. He had more important matters to attend to. Specifically, warning Germany of the misuse of submarines in open waters.
In March of 1915, The Birth of a Nation opened to positive reviews and large crowds. The NAACP’s attempt to get the film banned, some professed, failed because the “mostly white” film board ignored it.
Wilson was too busy to care.
Less than three months later, the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania was attacked by German U -boats, killing 124 Americans and ratcheting up awareness for the President to act.
In April 1917, Wilson would declare the U.S. entering the Great War.
The Poll That Picked FDR To Lose
By Ken Zurski
In 1920, starting with the election of President Warren G. Harding, a weekly magazine called The Literary Digest correctly picked the winner of each subsequent presidential election up to and including Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decisive victory over Herbert Hoover in 1932.
Quite an impressive track record by a magazine founded by two Lutheran ministers in 1890. The Literary Review culled articles from other publications and provided readers with insightful analysis and opinions on the day’s events. Eventually, as the subscriber list grew, the magazine created its own response-based surveys, or polling, as it is known today.
The presidential races were the perfect example of this system.
So in 1936, with a subscriber base of 10 million and a solid track record, the Digest was ready to declare the next president: “Once again, [we are] asking more than ten million voters — one out of four, representing every county in the United States — to settle November’s election in October,” they bragged.
When the tallies were in, the Digest polls showed Republican Alfred Landon beating incumbent Roosevelt 57-percent to 43-percent. This was a surprise to many who thought Landon didn’t stand a chance.
He didn’t.
Roosevelt was a progressive Democrat whose New Deal policies, like the Social Security Act and Public Pension Act, passed through Congress with mostly bipartisan support. Soon, millions of Americans burdened by the Great Depression would receive federal assistance.
Landon, a moderate, admired Roosevelt but felt he was soft on business and yielded too much presidential power. “I will not promise the moon,” he exclaimed during a campaign speech and warned against raising payroll taxes to pay for benefits. It didn’t work. Roosevelt won all but two states, Maine and Vermont, and sailed to a second term with 60-percent of the popular vote.
Even Landon’s hometown state of Kansas, where he had been Governor since 1933, went with the President. In the end, Landon’s 8 electoral votes to Roosevelt’s 532 – or 98-percent – made it the most lopsided general election in history.
In hindsight, poor sampling was blamed for the Digest’s erroneous choice. Not only were subscribers mostly middle to upper class, but only a little over two of the ten million samples were returned, skewing the result.
The big winner, however, besides Roosevelt, was George Gallup, the son of an Iowa dairy farmer and eventual newspaperman, whose upstart polling company American Institute of Public Opinion correctly chose the President over Landon to within 1 percent of the actual margin of victory.
In 1948, the validity of public opinion polls would be questioned again when Gallup incorrectly picked Thomas Dewey to beat Roosevelt’s successor by death, Harry S.Truman.
Since it was widely considered Truman would lose his reelection bid to a full term, Gallup survived the scrutiny.
Even the Chicago Tribune got it wrong, claiming a Dewey presidency was “inevitable,” and printing an early edition with the now infamous headline of “Dewey Defeats Truman.” A humiliation that Truman mocked the next day.
The Literary Digest, however, had no say in the matter.
In 1938, the magazine merged with another review publication and stopped polling subscribers.
The Bee Man
By Ken Zurski
When Amos Root was a boy growing up on a farm in Medina, Ohio, instead of helping his father with the chores he stuck by his mother’s side and tended to the garden instead.
Root was small in size (only five-foot-three as an adult) and prone to sickness. The garden work suited him just fine. But in his teens, for money, Root took up jewelry as a trade and became quite good at it.
Then in 1865, at the age of 26, he found his calling – bees.
Root had offered a man a dollar if he could round up a swarm of bees outside the doors of his jewelry store. The man did and Root was hooked. But Root didn’t want to just harvest bees, he wanted to study them.
Eventually his work led to a national trade journal titled Gleaning’s in Bee Culture. Bees became his business and profitable too, but Root had other interests as well, specifically mechanical things, like the automobile, a blessing for someone who hated cleaning up after the horse. “I do not like the smell of the stables,” he once wrote.
But the automobile was different. “It never gets tired; it gets there quicker than any horse can possibly do.”
He bought an Oldsmobile Runabout, “for less than a horse” he bragged, and happily drove it near his home. Then in September 1904, at the age of 69, Root took his longest trip yet, a nearly 400-mile journey to Dayton, Ohio. Root had heard a couple of “minister’s sons” were making great strides in aviation, so he wrote them and asked if he could take a look. His enthusiasm was evident.
The two brothers granted his wish, but only if he promised not to reveal any secrets. In August of 1904, Root set off for his first trip to Dayton and the next month did the same. The first visit he watched in awe, but revealed nothing. The second time he was given permission to write about what he had seen. It was the first time the Wright brothers and their flying machine appeared in print.
“My dear friends,” Root gleefully wrote in his bee publication, “I have a wonderful story to tell you. “
Slam Bradley and the Evolution of Superman
By Ken Zurski
In January of 1933, a short story titled “The Reign of the Super-Man.” appeared in a science fiction fanzine created by two teenagers at the time, Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel.
The “Superman” or title character of their story was a bad guy with a bald head and telepathic powers.
“The Superman theme has been one of the themes ever since Samson and Hercules; and I just sat down and wrote a story of that type – only in this story, the Superman was a villain,” Siegel later explained in an interview.
Eventually the two friends decided Superman would be better as a good guy. But they weren’t sure how to make the transition. So they drew up another character named Slam Bradley. “Jerry came up with the idea of a man of action with a sense of humor,” Shuster relates. “Still, he couldn’t fly, and he didn’t have a costume.”
Actually the concept of Slam Bradley, including the name, is credited to Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, an avid horse rider and one of the youngest cadets to join the US Calvary in 1917 at the age of 27. Wheeler-Johnson was commissioned a major in World War I. When the war ended, Wheeler-Nicholson openly wrote letters to president Warren G. Harding describing mistreatment by senior officers at West Point. The accusations led to counter charges, lawsuits and a court martial trail conviction of Wheeler-Johnson for violating the 96th Article of War which essentially prohibits public criticism of the military by an officer.
Wheeler-Nicholson resigned from his duties in 1923 and became a pulp writer and entrepreneur instead. While looking for a distinctive character to highlight his new Detective Comics series, he sent a letter to Seigel. “We want a detective hero called ‘Slam Bradley’ he wrote. “He is to be an amateur, called in by the police to help unravel difficult cases.”
Wheeler-Nicholson was even more specific: “He should combine both brains and brawn, be able to think quickly and reason cleverly and able as well to slam bang his way out of a bar room brawl or mob attack.”
Siegel and Shuster, however, used Slam Bradley as a test run. “Superman had already been created, and we didn’t want to give away the Superman idea; but we just couldn’t resist putting into Slam Bradley some of the slam-bang stuff.”
Despite his penchant for cigarettes and dames, the target audience of preteen boys took to Slam Bradley as a super hero of sorts. So Siegel and Shuster worked late nights and long hours to perfect their original character, Superman, which they felt had more appeal.
Superman made his first appearance in Action Comics in 1938.
Even Superman’s secret alter ego, Clark Kent, was patterned after Siegel’s real life luck – or lack of it – with girls. “What if I had something special going for me, like jumping over buildings or throwing cars around or something like that, then maybe they would notice me,” he confessed.
The look of Superman changed too, from a bald headed man to the costumed, caped crusader we know today.
In an interview in 1983, Siegel compared the look of the original Superman to a popular television star at the time.
“I suppose he looks a lot like Telly Savalas,” he said.
How a Small Golf Course in Illinois Influenced the Bible’s Translation
By Ken Zurski
Palos Heights, Illinois, a small southwest suburb of Chicago, is listed in at least one version of the Holy Bible. Not in scripture, of course, but in the Preface of the New International Version, a commonly used edition today, published in 1978. It reads “…a group of scholars met at Palos Heights, Illinois, and concurred in the need for a new translation of the Bible in contemporary English.”
Amazing as that seems, the story behind the story, is just as revealing.
And it all begins with a golf course.
In 1929, a showcase 18-hole golf course opened in an unincorporated grassy area southwest of Chicago known as Navajo Fields, named, of course, for its earliest residents. The Navajo Fields Golf Course proved to be a player’s delight, including its most challenging hole number four. Although the reason why the fourth hole’s play was such a challenge is not exactly known, it certainly earned a dubious reputation at the time. Despite the toughness of the course, however, the clubhouse was decorative and cozy with several steeple ceilings and large bay windows. It served many banquets for groups who traveled out of Chicago’s fancy hotels and convention halls for a gathering in a more secluded setting.
By the early 1950’s, Navajo Fields was one of the premium golf courses in the Chicago area and each spring excited players lined up to tee off. “The prolonged coating of snow during the winter has had the effect of preserving the turf, “ course officials bragged to the Blue Island Sun Standard in 1953. “The course is in beautiful shape this year.” Even hole number four, which “plagued many golfers,” was changed. “It has been rebuilt and enlarged and the hole will have an alternate tee.”
Regrettably , the course would only last a few more years.
In 1959 the area surrounding the golf course was incorporated and renamed Palos Heights, a small suburb of Chicago with only four square miles of land and water (Lake Katherine), but today boasts nearly 5,000 mostly upscale homes in neatly designed subdivisions.
Also that year, the privately funded Trinity Christian College bought the Navajo Fields grounds, including the two buildings. The golf course was subsequently closed. The old clubhouse was remodeled and became the school’s administration building, while the pro shop became the music building. The unaccredited college opened that fall with 37 students and 5 full time faculty members.
Then in 1965, the college hosted a special meeting of religious leaders to discuss a proposal to change the Old English wording of the Bible. Specifically, to make the King James Version easier to read, more understandable and sustainable to long-term teaching. They gathered in the old clubhouse building and came up with a plan.
Here’s why: In 1952, a Revised Standard Version of the Bible was released by the National Council of Churches, the ecumenical body of mainline Protestant denominations in the United States. Opponents of the new version, mostly hardliner Protestant conservatives, more commonly known as Evangelicals, refused to adopt it, sticking with the original King James version for scripture readings instead.
Change was needed.
So the Evangelical council along with the Christian Reformed Church, a group founded by Dutch immigrants, who were also looking for a more streamlined and Americanized version of the Bible, came to Palos Heights.
Why they chose Trinity Christian College is curious, but understandable. It was discreet and private, yes, but also represented the type of educational institution a translated bible would benefit the most. Plus, if it didn’t go as planned, no one would know. Not much was publicized while the work commenced. A New York group would fund the project.
This reticent attitude is likely due to the monumental challenge and possible backlash for such an undertaking. The Revised Standard Version was widely considered to be the first time the King James version had been extensively tinkered with since the early 17th century.
But that was not entirely true.
In the early 19th century, Noah Webster, yes, the dictionary guru, also wanted to change the King James Version of the Holy Bible. He had a different agenda, however. He hated what the majesty’s version stood for. Not the religious aspect, that was fine, but it was too British, too overbearing, offensive and insulting. So Webster set out to make it more American, and the language, more like Americans speak. This is what Americans wanted, he thought.
He was wrong. While his intentions were noble enough, the King James Version even after the end of British rule, continued to be accepted in America. Webster refused to back down. He went to work changing words he didn’t like and fixing grammar problems he called “atrocious.”
Webster’s “Holy Bible … with Amendments of the Language” or “Common Version” appeared in 1833. It was a colossal failure. A big, wordy waste of time, many thought. So dismissed, that a year later in 1834, Webster put out another book, an apology of sorts, but defending the Bible’s message and Christianity as a whole. Even at the age of seventy, he emphasized the importance of its completion. “I consider this emendation of the common version as the most important enterprise of my life,” he said.
Webster was off by nearly a hundred years.
By the mid 20th century, large church denominations were opening privately funded colleges and teaching the word of the Bible to students in hopes of sparking a revolution in religious educators and young pastors. The King James version of the Bible needed a revision. The Revised Standard Edition was a start. But the Evangelicals thought they could do better. So in Palos Heights, they came up with imperatives. For one, they needed more denominations to join in. They also needed a slew of scholars from around the world to participate. This unity -and variety – would safeguard it from sectarian bias, they thought, something the Revised Standard Edition did not do. Soon enough they assembled a team of scholars from a group of churches: Anglican, Assemblies of God, Baptist, Brethren, Church of Christ, Evangelical Free, Lutheran, Mennonite, Methodist, Nazarene, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, among others. The next year, at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, they put their plan to work.
According to the Preface of the New International Version, the detailed process went like this:
The translation of each book was assigned to a group of scholars. Next, one of the Intermediate Editorial Committees revised the initial translation, with constant reference to the Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek. Their work then went to one of the General Editorial Committees, which checked it in detail and made another thorough revision. This revision in turn was carefully reviewed by the Committee on Bible Translation, which made further changes and then released the final version for publication.
Among the many changes, old verbs like “doest,” “wouldest” and “hadst” were tossed out and replaced. Pronouns like “Thou” and “Thine” – referring to the Deity – were also considered too archaic. “If there was uncertainty about such material, it is enclosed in brackets,” explained the Committee on Bible Translation. “Also for the sake of clarity or style, nouns, including some proper nouns, are sometimes substituted for pronouns, and vice-versa.”
Among the more interesting added features were the italicized sectional headings. This is the one part of the new work that was wholly generated by present day writers. They are simple chapter titles designed to give the reader quick reference in themes. For example, in the Book of John some of the headings include, Jesus Walks on Water and The Plot to Kill Jesus.
It took nearly 10 years and several revisions before the New International Version was published in 1978 and although slight additions and subtractions would come later, the original vision remains the same. “The most massive and painstaking literary tour de force in history,” one newspaper writer enthused upon its initial release.
Dr . Burton L Goddard, a theologian who worked on the new Bible was grateful, but relieved. “We all acknowledge this to be the hardest work we have ever known,” he expressed.
Trinity Christian College still sits on the grounds of the old golf course in Palos Heights. In 1966, the board initiated the process for the college to become a four-year, degree-granting institution. The first baccalaureate degrees were awarded in May 1971. More buildings were added but many were built similar in style to original clubhouse. Today it’s still considered a small school by college standards, with just over 1500 in enrollment.
In 1983, during a new printing of the New International Version a line was added to the Preface to reflect a very Christian-like humble attitude: “Like all translations of the Bible, made as they are by imperfect man, this one undoubtedly falls short of its goals.”
Oh, the anxieties of high expectations.
Kind of like playing golf.
How William H. McMasters Exposed Ponzi’s Scheme
By Ken Zurski
William H. McMasters was all ears.
In 1920, when an Italian immigrant and dreamer named Charles Ponzi walked into the Boston publicist’s office to promote his business, McMasters listened.
Ponzi was using investments to buy postal coupons internationally and reselling them for profit in the U.S. It was totally legal and ingenious.
Ponzi needed to recruit more investors and McMasters was just the person to do it. “I was not averse to having a millionaire as a client,” McMasters later remarked.
McMasters immediately set up an interview at The Boston Post, which was an instant boon for Ponzi. Everyone wanted in. Everyone that is, except McMasters.
The numbers didn’t add up.
Ponzi was recruiting new investors, but far too many. The amount of postal coupons was limited so the promised return was higher than the take. Ponzi knew this, but didn’t tell. McMasters went back to the Post.
The editors were interested in exposing Ponzi, but leery of the process. They didn’t want to get sued. So McMasters wrote an article titled “Declares Ponzi is Now Hopelessly Insolvent.” In it, he explained that Ponzi had invested none of his own money or personally bought any of the stamps.
He used investor money to pay returns, but didn’t know when to stop. Now there were too many investors, too much money owed, and not enough printed stamps to guarantee payouts.
On August 2nd , The Post ran the article and prominently displayed it on the front page.
The next day, the Ponzi scheme was over.
In the end, McMasters found only complacency in his role. While most investors angrily demanded their money back, there were a select few for whom Ponzi’s charm was too persuasive.
They still thought they were getting rich.
Eventually, they blamed McMasters, not Ponzi, for their predicament.
The Fascinating History of John L. Young and the Creation of Miss America
By Ken Zurski
“It’s corny and it’s basic and it’s American” – Bert Parks, television emcee of the Miss America pageant 1955-1979.
In the early part of the 20th century, John L. Young was an Atlantic City entrepreneur who made lots of money, doled out lots of money, and lived quite comfortably off those who spent their hard earned dollars on his wheeling and dealing. That’s no indictment of the man. Young was a dreamer and had the fortitude to dream big and be rewarded. Call it gumption, not greed. It also helped build a truly unique American city.
Born in Absecon, New Jersey in 1853, Young came to Atlantic City as a youthful apprentice looking for work. Adept at carpentry, he helped build things at first including the infamous Lucy the Elephant statue that still greets visitors today.
The labor jobs were steady and the money reasonable, but Young was looking for something more challenging and prosperous. Soon enough, he befriended a retired baker in town who offered Young a chance to make some real dough. The two men pooled their resources and began operating amusements and carnival games along the boardwalk. Eventually they were using profits, not savings, to expand their business.
The Applegate Pier was a good start. They purchased the 600-plus long, two-tiered wooden structure, rehabbed it, and gave it a new name, Ocean Pier, for its proximity to the shoreline. Young built a nine-room Elizabethan- style mansion on the property and fished from the home’s massive open-aired windows. His daily casts became a de facto hit on the Pier. Young would wave to the curious in delight as the huge net was pulled from the depths of the Atlantic and tales of “strange sea creatures below” were told. The crowds dutifully lined up every day to see it. They even gave it a name, “Young’s Big New Haul.”
Young had bigger aspirations. He promised to build another pier that would cost “a million dollars,” similar in price back then to a Trump casino today. In 1907, the appropriately titled “Million Dollar Pier,” along with a cavernous building, like a large convention hall, opened its opulent doors. It was everything Young had said it would be and more. Elegantly designed like a castle and reeking of cash, Young spared no expense right down to the elaborately designed oriental rugs and velvety ceiling to floor drapery. It was the perfect place to host parties, special events and distinguished guests, including President William Howard Taft who typical of his reputation – and girth – spent most of the time in the Million’s extended dining hall.
Hotel owners along the boardwalk were pleased. Pricey rooms were always filled to capacity and revenues went up each year. Young had built a showcase of a pier and thousands came every summer to enjoy it. But every year near the end of August there was a foreboding sense that old man winter would soon shut down the piers – and profits.
There was nothing business leaders could do about the seasonal weather. In fact, the beginning of fall is typically a lovely time of year on the Jersey Shore. But Labor Day is traditionally the end of vacation season. In the early 1920’s, by mid-September, the boardwalk and its establishments would become in essence, a ghost town. Something was needed to keep tourists beyond the busy summer season.
A man named Conrad Eckholm, the owner of the local Monticello Hotel, came up with plan. He convinced other business owners to invest in a Fall Frolic, a pageant of sorts filled with silly audience participation events like a wheeled wicker chair parade down the street, called the Rolling Chair. It was so popular, someone suggested they go a step further and put a bevy of beautiful young girls in the chairs. Then an even more ingenious proposal came up. Why not make it a beauty or bathing contest?
Immediately the call went out. Girls were wanted, mostly teenagers and unmarried. They were to submit pictures and if chosen receive an all-expense paid trip to Atlantic City for a week of lighthearted comporting. The winner would get a “brand new wardrobe,” among other things. The entries poured in and by September of 1921, the inaugural pageant was set. Typical of his showmanship and style, John Young offered to host the event at the only place which could do the young ladies justice – The Million Dollar Pier.
The term Miss America came shortly thereafter. The hotel owners suggested the local newspaper sponsor the event as a way of increasing circulation and a reporter for the Atlantic City Press when asked, piped up: “And we will call her Miss America.” Whether he knew the term “Miss United States” had already been used at a beauty pageant in Colorado is not known. Perhaps “Miss America” was his first choice all along. Regardless, the name was perfect. But it didn’t catch on at first. Due to the uncertainty of national acceptance, the pageant was first billed as the “Inter-City Beauty Contest” and for many years the girls were referred to only as “civic beauties.”
The inaugural pageant in 1921 was less than stellar, run on the cheap, and rather bland. The girls frolicked and blended in with large crowds, but got little attention. Even the excitement of the first bathing suit competition was diminished by the fact that everyone was out enjoying the summer-like weather and wearing wet suits like the contestants. The “civic beauties” suits by comparison – covering up skin just above the kneecap – were no more revealing than other more refined patrons on the boardwalk.
The first winner was Margaret Gorman, Miss Washington (D.C.), who was just a week over 15-years-old and still today is the shortest Miss America at 5 foot 1 inch.
Sweet little Margaret apparently dominated the others with her downhome goodness and delightful personality. The judges, under no pretense, had picked sugar over salt, was the consensus.
That’s because the expected front runner, an older, more mature and “flashier” woman named Virginia Lee – who was voted “most charming professional” in a subordinate contest – had all the attributes considered to be a shoo-in at today’s competition.
In 1921, she was hardly in the mix.
Gorman’s surprise victory set the standard for the next several pageants to come. Young girls, exuding charm, cutesy smiles, and solid moral upbringings passed the judges litmus test and scored big. It was the early 1920’s after all. Women’s liberation and feminism was beginning to beckon, but still not widely accepted. Innocence, not independence, won beauty pageants.
The show’s production values, however, went through a major overhaul. It was decided a mascot, symbol, or face of the competition was needed. So King Neptune, God of the Sea, became a pseudo master of ceremonies and followed the ladies to each competition. The man who played the King was reportedly hired because he had the white hair and beard, but was said to be so short-tempered, lookouts were hired to calm any stormy rages.
More contests were added including the “questions round,” an “evening costume party,” and that interminable Rolling Chair parade which lasted two hours and was the highlight of the week. The bathing suit completion, however, continued to be like a day at the beach, with everyone on hand, even the police officers, dressed for a dip in the choppy water.
In 1927, the sixth year, the pageant took an unexpected turn. The girl who won it was an unsuspecting charmer from Illinois, Lois Delander of Joliet, the 17-year-old daughter of a city clerk.
Delander had her high school ballet teacher to thank for encouraging her to compete for a spot locally. The Illinois judges were easily impressed. Lois had intellect and beauty. She was an honor student who studied Latin and was said to be a whiz at music memory games. She was also straight as a ruler. “My lips have never touched coffee or tea,” she told them. Five feet four-and-a-half inches tall and slender for the time, she had sparkling blue eyes and blond “un-bobbed” hair.
“She never smoked,” the papers read.
Delander was soft spoken and quietly motivated. Unlike other contestants, expectations in her own mind were low for the national competition. She didn’t think she had a chance to win and vowed to make it a learning experience instead. “It’s all like a wonderful dream,” she politely told reporters shortly after arriving. “This is the first time I have seen an honest-to-goodness ocean.”
But the excitement didn’t last. She sorely missed home. She missed her family, her school and her classmates. Refusing to quit, however, Delander endured the week with grace, but never considered herself a front runner. On the night of the big announcement she packed her suitcase early and prepared to leave soon after another girl was crowned.
This is not to say that the Delander had a bad week. She was a delight to the judges and as one onlooker described, quite amorously, “looked great in a red and blue swimsuit.” During the question and answer session Delander was asked what she wants to do with her life. “I wish to be an artist,” she proclaimed. The humble response came after nearly half of the other girls said they wanted to be an aviator and “hero,” like Charles Lindbergh, who had just made an unprecedented solo jaunt over the Atlantic in May of that same year. (Apparently Amelia Earhart – who would be lost forever in a solo flight ten years later – wasn’t the only woman who had such lofty aspirations).
Yes, in fact, Lois Delander, Miss Illinois, had a very good week indeed. And although she may not have known it, or cared, she was very much in the running to be the next Miss America. Despite this fact, she packed her bags for an early exit.
As dozens of hopefuls stood on stage, two cards were drawn out of the weirdly symbolic “Golden Apple” shaped container. Five finalists had already been chosen and Delander was one. The five girls stood shoulder-to-shoulder in anticipation as the top two names were read aloud. The first name called was Miss Dallas, she was the runner up. The next name was the winner: Lois Delander.
Surprised, Delander smiled and accepted the award. She clearly didn’t mind the accolades, despite the reservations. “I am so excited that I cannot say much,” she told the press. “I want to thank the pageant committee for the kindness they have shown me. I shall try all through the year to do honor to the title which I bear.” She meant it. That was expected of her. But her next comments came straight from the heart. “Now I must rush home and take up my studies,” she said. “You see I’m a junior in high school and certainly want to finish my course.”
And she wasn’t kidding.
The next day, possibly that very evening, Delander and her chaperone mother were steaming by rail back to Joliet. Goodbye Atlantic City.
And, at least initially, goodbye to the Miss America pageant.
After Delander’s victory, the hotel owners association met again and decided by an overwhelming majority to shut the beauty contest down. While their initial reasons for starting such an event was to encourage more traffic through their doors, the clientele was not to their liking. They preferred patrons that spent more money. But that was just their pocketbooks talking. The most glaring concern was in the pageant itself, specifically the girls and their attitudes. Delander, of course, was the exception, but many of the participating “beauties” were stretching their womanly limits, or at least what was expected of them, by pushing away proprietary attitudes and liberating themselves from male seniority. Basically, they were demanding more rights and engaging in mostly male activities – like smoking. As one historian put it, the 1920’s woman was “frank, socially liberated, hedonistic, and reckless.” The friendlier side of Atlantic City, with the beaches, amusements and carnival atmosphere, looked bad because of it, the hotel owners surmised.
The hammer continued to fall in 1927 when the previous year’s winner refused to show up and give away her title because pageant officials wouldn’t pay her an appearance fee. Norma Smallwood from Tulsa was everything pageant officials feared in a beauty queen: a firecracker who could exploit it. After winning the crown, Smallwood reportedly used her status to milk big cash rewards, possibly out earning Babe Ruth by some estimates. She flat out refused to show up in Atlantic City the following year unless she was paid. In quick order, the hotel owners denied the request. Then they set out to stifle any future covetous acts. They started this madness, they clamored, so they could stop it.
So they did.
But America didn’t want it to go away. Delander was a popular winner and beauty pageants across the country were gaining notoriety and more interest. The one in Atlantic City was easily the most recognizable until it abruptly went away.
Lois Delander went back to Joliet after her 1927 victory and was treated like a movie star in her hometown. Naturally, she did her diligent best to live up to the crown’s duties although back then the Miss America title didn’t come with the same prestige and year-round personal obligations as it does today. Still, thanks to the pageant shutdown, she holds the dubious distinction of having the longest reign, five years.
In 1933, the five year hiatus ended. The Miss America pageant was revived by the mayor and City Council of Atlantic City. The hotel owners still refused to support it and watched in delight as a hastily planned and shoddy production almost brought the whole enterprise down for good. The girls were engaging, but beat down physically. Many were handpicked at amusement parks across the country and sent on a whirlwind seven-week promo tour before arriving in New Jersey. By the time the pageant started, they were visibly exhausted. At the Ritz-Carlton where the contestants stayed, sleep deprivation turned into giddy playfulness and some of the more plucky girls were asked to tone it down a bit. The winner, 15-year-old Marian Bergeron of Connecticut, perhaps the most demure of the bunch, later admitted, “If I would have been a little bit older, I think I would have had a ball.”
The pageant went on hiatus for a second time and was revived again in 1935 after just a year off. And again it was a rough go. That year’s winner was a high school dropout named Henrietta Leaver who worked at a dime store and had modest desires. She hoped to find “a full-time job” for her efforts.
The next year, pageant officials made the girls ride bicycles down the pier. Apparently they forget to ask if any of the girls had actually been on a bicycle before. Many didn’t, and fell off. Some cried and vowed to quit but a former contestant got in their faces. Buck it up, was her implication. “I know it’s hard, but you got to learn to take it. It’s part of the contest.”
But it was obvious something needed to change. The next year, in 1937, after a complete revision, the pageant gained its footing and never looked back. For more than six decades it was held in September in Atlantic City as the term “September Girls” took root.
Then in 2006, due to a change in television rights, it was moved to a January date and broadcast from Las Vegas. In 2013, it was moved back to Atlantic City and returned to its usual spot in September (Update: In 2019, the pageant was renamed Miss America 2.o and the 2020 competition will air from the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut on Thursday, December 19th on NBC).
In Atlantic City , the original host venue, the Million Dollar Pier, is gone by name. A half-mile long pier still stands but with a new title, it’s third, The Pier Shops at Caesars Atlantic City, an 80-store shopping mall.
John L. Young’s original structures were damaged by fire and demolished in the early 80’s. In its heyday, however, the palatial showcase was so popular many people gave the man who built it the honor of having his name forever stamped to its lore. Still today, it’s referred to as Young’s Million Dollar Pier or Captain Young’s Million Dollar Pier.
(Sources: There She Is, Miss America: The Politics of Beauty, and Race and in America’s Most Famous Pageant ; There She Is: The Life and Times of Miss America by Frank Deford; Chicago Daily Tribune, September 10,11,12, 1927; Peoria Evening Star Sept 10, 1927.)
Lar Daly and the Art of Losing Elections
By Ken Zurski
In 1952, the name General MacArthur appeared on the Wisconsin Republican primary ballot for President of the United States. This was unusual, because the famous general everyone knew, Douglas MacArthur, was not in the running.
More on that in a moment.
First, the person responsible for the inclusion of General MacArthur on the ballot is a man named Lawrence Joseph Sarsfield Daly, or Lar Daly for short. Daly was a political shill from the Midwest who unsuccessfully ran for a variety of political offices including Mayor of Chicago and eventually President of the United States. “What made [Daly] famous was his hobby,” a Chicago historian once wrote. “He ran for public office –and lost.” In 1952, however, Daly had another tapped for the White House, Douglas MacArthur, the popular World War II general.
That year President Harry Truman decided he would not seek reelection for a second full term and backed Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II for the nomination instead. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the clear choice on the Republican side. Daly, however, liked another general, MacArthur, who had made it clear from the onset that he was not in the running. Daly, who had just lost to Representative Everett Dirksen of Pekin in the 1950 Republican primary election for the Illinois U.S. Senate seat, took the matter in his own hands. Without permission, he added the general’s name to the list of Republican nominees in the Illinois primary.
When MacArthur found out, he promptly had it removed.
Undeterred, Daly tried a different tactic in the Wisconsin primary. He grabbed the Chicago phone book and looked up the name MacArthur. To his surprise he found a man with the last name MacArthur and first name, General.
Daly called the man and asked if he knew of the famous general. The man said he thought the general was a “fine American.” When Daly asked if he could put his name on the ballot, General MacArthur, a 42-year old African American with eight children, said “yes.”
By law, as long as there was a signed consent, the name Mr. General MacArthur could legally appear on the Wisconsin ballot.
The novelty, however, was never a secret. Thanks to Daly, Mr. MacArthur took a few smiling photos for “Life” magazine and other publications, but never sought out any publicity for himself or his family. There were no monetary awards for his efforts. He continued to work as a tank inspector at a packinghouse. Nothing changed.
Daly hoped to find some delegates in the state and perhaps drum up support for Gen. Douglas MacArthur to consider a run, but there were few takers. Eisenhower easily won the nomination and later that year beat Stevenson by a landslide for the presidency.
Privately, Daly lived in a modest two story brick bungalow on Chicago’s south side and drove a Ford Station wagon, painted red, white and blue. He had six children and sold bar stools for a living. “To bookies,” he once said, “so they had somewhere to stand when they wrote the odds on the chalkboard.”
Born in Gary, Indiana in 1912, Daly’s mother died when he was five. His father, a policeman and fireman in town, moved the two boys, Lar and his brother, to Chicago. That’s where Lar became politically connected. In the second grade, he sold vegetables for a street peddler and gained friends among the local housewives. This would work to his advantage. As a teenager, Lar worked the streets again. No longer was he peddling produce, but candidates. He passed out fliers and helped vote seekers gain support in his Chicago neighborhood. At the age of 20, Daly decided to run against a powerful Cook County Democratic ward committeeman. He lost big in the election but won by defeating a court challenge of filing fake petition signatures. “I knew my petitions are good,” Lar said in his defense. “I got all the signatures myself.” Just getting on the ballot was a victory of sorts for the young politico.
In 1938, Lar ran for Cook County Superintendent of Schools, even though he himself never got past the first year of high school. He was listed as Lawrence J. Daly on the ballot and thanks to the Irish sounding name picked up nearly 300,000 votes, but still lost. It would remain the closest he ever came to actually winning an election.
Politically, Daly was an equal-opportunity candidate and ran on whichever ticket gave him the best shot to win. His views, however, were more in line with libertarians. He was for legalized gambling, against public education, and called for major tax cuts. He was also a staunch isolationist, often making campaign stops wearing an Uncle Sam suit, and calling himself the “America First” candidate.
In 1960, he was a “write in” candidate for President.
Even though he was never considered a serious threat to the two major parties, Daly sued – some say threatened – the FCC to force radio and television news broadcasts to give him equal coverage. He never got on the debate stage with the two nominees, then Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice-President Richard M. Nixon, but when JFK guested on The Tonight Show, Jack Paar’s late-night NBC talk show, Daly demanded—and got—his “equal time.” Paar was furious but went along. “Mr. Daly, I would like to know where your supporters are located” challenged a man in the audience. “I teach special studies in Illinois, and we’ve never heard of you.”
“Well, sir,” replied Daly, “you apparently don’t read newspapers, watch television, listen to the radio, or attend meetings, because in every Illinois campaign in which I engage, I am known as the tireless candidate.”
The studio audience booed as Daly calmly demanded: “Your only choice is America first—or death.”
Parr cut to a commercial, “for the tireless candidate,” he said sarcastically.
After the taping, Lar took off his Uncle Sam suit went to a New York bar and inconspicuously watched the show as it aired that night. “Holy smokes, what the hell is this?” said a patron during Daly’s segment.
Daly hardly registered a vote in the 1960 general election, besides his own. But that didn’t stop him. He continued on each subsequent year for many more years, running for offices mostly in Illinois for the U.S Senate seat and numerous attempts for Mayor of Chicago against another Daley (spelled differently).
He lost, of course, every time.
The Man Who Tried to Walk Around the World
By Ken Zurski
In December of 1786, at the age of 35, John Ledyard packed a small bag and set off from London, alone but determined to be the first person to circle the globe. A momentous feat for sure, but even more impressive considering Ledyard planned to do it all by foot.
Well, mostly by foot.
Although Ledyard, an American-born son of a sea captain, had high regards for his own unconventional skills as a navigator, not even he could walk on water. So he would walk from London, hoof it across Russia, sail the Bering Strait, walk across North America to Washington D.C. then sail back across the Atlantic to London.
It was as crazy as it was ambitious and Ledyard had another American to thank for it, a self-described “explorer aficionado” and future President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson liked Ledyard and proposed the idea of an American exploring America, specifically the uncharted land between the two lateral coasts. There had been no precedent for the journey, no demands for such a seemingly impossible task, but at the time reaching new milestones especially in exploration was tantamount to becoming a rock star today. Ledyard however thought the idea was too simple. He was thinking bigger. Perhaps circumventing the globe would be more functional, he implored. Jefferson, who was an ambassador in Paris at the time, had no objections.
After all, it’s not as if Ledyard wasn’t qualified.
Born in Groton, Connecticut, Ledyard attended Dartmouth College in New Hampshire then traveled to London and enlisted in the Royal Marines so he could assist the great explorers. In 1778, in his late twenties, Ledyard was a appointed corporal on Captain James Cook’s third and last voyage around the Pacific Rim. Unlike many of the other sailors on board, Ledyard was educated and literate, so he kept a journal. When the ship Resolution returned to England without Cook, who was killed – some say executed – by Hawaiian natives, Ledyard’s journal and his first hand account of the beloved Captain’s final days was confiscated by the Admiralty for security reasons. Ledyard however had a story to tell and didn’t hesitate to write down the details of Cook’s murder from memory. The resulting book, A Journal of Captain Cook’s last Voyage, became a best seller.
Despite his success, personally, Ledyard still had the desire to see the world, possibly all of it if he could. So with Jefferson’s blessing, Ledyard mapped out a route. North America would come later in his trip. But he needed help in getting there.
For the first two months, everything went as planned. Ledyard walked, begged for food and shelter and made it to the Baltic Sea, the short inlet separating Scandinavia from northern Europe. But the water had not frozen over as Ledyard had hoped. So walking across the ice was not an option. Ledyard had to loop around the sea, mapping out nearly 400 miles more just to reach St. Petersburg. The Acrtic Circle was brutal, but Ledyard pressed on. By September of 1787, nearly 6,500 miles into his journey, and enduring some of the harshest conditions imaginable, Ledyard somehow made it to the Russian border. Once he stepped onto Russian soil, however, he was subsequently arrested.
This likely didn’t come as a big surprise to Ledyard. When planning the trip, Jefferson had asked the Russian leader Catherine the Great for permission to cross her land unmolested. She flat out refused, worried that the American traveler – or any American – would infiltrate her country’s lucrative fur trade. Jefferson relayed this information to Ledyard who ignored it and went anyway. He even considered the fur trade idea an option, something he might pursue after the journey.
Now he was in Russia and in custody. The trip was effectively over. Russian officials marched him to the Polish border, set him free and promised to hang him if he ever set foot in their country again. Ledyard was defiant. He carried no flag and answered to no monarch. He wrote in his journal:
I travel under the common flag of humanity, commissioned by myself to serve the world at large; and so the poor, the unprotected wanderer must go where sovereign will ordains; if to the death, why then my journeying will be over and rather differently from what I contemplated; if otherwise, why then the royal dame has taken me much out of my way.
But Ledyard still wanted to find a way. “I may pursue other routes,” he wrote confidently. Perhaps the British royalty would have more influence over Russia was his thinking. So he turned his back on Jefferson and went directly to London where exclusive clubs and society’s were filled with men intent on one thing – exploring. They also funded expeditions.
His timing was impeccable. A new society called the African Association was looking for someone to lead a mission through the continent of Africa. Ledyard practically fell into their laps. He accepted the assignment wholeheartedly.
Ledyard set off for Africa, but didn’t make it very far. In Cairo he got sick, took a sulfurous substance to ease his aching belly, and died from an overdose of vitriolic acid. It was torture, but a quick end.
Fifteen years after Ledyard’s attempt to walk around the world, in 1803, Jefferson funded another expedition, this time a team of two men to charter the American west, his original plan for Ledyard.
Their names were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
Perhaps had Ledyard followed Jefferson’s original plans, he would have been credited with exploring the expansion across the continental divide and the waterway to the Pacific. Even in Africa, he may have been the first person to discover the source of the Nile. But he was too driven, too courageous, too stubborn. He wanted more and got far too less.
After his sudden death in 1789, neither the British nor the American authorities claimed Ledyard’s body. In Cairo, his remains were buried in a makeshift grave that still to this day has never been located.
How an Infinite Number Idea Became the World’s Most Recognizable Word
By Ken Zurski
In the early half of the 20th century, shortly after World War I ended, mathematician Edward Kasner, a professor at Columbia University, devised the concept of showing the common features of whole numbers, no matter how large.
As an example, he came up with the number one followed by a hundred zeros. Writing out such a large number was ridiculous of course, and at the time formal names didn’t exist for numbers larger than a trillion. But he needed a name.
So he asked his nine-year-old nephew Milton to intervene. During a causal stroll in New Jersey’s Palisades Woods, Edward wondered if Milton could come up with a name. “Googol” was the boy’s answer. Milton also came up with the term “Googolplex,” or one followed by a googol zeros.
In lectures, Kasner began referring to the seemingly infinite number as “Googolplex.”
Flash forward more than 70 years in 1995 when two Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin began collaborating on a search engine they originally called BackRub. The project began to attract investors and bandwidth grew. But they needed a new name, something catchier, something they could easily register online.
Google was chosen as the common spelling of Googol which, thanks to Kasner, was as close to an infinite number as possible.
“We picked the name “Google” because our goal is to make huge quantities of information available to everyone,” Page later recalled.
When they presented the name however, math traditionalists balked. “You idiots, you spelled it [Googol] wrong!” one chastised. But Google.com was available and Googol.com was not. Besides, Page said, “It sounds cool and has only six letters.” According to Google’s official corporate website (yes, there is one): “The name “Google” reflects Larry and Sergey’s mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.”
Simple enough. But what about young Milton? Why did the word “Googol” pop into his head? Speculation runs rampant here. A great niece of Dr. Kasner, Denise Sirotta, claims her father Edwin, Milton’s younger brother, should get some credit since he claimed the siblings came up with the name together. “He was asked for a word with a sound that had lots of O’s in it,” she said.
Another observation seems to make more sense especially in the imaginative mind of a toddler. Caroline Birenbaum, another great-niece of Dr. Kasner’s, speculates the word was inspired by a comic-strip character named Barney Google, who debuted in 1919. She says Dr. Kasner, liked cartoons. “He may have tweaked the spelling to avoid any trademark issues,” she claims.
Barney Google was an American comic strip created by Billy DeBeck, that originally appeared on the sports pages. Google had big “banjo” eyes, a mustache, a large bulbous nose, and wore a tuxedo-type suit. He was an “avid sportsman and N’er do well” involved with some of the more contentious contests like poker, prize fights and horse racing. Google’s bow-legged horse “Spark Plug” was introduced in 1922, and nicknamed “Sparky.” The horse was a nag who rarely raced, but when he did it became a big media event. Millions of readers bought in.
A popular song was introduced, a foxtrot, titled Barney Google and Spark Plug:
Barney Google—with the goo, goo, googly eyes,
Barney Google—bet his horse would win the prize;
When the horses ran that day,
Spark Plug ran the other way!
Barney Google—with the goo-goo-googly eyes!
In 1934, another character named Snuffy Smith joined the fray and Barney Google and Spark Plug were phased out.
So Google, the word itself, was in the public consciousnesses long before the giant search engine came along. Still, Kasner had no idea that the chosen name for his boundless number would become so popular in the next century. So where did his inspiration come from?
Kasner, who never married, cited a description of unrequited love. In a divorce case, he explained, a woman called the commitment she had for her husband as “a million billion billion times and eight times around the world.” Kaisner was struck by the expansive description. “It was the largest number ever conceived of,” he said. So he set out to immortalize it.
And his little nephew gave it a name.
Googolplex
UNREMEMBERED 