Students are often told to read between the lines to get the meaning of a novel, but it’s writing between the lines which truly allows the student to fully understand what they’re reading. This is why students must be given personal copies of assigned novels. Usually the child is given a copy that must be returned in pristine condition, and if the book is a little bit worn or written in; the student must pay for the book. A philosopher and educator once gave a speech in 1940 supporting this same idea, his name is Dr. Mortimer Adler.
Dr. Adler was a proponent of marking books. He agreed that buying the book was the first step toward ownership of the novel, and did not advocate writing in borrowed copies of the book, for that is vandalism. Once the book is paid for it becomes the property of the reader and writing in it is acceptable. This is one of the ways one can spot a true book owner. Dr. Adler described three types of people, the first owns a lot of books all in perfect condition, but this person doesn’t truly own any of them. The second owns a good number of the classical books and some have been read. This person owns as if they were almost a status symbol, but again, he doesn’t truly own them. The third person owns a few books, all old and worn, with writing throughout it, this person does own them. He has read them over and over and has many notes in them and has made the book a close friend.
Writing and making notes in a book isn’t just an act of vandalism, it’s active engagement in the novel. The reader can write down questions that a passage brought up, and this keeps the reader thinking and wide awake, not just letting the words go right through him. Students can have a conversation with the author by marking a book. They can argue and right down any thoughts that come to their mind while reading. When the student begins reading where they left off it’s like picking up the conversation because your ideas have been recorded.
In order for a student to comprehend an assigned novel he can’t merely read it. The student must participate in the novel. The student must write between the lines and along the margin, make notes about what’s going on because the act of writing engraves the meaning of the book in the student’s mind. This is why students must be given personal copies of novels, so that they can make the novel there own. As the noted philosopher Dr. Adler once said, a few close friends are better than a thousand acquaintances.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Machiavelli-Bismark on The Prince
Machiavelli is the real politician. I may be accredited with perpetuating the ideas of Realpolitik, but it is he who has shown me the way. In all my years of manipulating my friends and foes I have looked to Machiavelli for guidance every time. The Prince, or Il Principe, has shown me a glimpse into the past so that I may look to the future, my future, Prussia’s future. The disunity of Italy during the time of Machiavelli is very similar to the disunity of the many German states of our time. I found his advice about how to control regions that were acquired through military force most useful during my many campaigns. The Prince is a handbook that I have taken very dear to my heart, it has shown me through tough times and proved itself most useful, I am proud to say that I am a Machiavellian and that I sleep with a copy of the prince by my bed at all times.
Machiavelli’s ideas make so much sense. Politics is like a game of chess, you can’t win by being noble or honest, you must feign your actions, deceive your opponent and use their moves against them. That is how I was able to beat the Austrians in the Austro-Prussian War. I knew that Prussia had to completely control the Northern part of the German Confederation, and this meant removing the Austrians from German affairs once and for all.
Austria played right into my hands when they brought the Diet in to decide the Scheswig-Holstein issue. I told the Diet that by doing so, the Austrians had violated the Gastein Convention, The Austrians grew so infuriated that they declared war, this made it much easier to ally with the surrounding states such as Oldenburg and Brunswick, but most important to the whole plan was the alliance with Italy. The leaders of the Austrian Empire should have read The Prince, because then they would have known the dangers of controlling a part of Italy that had always been Italian. Italian unification proved to be a most useful tool in defeating the Austrians. Machaivelli would have been proud to see me deceive Napoleon III when I told him he might receive land around the Rhine. Unfortunately for Austria, Russia would not come to their aid. That is due to the fact that I am good friends with Alexander II and supported his repression of the Poles in 1863.
Another important lesson that I gleaned from The Prince was who to choose to surround me. I didn’t choose flatterers, or sloths, I chose men who could do their jobs well. Men like my War Minister Albrecht Graf von Roon and Chief of the General Staff Helmuth Graf von Moltke. Roon had been reforming the army under my direction for years and it was then that the Prussian army was able to match the might of any foe.
“A prince must have no other objective, no other thought, nor take up any profession but that of war.” This is true, and it is what I tried to follow. During the buildup to the war with Austria I had been getting Prussia ready. The army was reorganized under Roon and railways were built, supplies hoarded, and new weaponry made ready.
The war with Austria ended quickly when their troops were split between the Italian front and the northern front. After the historic battle at Sadowa we presented a very generous peace treaty in which the only lands taken away from Austria were Holstein. This was to prevent any further hostilities, lest we should need them later. If Germany had been oppressive and demanded large amounts of land or tribute, then Austria would remain resentful towards us, as told by Machiavelli. This war had accomplished exactly what it was supposed to, get Austria out of German affairs and expand Prussia. The German Confederation was dissolved in favor of the new North German Confederation. The key to this new Confederation was in the constitution that was written with The Prince in mind. Machiavelli’s ideas about how to control conquered lands were right, in the new constitution it allowed for the continuation of the local governments for each state but the King of Prussia would become the President and I the Chancellor. We, as the federal government, controlled the army and the foreign affairs and therefore we had the ultimate power. For as Machiavelli wrote, “the presence of sound military forces indicates the presence of sound laws.”
The Prince has provided me with an invaluable source of knowledge about the true nature of man. Man is generally selfish, but his loyalty for others can be won or lost. He is trustworthy during times of peace and prosperity, but will quickly turn to greed, deceit, and cunning during times of hardship and adversity. Most men admire courage, honor, and generosity in others but rarely show any of it themselves. It is these ideas about human nature that Machiavelli put forth to better educate those who will come to power and have a need for knowing the true soul of a man. I have believed the truths written in The Prince about military actions and the nature of man and they have served me well. It takes a prince, a man in control of the situation, to rule over other men. A prince who will take action and not be delayed by morals or vices, but who will seek a means to an ends. For the great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and resolutions, but by blood and iron.
Machiavelli’s ideas make so much sense. Politics is like a game of chess, you can’t win by being noble or honest, you must feign your actions, deceive your opponent and use their moves against them. That is how I was able to beat the Austrians in the Austro-Prussian War. I knew that Prussia had to completely control the Northern part of the German Confederation, and this meant removing the Austrians from German affairs once and for all.
Austria played right into my hands when they brought the Diet in to decide the Scheswig-Holstein issue. I told the Diet that by doing so, the Austrians had violated the Gastein Convention, The Austrians grew so infuriated that they declared war, this made it much easier to ally with the surrounding states such as Oldenburg and Brunswick, but most important to the whole plan was the alliance with Italy. The leaders of the Austrian Empire should have read The Prince, because then they would have known the dangers of controlling a part of Italy that had always been Italian. Italian unification proved to be a most useful tool in defeating the Austrians. Machaivelli would have been proud to see me deceive Napoleon III when I told him he might receive land around the Rhine. Unfortunately for Austria, Russia would not come to their aid. That is due to the fact that I am good friends with Alexander II and supported his repression of the Poles in 1863.
Another important lesson that I gleaned from The Prince was who to choose to surround me. I didn’t choose flatterers, or sloths, I chose men who could do their jobs well. Men like my War Minister Albrecht Graf von Roon and Chief of the General Staff Helmuth Graf von Moltke. Roon had been reforming the army under my direction for years and it was then that the Prussian army was able to match the might of any foe.
“A prince must have no other objective, no other thought, nor take up any profession but that of war.” This is true, and it is what I tried to follow. During the buildup to the war with Austria I had been getting Prussia ready. The army was reorganized under Roon and railways were built, supplies hoarded, and new weaponry made ready.
The war with Austria ended quickly when their troops were split between the Italian front and the northern front. After the historic battle at Sadowa we presented a very generous peace treaty in which the only lands taken away from Austria were Holstein. This was to prevent any further hostilities, lest we should need them later. If Germany had been oppressive and demanded large amounts of land or tribute, then Austria would remain resentful towards us, as told by Machiavelli. This war had accomplished exactly what it was supposed to, get Austria out of German affairs and expand Prussia. The German Confederation was dissolved in favor of the new North German Confederation. The key to this new Confederation was in the constitution that was written with The Prince in mind. Machiavelli’s ideas about how to control conquered lands were right, in the new constitution it allowed for the continuation of the local governments for each state but the King of Prussia would become the President and I the Chancellor. We, as the federal government, controlled the army and the foreign affairs and therefore we had the ultimate power. For as Machiavelli wrote, “the presence of sound military forces indicates the presence of sound laws.”
The Prince has provided me with an invaluable source of knowledge about the true nature of man. Man is generally selfish, but his loyalty for others can be won or lost. He is trustworthy during times of peace and prosperity, but will quickly turn to greed, deceit, and cunning during times of hardship and adversity. Most men admire courage, honor, and generosity in others but rarely show any of it themselves. It is these ideas about human nature that Machiavelli put forth to better educate those who will come to power and have a need for knowing the true soul of a man. I have believed the truths written in The Prince about military actions and the nature of man and they have served me well. It takes a prince, a man in control of the situation, to rule over other men. A prince who will take action and not be delayed by morals or vices, but who will seek a means to an ends. For the great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and resolutions, but by blood and iron.
Critical Lens Essay
Logan Pearsall Smith was right when he said, ”It is not what an author says, but what he or she whispers that is important.” This is true for almost all pieces of literature, all the great ones that is. A story without an underlying message is just ink on a page, an empty volume of letters. The written story is not that important, what is important is the message that the reader is able to get from reading that story. Two pieces of literature that display this whisper quality are George Orwell’s 1984 and Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. These two stories deal with the issue of communism although it is never actually stated in the text. The message about communism each story is trying to get across comes to the reader as an afterthought or a feeling gathered from the tone, theme and setting.
George Orwell’s novel 1984 was written in 1949 when the majority of the west saw communism as a moral experiment and not something altogether bad. Orwell had seen the atrocities that totalitarian governments wrought. The setting of the novel is as mentioned in the title and it is a very bleak future. The London that the main character now lives in is in a state of urban decay, a rundown city in which buildings are crumbling, conveniences such as elevators never work, and necessities such as electricity and plumbing are extremely unreliable. Though Orwell never discusses the theme openly, it is clear that the shoddy disintegration of London, just like the widespread hunger and poverty of its inhabitants, is due to the Party’s mismanagement and incompetence. One of the themes of 1984, inspired by the history of twentieth-century communism, is that totalitarian regimes are viciously effective at enhancing their own power and miserably incompetent at providing for their citizens. The grimy urban decay in London is an important visual reminder of this idea, and offers insight into the Party’s priorities through its contrast to the immense technology the Party develops to spy on its citizens.
Arthur Miller’s play takes place in an entirely different time. The play centers around the Salem witch trials of the 1600’s. the majority of the play surrounds a group of girls who become “bewitched” and go about accusing members of the community who they didn’t like. Miller wrote The Crucible right about the same time as the McCarthy hearings. The widespread paranoia of those hearings is directly paralleled in The Crucible. Communism is never mentioned in the play but if one had any knowledge of Cold War history than the overwhelming image of the McCarthy Red Scare would come to mind.
It is the message that an author is trying to convey that is important, not always the story that it is carried in. The Crucible and 1984 both carried messages about topics important to the authors and the general public. The context that the piece of literature was written in is usually needed to be understood in order for the meaning to have an affect on the reader. What is a story without the author’s whispers behind the words? An unnecessary waste of paper and ink.
George Orwell’s novel 1984 was written in 1949 when the majority of the west saw communism as a moral experiment and not something altogether bad. Orwell had seen the atrocities that totalitarian governments wrought. The setting of the novel is as mentioned in the title and it is a very bleak future. The London that the main character now lives in is in a state of urban decay, a rundown city in which buildings are crumbling, conveniences such as elevators never work, and necessities such as electricity and plumbing are extremely unreliable. Though Orwell never discusses the theme openly, it is clear that the shoddy disintegration of London, just like the widespread hunger and poverty of its inhabitants, is due to the Party’s mismanagement and incompetence. One of the themes of 1984, inspired by the history of twentieth-century communism, is that totalitarian regimes are viciously effective at enhancing their own power and miserably incompetent at providing for their citizens. The grimy urban decay in London is an important visual reminder of this idea, and offers insight into the Party’s priorities through its contrast to the immense technology the Party develops to spy on its citizens.
Arthur Miller’s play takes place in an entirely different time. The play centers around the Salem witch trials of the 1600’s. the majority of the play surrounds a group of girls who become “bewitched” and go about accusing members of the community who they didn’t like. Miller wrote The Crucible right about the same time as the McCarthy hearings. The widespread paranoia of those hearings is directly paralleled in The Crucible. Communism is never mentioned in the play but if one had any knowledge of Cold War history than the overwhelming image of the McCarthy Red Scare would come to mind.
It is the message that an author is trying to convey that is important, not always the story that it is carried in. The Crucible and 1984 both carried messages about topics important to the authors and the general public. The context that the piece of literature was written in is usually needed to be understood in order for the meaning to have an affect on the reader. What is a story without the author’s whispers behind the words? An unnecessary waste of paper and ink.
Book Review,Upton Sinclair, The Jungle.
Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, is an historical fiction novel based around a family of Lithuanian emigrants in Chicago. This controversial book shows the despicable working and living conditions that most newcomers faced. Sinclair was an ardent socialist and it comes across clearly in his writing. He uses simplistic language and relatively flat characters to point out that capitalism is the root of all evil and it destroys even the strongest of men. Although the novel was an attempt to convert many to socialism, it accomplished much more in the field of sanitation reform. After the book was published people became disgusted, not at the way the working class lives, but at the condition of the meat they put in their bellies. Sinclair once said about the novel, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”(Dickstein vi). The bias towards capitalism is basically the main point of the novel and Sinclair may have unfairly stereotyped some aspects in the novel in an attempt to mar the image of capitalism even more. Through the eyes of the idealistic Jurgis Rudkus the reader sees the horrors capitalism can create.
The novel starts out with the veselja, (wedding ceremony), of little Ona Lukoszaite and Jurgis (pronounced yoorghis) Rudkus in a bar in an area of Chicago called Packingtown. The two and their relatives had come to America from Lithuania in search of the American Dream, unfortunately Packingtown is a dirty, dangerous place full of predators looking to part them with their money. Jurgis’ answer to this is, “I will work harder.” (Sinclair 19).
The young and strong Jurgis easily finds a job in one of the slaughterhouses pushing all the blood into grates in the floor. Ona’s cousin, Marija also finds work painting cans. Ona’s stepmother, Teta Elzbieta agrees to purchase a small home with everyone chipping in, but the house turns out to be a swindle and soon hidden costs are found and paying for the house takes all the family’s effort. So Jonas, Teta’s brother, also finds work, even Teta’s oldest son Stanislovas who’s 14 and Ona have to find work. The jobs in Packingtown are back-breaking and often hazardous to the worker’s health. Jurgis’ father dies because of the horrible conditions he was forced to work in.
For a little while things seemed to be going alright for the family and it apearered as if they could survive in the unforgiving land, until winter rolled in. Winter is a terrible season for all and it soon becomes clear that social Darwinism is in affect as the weak are weeded out. The rush season was over and factories started to lay off workers. Marija lost her job at the canning factory and Jurgis suffers a reduction in hours at his job and so all the wage earners of the family joined unions. Here Jurgis learned first hand of the corruption that runs the city when he takes part in a vote-buying scheme. He learned about all the graft and greed that infests the factories, how they sell the diseased meat in sausages and all the tidbits go in the cans and get fancy names like “deviled ham”.
Marija regains her job in springtime only to lose it soon after when she vocalizes her discontent with the management. She finds a job as a beef trimmer a month later. Ona soon gave birth to a son who they named Antanas after Jurgis’ father. Unfortunately Ona has to go back to work only a week after giving birth so the baby is fed the bluish milk from the corner store.
In chapter 11 Sinclair describes how the workers are forced to work at an even faster pace and received numerous pay cuts. One day on her way to work Marija sees a large crowd at the bank where she recently deposited her money, learning that it was a rush at the bank she forced her way to the front only to discover she didn’t have her bank statement. So she had to walk home, retrieve it and return to the line. By the time she arrived back at the bank the police had made everyone get in line and Marija had no choice but to join the back. She finally made it to a teller who gave her money in silver dollars. With her confidence restored, she attempted to redeposit it but the bank wouldn’t let anyone who had partaken in the rush do that. Sinclair than makes her plight symbolic by having her sew the coins into her clothes until she can deposit them in another bank, but she is afraid she will sink down in the mud with the money weighing her down.
The family then suffers a horrible tragedy when Jurgis sprains an ankle dodging an injured steer in the slaughterhouse. The bad ankle puts him out of work for months in which time the only thing Jurgis could do was watch his new born son and beat Stanislovas out the door to go to work. Jonas becomes fed up with the misery of home and abandons the family, basically just disappearing. The family sort of suffers another loss when Teta’s youngest son dies from eating a poisoned sausage. It’s only a little tragedy to them because he was handicapped and could never be a producer. Jurgis finally recovers but finds his old job taken so he has to search for a new one. The only job he can find is at the fertilizer factory, the most horrendous smelling place in Packingtown. Jurgis drowns his sorrows with alcohol for a while until Teta convinces him to stop for the sake of Antanas.
Ona again becomes pregnant and one day doesn’t return home all night. Jurgis questions her and finally gets her to admit that her boss Phil Connors raped her and has forced her to become his mistress lest she wants her entire family to be blacklisted. Jurgis becomes infuriated beyond sanity and attacks Phil, he grabs his throat and almost rips it off. It takes half a dozen men to pry Jurgis off Phil. He’s arrested and after an unfair trial is sentenced to a month in prison. While in prison he befriends his cell-mate Jack Duane who helps him later on. Upon Jurgis’ release he finds his family has been evicted form their house after failing to pay the mortgage and they went back to live in the run down boarding house they had first lived in.
When he arrives at the boarding house he finds Ona prematurely in labor. He goes out and finds a midwife for her but there’d not much that could be done and She and the baby both die. After her death Jurgis goes out on a drinking binge.
Again the thought of his son forces him to search for a job, and a wealthy woman soon approaches him and offers him a job in a new steel mill. The mill is located far away from his home so he is forced to stay there and only returns home on Sundays. Life seemed to be looking up for Jurgis and Antanas was beginning to speak, but he returned from work one day only to discover a freak accident had occurred in which Antanas had drowned in the mud.
Jurgis is completely devastated by the death of his son and wanders off to the country side in despair. Here he finds some kind farmers who give him work and sell him food but when winter comes around again he returns to Chicago. When he gets hurt digging a tunnel he’s unable to find replacement work and becomes a beggar. Here he meets Freddie Jones who gives him a 100 dollar bill and a feast at his house. This odd scene is used to show the difference in the two classes of people, the rich and the proletariats. Jurgis then goes out and tries to get change for the bill but gets cheated by a bartender who Jurgis then beats up.
He gets arrested and meets Jack Duane again who hooks him up with the corrupt leaders and criminal jobs. He becomes a scab and a strikebreaker, and one day sees Phil Connors at a strike and proceeds to beat him, unfortunalty Phil was one of Jurgis’ boss’s cronies and so Jurgis had to get out of the town fast and does so by moving to the other side of the city. He decides to reconnect with his family and searches for Marija and Teta and learns that Marija has become a morphine-addicted prostitute to support Teta and the family.
Jurgis goes about looking for another job even though he’s completely fed up with the whole situation, by chance he walks into a socialist rally and hears what he’s been wanting to hear the entire time. He finds comrades here and gets a job as a porter for a hotel. The last to chapters of the book are mainly just socialist propaganda, the characters become flatter and nearly hollow and are just symbols for entire classes of people. The novel ends with a socialist speech that concludes with “Chicago will be ours”.(Sinclair 346).
The historical accuracy of the novel has been greatly debated. It caused such a shock when it was first published that it caused the foreign sale of American meat to be cut in half. Teddy Roosevelt was so upset by the novel that he called in a formal investigation of the stockyards. He sent Charles P. Neill and James B. Reynolds to check the sanitation of the factories. Sinclair was disappointed by the tunnel-sighted investigation because it didn’t address the wage and working conditions of the people that actually worked there. Even though the factory owners had ample time to clean up before the two men arrived, the conditions were described as being “revolting”.
In the novel The Jungle Sinclair tries to make the argument that socialism is the cure for capitalism, that capitalism is an evil, greedy, and unfair system that needs to be abolished. The only way for it to be abolished is if everything supports socialism and the only way for that to happen is if everyone realizes the plight the workers go through. On page 315 Sinclair wrote, “To Jurgis the packers had been equivalent to fate; Ostrinski showed him that they were the Beef Trust. They were a gigantic combination of capital, which had crushed all opposition, and overthrown the laws of the land, and was preying upon the people.” This shows that Jurgis’ mind is changing to adopt socialism and as a result the reader is supposed to realize this too and see socialism as answer to all problems.
The bias of Sinclair can be seen on almost every page when he describes the factories or living conditions of the workers. He uses nauseating descriptions to evoke sympathy from the reader like on page134 and 135 where he describes the meat that made into sausages. Just line after line of disgusting information like, “…but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of dried dung of rats.”
Upton Sinclair was a socialist journalist, not a novelist, and his writing can for the most part confirm this. He rights with a very clear diction and doesn’t use to much sophisticated language, mainly because he was trying to appeal to a very large crowd. The simple language can be seen on any page really but one example is found on page 212, “Finally he got up and walked on again. It was about sunset, and he went on and on until it was dark,…”.
Sinclair’s sources for this novel were his own observations when he visited Chicago and the stockyards and a Lithuanian family he met there. He conducted many interviews with workers and got his beginning from visited a veselja on his first day in the city. There is a bibliography in the Bantam Classic version. It has a list of works by Upton Sinclair, other fiction by him, nonfiction and it says he wrote two autobiographies. There was a lack of multimedia in the book, but it wasn’t needed
It’s interesting to judge the success of this novel. He first tried to publish it five times before he finally did it himself and then it became an instant must-read. The novel struck a chord in everyone who read it but it may not have been the one Sinclair was going for. His intention for the novel was to cause a social reform in America and have everyone sympathize with the poor workers, then they would over-power the rich leaders and create a socialist utopian society. Proof for this can be found in the last few pages during the speeches, especially with the last line, “ CHICAGO WILL BE OURS!” So was Sinclair successful, no, not in his mind, but in the eyes of the nation and world and the changes it brought about like the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and the Meat Inspection Act which significantly rose the standard of food in the U.S.
Upton Sinclair set out to write the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the Labor Movement by writing a novel that anyone could read which exposed capitalism as the evil cause of all hardships. He proposed that capitalism can and will destroy all that is held dear to the American people like family values, honesty, integrity, and kindness. He set out to disprove all aspects of capitalism like social Darwinism and laissai-faire economics. What the novel did accomplish though was bring about reforms that saved countless lives and led to a better standard of living for all. Upton Sinclair has left a big footprint in the field of muckraking and The Jungle goes down in history as one of the most important pieces of socialist propaganda the United States has ever embraced.
The novel starts out with the veselja, (wedding ceremony), of little Ona Lukoszaite and Jurgis (pronounced yoorghis) Rudkus in a bar in an area of Chicago called Packingtown. The two and their relatives had come to America from Lithuania in search of the American Dream, unfortunately Packingtown is a dirty, dangerous place full of predators looking to part them with their money. Jurgis’ answer to this is, “I will work harder.” (Sinclair 19).
The young and strong Jurgis easily finds a job in one of the slaughterhouses pushing all the blood into grates in the floor. Ona’s cousin, Marija also finds work painting cans. Ona’s stepmother, Teta Elzbieta agrees to purchase a small home with everyone chipping in, but the house turns out to be a swindle and soon hidden costs are found and paying for the house takes all the family’s effort. So Jonas, Teta’s brother, also finds work, even Teta’s oldest son Stanislovas who’s 14 and Ona have to find work. The jobs in Packingtown are back-breaking and often hazardous to the worker’s health. Jurgis’ father dies because of the horrible conditions he was forced to work in.
For a little while things seemed to be going alright for the family and it apearered as if they could survive in the unforgiving land, until winter rolled in. Winter is a terrible season for all and it soon becomes clear that social Darwinism is in affect as the weak are weeded out. The rush season was over and factories started to lay off workers. Marija lost her job at the canning factory and Jurgis suffers a reduction in hours at his job and so all the wage earners of the family joined unions. Here Jurgis learned first hand of the corruption that runs the city when he takes part in a vote-buying scheme. He learned about all the graft and greed that infests the factories, how they sell the diseased meat in sausages and all the tidbits go in the cans and get fancy names like “deviled ham”.
Marija regains her job in springtime only to lose it soon after when she vocalizes her discontent with the management. She finds a job as a beef trimmer a month later. Ona soon gave birth to a son who they named Antanas after Jurgis’ father. Unfortunately Ona has to go back to work only a week after giving birth so the baby is fed the bluish milk from the corner store.
In chapter 11 Sinclair describes how the workers are forced to work at an even faster pace and received numerous pay cuts. One day on her way to work Marija sees a large crowd at the bank where she recently deposited her money, learning that it was a rush at the bank she forced her way to the front only to discover she didn’t have her bank statement. So she had to walk home, retrieve it and return to the line. By the time she arrived back at the bank the police had made everyone get in line and Marija had no choice but to join the back. She finally made it to a teller who gave her money in silver dollars. With her confidence restored, she attempted to redeposit it but the bank wouldn’t let anyone who had partaken in the rush do that. Sinclair than makes her plight symbolic by having her sew the coins into her clothes until she can deposit them in another bank, but she is afraid she will sink down in the mud with the money weighing her down.
The family then suffers a horrible tragedy when Jurgis sprains an ankle dodging an injured steer in the slaughterhouse. The bad ankle puts him out of work for months in which time the only thing Jurgis could do was watch his new born son and beat Stanislovas out the door to go to work. Jonas becomes fed up with the misery of home and abandons the family, basically just disappearing. The family sort of suffers another loss when Teta’s youngest son dies from eating a poisoned sausage. It’s only a little tragedy to them because he was handicapped and could never be a producer. Jurgis finally recovers but finds his old job taken so he has to search for a new one. The only job he can find is at the fertilizer factory, the most horrendous smelling place in Packingtown. Jurgis drowns his sorrows with alcohol for a while until Teta convinces him to stop for the sake of Antanas.
Ona again becomes pregnant and one day doesn’t return home all night. Jurgis questions her and finally gets her to admit that her boss Phil Connors raped her and has forced her to become his mistress lest she wants her entire family to be blacklisted. Jurgis becomes infuriated beyond sanity and attacks Phil, he grabs his throat and almost rips it off. It takes half a dozen men to pry Jurgis off Phil. He’s arrested and after an unfair trial is sentenced to a month in prison. While in prison he befriends his cell-mate Jack Duane who helps him later on. Upon Jurgis’ release he finds his family has been evicted form their house after failing to pay the mortgage and they went back to live in the run down boarding house they had first lived in.
When he arrives at the boarding house he finds Ona prematurely in labor. He goes out and finds a midwife for her but there’d not much that could be done and She and the baby both die. After her death Jurgis goes out on a drinking binge.
Again the thought of his son forces him to search for a job, and a wealthy woman soon approaches him and offers him a job in a new steel mill. The mill is located far away from his home so he is forced to stay there and only returns home on Sundays. Life seemed to be looking up for Jurgis and Antanas was beginning to speak, but he returned from work one day only to discover a freak accident had occurred in which Antanas had drowned in the mud.
Jurgis is completely devastated by the death of his son and wanders off to the country side in despair. Here he finds some kind farmers who give him work and sell him food but when winter comes around again he returns to Chicago. When he gets hurt digging a tunnel he’s unable to find replacement work and becomes a beggar. Here he meets Freddie Jones who gives him a 100 dollar bill and a feast at his house. This odd scene is used to show the difference in the two classes of people, the rich and the proletariats. Jurgis then goes out and tries to get change for the bill but gets cheated by a bartender who Jurgis then beats up.
He gets arrested and meets Jack Duane again who hooks him up with the corrupt leaders and criminal jobs. He becomes a scab and a strikebreaker, and one day sees Phil Connors at a strike and proceeds to beat him, unfortunalty Phil was one of Jurgis’ boss’s cronies and so Jurgis had to get out of the town fast and does so by moving to the other side of the city. He decides to reconnect with his family and searches for Marija and Teta and learns that Marija has become a morphine-addicted prostitute to support Teta and the family.
Jurgis goes about looking for another job even though he’s completely fed up with the whole situation, by chance he walks into a socialist rally and hears what he’s been wanting to hear the entire time. He finds comrades here and gets a job as a porter for a hotel. The last to chapters of the book are mainly just socialist propaganda, the characters become flatter and nearly hollow and are just symbols for entire classes of people. The novel ends with a socialist speech that concludes with “Chicago will be ours”.(Sinclair 346).
The historical accuracy of the novel has been greatly debated. It caused such a shock when it was first published that it caused the foreign sale of American meat to be cut in half. Teddy Roosevelt was so upset by the novel that he called in a formal investigation of the stockyards. He sent Charles P. Neill and James B. Reynolds to check the sanitation of the factories. Sinclair was disappointed by the tunnel-sighted investigation because it didn’t address the wage and working conditions of the people that actually worked there. Even though the factory owners had ample time to clean up before the two men arrived, the conditions were described as being “revolting”.
In the novel The Jungle Sinclair tries to make the argument that socialism is the cure for capitalism, that capitalism is an evil, greedy, and unfair system that needs to be abolished. The only way for it to be abolished is if everything supports socialism and the only way for that to happen is if everyone realizes the plight the workers go through. On page 315 Sinclair wrote, “To Jurgis the packers had been equivalent to fate; Ostrinski showed him that they were the Beef Trust. They were a gigantic combination of capital, which had crushed all opposition, and overthrown the laws of the land, and was preying upon the people.” This shows that Jurgis’ mind is changing to adopt socialism and as a result the reader is supposed to realize this too and see socialism as answer to all problems.
The bias of Sinclair can be seen on almost every page when he describes the factories or living conditions of the workers. He uses nauseating descriptions to evoke sympathy from the reader like on page134 and 135 where he describes the meat that made into sausages. Just line after line of disgusting information like, “…but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of dried dung of rats.”
Upton Sinclair was a socialist journalist, not a novelist, and his writing can for the most part confirm this. He rights with a very clear diction and doesn’t use to much sophisticated language, mainly because he was trying to appeal to a very large crowd. The simple language can be seen on any page really but one example is found on page 212, “Finally he got up and walked on again. It was about sunset, and he went on and on until it was dark,…”.
Sinclair’s sources for this novel were his own observations when he visited Chicago and the stockyards and a Lithuanian family he met there. He conducted many interviews with workers and got his beginning from visited a veselja on his first day in the city. There is a bibliography in the Bantam Classic version. It has a list of works by Upton Sinclair, other fiction by him, nonfiction and it says he wrote two autobiographies. There was a lack of multimedia in the book, but it wasn’t needed
It’s interesting to judge the success of this novel. He first tried to publish it five times before he finally did it himself and then it became an instant must-read. The novel struck a chord in everyone who read it but it may not have been the one Sinclair was going for. His intention for the novel was to cause a social reform in America and have everyone sympathize with the poor workers, then they would over-power the rich leaders and create a socialist utopian society. Proof for this can be found in the last few pages during the speeches, especially with the last line, “ CHICAGO WILL BE OURS!” So was Sinclair successful, no, not in his mind, but in the eyes of the nation and world and the changes it brought about like the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and the Meat Inspection Act which significantly rose the standard of food in the U.S.
Upton Sinclair set out to write the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the Labor Movement by writing a novel that anyone could read which exposed capitalism as the evil cause of all hardships. He proposed that capitalism can and will destroy all that is held dear to the American people like family values, honesty, integrity, and kindness. He set out to disprove all aspects of capitalism like social Darwinism and laissai-faire economics. What the novel did accomplish though was bring about reforms that saved countless lives and led to a better standard of living for all. Upton Sinclair has left a big footprint in the field of muckraking and The Jungle goes down in history as one of the most important pieces of socialist propaganda the United States has ever embraced.
Spam?
So for some reason this blog was labeled as spam. I'm pretty sure its not, so I hope it gets cleared up soon.
yeah and right now I probably should be writing yet another essay, this time on the German homefront during WWI. Depending on the grade I get on it, I might post it later.
yeah and right now I probably should be writing yet another essay, this time on the German homefront during WWI. Depending on the grade I get on it, I might post it later.
Book Review, Donald Barr Chidsey, The Great Conspiracy.
Donald Chidsey’s historical novel about the notorious Aaron Burr is a well written synopsis of the events that surrounded Burr after his famous duel and up to his treason trial and concludes with his last few years spent in Europe and New York. There was quite a bit of mystery about the man and rumors spread like wildfire. Many historians have tried to discover the true identity of this fascinating man but have been largely influenced by the rumors his enemies spread. Not Chidsey, he explores the nature and motives of the quiet, well-mannered, man of honor, with a significantly different view of him. The author comes off as almost defending the suspected traitor and cites many other publications and references to support his facts. One can get a sense of the mystery surrounding the great conspiracy by reading what other respected historians have to say about Aaron Burr. In discussing the events of the duel, The American Pageant, (Kennedy, Cohen, Baily,) says this “Hamilton deplored the practice of dueling, by that date illegal in several states, but felt his honor was at stake. He met Burr’s challenge at the appointed hour but refused to fire. Burr killed Hamilton with one shot.” This is a much different story than the one told by Chidsey, but no one is certain as to what actually happened. The main argument presented by Donald Chidsey’s novel is that Aaron Burr didn’t present any threat to the United States government or the Mexican government he was just looking for adventure.
The starts out with an introduction to the Louisiana Purchase and describes the debate about the land west of the Appalachians. This is an important part of the book because it’s this debate and subsequent decisions that had a lot to do with the shaping of that part of the nation. The Louisiana Purchase being such an enormous amount of land that the government had virtually no control over. It opened the door to opportunity and to all those enterprising minded people, like Aaron Burr.
The story then puts the reader on the shores of the north river in New Jersey, following Burr as he awaits Hamilton. The two highest paid lawyers in New York were there because of a dispute about slanderous words being printed in a paper. Chidsey writes this part very carefully and thoughtfully. When it came to the actual duel, he paints the picture of two willing gentlemen calmly taking their pistols and following all the preset rules. Hamilton won the right to say “present” at which time both men would fire. Both men fired, but Hamilton’s shot went high about six feet and to the right about four feet. Chidsey makes a note as to this passage and writes later that “no sides would taken here in the dispute that raged for years, and may still be raging in remote corners of libraries, as to whether Hamilton or Burr shot first” (Chidsey 146).
After this duel Burr became quite notorious and a warrant was issued for his arrest in the state of New York and later New Jersey. This being the case Burr thought it necessary to take a vacation. He ordered a floating home to be sailed down the Ohio. He more or less drifted down the river at around seven knots, stopping where he liked. It was on this first adventure to the west that the theories start to arise about his doings. It was also on this first adventure he meets several people and uses his famous charm and wit and befriends them all. Most notably he meets Mrs. Blennerhassett on the island of the same name, and stays there several days. He then sails down to Louisville and meets Andrew Jackson. Then it was on to Fort Massac to meet an old acquaintance, General James Wilkinson. The general was a queer man who was always dressed in a pompous uniform, and a man fond of food and drink. After four days of secret discussions Burr departed for the town which would become his favorite, New Orleans.
After being greeted like a hero in the sultry and flamboyant city he was informed that the country of Mexico was ready for a revolution and all it needed was a leader and money. Burr was never to good with money, he was good at extracting it but it slipped out of his hands as easy as water. Thus began Burr’s great quest to raise as much money as possible, buy months worth of supplies and recruit men willing to make a new life for themselves in a great adventure.
The great conspiracy arises when Burr starts to do some strange things. He begins to meet with the rich, and famous heroes of the past and he starts having friends recruit for him. The strangest of all his doings was with the General, the Washington of the West, James Wilkinson. He and Burr had been corresponding for many years using a cipher and early in August Wilkinson simply wrote I am ready.
Burr went back to Blennerhassett island and some of the recruits started to follow suit. He had to leave though and traveled many places just in time actually. Rumors started to surface saying that he had thousand of troops ready to start a war that would separate east from west. The county militia raided the island expecting to find hard fighting rugged mercenaries, but only found a handful of young men of good family who were just looking for adventure.
Burr was almost arrested for trying to separate the Union and start a war with Mexico, but his lawyer, Henry Clay, helped him beat the rap. Around this same time General Wilkinson decided to turn on his old friend. Wilkinson was recently appointed to the governorship of Louisiana and was not well liked in the Senate. The reason he turned on him is simple. Wilkinson was going to be superseded as the commanding officer of the entire army and he needed a reason for the senate to keep him in his position. After receiving a letter from Burr he waited two weeks before sending word to the president that there was trouble in New Orleans and that their might be a revolt. He then asked for martial law to be enacted and for a pay raise.
After Wilkinson had spread so much panic throughout the country, President Jefferson issued a proclamation saying what the general had been shouting. Burr was completely unaware of these goings on and continued with the plan to bring his 60-100 men from Cumberland island to meet up with the men from Blennerhassett island and continue on to New Orleans. On January 10 1807, Burr met up with his friend judge Peter Bruin who showed him the presidents proclamation and the warrant for his arrest. The game was up.
Burr was arrested and tried for treason at the supreme court in Richmond Va. The chief justice that was to preside over the trial was chief justice John Marshall. The prosecution had an all-star team of orators to convict him but Burr also had his own team of supporters which included John Wickham, Edmund Randolph, Benjamin Botts, and Charles Lee.
The trial itself came to be the foundation for the definition of treason. For over a hundred years it would serve as the example. For the most part that is what the trial consisted of, attorneys debating whether or not what he did, if anything , could be construed as treason. These debates lasted hours and were supplemented by an occasional witness with a shaky story. After several weeks the defense asked for a motion, if the only real evidence the prosecution had of treason were the copies of letters that had been tampered/supplied by Wilkinson, and testimonies of witnesses who thought they saw suspicious activity, then all of that was collateral and there was no case.
After nine more days of the Great Debate, Justice Marshal read his decision, the longest in American history. Marshall asked the prosecution if they had anything else, and having none, the case went to the jury. They returned twenty minutes later with a verdict of not guilty.
After the trial Burr was still not very well liked in the country and traveled to Europe under a false name. he tried to seduce people over there to pour their money into his schemes just like before but was met with less than success. He returned to the states in May 1812. He tried to get in contact with his beloved daughter Theodosia, and his grandson Aaron Burr Alston. This was probably the one reason he came back to the states . Unfortunately Theodosia and young Aaron died when the ship they were traveling on sunk into the icy Atlantic.
In the 1830’s he was able to keep a good living by being a lawyer and was a regular sight taking long walks. When news of the revolt in Texas reached him he was delighted, “There, you see? I was right!” he cried. “I was only thirty years too soon! What was treason thirty years ago is patriotism now!”
The adventurous Aaron Burr was thrust into an adventure that was of his own making that helped define the American way of doing things. The idea of manifest destiny demanded that the west be settled is observable in Burr’s moves and the dirty politics of some people in high positions didn’t go away with Wilkinson. Donald Chidsey tried to show Aaron Burr in a new light so that he may be better understood by later generations. Chidsey did a very good job at humanizing this mysterious character. After reading so many authors who paint him as a horrible traitor, it’s refreshing to read a different opinion. Upon finishing the novel one comes away with a great respect and almost pity for the man.
One example of the author trying to show the reader that Burr was in reality a harmless dreamer can be found on page 31, “…he was looking for a future, and being the sort of man he was, he would hardly be satisfied with something small, something dim.”
Donald Chidsey was very bias when he wrote this story, he had to be for it to support his thesis. He was sympathetic towards Burr and always described him as a charming, witty, and likable. Many pages can attest for this statement, one such page is 138, “He was a kindly man, if devious, and he cold not bear to hear a child cry.”
The author’s diction is plain English with relatively easy comprehensibility. He varied his sentence lengths and keeps the writing exciting. He alternates between long sentences with several commas and short sentences that make a dramatic statement. This can be seen on page 118, “The general showed the jury what he said was the self-same letter that Samuel Swartwout had delivered to him in the camp at Natchitoches, but he was obliged to confess that he had tampered with it, scratching out a word here and there and substituting other words, erasing the entire first sentence.”
“These jurors would have indicted the General as well as Aaron Burr.”
The author included an extensive bibliography in the back of the book. The sources he used were varied from memoirs of John Adams an Thomas Jefferson, to biographies that have Wilkinson and corruption in the title. Some examples are as follows: Jefferson, Thomas. The writings of Thomas Jefferson, collected and edited by Paul Leicester Ford. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1897.
Shereve, Royal Ornan. The Finished Scoundrel: General James Wilkinson. Indianapolis: The Bobs-Merrill Company, 1933
Donald Chidsey has given a great contribution to the study of Aaron Burr. By writing an easy to understand and engaging historical novel he was able to bring to life the mysteries surrounding this perplexing man. He wrote this book for any person who wants to learn the history of the killer of Hamilton. The purpose of the book was to show a new view of a notorious killer that had so many rumors around him. Aaron Burr was just an enterprising man with a grand imagination, he was able to charm many people and acquired many friends. His unfortunate flaw was that he had terrible luck with money. Any money that went into his pocket was sure to find a hole. After all the nasty rumors that followed him wherever he went, he ended up being a kind old man with a smile always on his face. The quiet and reserved Aaron Burr, who liked be mysterious, was dogged by tragedy and had all his schemes fail. He lost the presidency by only one vote, he lost his prestige with one shot, he lost his only daughter and grandson to a shipwreck, and lost any hope of crowning himself emperor of Mexico and splitting the Union in two. As Donald Chidsey put it, “But Aaron Burr never seemed to mind. He kept smiling. He had a wonderful time.”
The starts out with an introduction to the Louisiana Purchase and describes the debate about the land west of the Appalachians. This is an important part of the book because it’s this debate and subsequent decisions that had a lot to do with the shaping of that part of the nation. The Louisiana Purchase being such an enormous amount of land that the government had virtually no control over. It opened the door to opportunity and to all those enterprising minded people, like Aaron Burr.
The story then puts the reader on the shores of the north river in New Jersey, following Burr as he awaits Hamilton. The two highest paid lawyers in New York were there because of a dispute about slanderous words being printed in a paper. Chidsey writes this part very carefully and thoughtfully. When it came to the actual duel, he paints the picture of two willing gentlemen calmly taking their pistols and following all the preset rules. Hamilton won the right to say “present” at which time both men would fire. Both men fired, but Hamilton’s shot went high about six feet and to the right about four feet. Chidsey makes a note as to this passage and writes later that “no sides would taken here in the dispute that raged for years, and may still be raging in remote corners of libraries, as to whether Hamilton or Burr shot first” (Chidsey 146).
After this duel Burr became quite notorious and a warrant was issued for his arrest in the state of New York and later New Jersey. This being the case Burr thought it necessary to take a vacation. He ordered a floating home to be sailed down the Ohio. He more or less drifted down the river at around seven knots, stopping where he liked. It was on this first adventure to the west that the theories start to arise about his doings. It was also on this first adventure he meets several people and uses his famous charm and wit and befriends them all. Most notably he meets Mrs. Blennerhassett on the island of the same name, and stays there several days. He then sails down to Louisville and meets Andrew Jackson. Then it was on to Fort Massac to meet an old acquaintance, General James Wilkinson. The general was a queer man who was always dressed in a pompous uniform, and a man fond of food and drink. After four days of secret discussions Burr departed for the town which would become his favorite, New Orleans.
After being greeted like a hero in the sultry and flamboyant city he was informed that the country of Mexico was ready for a revolution and all it needed was a leader and money. Burr was never to good with money, he was good at extracting it but it slipped out of his hands as easy as water. Thus began Burr’s great quest to raise as much money as possible, buy months worth of supplies and recruit men willing to make a new life for themselves in a great adventure.
The great conspiracy arises when Burr starts to do some strange things. He begins to meet with the rich, and famous heroes of the past and he starts having friends recruit for him. The strangest of all his doings was with the General, the Washington of the West, James Wilkinson. He and Burr had been corresponding for many years using a cipher and early in August Wilkinson simply wrote I am ready.
Burr went back to Blennerhassett island and some of the recruits started to follow suit. He had to leave though and traveled many places just in time actually. Rumors started to surface saying that he had thousand of troops ready to start a war that would separate east from west. The county militia raided the island expecting to find hard fighting rugged mercenaries, but only found a handful of young men of good family who were just looking for adventure.
Burr was almost arrested for trying to separate the Union and start a war with Mexico, but his lawyer, Henry Clay, helped him beat the rap. Around this same time General Wilkinson decided to turn on his old friend. Wilkinson was recently appointed to the governorship of Louisiana and was not well liked in the Senate. The reason he turned on him is simple. Wilkinson was going to be superseded as the commanding officer of the entire army and he needed a reason for the senate to keep him in his position. After receiving a letter from Burr he waited two weeks before sending word to the president that there was trouble in New Orleans and that their might be a revolt. He then asked for martial law to be enacted and for a pay raise.
After Wilkinson had spread so much panic throughout the country, President Jefferson issued a proclamation saying what the general had been shouting. Burr was completely unaware of these goings on and continued with the plan to bring his 60-100 men from Cumberland island to meet up with the men from Blennerhassett island and continue on to New Orleans. On January 10 1807, Burr met up with his friend judge Peter Bruin who showed him the presidents proclamation and the warrant for his arrest. The game was up.
Burr was arrested and tried for treason at the supreme court in Richmond Va. The chief justice that was to preside over the trial was chief justice John Marshall. The prosecution had an all-star team of orators to convict him but Burr also had his own team of supporters which included John Wickham, Edmund Randolph, Benjamin Botts, and Charles Lee.
The trial itself came to be the foundation for the definition of treason. For over a hundred years it would serve as the example. For the most part that is what the trial consisted of, attorneys debating whether or not what he did, if anything , could be construed as treason. These debates lasted hours and were supplemented by an occasional witness with a shaky story. After several weeks the defense asked for a motion, if the only real evidence the prosecution had of treason were the copies of letters that had been tampered/supplied by Wilkinson, and testimonies of witnesses who thought they saw suspicious activity, then all of that was collateral and there was no case.
After nine more days of the Great Debate, Justice Marshal read his decision, the longest in American history. Marshall asked the prosecution if they had anything else, and having none, the case went to the jury. They returned twenty minutes later with a verdict of not guilty.
After the trial Burr was still not very well liked in the country and traveled to Europe under a false name. he tried to seduce people over there to pour their money into his schemes just like before but was met with less than success. He returned to the states in May 1812. He tried to get in contact with his beloved daughter Theodosia, and his grandson Aaron Burr Alston. This was probably the one reason he came back to the states . Unfortunately Theodosia and young Aaron died when the ship they were traveling on sunk into the icy Atlantic.
In the 1830’s he was able to keep a good living by being a lawyer and was a regular sight taking long walks. When news of the revolt in Texas reached him he was delighted, “There, you see? I was right!” he cried. “I was only thirty years too soon! What was treason thirty years ago is patriotism now!”
The adventurous Aaron Burr was thrust into an adventure that was of his own making that helped define the American way of doing things. The idea of manifest destiny demanded that the west be settled is observable in Burr’s moves and the dirty politics of some people in high positions didn’t go away with Wilkinson. Donald Chidsey tried to show Aaron Burr in a new light so that he may be better understood by later generations. Chidsey did a very good job at humanizing this mysterious character. After reading so many authors who paint him as a horrible traitor, it’s refreshing to read a different opinion. Upon finishing the novel one comes away with a great respect and almost pity for the man.
One example of the author trying to show the reader that Burr was in reality a harmless dreamer can be found on page 31, “…he was looking for a future, and being the sort of man he was, he would hardly be satisfied with something small, something dim.”
Donald Chidsey was very bias when he wrote this story, he had to be for it to support his thesis. He was sympathetic towards Burr and always described him as a charming, witty, and likable. Many pages can attest for this statement, one such page is 138, “He was a kindly man, if devious, and he cold not bear to hear a child cry.”
The author’s diction is plain English with relatively easy comprehensibility. He varied his sentence lengths and keeps the writing exciting. He alternates between long sentences with several commas and short sentences that make a dramatic statement. This can be seen on page 118, “The general showed the jury what he said was the self-same letter that Samuel Swartwout had delivered to him in the camp at Natchitoches, but he was obliged to confess that he had tampered with it, scratching out a word here and there and substituting other words, erasing the entire first sentence.”
“These jurors would have indicted the General as well as Aaron Burr.”
The author included an extensive bibliography in the back of the book. The sources he used were varied from memoirs of John Adams an Thomas Jefferson, to biographies that have Wilkinson and corruption in the title. Some examples are as follows: Jefferson, Thomas. The writings of Thomas Jefferson, collected and edited by Paul Leicester Ford. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1897.
Shereve, Royal Ornan. The Finished Scoundrel: General James Wilkinson. Indianapolis: The Bobs-Merrill Company, 1933
Donald Chidsey has given a great contribution to the study of Aaron Burr. By writing an easy to understand and engaging historical novel he was able to bring to life the mysteries surrounding this perplexing man. He wrote this book for any person who wants to learn the history of the killer of Hamilton. The purpose of the book was to show a new view of a notorious killer that had so many rumors around him. Aaron Burr was just an enterprising man with a grand imagination, he was able to charm many people and acquired many friends. His unfortunate flaw was that he had terrible luck with money. Any money that went into his pocket was sure to find a hole. After all the nasty rumors that followed him wherever he went, he ended up being a kind old man with a smile always on his face. The quiet and reserved Aaron Burr, who liked be mysterious, was dogged by tragedy and had all his schemes fail. He lost the presidency by only one vote, he lost his prestige with one shot, he lost his only daughter and grandson to a shipwreck, and lost any hope of crowning himself emperor of Mexico and splitting the Union in two. As Donald Chidsey put it, “But Aaron Burr never seemed to mind. He kept smiling. He had a wonderful time.”
Chinua Achebe and Heart of Darkness
Chinua Achebe’s essay on racism in Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness is highly critical of the author and describes him as a “thoroughgoing racist.” Achebe’s argument for this lies in Conrad’s lack of description for the natives, his use of the word nigger, and the emphasis on darkness. At the time this essay was composed, the world was going through turbulent times concerning racism. It could be that Achebe, like Conrad, was just a man of the times, at that time. Conrad wrote his novel during a time of imperialization, where newly colonized peoples weren’t considered as human as the colonizers. In some cases Conrad may have even been mocking the prejudice of the time. Achebe on the other hand, wrote his essay at a time when emotions were high and racism was a part of everyday life. In his essay, which is full of contradictions and misinterpretations, he damns the novel and suggests that it should be banned, while later on says that it’s a masterful work of fiction. Chinua Achebe, when asked later about his essay, says that “its not in his nature to talk about banning books.” No, Achebe missed the meaning behind Conrad’s words, Heart of Darkness shows the hypocrisy of the European monarchs who plundered Africa for resources under the pretenses of civilization, more specifically King Leopold II.
Achebe starts his argument by criticizing the relationship between the River Thames and the River Congo. He asserts that Conrad describes the Congo as the antithesis of Europe. His proof is that Conrad writes about the tranquility and civility of the Thames and how the Congo is a dark and barbaric world, more like the earth’s ancestral past. This theory about the Congo being a glimpse into the untouched, Edenic, world was common of the day. Many people also believed in the measuring of skulls to determine intelligence. Conrad’s depiction of the dark and mysterious Congo have more to do with the metaphor of darkness in itself, then him calling the natives barbarian heathens.
Achebe then gets to the heart of the matter, mind the pun, with blatantly stating that Conrad is a racist. He quickly skims over the part that every other critic of the novel has come to the conclusion that Conrad is indeed telling the truth about the atrocities that were occurring in the Congo under King Leopold. Achebe has a problem with Conrad’s use of the word nigger. To modern day people this is understandable, but one must understand that back then no one was politically correct, there was no NAACP and people called Africans what they had been called for many years.
Joseph Conrad was not a racist. The terms he used to describe the Africans, and the lack of development of any black character, only show that he was a man of his times and he was using them as a backdrop for the philosophical and existential struggles Marlow goes through. The purpose of this novel was to bring to light the hypocrisy of the European Imperialism. King Leopold II started his colony in the Congo under the pretense of philanthropy and civility. All the characters Marlow meets serve to reiterate this.
Kurtz is the most obvious of foils. He has gone to the jungle as a humanitarian but these ideals turn out to be just as decrepit as the man himself. Kurtz is the darkness that resides in the guiding light of civilization which King Leopold thrust upon the Congo. Marlow’s ascent upriver cuts through the fog and darkness until it reaches the Inner Station. Here he meets the Russian who babbles on until finally Kurtz himself appears. Marlow’s preconceived vision of Kurtz turns out to be wrong. Kurtz is described as being tall, even though his name means short in German, as he puts it, “the name was as true as everything else in life-and death.” Kurtz was sick and feeble, his body was failing him because it did not belong in the jungle but back in Europe as Marlow put it. The striking thing about Kurtz’s condition is that his voice was “profound and vibrating”, this could represent the European monarchy again.
Heart of Darkness is a tale that brings the reader along, up the snaking river to the heart of the jungle and the personification of human nature. Kurtz is a man that all of Europe helped in creating, he is their ideals about morality and civility. Marlow discovers that these are mere films over man’s true barbarity. Chinua Achebe misinterpreted the language used by Conrad, who was, in many cases, showing that the Africans were more civilized then their European counterparts. This can be seen during the attack on the boat when the “cannibals” were perfectly calm while the pilgrims were shooting about blindly, and it is only when this man picks up the rifle and shoots wildly that he gets killed by a “barbaric weapon. Joseph Conrad was not a racist, he was a masterful writer who integrated many layers of symbols in his story to bring to light the true evil or darkness that resided in the hearts of supposedly civilized men.
Achebe starts his argument by criticizing the relationship between the River Thames and the River Congo. He asserts that Conrad describes the Congo as the antithesis of Europe. His proof is that Conrad writes about the tranquility and civility of the Thames and how the Congo is a dark and barbaric world, more like the earth’s ancestral past. This theory about the Congo being a glimpse into the untouched, Edenic, world was common of the day. Many people also believed in the measuring of skulls to determine intelligence. Conrad’s depiction of the dark and mysterious Congo have more to do with the metaphor of darkness in itself, then him calling the natives barbarian heathens.
Achebe then gets to the heart of the matter, mind the pun, with blatantly stating that Conrad is a racist. He quickly skims over the part that every other critic of the novel has come to the conclusion that Conrad is indeed telling the truth about the atrocities that were occurring in the Congo under King Leopold. Achebe has a problem with Conrad’s use of the word nigger. To modern day people this is understandable, but one must understand that back then no one was politically correct, there was no NAACP and people called Africans what they had been called for many years.
Joseph Conrad was not a racist. The terms he used to describe the Africans, and the lack of development of any black character, only show that he was a man of his times and he was using them as a backdrop for the philosophical and existential struggles Marlow goes through. The purpose of this novel was to bring to light the hypocrisy of the European Imperialism. King Leopold II started his colony in the Congo under the pretense of philanthropy and civility. All the characters Marlow meets serve to reiterate this.
Kurtz is the most obvious of foils. He has gone to the jungle as a humanitarian but these ideals turn out to be just as decrepit as the man himself. Kurtz is the darkness that resides in the guiding light of civilization which King Leopold thrust upon the Congo. Marlow’s ascent upriver cuts through the fog and darkness until it reaches the Inner Station. Here he meets the Russian who babbles on until finally Kurtz himself appears. Marlow’s preconceived vision of Kurtz turns out to be wrong. Kurtz is described as being tall, even though his name means short in German, as he puts it, “the name was as true as everything else in life-and death.” Kurtz was sick and feeble, his body was failing him because it did not belong in the jungle but back in Europe as Marlow put it. The striking thing about Kurtz’s condition is that his voice was “profound and vibrating”, this could represent the European monarchy again.
Heart of Darkness is a tale that brings the reader along, up the snaking river to the heart of the jungle and the personification of human nature. Kurtz is a man that all of Europe helped in creating, he is their ideals about morality and civility. Marlow discovers that these are mere films over man’s true barbarity. Chinua Achebe misinterpreted the language used by Conrad, who was, in many cases, showing that the Africans were more civilized then their European counterparts. This can be seen during the attack on the boat when the “cannibals” were perfectly calm while the pilgrims were shooting about blindly, and it is only when this man picks up the rifle and shoots wildly that he gets killed by a “barbaric weapon. Joseph Conrad was not a racist, he was a masterful writer who integrated many layers of symbols in his story to bring to light the true evil or darkness that resided in the hearts of supposedly civilized men.
Parallel Developments in American History Prohibition Vs. the War on Drugs
The United States has gone through two periods of great social reform that have largely been a complete failure. One of these periods is the Prohibition of the 1920’s, a time when alcohol was banned from America. The other is the great War on Drugs started by Richard Nixon in the 70’s and furthered by subsequent presidents like Reagan and Bush. While noble in its origin, the legislature that was passed was doomed to failure in America. It was doomed to fail because no amount of governmental interference in such a profitable product, with such a high demand could succeed in a free nation built on the ideas of civil liberties and capitalism. The economic problems that arise when dealing with the laws are astronomical in size, and the bureaucracy that developed around both issues is one of the main faults. In both cases it was an experiment noble in cause to alleviate perceived societal flaws.
The idea of prohibiting the liquor started to gain support in the 1880’s with groups such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and its star, Carry Nation. The angry little woman would wield a hatchet, breaking up saloons and bars, frightening the innocent patrons enjoying a drink. She was never arrested because she would break up saloons in Kansas, which had a prohibition law. There was no way an officer could arrest her for damaging property that wasn’t supposed to be there. (Barry 4)
The WCTU gained more support and soon more organized groups came about such as the Prohibition Party. But it was in 1895 that the most powerful political force to support temperance was formed, the Anti-Saloon league. The league was deeply connected with the protestant church and wielded great lobbying powers. (Barry 7)
The many problems that alcoholism brought about, and the horrible image of the saloon started to change the minds of many Americans in the early 20th century, and by 1919 the tactics of the Anti-Saloon league were able to win the states approval of the 18th amendment which forbade the manufacture, transportation, or sale of intoxicating liquor. There was only one problem, many Americans were still determined to drink. So speakeasies sprouted up all across the country, with rumrunners and moonshiners providing the liquor. Who was it that sold this now illegal and much sought after drink, gangs.
With so many people willing to break the law it wasn’t long for some entrepreneurial types to catch on to the fact that there was millions to be made. These previously small time gangs who only dabbled in gambling and prostitution, now had a very lucrative new business. Gangs sprang up all over the country and started thousands of speakeasies in order to please the public. As many as 30000 speakeasies were in operation in New York City and as many as 100000 in Chicago. The most infamous of these gangs was John Torrio and Al Capone’s gang in Chicago.
Capone and Torrio raked in millions of dollars during the twenties, an estimated $30 million by Capone himself each year. The corruption in Chicago was so widespread that most gang members were only fined, never truly arrested. Torrio once boldly exclaimed, “I own the police.” (Barry 36) . This was largely true. Capone and his gang were above the law for a while. Gangs in Chicago paid the police little attention and would drive down busy streets shooting at each other. In one case an assassination attempt on Capone was made when he was finishing lunch at the Hawthorn Restaurant in Cicero. On that day September 20th 1926, a black touring car roared down the street past the restaurant with a man firing a tommy gun out of the window. Following that car there was a dummy police car with sirens and lights. Everyone in the restaurant jumped to their feet to see what was going on and Capone almost joined them, but his quick thinking bodyguard pulled him under the table. Then a convoy of ten cars slowly went by the restaurant and each on sprayed the building with their tommy guns. After the tenth car went by, a man got out , went to the entrance and sprayed the inside with a ten second burst from his tommy gun. (Barry 46)
The amazing thing about this scene was that not one person was killed and the only injury was a woman who got a piece of shattered glass in her eye. Capone generously paid for her expensive surgery and for the repair of all the buildings damaged in the raid. While killings in Chicago had become almost commonplace there was one event that changed the romantic view the public had of the gangster, and that event was the St. Valentines Day Massacre.
Bugsy Moran and his gang had been working with Capone distributing the Old Log Cabin brand whiskey for a little while until Moran thought he was being overcharged. At this point he told Capone that he was switching to a cheaper brand. Unfortunately for Moran, his customers preferred the Log Cabin brand. So Moran asked Capone if he could sell his brand again but Al told him he had already been replaced. Soon shipments of Old Log Cabin whiskey began to be hijacked and somehow Bugsy was ably to offer the old brand again. Capone and his associates, the Purple Gang of Detroit, had no misconceptions as to what was going on. They put a double agent in contact with Moran and told him that he had some shipments of the Purple Gang’s whiskey to sell. Bugsy and the O’Banion gang took the bait. For a while Moran thought he was buying whiskey that had been stolen from Capone, but in actuality he was playing right in to his hand. Then one day the double agent told Bugsy that he had a particularly large shipment coming in, well, he couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this. So Bugsy told him to deliver the shipment to his garage on North Clark Street where his entire staff would be waiting.(Barry 59)
The date set for the delivery was February 14th 1929, a cold and windy St. Valentines Day. In the morning a police car pulled up to the Moran garage and out stepped two men in police uniform and three in plain clothes. They walked in and ordered the men to stand facing the wall, the men complied thinking that it was an ordinary raid and that they would be out of jail shortly. Unfortunately the men weren’t cops, the two in uniform were hired guns from St. Louis and the other three were Capone gangsters. The impersonators then opened up with .45 caliber Thompson sub-machine guns and nearly cut them in half. They were then blasted with shotguns just to make sure. (Barry 59).
Bugsy was a lucky man. He was not among the seven victims, although a young optometrist who resembled him was, Dr R. H. Schwimmer. The good doctor liked to pal around with gangsters. Moran and another were walking towards the garage when they saw the uniformed men, thinking it was a legitimate raid, they casually ran away.
The St. Valentines Day Massacre marks a significant turning point in the public opinion of gangsters. What had once been a Romantic view of the gangster became one of utter disgust. More and more Americans started to feel that prohibition had done more harm than good. It crowded prisons, corrupted officials and paved the way for the horrible acts of inhumanity perpetrated by gangs.
The increased criminalization of drugs led to the same problems that Chicago had seen in the twenties with alcohol. Stepping up enforcement and cracking down on supplies didn’t always work to rid the streets of dangerous criminals, instead it bred many more desperate and cunning minds than before. Men such as Frank Lucas who were able to amass unimaginable fortunes selling heroin on the streets of New York. Lucas was involved in the infamous cadaver connection, where bricks of pure heroin were stashed inside the coffins of fallen servicemen. He was able to make $1 million dollars a day selling he “Blue Magic” on 116th street in Harlem. (Frank Lucas bio)
Lucas was able to keep his Country Boys rich throughout the early seventies by buying the smack at 100% purity and then reselling it at 10% pure, creating a profit margin astronomical in size. His reign as top gangster in Harlem came crashing down in 1975 when he was arrested and later sentenced to 70 years in prison. Lucas cut a deal and gave up the names of 100 corrupt police officers which led to the indictment of 52 members of the Special Investigation unit of the NYPD. He was released after five years but sent right back for seven more after breaking parole.
The spirit of the twenties can be characterized as a time of great change. It was the first time in American history that the amount of people living in cities outnumbered the rural population. It was in the cities that the image of the flapper and the defiance of prohibition laws took place. The generally dry agrarian population of the U.S. was loosing its influence as the Jazz age took over. (Barry 21)
This time of consumerism and opulence gave rise to the richest middle-class in all the world. The pursuit of the great American Dream was the common goal of the era. Many young middle-class men and women sought to imitate the truly rich by doing what they thought the truly rich did, and that was drink. The poorer working class couldn’t afford the higher priced hard liquors and missed their cheap beer, but the middle-class was looking to break with traditions. This great American dream is best characterized in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby.
The Great Gatsby is a fictional novel set in Long Island during the Jazz Age. The main character is Nick Caraway who travels from the Midwest out to the city after WWI. There he rents a house next to the extraordinarily wealthy Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is known to throw lavish parties that last all night but his true intentions for throwing the parties is to reconnect with his lost sweetheart, Daisy Buchanan. On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the thwarted love between a man and a woman. The main theme of the novel, however, encompasses a much larger, less romantic scope. Though all of its action takes place over a mere few months during the summer of 1922 and is set in a fictionalized area in the vicinity of Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess.
Another noble experiment began in the late sixties involving drugs and the culture they spawned. Again Americans began to see the dregs of society, the criminals, as otherwise good people who just have an addiction to a horrible substance. They thought that the removal of the substance would solve the problems. Unfortunately the mere act of criminalizing the substances wasn’t the solution, no, it would take billions and billions of dollars to make it seem like the War on Drugs was working, but even then it has just led to many of the same problems the prohibition of alcohol led to. Problems such as gang warfare, more deadly substances, decreased democracy, and the wasteful spending of tax dollars. (White)
The War on Drugs started to gain momentum as LBJ was loosing popularity. His “great society” hadn’t alleviated many problems and seemed like a big waste of money to many Americans. His greatest mistake was seemingly being lax on crime. The overall discontent with the war in Vietnam had spawned many protests, and with this counterculture grew the proliferation of drug use especially marijuana and hallucinogens. But the drug that was the cause for concern during this time was heroin.
Heroin was seen as an inner city problem that mainly affected the blacks. This is how the stereotypical black junkie came to be what people visualized when they thought of crime. The crimes usually attributed to junkies were muggings, murder and petty theft. It was true that a large amount of crimes were committed by junkies and the study by Robert DuPont concluded that 44% of inmates tested positive for heroin when they entered the D.C jail in 1969. (Baum 19).
With the new data in and polls telling government that most white males were fed up with the civil rights movement, republicans saw an opportunity to take over the White house. Richard Nixon took office in January of 1969 and set about making many reforms. He coined the phrase “War on Drugs” in 1972 to describe the increased enforcement of the prohibition on drugs. He also started the Drug Enforcement Agency by consolidating all of the previous departments like the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (ODALE), and others into one. The DEA is given the task of dealing with drug smuggling and use within the US. (Baum 68)
After Nixon resigned from office Gerald Ford took over. Much of Ford’s drug policy was uneventful compared to Nixon’s. But the overall feeling was that of a truce. All the old proponents had fallen with Nixon and the old ideas of “root causes” were coming back. Most surprisingly under Ford there was serious thought given to the legalization of marijuana as suggested by his Federal Drug Strategy. (Baum 150
During the early days of Carter‘s presidency drug enforcement was not a big problem. Vietnam was over, addicts were getting treatment(mainly from Nixon’s Methadone treatment plan), crime wasn’t in the public eye, and there wasn’t anything to be gained from making an issue out of the war on drugs. Carter’s drug czar, Peter Bourne, suggested that the reform of marijuana punishment should take place. Carter supported this and instituted civil fines for marijuana possession instead of jail time which was only effective at crowding prisons and ruining lives. (Baum110)
What Carter did not anticipate was that his harm-reduction policies towards drugs ran counter to the enormous amount of propaganda and rhetoric that had been previously put forth. In the public eye pot was addictive and led to heroin, and they would make themselves know with groups such as the Nosy Parents group and other anti-drug groups.( Baum 89)
Another drug also started to come to light in the late seventies and that drug was cocaine. Cocaine was starting to gain popularity among the upper middle-class and rich during the late seventies and throughout the eighties. The horrible path that cocaine would cut through American society was unknown to Bourne and would come back to haunt him. (White)
The time of the “esoteric debate” was coming to an end as Dick Williams put it, “ Let’s declare drug abuse wrong and get on with it.” That they did and in 1981 Ronald Reagan took office, so began the greatest increase in drug enforcement since the “War” had been declared in 1972. Reagan’s conservative nature looked to cut government spending in any area, so what got cut, the methadone treatment slots program that had been in affect for over a decade. Large grants were going to replace the costly treatment instead. Other programs that got cut at this time were child nutrition (down 34%), urban development action grants (down 35%), education block grants (down 38%), school milk programs (down 78%) and energy conservation ( down 83%). The only programs that didn’t get cut were the “ hard” side of enforcement such as the Coast Guard which enjoyed a 44% increase in its budget. (Baum 145)
On June 24, 1982, Reagan declared his new War on Drugs.
“ ‘I was not present at the Battle of Verdun in World War I,’ he said. ‘But from that battle I learned of that horrendous time of an old French soldier who said something we could all heed. He said, ‘There are no impossible situations. There are only people who think they’re impossible.’’(Baum 165)
“ ‘We can put this drug abuse on the run through stronger law enforcement,’ he said. ‘We’re taking down the surrender flag that has flown over so many drug efforts. We’re running up a battle flag.’” (Baum 166).
The Verdun reference was quite strange: the battle is known for the loss of half a million men on both sides and accomplished very little.
Reagan then began to really bring the war to the War on Drugs. In on of his first legislative victories, Reagan revised the 103-year-old law that kept the military out of civilian affairs. The Posse Comitatus Act had made it illegal for the military to act as police on US territory or waters, but the Reagan administration wanted a clearly defined role for the military’s active role in the War on Drugs. The navy would assist the Coast guard in spotting smugglers and the air force was a valuable ally watching the skies. This all came with a price of course and the Pentagon saw it’s funding go from $1 million dollars to $196 million dollars.
Technology played a huge role in both the Roaring Twenties and the 80’s. The twenties were a time of modernization and mass production which led to cheaper goods for people. The 80’s went through a very similar time of consumerism marked by advancements in science and technology. One advancement that had an enormous impact on life in the twenties, and prohibition especially was the automobile. (Barry 44)
The automobile was invented in Europe during the late 1800’s and was never much of a success, mainly because the vehicles were expensive and unreliable. But after WWI had modernized American factories and set the stage for mass production, autos would become cheap and very popular.
Ford’s Model t was the most popular auto of the time. He sold over 15 million units by 1927. The new consumers of this product were in fact gangsters. They quickly realized the importance of the car and adopted it to suit their means. Some cars were modified to benefit the gangsters by installing thick bulletproof glass or armor on the doors. Gangs soon created strategies reminiscent of an army’s cavalry by moving in quick, striking fast with machine guns and then screeching away.
The 1980’s saw many scientific and technological advancements that helped and greatly hurt society. One such advancement was in the production of “crack cocaine”. This new potent product was made by mixing powdered cocaine with baking soda and water and then heating it. The oil that was extracted was then cooled into a hydrate and smoked out of a pipe. The vapor was quickly absorbed by the lungs and caused the user to feel a very quick and intense high, but was left with an insatiable appetite for more soon after. (White)
The crack epidemic is said by the DEA to have started in 1984 and ended in 1990, in which time it caused enormous amounts of damage to users, communities, and the prison system. By taking extreme measures against crack, president Reagan is partially to blame for the over-crowded prison systems that do much more harm than good. Today the United States has the highest percentage of its population locked up, over 2.2 million inmates.
One novel that explored the drug culture and the end of the hippie generation was Hunter S Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The book deals with the end of the counterculture of the 60’s and the cynicism that followed. The novel is a somewhat autobiographical account of events that happened to Thompson on a trip to Las Vegas to cover the Mint 400. The two men are given $300 and use the majority of it to purchase ludicrous amounts of drugs. What followed was a descent into the reasons of drug culture and the delusion of the American dream.
The thirteen years of prohibition that America went through is very similar to the more recent War on Drugs. Both time periods saw remarkable change both socially and politically. The causes of these restricting times were deeply rooted in a national sense of disgust with crime and the want for a return to normal times, good times. Unfortunately such radical reform laws are nearly unworkable in American society. This is mainly due to the fact that the true American dream is to have the freedom to earn money. When the government took away some of it’s citizens’ freedoms, the citizens disobeyed the law. When the government indirectly made disobeying the law so profitable to anyone willing to grasp at the opportunity, it set the stage for a never ending battle. For sometimes it is the forbidden fruit that tastes sweeter than all else.
The idea of prohibiting the liquor started to gain support in the 1880’s with groups such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and its star, Carry Nation. The angry little woman would wield a hatchet, breaking up saloons and bars, frightening the innocent patrons enjoying a drink. She was never arrested because she would break up saloons in Kansas, which had a prohibition law. There was no way an officer could arrest her for damaging property that wasn’t supposed to be there. (Barry 4)
The WCTU gained more support and soon more organized groups came about such as the Prohibition Party. But it was in 1895 that the most powerful political force to support temperance was formed, the Anti-Saloon league. The league was deeply connected with the protestant church and wielded great lobbying powers. (Barry 7)
The many problems that alcoholism brought about, and the horrible image of the saloon started to change the minds of many Americans in the early 20th century, and by 1919 the tactics of the Anti-Saloon league were able to win the states approval of the 18th amendment which forbade the manufacture, transportation, or sale of intoxicating liquor. There was only one problem, many Americans were still determined to drink. So speakeasies sprouted up all across the country, with rumrunners and moonshiners providing the liquor. Who was it that sold this now illegal and much sought after drink, gangs.
With so many people willing to break the law it wasn’t long for some entrepreneurial types to catch on to the fact that there was millions to be made. These previously small time gangs who only dabbled in gambling and prostitution, now had a very lucrative new business. Gangs sprang up all over the country and started thousands of speakeasies in order to please the public. As many as 30000 speakeasies were in operation in New York City and as many as 100000 in Chicago. The most infamous of these gangs was John Torrio and Al Capone’s gang in Chicago.
Capone and Torrio raked in millions of dollars during the twenties, an estimated $30 million by Capone himself each year. The corruption in Chicago was so widespread that most gang members were only fined, never truly arrested. Torrio once boldly exclaimed, “I own the police.” (Barry 36) . This was largely true. Capone and his gang were above the law for a while. Gangs in Chicago paid the police little attention and would drive down busy streets shooting at each other. In one case an assassination attempt on Capone was made when he was finishing lunch at the Hawthorn Restaurant in Cicero. On that day September 20th 1926, a black touring car roared down the street past the restaurant with a man firing a tommy gun out of the window. Following that car there was a dummy police car with sirens and lights. Everyone in the restaurant jumped to their feet to see what was going on and Capone almost joined them, but his quick thinking bodyguard pulled him under the table. Then a convoy of ten cars slowly went by the restaurant and each on sprayed the building with their tommy guns. After the tenth car went by, a man got out , went to the entrance and sprayed the inside with a ten second burst from his tommy gun. (Barry 46)
The amazing thing about this scene was that not one person was killed and the only injury was a woman who got a piece of shattered glass in her eye. Capone generously paid for her expensive surgery and for the repair of all the buildings damaged in the raid. While killings in Chicago had become almost commonplace there was one event that changed the romantic view the public had of the gangster, and that event was the St. Valentines Day Massacre.
Bugsy Moran and his gang had been working with Capone distributing the Old Log Cabin brand whiskey for a little while until Moran thought he was being overcharged. At this point he told Capone that he was switching to a cheaper brand. Unfortunately for Moran, his customers preferred the Log Cabin brand. So Moran asked Capone if he could sell his brand again but Al told him he had already been replaced. Soon shipments of Old Log Cabin whiskey began to be hijacked and somehow Bugsy was ably to offer the old brand again. Capone and his associates, the Purple Gang of Detroit, had no misconceptions as to what was going on. They put a double agent in contact with Moran and told him that he had some shipments of the Purple Gang’s whiskey to sell. Bugsy and the O’Banion gang took the bait. For a while Moran thought he was buying whiskey that had been stolen from Capone, but in actuality he was playing right in to his hand. Then one day the double agent told Bugsy that he had a particularly large shipment coming in, well, he couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this. So Bugsy told him to deliver the shipment to his garage on North Clark Street where his entire staff would be waiting.(Barry 59)
The date set for the delivery was February 14th 1929, a cold and windy St. Valentines Day. In the morning a police car pulled up to the Moran garage and out stepped two men in police uniform and three in plain clothes. They walked in and ordered the men to stand facing the wall, the men complied thinking that it was an ordinary raid and that they would be out of jail shortly. Unfortunately the men weren’t cops, the two in uniform were hired guns from St. Louis and the other three were Capone gangsters. The impersonators then opened up with .45 caliber Thompson sub-machine guns and nearly cut them in half. They were then blasted with shotguns just to make sure. (Barry 59).
Bugsy was a lucky man. He was not among the seven victims, although a young optometrist who resembled him was, Dr R. H. Schwimmer. The good doctor liked to pal around with gangsters. Moran and another were walking towards the garage when they saw the uniformed men, thinking it was a legitimate raid, they casually ran away.
The St. Valentines Day Massacre marks a significant turning point in the public opinion of gangsters. What had once been a Romantic view of the gangster became one of utter disgust. More and more Americans started to feel that prohibition had done more harm than good. It crowded prisons, corrupted officials and paved the way for the horrible acts of inhumanity perpetrated by gangs.
The increased criminalization of drugs led to the same problems that Chicago had seen in the twenties with alcohol. Stepping up enforcement and cracking down on supplies didn’t always work to rid the streets of dangerous criminals, instead it bred many more desperate and cunning minds than before. Men such as Frank Lucas who were able to amass unimaginable fortunes selling heroin on the streets of New York. Lucas was involved in the infamous cadaver connection, where bricks of pure heroin were stashed inside the coffins of fallen servicemen. He was able to make $1 million dollars a day selling he “Blue Magic” on 116th street in Harlem. (Frank Lucas bio)
Lucas was able to keep his Country Boys rich throughout the early seventies by buying the smack at 100% purity and then reselling it at 10% pure, creating a profit margin astronomical in size. His reign as top gangster in Harlem came crashing down in 1975 when he was arrested and later sentenced to 70 years in prison. Lucas cut a deal and gave up the names of 100 corrupt police officers which led to the indictment of 52 members of the Special Investigation unit of the NYPD. He was released after five years but sent right back for seven more after breaking parole.
The spirit of the twenties can be characterized as a time of great change. It was the first time in American history that the amount of people living in cities outnumbered the rural population. It was in the cities that the image of the flapper and the defiance of prohibition laws took place. The generally dry agrarian population of the U.S. was loosing its influence as the Jazz age took over. (Barry 21)
This time of consumerism and opulence gave rise to the richest middle-class in all the world. The pursuit of the great American Dream was the common goal of the era. Many young middle-class men and women sought to imitate the truly rich by doing what they thought the truly rich did, and that was drink. The poorer working class couldn’t afford the higher priced hard liquors and missed their cheap beer, but the middle-class was looking to break with traditions. This great American dream is best characterized in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby.
The Great Gatsby is a fictional novel set in Long Island during the Jazz Age. The main character is Nick Caraway who travels from the Midwest out to the city after WWI. There he rents a house next to the extraordinarily wealthy Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is known to throw lavish parties that last all night but his true intentions for throwing the parties is to reconnect with his lost sweetheart, Daisy Buchanan. On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the thwarted love between a man and a woman. The main theme of the novel, however, encompasses a much larger, less romantic scope. Though all of its action takes place over a mere few months during the summer of 1922 and is set in a fictionalized area in the vicinity of Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess.
Another noble experiment began in the late sixties involving drugs and the culture they spawned. Again Americans began to see the dregs of society, the criminals, as otherwise good people who just have an addiction to a horrible substance. They thought that the removal of the substance would solve the problems. Unfortunately the mere act of criminalizing the substances wasn’t the solution, no, it would take billions and billions of dollars to make it seem like the War on Drugs was working, but even then it has just led to many of the same problems the prohibition of alcohol led to. Problems such as gang warfare, more deadly substances, decreased democracy, and the wasteful spending of tax dollars. (White)
The War on Drugs started to gain momentum as LBJ was loosing popularity. His “great society” hadn’t alleviated many problems and seemed like a big waste of money to many Americans. His greatest mistake was seemingly being lax on crime. The overall discontent with the war in Vietnam had spawned many protests, and with this counterculture grew the proliferation of drug use especially marijuana and hallucinogens. But the drug that was the cause for concern during this time was heroin.
Heroin was seen as an inner city problem that mainly affected the blacks. This is how the stereotypical black junkie came to be what people visualized when they thought of crime. The crimes usually attributed to junkies were muggings, murder and petty theft. It was true that a large amount of crimes were committed by junkies and the study by Robert DuPont concluded that 44% of inmates tested positive for heroin when they entered the D.C jail in 1969. (Baum 19).
With the new data in and polls telling government that most white males were fed up with the civil rights movement, republicans saw an opportunity to take over the White house. Richard Nixon took office in January of 1969 and set about making many reforms. He coined the phrase “War on Drugs” in 1972 to describe the increased enforcement of the prohibition on drugs. He also started the Drug Enforcement Agency by consolidating all of the previous departments like the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (ODALE), and others into one. The DEA is given the task of dealing with drug smuggling and use within the US. (Baum 68)
After Nixon resigned from office Gerald Ford took over. Much of Ford’s drug policy was uneventful compared to Nixon’s. But the overall feeling was that of a truce. All the old proponents had fallen with Nixon and the old ideas of “root causes” were coming back. Most surprisingly under Ford there was serious thought given to the legalization of marijuana as suggested by his Federal Drug Strategy. (Baum 150
During the early days of Carter‘s presidency drug enforcement was not a big problem. Vietnam was over, addicts were getting treatment(mainly from Nixon’s Methadone treatment plan), crime wasn’t in the public eye, and there wasn’t anything to be gained from making an issue out of the war on drugs. Carter’s drug czar, Peter Bourne, suggested that the reform of marijuana punishment should take place. Carter supported this and instituted civil fines for marijuana possession instead of jail time which was only effective at crowding prisons and ruining lives. (Baum110)
What Carter did not anticipate was that his harm-reduction policies towards drugs ran counter to the enormous amount of propaganda and rhetoric that had been previously put forth. In the public eye pot was addictive and led to heroin, and they would make themselves know with groups such as the Nosy Parents group and other anti-drug groups.( Baum 89)
Another drug also started to come to light in the late seventies and that drug was cocaine. Cocaine was starting to gain popularity among the upper middle-class and rich during the late seventies and throughout the eighties. The horrible path that cocaine would cut through American society was unknown to Bourne and would come back to haunt him. (White)
The time of the “esoteric debate” was coming to an end as Dick Williams put it, “ Let’s declare drug abuse wrong and get on with it.” That they did and in 1981 Ronald Reagan took office, so began the greatest increase in drug enforcement since the “War” had been declared in 1972. Reagan’s conservative nature looked to cut government spending in any area, so what got cut, the methadone treatment slots program that had been in affect for over a decade. Large grants were going to replace the costly treatment instead. Other programs that got cut at this time were child nutrition (down 34%), urban development action grants (down 35%), education block grants (down 38%), school milk programs (down 78%) and energy conservation ( down 83%). The only programs that didn’t get cut were the “ hard” side of enforcement such as the Coast Guard which enjoyed a 44% increase in its budget. (Baum 145)
On June 24, 1982, Reagan declared his new War on Drugs.
“ ‘I was not present at the Battle of Verdun in World War I,’ he said. ‘But from that battle I learned of that horrendous time of an old French soldier who said something we could all heed. He said, ‘There are no impossible situations. There are only people who think they’re impossible.’’(Baum 165)
“ ‘We can put this drug abuse on the run through stronger law enforcement,’ he said. ‘We’re taking down the surrender flag that has flown over so many drug efforts. We’re running up a battle flag.’” (Baum 166).
The Verdun reference was quite strange: the battle is known for the loss of half a million men on both sides and accomplished very little.
Reagan then began to really bring the war to the War on Drugs. In on of his first legislative victories, Reagan revised the 103-year-old law that kept the military out of civilian affairs. The Posse Comitatus Act had made it illegal for the military to act as police on US territory or waters, but the Reagan administration wanted a clearly defined role for the military’s active role in the War on Drugs. The navy would assist the Coast guard in spotting smugglers and the air force was a valuable ally watching the skies. This all came with a price of course and the Pentagon saw it’s funding go from $1 million dollars to $196 million dollars.
Technology played a huge role in both the Roaring Twenties and the 80’s. The twenties were a time of modernization and mass production which led to cheaper goods for people. The 80’s went through a very similar time of consumerism marked by advancements in science and technology. One advancement that had an enormous impact on life in the twenties, and prohibition especially was the automobile. (Barry 44)
The automobile was invented in Europe during the late 1800’s and was never much of a success, mainly because the vehicles were expensive and unreliable. But after WWI had modernized American factories and set the stage for mass production, autos would become cheap and very popular.
Ford’s Model t was the most popular auto of the time. He sold over 15 million units by 1927. The new consumers of this product were in fact gangsters. They quickly realized the importance of the car and adopted it to suit their means. Some cars were modified to benefit the gangsters by installing thick bulletproof glass or armor on the doors. Gangs soon created strategies reminiscent of an army’s cavalry by moving in quick, striking fast with machine guns and then screeching away.
The 1980’s saw many scientific and technological advancements that helped and greatly hurt society. One such advancement was in the production of “crack cocaine”. This new potent product was made by mixing powdered cocaine with baking soda and water and then heating it. The oil that was extracted was then cooled into a hydrate and smoked out of a pipe. The vapor was quickly absorbed by the lungs and caused the user to feel a very quick and intense high, but was left with an insatiable appetite for more soon after. (White)
The crack epidemic is said by the DEA to have started in 1984 and ended in 1990, in which time it caused enormous amounts of damage to users, communities, and the prison system. By taking extreme measures against crack, president Reagan is partially to blame for the over-crowded prison systems that do much more harm than good. Today the United States has the highest percentage of its population locked up, over 2.2 million inmates.
One novel that explored the drug culture and the end of the hippie generation was Hunter S Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The book deals with the end of the counterculture of the 60’s and the cynicism that followed. The novel is a somewhat autobiographical account of events that happened to Thompson on a trip to Las Vegas to cover the Mint 400. The two men are given $300 and use the majority of it to purchase ludicrous amounts of drugs. What followed was a descent into the reasons of drug culture and the delusion of the American dream.
The thirteen years of prohibition that America went through is very similar to the more recent War on Drugs. Both time periods saw remarkable change both socially and politically. The causes of these restricting times were deeply rooted in a national sense of disgust with crime and the want for a return to normal times, good times. Unfortunately such radical reform laws are nearly unworkable in American society. This is mainly due to the fact that the true American dream is to have the freedom to earn money. When the government took away some of it’s citizens’ freedoms, the citizens disobeyed the law. When the government indirectly made disobeying the law so profitable to anyone willing to grasp at the opportunity, it set the stage for a never ending battle. For sometimes it is the forbidden fruit that tastes sweeter than all else.
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