On December 14, 1859, the United States Senate passed a resolution to establish a select committee to inquire into the invasion of Harper's Ferry, Virginia, and the seizure of public property that occurred there during October of that year. As directed by the resolution, Vice President John C. Breckinridge, the presiding officer of the Senate, appointed as members of the committee James. M. Mason, a Democrat from Virginia (chairman); Jefferson Davis, a Democrat from Mississippi; Graham N. Fitch, a Democrat from Indiana; Jacob Collamer, a Republican from Vermont; and James R. Doolittle, a former Democrat turned Republican from Wisconsin. After holding hearings and examining witnesses, the committee delivered its majority and minority reports on June 15, 1860.
On October 16, 1859, John Brown and 17 others entered Harper's Ferry for the purpose of capturing the federal arsenal located there. John Brown and his sons and sons-in-law had been active in the violence over slavery in The Territory of Kansas, and he had become acquainted with some of his associates there. They took hostages, detained and then released a mail train en route to Baltimore, and in the process killed three white men and one free Negro.
Local citizens attacked the raiders, and John Brown along with some of his men and some hostages, took shelter in an engine house. A contingent of United States Marines stormed the engine house, killing some of the raiders and capturing others, including John Brown. Four other men were to bring a store of weapons from John Brown's base of operations in nearby Maryland, but they did not arrive in Harper's Ferry and fled the scene.
The weapons included 200 Sharps rifled carbines, 200 revolver pistols and 1,000 pikes – each a steel knife blade riveted to the end of a five foot wooden handle. After his capture, John Brown stated that his purpose was to arm the slaves and use them as a military force in Virginia. Of the 22 raiders, ten were killed in Harper's Ferry, 10 were executed, and five escaped – one of the raiders who entered Harper's Ferry and the four who remained in Maryland.
The committee divided along party lines. Although the majority and the minority did not differ as to the facts, they split over the breadth of the committee's inquiry, the context in which it was evaluated and the implications it held for the future. In addition to exploring the facts of the raid, the committee was charged with advising whether the Congress should enact legislation to deal with any such future invasion of a state.
Both reports agreed that no such legislation was called for. The minority argued that the inquiry should have stopped with that conclusion and complained that the majority went beyond the committee's mandate to inquire into the actions and beliefs of certain abolitionists who had aided John Brown although without knowing – so they claimed and in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary – that he planned a campaign of violence.
The majority clearly believed otherwise, owing in part to John Brown's reputation from the Kansas violence and the cavalier way in which the abolitionists had entrusted 200 rifles to him for safekeeping. In this connection the committee elicited from some of the witness strong statements about their desire to end slavery and about their belief in a "higher law" that empowered them to challenge slavery.
The majority concluded that John Brown and his colleagues were "lawless ruffians" against whom the laws of the states were proof and that the United States was without the power to legislate. The majority warned that "If the several states, whether from motives of policy or a desire to preserve the peace of the Union, if not from fraternal feeling, do not hold it incumbent on them, after the experience of the country to guard in future by appropriate legislation against occurrences similar to the one here inquired into, the committee can find no guarantee elsewhere for the security of peace between the States of the Union."
The minority took a different tack, observing that "It is almost astonishing that in a country like ours, laden with the rich experience of the blessings of security under the protection of law, there should still be found large bodies of men laboring under the infatuation that any good object can be affected by lawlessness and violence." And as illustration of this view they referred to the filibusters who invaded neighboring countries for the apparent purpose of bringing such lands under American dominion for the expansion of slavery, those who violated the laws against engaging in the slave trade and the border ruffians who entered the Kansas Territory for the purpose of securing the permanence of slavery there.
The minority continued, "While this act of violence and treason, and the alarm, suspicion, suffering and death it involves are so deplorable, we cannot but see that the lessons which it teaches furnish many considerations of security against its repetition", not the least of which was that the ages might not produce another John Brown and provide him with resources.
An interesting footnote to the committee's hearing and dueling reports is that, shortly after the Senate adopted the resolution to establish the select committee, Senator William Bigler, Democrat from Pennsylvania, offered a bill, designated S. 72, that empowered that the President to summon and employ the militia "whenever the United States, or any State or Territory thereof, shall be invaded, or be in in imminent danger of invasion, from any place whatever, whether external or internal, to the United States". The bill was referred to the select committee on the invasion of Harper's Ferry. When Senator Mason offered the committee's report to the Senate, he also moved that the committee be relieved of any further obligation to consider Bill S. 72.
When after the 1860 election the states of the deep south began to secede, President James Buchanan lamented that, although he believed that secession was unlawful, he lacked to authority to take action against it. Had Bill S. 72 become law, it might have provided the legal authority that the president said he lacked based upon the argument that the secession governments constituted domestic invasions. If it had been enacted and provided the power, the question remains whether President Buchanan would have had the backbone to use it.
President Buchanan has never rank highly within the pantheon or American deities, so it is easy to think ill of him. President Buchanan had sent a vessel to Charleston with supplies for the garrison at Fort Sumter, but Confederate batteries at the mouth of the harbor fired on it and drove it away. President Lincoln advised the Confederates that he was sending food to Fort Sumter, but if the expedition was fired upon it would put ashore additional troops and ammunition. General Pierre G.T. Beauregard, in commend of Confederate forces at Charleston, regarded Fort Sumter, if held by an adequate force, a perfect Gibraltar. The situation forced the Confederates to fire on the fort before it was strengthened. When the Confederates fired on the national flag, they largely unified northern public opinion in favor of using force to preserve the Union, a luxury that President Buchanan did not enjoy.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
The Panic of 1857
Until now, the Chinese government has been widely applauded for its deftness in managing economic matters. For instance, its massive stimulus program launched in late 2008 helped the Chinese economy weather the global financial crisis.
It also saddled the economy with debt, a property bubble and wasteful projects throughout the country. As part of a strategy to help the companies unwind the debts they had taken on in that push, policy makers encouraged stock investing.
It also saddled the economy with debt, a property bubble and wasteful projects throughout the country. As part of a strategy to help the companies unwind the debts they had taken on in that push, policy makers encouraged stock investing.
"Chinese Government Struggles in Attempt to Stem Distress in Stock Market", Lingling Wei, Wall Street Journal Online, July 8, 2015 9:42 a.m. ET
When you cut through a lot of the mumbo jumbo, and if you ignore the body of laws and regulations that have grown up since 1860 that affect banks and other financial institutions, the business of being a banker is not very difficult. You as a banker have a stock of money that comes from two sources – the capital provided by the owners of the bank, and the deposits that come from people who have given you their money for safekeeping. The world is filled with people who want to use your money, and you lend it them for a fee.
If you are careful about who you lend to, most of the people who borrow from you will pay you back, but a few will not. Taking this into account, you set the fee for the use of your money so that it will cover the costs of your doing business (including your salary and the interest you have promised to pay your depositors), reimburse you for the losses you will suffer from those who don't pay you back, and provide a profit so that you can pay a dividend to the owners who provided the capital.
When we think about banking in the United States before the Civil War, we need to keep in mind the fact that two types of money (as currency) were in use. One type was specie – gold and silver coins minted by the government. The other type was banknotes – pieces of paper issued by commercial banks that represented the issuing bank's promise to pay the bearer a specified amount of money in the form of gold and silver coins.
The law required the banks to keep in their vaults an amount of specie – the "reserves" – that represented a percentage of their banknotes that were in circulation. Of course, because the reserves represented only a portion of the banknotes in circulation, it would not be sufficient to repay all the notes if the holders sought to redeem them all at once. But since a paper banknote is redeemable at will for an equivalent amount of coin, most of the time an individual will be indifferent as to whether he holds a banknote or coin.
So, if you are a banker looking at the balance sheet for you bank, you have certain assets, including the cash (specie) in your vaults and the money you have loaned and that you expect to receive back from your borrowers, and you have certain liabilities, including the amounts that your depositors have given you for safekeeping and the banknotes you have issued that represent their right to demand from you the payment in specie.
If you are an experienced banker who has learned the business of banking from other experienced bankers you will understand that your business goes through seasonal cycles. The amount of loans, deposits, banknotes in circulation, and reserves of coin in the vault will rise and fall, but so long as they remain within the rough relationship to one another that they have maintained over time, all should go smoothly and profitably.
In 1857 New York City possessed the largest concentration of banks in the United States making it the financial capital of the nation. For the convenience of their respective business, the banks had formed a clearinghouse organization in which representatives of all the banks met at the end of each business day and settled their accounts. It not only promoted the efficiency of their business, but provided the members with insight into each other's financial condition. The advantage to you as a banker is that you knew not only the condition of your own balance sheets but also the condition of the balance sheet of every other major bank in the city.
In late summer of 1857, a substantial number of the bankers in New York City woke up to the realization that they were operating outside of their comfort zone. Summer was a peak lending time. The aggregate amount of loans outstanding for the New York banks was nearly a third larger than it had been in any of the recent years, and the combined amount of banknotes in circulation and deposits at the banks – both representing claims against the banks' reserves – also was substantially larger than in prior years. At the same time, the aggregate amount of reserves had declined.
The banks reacted by demanding repayment of loans then due – a portion of the loans were "demand" loans that permitted to lender to require repayment at any time – and by refusing to renew existing loans or make new loans. Needless to say, these actions caused substantial distress as people who needed money to operate their businesses and ventures could not get it. People who had borrowed money to buy securities and other assets were forced to sell, and the flood of selling pushed prices down. Business that could not pay their bills failed. The telegraph and newspapers spread the story – and the panic – across the nation. The failure of a major financial institution in Ohio increased the alarm. Depositors and holders of banknotes sought to redeem their claims for specie, but the banks, acting as a group, refused to honor their requests.
What does all this have to do, as we used to say, with the price of tea in China? What is the relevance of the Panic of 1857 to the conditions in the United States in the twenty-first century?
To sort this out, let's look at what has changed and what has not. First, the money is different. Banknotes and specie are a thing of the past. Starting with the introduction of greenbacks during the Civil War and culminating with the birth and grown of the Federal Reserve System, the United States now has a national currency that is not directly dependent upon the financial health of any one bank. Second, many bank deposits are insured, which has made bank runs as scarce of hens' teeth. In fact, the only exposure to a bank run that most people have nowadays consists of a few scenes in the 1946 Frank Capra movie "It's a Wonderful Life" starring James Stewart and Donna Reed. Bank failures still occur, but the collateral damage is reduced when individual banks implode. Third, we have the Federal Reserve System that oversees the money supply and acts as a lender of last resort. In 1791 and again in 1816 the United States gathered the political will to establish the Bank of the United States, which acted as the fiscal agent for the national government and imposed some discipline upon the banking industry, much to the displeasure of the industry. The first Bank of the United States was permitted to expire, and President Andrew Jackson killed the second one. Fourth, the amount of regulation and regulatory apparatus has grown from virtually nothing into multiple state and federal institutions with broad mandates, broad powers and overlapping jurisdictions.
In spite of all that has changed, major financial dislocations still occur and are likely to occur in the future. No one fact causes a major financial dislocation, and while specific underlying facts differ from one event to another, the general causal trends seem to be a growing consensus that the debt load in some part of the economy or the world is larger than can be readily repaid because of the amount of the debt, changing economic conditions or worries that the assets purchased using credit – like stocks in 1929 or houses in 2008 – might be substantially overvalued.
Let's look at how the aggregate debt load might become excessive. The marketplace has thousands of potential lenders, all of whom are in the business of renting money to people who believe they can use the money to turn a profit. If you are a loan officer, you have a choice between making the incremental loan and earning your bonus or failing to make the loan and getting fired. If you are the bank president, you look at the balance sheet of your institution and the financial conditions generally, and then you decide whether it is prudent for your institution to take on the additional risk of the incremental loan. Even if the bank president is considering the aggregate amount of similar loans being made by all the lenders in the marketplace, his inclination will be to keep lending because failing to do so means foregoing the incremental profit.
But at some point the bank president becomes worried. He reads the economic statistics; he sees some leading indicators weaken; he recalls that he has authorized the consummation of some slightly aggressive loans (compensated, of course, by a correspondingly higher rate of interest); and he begins to wonder how his bank's loan portfolio might fare if conditions go south. And, of course, there is always some Cassandra predicting that the next crash or recession is just around the corner – from time to time one of them will be right.
If one bank president has cause to become worried, perhaps a dozen come to the same conclusion, and without coordinate action among them, but reacting to the same general indicators, their previous optimism becomes clouded over by prudence, and they scale back their incremental lending and stop rolling over their more worrisome credits. The fact that they are doing so inevitably becomes known, and the fact becomes an additional – and additionally persuasive – factor that other bank presidents and other market participants will weigh in the mix.
The foregoing discussion has spoken about "loans", but it could easily have focused on other assets. If one became persuaded that the stock market was exhibiting "irrational exuberance", one might be prudent to reduce one stock portfolio before the market tanked. If one became persuaded that housing prices were overstated, one might unload one's portfolio of collateralized mortgage obligations before the default rate spiked and exceed the rate assumed when the instruments were originally sold. In either case, the selling itself becomes an economic fact of which others will take note and contribute to the tipping of greed into fear.
Greed and fear are, of course, the primary economic motivators. They are selfish motivators that focus primarily upon one's own profit and one's own safety. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this since we expect our commercial institutions to be profitable and we expect them to behave rationally to that end. There are always unintended or collateral consequences. Although Adam Smith's "invisible hand" may produce a greater overall benefit in many cases and under ordinary circumstances, it does not do so in every case and certainly not in emergency situations. When conditions start to go bad, those who act first to protect themselves are most likely to suffer the least injury, although their precipitous actions may result in injury to others.
In a perfect world we would be able to eliminate panics and market disturbances by preventing the aggregate debt in any part of the national or the world economy from becoming excessive, by curbing "irrational exuberance" before it becomes irrational or exuberant and by preventing supply and demand from pushing the market price of assets in excess of their "real" value – whatever that may be. Based upon what we know, what we believe and what we reasonably can foresee, nothing like this is ever going to happen.
Since we have not been able to achieve the impossible, we have tried alternative approaches. One such is to require institutions to become more robust and therefore capable of withstanding the consequences of the market's folly by restricting the institution from certain lines of business that are considered too risky and imposing requirements and limitations on how its business operates. The judgment is that of a governmental regulator and not of the institution's manager so the limits will not be tailored to the needs of the institution's business and will probably be contrary to the institution's profit interest. Moreover, insofar as making the institution sufficiently robust to withstand the next economic crisis, the institution's vulnerability to the effects of that crisis will depend upon the nature of the crisis. If the institution's portfolio is not heavily exposed to the assets that are being hammered in the crisis, it is less likely to be at risk. I don't see where a regulator has a better chance of making that call correctly than does a manager.
In 1857 the traditions and ideas about the duties of government left regulation of banks to the states, and even there the hand of government rested lightly. Government has grown to be more intrusive, but that does not mean that it has become more effective, and I am fearful – when I hear government officials speak about institutions that are too big to fail and too big to jail – that much of the actions taken by the government are window dressings, intended largely to persuade the public that it has the problem is well in hand.
If you are careful about who you lend to, most of the people who borrow from you will pay you back, but a few will not. Taking this into account, you set the fee for the use of your money so that it will cover the costs of your doing business (including your salary and the interest you have promised to pay your depositors), reimburse you for the losses you will suffer from those who don't pay you back, and provide a profit so that you can pay a dividend to the owners who provided the capital.
When we think about banking in the United States before the Civil War, we need to keep in mind the fact that two types of money (as currency) were in use. One type was specie – gold and silver coins minted by the government. The other type was banknotes – pieces of paper issued by commercial banks that represented the issuing bank's promise to pay the bearer a specified amount of money in the form of gold and silver coins.
The law required the banks to keep in their vaults an amount of specie – the "reserves" – that represented a percentage of their banknotes that were in circulation. Of course, because the reserves represented only a portion of the banknotes in circulation, it would not be sufficient to repay all the notes if the holders sought to redeem them all at once. But since a paper banknote is redeemable at will for an equivalent amount of coin, most of the time an individual will be indifferent as to whether he holds a banknote or coin.
So, if you are a banker looking at the balance sheet for you bank, you have certain assets, including the cash (specie) in your vaults and the money you have loaned and that you expect to receive back from your borrowers, and you have certain liabilities, including the amounts that your depositors have given you for safekeeping and the banknotes you have issued that represent their right to demand from you the payment in specie.
If you are an experienced banker who has learned the business of banking from other experienced bankers you will understand that your business goes through seasonal cycles. The amount of loans, deposits, banknotes in circulation, and reserves of coin in the vault will rise and fall, but so long as they remain within the rough relationship to one another that they have maintained over time, all should go smoothly and profitably.
In 1857 New York City possessed the largest concentration of banks in the United States making it the financial capital of the nation. For the convenience of their respective business, the banks had formed a clearinghouse organization in which representatives of all the banks met at the end of each business day and settled their accounts. It not only promoted the efficiency of their business, but provided the members with insight into each other's financial condition. The advantage to you as a banker is that you knew not only the condition of your own balance sheets but also the condition of the balance sheet of every other major bank in the city.
In late summer of 1857, a substantial number of the bankers in New York City woke up to the realization that they were operating outside of their comfort zone. Summer was a peak lending time. The aggregate amount of loans outstanding for the New York banks was nearly a third larger than it had been in any of the recent years, and the combined amount of banknotes in circulation and deposits at the banks – both representing claims against the banks' reserves – also was substantially larger than in prior years. At the same time, the aggregate amount of reserves had declined.
The banks reacted by demanding repayment of loans then due – a portion of the loans were "demand" loans that permitted to lender to require repayment at any time – and by refusing to renew existing loans or make new loans. Needless to say, these actions caused substantial distress as people who needed money to operate their businesses and ventures could not get it. People who had borrowed money to buy securities and other assets were forced to sell, and the flood of selling pushed prices down. Business that could not pay their bills failed. The telegraph and newspapers spread the story – and the panic – across the nation. The failure of a major financial institution in Ohio increased the alarm. Depositors and holders of banknotes sought to redeem their claims for specie, but the banks, acting as a group, refused to honor their requests.
What does all this have to do, as we used to say, with the price of tea in China? What is the relevance of the Panic of 1857 to the conditions in the United States in the twenty-first century?
To sort this out, let's look at what has changed and what has not. First, the money is different. Banknotes and specie are a thing of the past. Starting with the introduction of greenbacks during the Civil War and culminating with the birth and grown of the Federal Reserve System, the United States now has a national currency that is not directly dependent upon the financial health of any one bank. Second, many bank deposits are insured, which has made bank runs as scarce of hens' teeth. In fact, the only exposure to a bank run that most people have nowadays consists of a few scenes in the 1946 Frank Capra movie "It's a Wonderful Life" starring James Stewart and Donna Reed. Bank failures still occur, but the collateral damage is reduced when individual banks implode. Third, we have the Federal Reserve System that oversees the money supply and acts as a lender of last resort. In 1791 and again in 1816 the United States gathered the political will to establish the Bank of the United States, which acted as the fiscal agent for the national government and imposed some discipline upon the banking industry, much to the displeasure of the industry. The first Bank of the United States was permitted to expire, and President Andrew Jackson killed the second one. Fourth, the amount of regulation and regulatory apparatus has grown from virtually nothing into multiple state and federal institutions with broad mandates, broad powers and overlapping jurisdictions.
In spite of all that has changed, major financial dislocations still occur and are likely to occur in the future. No one fact causes a major financial dislocation, and while specific underlying facts differ from one event to another, the general causal trends seem to be a growing consensus that the debt load in some part of the economy or the world is larger than can be readily repaid because of the amount of the debt, changing economic conditions or worries that the assets purchased using credit – like stocks in 1929 or houses in 2008 – might be substantially overvalued.
Let's look at how the aggregate debt load might become excessive. The marketplace has thousands of potential lenders, all of whom are in the business of renting money to people who believe they can use the money to turn a profit. If you are a loan officer, you have a choice between making the incremental loan and earning your bonus or failing to make the loan and getting fired. If you are the bank president, you look at the balance sheet of your institution and the financial conditions generally, and then you decide whether it is prudent for your institution to take on the additional risk of the incremental loan. Even if the bank president is considering the aggregate amount of similar loans being made by all the lenders in the marketplace, his inclination will be to keep lending because failing to do so means foregoing the incremental profit.
But at some point the bank president becomes worried. He reads the economic statistics; he sees some leading indicators weaken; he recalls that he has authorized the consummation of some slightly aggressive loans (compensated, of course, by a correspondingly higher rate of interest); and he begins to wonder how his bank's loan portfolio might fare if conditions go south. And, of course, there is always some Cassandra predicting that the next crash or recession is just around the corner – from time to time one of them will be right.
If one bank president has cause to become worried, perhaps a dozen come to the same conclusion, and without coordinate action among them, but reacting to the same general indicators, their previous optimism becomes clouded over by prudence, and they scale back their incremental lending and stop rolling over their more worrisome credits. The fact that they are doing so inevitably becomes known, and the fact becomes an additional – and additionally persuasive – factor that other bank presidents and other market participants will weigh in the mix.
The foregoing discussion has spoken about "loans", but it could easily have focused on other assets. If one became persuaded that the stock market was exhibiting "irrational exuberance", one might be prudent to reduce one stock portfolio before the market tanked. If one became persuaded that housing prices were overstated, one might unload one's portfolio of collateralized mortgage obligations before the default rate spiked and exceed the rate assumed when the instruments were originally sold. In either case, the selling itself becomes an economic fact of which others will take note and contribute to the tipping of greed into fear.
Greed and fear are, of course, the primary economic motivators. They are selfish motivators that focus primarily upon one's own profit and one's own safety. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this since we expect our commercial institutions to be profitable and we expect them to behave rationally to that end. There are always unintended or collateral consequences. Although Adam Smith's "invisible hand" may produce a greater overall benefit in many cases and under ordinary circumstances, it does not do so in every case and certainly not in emergency situations. When conditions start to go bad, those who act first to protect themselves are most likely to suffer the least injury, although their precipitous actions may result in injury to others.
In a perfect world we would be able to eliminate panics and market disturbances by preventing the aggregate debt in any part of the national or the world economy from becoming excessive, by curbing "irrational exuberance" before it becomes irrational or exuberant and by preventing supply and demand from pushing the market price of assets in excess of their "real" value – whatever that may be. Based upon what we know, what we believe and what we reasonably can foresee, nothing like this is ever going to happen.
Since we have not been able to achieve the impossible, we have tried alternative approaches. One such is to require institutions to become more robust and therefore capable of withstanding the consequences of the market's folly by restricting the institution from certain lines of business that are considered too risky and imposing requirements and limitations on how its business operates. The judgment is that of a governmental regulator and not of the institution's manager so the limits will not be tailored to the needs of the institution's business and will probably be contrary to the institution's profit interest. Moreover, insofar as making the institution sufficiently robust to withstand the next economic crisis, the institution's vulnerability to the effects of that crisis will depend upon the nature of the crisis. If the institution's portfolio is not heavily exposed to the assets that are being hammered in the crisis, it is less likely to be at risk. I don't see where a regulator has a better chance of making that call correctly than does a manager.
In 1857 the traditions and ideas about the duties of government left regulation of banks to the states, and even there the hand of government rested lightly. Government has grown to be more intrusive, but that does not mean that it has become more effective, and I am fearful – when I hear government officials speak about institutions that are too big to fail and too big to jail – that much of the actions taken by the government are window dressings, intended largely to persuade the public that it has the problem is well in hand.
Monday, July 6, 2015
Humor as Social Commentary
Quality, value, style, service, selection, convenience,
Economy, savings, performance, experience, hospitality,
Low rates, friendly service, name brands, easy terms,
Affordable prices, money-back guarantee.
George Carlin - “Advertising”
I recently listened to a George Carlin monologue called “Advertising” on YouTube. The first two minutes of the nine minute piece consisted of a litany of advertising buzzwords and phrases. Typical of George Carlin, the monologue flipped to social commentary with language that is unsuitable for a family audience.
George Carlin was a national treasure, holding up to ridicule things that he found stupid and ugly, but he was only one of a number of people who have risen to prominence using humor as their medium and, in the process, delivered sharp social commentary. They appear and appeared on television and radio, on the vaudeville stage and in the pages of newspapers across the decades, adapting to the changing communications media to reach their audiences. Will Rogers performed on the stage and in the movies, wrote a newspaper column and spoke on the radio. Fanny Brice was a headliner as a comedienne in the Ziegfeld Follies.
Barbra Streisand played Fanny Brice in the movie “Funny Girl”. In the movie, Florence Ziegfeld (played by Walter Pidgeon) required Miss Brice to sing a number about being a beautiful bride in the Follies’ finale that featured a lot of showgirls in bridal attire. Miss Brice acquiesced (she was no beauty) and started the song on opening night, costumed in a wedding gown, but she turned sideways after few bars into the number and appeared in profile as if she was enormously pregnant.
The line of noted American humorists and comedians, as near as I can determine, stretches back to the Civil War, but apparently not before. This is not to say that humor did not exist in America before the Civil War, only that no writer or entertainer well known to history appears to have made humor the mainstay of his work. Mark Twain, regarded as the quintessential American humorist, did not begin his work until after the war. David Ross Locke, writing as Petroleum V. Nasby, portrayed himself as a Democrat and Copperhead during the war. Robert Henry Newell, writing as a would be politician named Orpheus C. Kerr [office seeker], also started writing during the war. Most humor is not enduring, and very few of those who enjoyed prominence for their humor in their day, like Mr. Locke and Mr. Newell, are well remembered by history but not the general public.
The pre-Civil War writers who were known for their humor are not well known today. The writers who remain well known used humor as an element in their work rather than as its principal thrust. Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick has its humorous passages and episodes. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a story entitled “The Celestial Railway”, which was a parody of The Pilgrim’s Progress in which the railroad circumvents all the obstacles awaiting the pilgrim who travels on foot – the Slough of Despond and the Valley of the Shadow of Death – only to deposit the passenger in Hell. Fanny Fern is not well known today, but was popular for her wit, as illustrated by the following sample, entitled “A Gentle Hint”:
Artemus Ward visited with the Shakers, the Mormons, the advocates of free love, those who communicated with the spirits of the dead, the opera singer Adelina Patti, the Prince of Wales and the proponents of women’s rights. As related in a piece entitled “Ossawatomie Brown”, Artemus Ward told of seeing a play in New York City based upon the actions of John Brown and described the show's finale as follows:
This shift in the choice of language occurred also in a piece that was written during the secession crisis in which Artemus Ward addressed his neighbors in Indiana about the causes of the crisis. The background is a bit convoluted in that it pulls together some diverse and ugly threads. In 1859 Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species was published in Britain, and the next year it was published in the United States where it raised scientific and religious interest and controversy. In 1860, Phineas T. Barnum, who operated a “museum” in New York City with authentic and doubtful curiosities, opened a new attraction called the "What Is It". It featured a diminutive dark skinned man-like creature purportedly captured in Central Africa. One of the New York newspapers said that the "What Is It" might be “the link supposed by philosophers to exist between the human race and the brutes.”
Indeed, in addressing the secession crisis, Artemus Ward stated,
The dramatic situation of the encounter is intrinsically demeaning, but it is also clear that the "What Is It" gets the better of it. As a result of interview, however, given the predominant racial attitudes in the United States in 1860, held both north and south, the conclusion that Artemus Ward drew about race relations in the United States generally is quite subversive.
It is impossible to say whether the use of the term “Etheopian” in the place of the vulgar word reflected either a social judgment or an artistic choice. As noted above, the vulgar word appeared often in the newspapers of the day, indicating that it was accepted as a part of common speech. The author’s election not to use it in the reprint of the Oberlin piece and in the original crisis piece moderates, if only slightly, the overtly pejorative impact of the dramatic situation. Most Americans in 1860 were aware that the term was at least vulgar, and I would assume that the author thought that his readers were white.
Shortly after the secession crisis ripened into war, another letter from Artemus Ward told of his adventures in the Confederacy and his brief encounter with a Negro. The original version used the vulgar term, and it was not altered when reprinted in book form in 1862, suggesting a deliberate decision to use and then retain it – it is the only use of the term that I found in the book. Unlike the interview with the "What Is it", the dramatic situation is not intrinsically demeaning, and unlike either the Oberlin piece or the crisis piece, the setting is in the deep south. In addition, while the "What Is It" got the upper hand in the exchange with Artemus Ward in the crisis piece, the Negro speaker in this piece is permitted a particularly sharp reply that was addressed to the whites of the nation as a whole. Whatever the reasons behind the choice, the encounter with Artemus Ward goes as follows:
Economy, savings, performance, experience, hospitality,
Low rates, friendly service, name brands, easy terms,
Affordable prices, money-back guarantee.
George Carlin - “Advertising”
I recently listened to a George Carlin monologue called “Advertising” on YouTube. The first two minutes of the nine minute piece consisted of a litany of advertising buzzwords and phrases. Typical of George Carlin, the monologue flipped to social commentary with language that is unsuitable for a family audience.
George Carlin was a national treasure, holding up to ridicule things that he found stupid and ugly, but he was only one of a number of people who have risen to prominence using humor as their medium and, in the process, delivered sharp social commentary. They appear and appeared on television and radio, on the vaudeville stage and in the pages of newspapers across the decades, adapting to the changing communications media to reach their audiences. Will Rogers performed on the stage and in the movies, wrote a newspaper column and spoke on the radio. Fanny Brice was a headliner as a comedienne in the Ziegfeld Follies.
Barbra Streisand played Fanny Brice in the movie “Funny Girl”. In the movie, Florence Ziegfeld (played by Walter Pidgeon) required Miss Brice to sing a number about being a beautiful bride in the Follies’ finale that featured a lot of showgirls in bridal attire. Miss Brice acquiesced (she was no beauty) and started the song on opening night, costumed in a wedding gown, but she turned sideways after few bars into the number and appeared in profile as if she was enormously pregnant.
The line of noted American humorists and comedians, as near as I can determine, stretches back to the Civil War, but apparently not before. This is not to say that humor did not exist in America before the Civil War, only that no writer or entertainer well known to history appears to have made humor the mainstay of his work. Mark Twain, regarded as the quintessential American humorist, did not begin his work until after the war. David Ross Locke, writing as Petroleum V. Nasby, portrayed himself as a Democrat and Copperhead during the war. Robert Henry Newell, writing as a would be politician named Orpheus C. Kerr [office seeker], also started writing during the war. Most humor is not enduring, and very few of those who enjoyed prominence for their humor in their day, like Mr. Locke and Mr. Newell, are well remembered by history but not the general public.
The pre-Civil War writers who were known for their humor are not well known today. The writers who remain well known used humor as an element in their work rather than as its principal thrust. Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick has its humorous passages and episodes. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a story entitled “The Celestial Railway”, which was a parody of The Pilgrim’s Progress in which the railroad circumvents all the obstacles awaiting the pilgrim who travels on foot – the Slough of Despond and the Valley of the Shadow of Death – only to deposit the passenger in Hell. Fanny Fern is not well known today, but was popular for her wit, as illustrated by the following sample, entitled “A Gentle Hint”:
In most of the New York shop windows, one reads: “Here we speak French;” “Here we speak Spanish;” “Here we speak German;” “Here we speak Italian.” I suggest an improvement -- “Here we speak the Truth."Somewhat more in the nature of George Carlin, however, was Charles Farrar Browne who wrote in the fictional persona of Artemus Ward, a low rent and semi-literate version of the already famous showman Phineas T. Barnum. Artemus Ward hailed from Indiana (as George Carlin remarked in “Advertising”, “Void where prohibited by law, except in Indiana”), and he made his first appearances in 1858 while Mr. Browne was working for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. As a result of the newspaper exchange that permitted newspapers to be sent free through the mails to other newspapers, his items were picked up and reprinted in newspapers and periodicals.
Artemus Ward visited with the Shakers, the Mormons, the advocates of free love, those who communicated with the spirits of the dead, the opera singer Adelina Patti, the Prince of Wales and the proponents of women’s rights. As related in a piece entitled “Ossawatomie Brown”, Artemus Ward told of seeing a play in New York City based upon the actions of John Brown and described the show's finale as follows:
Kansis to Harper’s Ferry. Picter of a Arsenal is represented. Soljers cum & fire at it. Old Brown comes out & permits hisself to be shot. He is tride by soops in milingtery close, and sentenced to be hung on the gallus. Tabloo -- Old Brown on a platform, pintin upards, the staige lited up with red fire. Goddis of Liberty also on platform, pintin upards. A dutchman in the orkestry warbles on a base drum. Curtin falls. Moosic of the Band.His commentary on visiting Oberlin College, notorious at the time for admitting Negro students, was the first Artemus Ward letter to be widely reprinted. It used a derogatory version of the word Negro, but the newspapers of the day did not hesitate to print the word in that context and many others. When an expanded version of the piece was reprinted in book form in 1862, the word “Ethiopian” was substituted.
This shift in the choice of language occurred also in a piece that was written during the secession crisis in which Artemus Ward addressed his neighbors in Indiana about the causes of the crisis. The background is a bit convoluted in that it pulls together some diverse and ugly threads. In 1859 Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species was published in Britain, and the next year it was published in the United States where it raised scientific and religious interest and controversy. In 1860, Phineas T. Barnum, who operated a “museum” in New York City with authentic and doubtful curiosities, opened a new attraction called the "What Is It". It featured a diminutive dark skinned man-like creature purportedly captured in Central Africa. One of the New York newspapers said that the "What Is It" might be “the link supposed by philosophers to exist between the human race and the brutes.”
Indeed, in addressing the secession crisis, Artemus Ward stated,
The origernal cawz in Our Afrikan Brother. I was into Barnum’s Moozeum down to New York the other day & saw that exsentric Etheopian, the What Is It. Sez I, “Mister What Is It, you folks air raisin thunder with this grate country. You’re gettin to be ruther more numeris than interestin. It is a pity you coodent go orf sumwhares by yourselves, & be a nation of What Is Its ….The "What Is It" laughed in his face. That got Artemus Ward hot under the collar, but his angry speech brought the same reaction. In reflecting upon the crisis afterward more coolly, Artemus Ward concluded that the Negro “wooden’t be sich a infernal noosanse if white peple would let him alone.”
The dramatic situation of the encounter is intrinsically demeaning, but it is also clear that the "What Is It" gets the better of it. As a result of interview, however, given the predominant racial attitudes in the United States in 1860, held both north and south, the conclusion that Artemus Ward drew about race relations in the United States generally is quite subversive.
It is impossible to say whether the use of the term “Etheopian” in the place of the vulgar word reflected either a social judgment or an artistic choice. As noted above, the vulgar word appeared often in the newspapers of the day, indicating that it was accepted as a part of common speech. The author’s election not to use it in the reprint of the Oberlin piece and in the original crisis piece moderates, if only slightly, the overtly pejorative impact of the dramatic situation. Most Americans in 1860 were aware that the term was at least vulgar, and I would assume that the author thought that his readers were white.
Shortly after the secession crisis ripened into war, another letter from Artemus Ward told of his adventures in the Confederacy and his brief encounter with a Negro. The original version used the vulgar term, and it was not altered when reprinted in book form in 1862, suggesting a deliberate decision to use and then retain it – it is the only use of the term that I found in the book. Unlike the interview with the "What Is it", the dramatic situation is not intrinsically demeaning, and unlike either the Oberlin piece or the crisis piece, the setting is in the deep south. In addition, while the "What Is It" got the upper hand in the exchange with Artemus Ward in the crisis piece, the Negro speaker in this piece is permitted a particularly sharp reply that was addressed to the whites of the nation as a whole. Whatever the reasons behind the choice, the encounter with Artemus Ward goes as follows:
I saw a [Negro] sittin on a fence a-playin on a banjo. “My African Brother,” sed I, coting from a Track I onct red, “you belong to a very interesting race. Your masters is going to war excloosively on your account.”
“Yes, boss,” he replied, “an’ I wish ‘em honorable graves!” and he went on playin the banjo, larfin all over and openin his mouth wide enuff to drive in an old-fashion 2 wheeled chaise.
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