Presidents Day

by William H. Benson

 February 11, 2016 

     In September of 1796, President George Washington published a remarkable document, his Farewell Address “to the People of the United States on his declining of the Presidency.”

     After two terms as president, he was exhausted, tired of public service, and eager to return to his beloved Virginia plantation at Mount Vernon. When asked to serve a third term, he refused, and six months later he would retire and turn over the president’s duties to John Adams.

     In his Farewell Address, Washington listed six concerns about the United States’s future.

     First, he pled for unity rather than sectionalism. The people, he said, in the “Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western” sections could discover their unity in their “love of liberty with every ligament of their hearts,” and in their devotion and obedience to the Constitution.

     “With slight shades of difference, you have the same Religion, Manners, Habits and Political Principles. The economies of North and South, the eastern seaboard and the western interior, far from dividing the nation, are complementary.”

     The Constitution, he said, “is sacredly obligatory on all.” It is the law, and it is “the duty of every individual to obey it.” Because the people possessed “the power and right to establish Government,” it was “the duty of every individual to obey it.”

     The historian Paul Johnson explained Washington’s thoughts this way. “America was a country under the rule of law. With the law, it was everything; without the law, it was nothing.”

     Second, Washington feared political factions, those that he called “combinations or associations,” that may “become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust domination.”

     He especially feared a faction that would use the amendment process to alter the Constitution to benefit themselves, to push through their own slate of disastrous policies, or to acquire power.

     Third, Washington hated political parties, even though he belonged to a party, the Federalists, headed by Alexander Hamilton, that opposed Thomas Jefferson’s Democrat-Republican party.

     Washington said, I must “warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally,” and that in those governments “of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.” “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension . . . is itself a frightful despotism.”

     Fourth, Washington urged the people to live exemplary lives. He said, “It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.” In addition, he urged the people to retain a firm commitment to religion. “[R]eason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

     Fifth, he encouraged education. “[O]f primary importance,” he said, are those “institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge.”

     His sixth and final point is the one that historians most remember. He denounced forming alliances with other countries. “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.”

     It is astonishing that the first president saw deep into our country’s future and identified those issues that might harm the people’s liberty and put the government’s very existence at risk. He was right.

     Sectionalism, his first point above, did rupture the union. Seventy years later President Abraham Lincoln pointed out that the founding fathers had failed to include in their Constitution a process for a state to secede from the Union. He too saw love of liberty and obedience to the Union as co-joined.

     The temperance movement in the early twentieth century was an example of a political faction that pushed into law, through the amendment process, a disastrous policy, Prohibition.

     Party affiliations—Whigs, Democrats, Republican, Know-Nothing, or Independent—have remained a constant in the political process, and their machinery has determined most elections’ outcome.

     Was Washington correct about “entangling alliances?” Today NATO is demanding more commitment from the U.S., and our current President agrees, and has beefed up our commitment there.

     In his Farewell Address, George Washington warned Americans, cautioned them, laid bare his fears, pled for unity, and insisted that people obey the Constitution. What is missing from his document?

     He fails to reveal any empathy for the disenfranchised. At Mount Vernon his slaves still worked the fields, and upon his passing, his will liberated his household slaves but not his field hands. He chose “willful blindness,” rather than full liberty to all people, and that failing would rip the nation apart.

     Still, his document is remarkable and visionary. Monday is Presidents Day. Enjoy the day.

“We Are the World” and Benghazi

by William H. Benson

January 28, 2016

     Late in 1984, the calypso singer Harry Belafonte decided to raise funds for the famine-starved Ethiopians in Africa. First, he approached Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and asked them to write a song. Then, he asked several dozen of the biggest musical artists in the country to assemble in a studio one night and sing Jackson and Richie’s song.

     The resulting album and video’s sales Belafonte would turn over to United Support of Artists for Africa, or USA for Africa, a non-profit foundation. The artists would give their time and talent.

     According to Jackson’s sister, La Toya, it was Michael who wrote the lyrics and the music to “We Are the World,” with limited help from Lionel Richie. Jackson said, “I couldn’t wait. I went in and came out the same night with song completed: drums, piano, strings, and words to the chorus.” Quincy Jones agreed to conduct, and Stevie Wonder joined them to sing. So far all were African-Americans.

     Invitations went out, and on the night of January 28, 1985, after the American Music Awards in Los Angeles had concluded, forty-four musicians arrived at the studio. Each read a note on the door that Quincy Jones had tacked there, “Check your egos at the door.” Recording began at 10:30 p.m.

     You can watch the video on YouTube. There you can see Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers, James Ingram, Tina Turner, and Billy Joel each sing a line from the first verse:

     “There comes a time / When we heed a certain call / When the world must come together as one.  / There are people dying / And it’s time to lend a hand to life / The greatest gift of all. / We can’t go on pretending day by day / That someone, somehow can soon make a change. / We’re all a part of God’s great big family / And the truth, you know, love is all we need.”

     Then, Michael Jackson and Diana Ross sing the chorus:

     “We are the world. / We are the children. / We are the ones who make a brighter day. / So let’s start giving. / There is a choice we’re making. / We’re saving our own lives. / It’s true we’ll make a better day, just you and me.”

     Dionne Warwick, Willie Nelson, and Al Jarreau sing the second verse, and then Bruce Springsteen, Kenny Loggins, Steve Parry, and Darryl Hall repeat the chorus. Then, Michael Jackson, Huey Lewis, Cyndi Lauper, and Kim Carnes sing the third and final verse, and Bob Dylan and Ray Charles repeat the chorus. The structure is said to “create a sense of continuous surprise and emotional buildup.”

     Other stars sang behind the soloists that night: Harry Belafonte, Dan Akroyd, Michael Jackson’s siblings, Waylon Jennings, Bette Midler, John Oates, the Pointer Sisters, and Smokey Robinson.

     Released on March 8, 1985, the song became the “fastest-selling American pop single in history,” and after thirty-one years, total sales for the album and video now exceed “$63 million.”

     One critic said it was a “distasteful element of self-indulgence.” Then, another said, that because of the phrase, “We’re saving our own lives,” the artists were proclaiming “their own salvation for singing about an issue they will never experience on behalf of a people most of them will never encounter.”

     The movie “Thirteen Hours,” opened in America’s theaters two weeks ago. It is a haunting re-enactment of the attack on Benghazi, in Libya, on the anniversary of 9-11 in 2012. At 9:40 p.m. Islamic militants attacked the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, overran it, and set it on fire.

     The Americans took refuge at a CIA annex a mile away, and there, in the early morning hours, six brave CIA agents, former Navy seals, stood on the annex’s rooftops and withstood a series of vicious ground assaults, plus several rounds of mortar fire, in order to defend the American men and women trapped inside the compound from a most certain annihilation. Those six men were heroes that night.

     The militants killed four Americans, injured two: Mark “Oz” Geist, and also David Ubben.

     It is ironic that in 1985, American musicians, both black and white, raised money for the starving Africans in Ethiopia, but that in 2011, Islamic militants in Africa killed four Americans stationed in Benghazi, Libya, and injured David Ubben, an African-American.

     It is easy for American performers in the free and safe confines of California to sing, “We are the world. We are the children. We are the ones who make a brighter day.” Yet, the world is a far more dangerous and dark place than their words would suggest. Once an American steps onto another’s land, walks into their world, anything can happen. “Whom do you trust?” becomes the key question.

     Differences have divided people throughout the ages—gender, race, culture, theology, and religion—and they still divide people today. It is foolish not to recognize that fact and prepare for more than “Love is all we need.” Men and women, both black and white, have bled for America throughout its history. Many have died, and more will die. Yet, Americans are still free.

     Bruce Springsteen said it best, “Born in the USA.”

American Divisiveness

by William H. Benson

January 14, 2016

     Last month in Newsweek, a columnist named Kurt Eichenwald made a series of startling statements about the bitter divisiveness that separates Democrats and Republicans. He was incensed to learn that each political party tried to twist the blame upon the other for the San Bernardino shooting, when neither were responsible for the random act.

     Eichenwald declared that the terrorist act, “has exposed another terrible reality: the sickness that permeates our national id, a level of inhumanity and callousness that shows America is broken, perhaps irreparably.” “America,” he said, “has become so divided into ignorant tribes, that each party is focused on winning for its political teams.” “A genie of hatred has been let out of the bottle in America.” “We have become a nation of crazy people.”

     I find such statements discomforting. The glaring mistrust may appear bad today and may even get worse tomorrow, but my reading of American history tells me that political divisions were far worse in the past. I would advise Kurt Eichenwald to read more American history. I would ask him:

     Do we see thousands of students marching across college campuses, protesting and demanding an end to a foreign war that they do not want to fight? Do we see a tidal wave of eligible young men fleeing to Canada to avoid the draft into military service, as we did in the 1960’s?

     Do we see race riots on the scale that Tulsa, Oklahoma experienced in 1921? For two days, May 31 and June 1, white people ransacked Greenwood, the wealthiest African-American community in the United States, burning it to the ground.

     Some perpetrators jumped into airplanes and soared overhead to aim their rifles and shoot those fleeing their homes, or to drop firebombs upon their buildings. Dozens of African-Americans were killed. Most were left homeless. If ever “a genie of hatred was let out of the bottle in America,” it was then, not now. “We had become a nation of crazy people.” 

     Are any of the states threatening to leave the Union if voters elect a Republican for president? That was the threat Abraham Lincoln faced late in 1860, after he won the presidency. Eleven states did secede from the Union and did create a new and independent nation, the Confederate States of America. If ever America was “broken, perhaps irreparably,” it was then, not now.

     Has any Congressman in recent days walked onto the Senate floor and caned a Senator across the head and shoulders a dozen times, leaving him an invalid for the next three years? That is what Preston Brooks of South Carolina did to Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on May 22, 1856.

     Have any of the states in the United States “nullified” any of the laws passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by the President? To nullify, a state declares that it will not obey a federal law. In 1832, Congress had passed laws that imposed tariffs upon imported goods, but John C. Calhoun convinced South Carolina’s state government that it had the right to disobey. The state refused to collect the tariff.

     Except for a compromise that Senator Henry Clay steered through Congress, the nullification crisis may have broken America apart.

     Has Congress in recent days passed a Sedition Act, like it did in the summer of 1798, threatening stiff fines and jail sentences to anyone who published or even said any “false, scandalous and malicious” criticism of the government or its top officials?

     Jefferson and Madison declared the Sedition Act “a flagrant violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech and of the press,” which it was.

     What about the ugly political division in the colonies during the American Revolution? One third of the colonists, the Patriots, wanted independence. Another third refused to take sides. A final third, the Loyalists, remained committed to King George III and to Parliament. Families split over the issue.

     Patriots abused the Loyalists. They were tarred and feathered, forced to ride a fence rail, jailed, or hung. The Patriots so hounded the Loyalists that some 80,000 of them fled in a massive Loyalist exodus to Canada or back to England, and once gone, the Patriots confiscated their properties. Over the issue of independence, America broke apart.

     Self-rule in a republic is, by its very nature, messy, divisive, hostile, and at times vicious. All voices are heard in a free-for-all, and then a vote is taken, and the majority rules. To those who fail to appreciate this process, it appears contorted and unproductive, and yet it ensures the citizens their freedoms. Where tyrants rule, legislation is quick, clean, and efficient, and the people feel oppressed.

     America is not broken. We are not a nation of crazy people. We are not divided into ignorant tribes.

     Last week the editor at The Week said it best, “This is hardly the first time our country has been bitterly divided. The contentious issues that divide us will never be resolved with any finality. May the grand argument go on.”

Story and Myth

by William H. Benson

December 31, 2015

     An article appeared in the New York Times two weeks ago, “Jane Austen’s Guide to Alzheimer’s.” In it, Carol J. Adams described her difficult days caring for her mother, who had lost the battle to Alzheimer’s. For solace, Carol listened to a recorded book, Jane Austen’s “most-perfect novel,” Emma.

     Carol identified with the novel’s main character, Emma Woodhouse, who felt trapped and housebound as she cared for an ailing parent, her father, Henry Woodhouse. “When a slight dusting of snow alarms her father, he asks her, ‘What is to be done, my dear Emma? What is to be done?’”

     Emma learned to redirect her father into more pleasant thoughts and activities, and so too would Carol do the same with her mother. “With Emma’s help,” Carol said, “I could give more and not feel I was losing myself in caregiving, because she [Emma] was always there, in my mind.”

     Jane Austen published Emma on December 23, 1815, two hundred years ago last week.

     By reading and applying the lessons contained in Austen’s literary work, Carol claimed for herself the mental strength and resolve she needed to remain calm and focused during a trying time. She thought, “If Emma could do it, then so can I.”

     Throughout the centuries of human existence men and women have relied upon literature and its corollary, scripture, to guide their lives. Cave dwellers who once sat around campfires swapped their stories and in so doing handed them to the next generation. Then, printed books appeared, and in recent years electronic books. The media may change, but the stories are still human, all too human.

     A story can so overwhelm certain people that they latch on to it, claim it for themselves, and it becomes that person’s life pattern. They hear the story, they perceive its main idea, and they construct their lives to match the story’s. They re-enact the past in the present and that then reflects their future.

     I wonder though: Is it always wise to rely upon a single story to guide our lives?

     If teenagers read Romeo and Juliet too closely, they may decide to fall in love and marry at a young age, and experience the same disastrous results for themselves and their families. Then, each of the world’s tyrants have read from Macbeth and his Lady’s playbook: kill King Duncan, seize power and the government’s reins, and then kill or drive off all who dare to challenge him or her.

     Would anyone want to emulate Hamlet? A student, devoted to philosophy, he cannot bring himself to commit to meaningful action. Instead, he wonders aloud, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” And would anyone want to live like Iago, who tells monstrous lies to Othello, and causes immense damage, to the point that Othello smothers his beloved wife Desdemona?

     If followed to the letter, great literary works can mislead people, but if applied in a wise way, they can expand our lives, prevent overwhelming damage, and foster appropriate decisions and responses.

     Perhaps the story that we follow is too small relative to the giant challenges that we encounter. It is like asking Mozart to play “The Cat Came Back,” a juvenile camp song. Such tunes and lyrics fall short and fail to provide a framework for an effective human decision. The lesson: choose stories wisely.

     In 1988, Bill Moyers, a journalist, interviewed Joseph Campbell, a writer who had investigated hundreds of myths, and published two books, The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Masks of God.  Campbell explained to Moyers that each culture carries its own set of myths, but when looked at in total, they are similar and universal.

     Human myths convey the obvious: immoral actions destroy those who commit them, but moral actions uplift and strengthen men and women and societies. Also, solitary heroes who dare to stand up for justice and truth will conquer the enemies of lies and deceit, no matter how beaten and crushed.

     Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, published a bestseller, Thinking Fast and Slow, in 2011, and in a chapter he entitled “Life as a Story,” he writes, “A story is about significant events and memorable moments, not about time passing.” “This is how the remembering self works: it composes stories and keeps them for future reference.” “We think of life as a story and wish it will end well.”

     “Caring for people often takes the form of concern for the quality of their stories, not for their feelings.” “We can be deeply moved by events that change the stories of people.”

     Today the year 2015 ends; tomorrow the year 2016 begins. Today, in the present, we reflect upon our past 365 days and plan for our next 366 days. Throughout 2015, we have accumulated another series of stories, some filled with pain and sorrow, some filled with happiness and pleasure, and some filled with disappointments and dashed hopes. Like Carol Adams, we search for mental strength.

     As Pandora did, let us do our best to keep hope closed inside the jar, for “hope is the only good god remaining among men. The others have left and gone to Mount Olympus.”

Love Story

by William H. Benson

December 17, 2015

     “What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful. And brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me.” So begins Oliver Barrett IV in Erich Segal’s novel, Love Story.

     Oliver is a rich, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, pre-law student at Harvard who plays ice hockey for the Crimson. Jennifer Cavilleri is an Italian-American Radcliffe student, who plays music. She is from Cranston, Rhode Island, where her father, makes pastries. She works in Radcliffe’s library, where she and Oliver first meet. She calls him “Preppy,” and teases him, but he is so in love he wants to marry her. Against Oliver Barrett III’s wishes, the IV and Jennifer marry.

     In the late 1960’s, all of Hollywood’s studios rejected Erich Segal’s semi-autobiographical script. No one saw the script’s potential until Paramount’s head, Robert Evans, read it, liked it, bought it, and cast Ali McGraw to play Jenny. A New York City model who wore a wide headband, Ali looked the part of a flower child, and, he thought, a near-perfect Jenny.

     Finding Oliver was tougher. In Evans’s biography, The Kid Stays in the Picture, he says, “Michael Douglas, Michael York, Michael Sarrazin, Jon Voight, Beau Bridges, Jeff Bridges, Peter Fonda, and Keith Carradine all turned it down.” He finally tested Ryan O’Neal, who had appeared for five seasons on television’s soap opera, Peyton Place, and cast him as Oliver.

     In the summer of 1969, Robert Evans fell in love with Ali McGraw. He so loved her crooked-tooth smile that he married her on October 24, 1969, his third marriage, her second.

     Evans contacted Erich Segal and told him to transform his movie script into a book. “Erich,” Evans said, “everyone thinks it’s fluff. Write a novel. I’ll get it published. It shouldn’t take you longer than a week.” It took him a month. Segal’s novel appeared in bookstores on Valentine’s Day 1970, made the best-seller list in May that year, and stayed there until Valentine’s Day 1971.

     Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw became Oliver Barrett IV and Jennifer Cavilleri on Harvard’s campus in the cold snowy winter of 1969-1970, when filming began. 

     One scene stands out. As newlyweds do, Oliver and Jenny have an argument, and he storms out. She tries to follow him, but she locks the door behind her and leaves her key inside. In the cold on the porch, she cries, but can only wait for him. He returns, sees her sitting there, and begins to apologize. She stops him and says, “Love never means having to say you’re sorry.”

     The director insisted that Ali get it right. “Ali,” he said. “don’t rush it. Be a little more halting. Take two.” Robert Evans was there that day, watching Ali, his wife, capture that scene. “She did it again, then again,” Evans said, “Take after take. Every time the tears were real. Every time she was more convincing.” The director shouted, “Cut! That’s it. We’ve got it. Wonderful, Ali. You had me in tears.”   

     Nearly a year passed. In November 1970, Evans received word from Paramount’s owners, a New York City oil and gas company Gulf + Western, that the company’s board of directors wanted to shut down Paramount Pictures. The studio was costing them too much money. One director said, “It’s girls, parties, premieres, movies; that’s the business they think we’re in.”

     Evans flew to New York and begged the board to let him finish two movies, Love Story and Godfather. He said, “One thing I promise you. Christmas of 1970 will be very special throughout the world. Paramount’s gift, Love Story, will make it that. It’s what life and love and Christmas is all about.” With much reluctance, the board agreed.

     Evans wrote, “On December 16, 1970, Love Story had its world premiere in New York, opening nine days later on Christmas Day to spread love to every city in America.” In the theater, at the premiere, Evans said, “All I could see was white. Kleenex! By the time the end credits began to roll the entire theater was one white flag of surrender.”

     After the film concluded, Ali grabbed her husband’s arm, and said, “I’m starting to hemorrhage, Evans,” but she was only seven months pregnant. “A night of triumph had turned into a night of terror.” Doctors stopped Ali’s labor, but a month later, on January 16, after Christmas, she gave birth to her first and only child, a boy she and Robert named Joshua Evans.

     People loved Robert Evans’s movie. “Love Story,” he said, “didn’t open. It exploded.” That single movie saved Paramount from the auction block, and Robert Evans from unemployment. It was nominated for seven academy awards and won one.

     Evans’s movie succeeded, but his marriage failed. Robert and Ali divorced in 1973. She married Steve McQueen for a short while, but that marriage also ended in divorce in 1978. Since 1994, she has lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and has never remarried. She is seventy-six, a grown-up flower child.

     Robert Evans still lives in Beverly Hills, and he too remarried, four times more, but those marriages also failed. He is now eighty-five years old, a grown-up studio executive.

     A love story at Christmas 1970. “Love means never having to say you are sorry.”