The Two "R's" - Reading and Retirement

The other day when we were running in the pre-dawn darkness of Verona Park, DT was commenting on the difficulty of staying current on all of the reading we are doing - Shakespeare one week - Beowulf the next, followed by academic commentary on both. According to DT one of the main problems is that after he reads for about 20 minutes on top of a full day of work, he starts to nod off. Actually that's sort of what the rest of us experience sometimes during one of his think tanks, but that's another story. In fairness to DT he is a senior partner in one of the largest law firms on his street so his practice keeps him fairly busy.

Although I didn't say it the time, I understand the problem and to some extent still experience it myself. While I am doing a lot more reading in retirement, it still presents its challenges. A big part of that is timing, with some modest exceptions during the day, I usually don't try to do much reading until the evening. I kid about it, but I am actually working pretty hard in retirement, the difference is that it is primarily on things that I want to do. But I still have these feelings about work before fun, which in practical terms means working during the day and reading at night.

The problem is that much like DT after I read for a while, I either start to nod off or have a hard time concentrating. Part of that is the content I am reading, I like George Eliot's work, but she isn't the most accessible author of all time and the almost 700 pages of "Daniel Deronda" has its challenges. The other book I am reading at present is Adam Cohen's new book "Nothing to Fear" which is the story of the first 100 days of the New Deal. That's actually easier reading than "Daniel Deronda," but it's definitely not light reading. Although my father used to read 4-5 books at a time, I pretty much find two is my limit - one fiction, one non-fiction.

One of the things I am realizing now is that I need to add a third book, something that is lighter and easier reading. To that end I just started reading E. M. Delafield's "Diary of a Provincial Lady." Once again this was a suggestion from Elaine at Random Jottings and once again she was right on the money, it is hilarious and a relaxing read. The other thing that I need to do is to break up my reading during the day a little bit - read some in the morning, some in the afternoon as well as in the evening. That should allow not only more time for reading, but the time will be a whole lot more productive.

So once again DT although mistaken was helpful. As Sherlock Holmes says to Dr. Watson in the "The Hound of the Baskervilles," - "in your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth."

President Obama's Inaugural Address - Part II

Things have been quite hectic here for the past few days. With the unexpected arrival of "The
Major League Pennant Races of 1916" and trying to wind up the Pioneer Project, it has taken longer than anticipated to get to this second post on President Obama's inaugural address. While disappointed with how I felt the length lessened the potential impact overall I felt it was a good and important speech. As with my disappointments, my positive comments are based upon what I will call the Lincoln standard - Lincoln's speeches and commentary on those speeches.

In my last post I mentioned Ronald White's book "Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural." In that book White writes about the importance of a speaker understanding the mood of his/her audience and speaking to that mood. This is apparently based upon Aristotle's theories of rhetoric (I would have written Plato, but fortunately DT corrected me). In any event I think the President spoke to the things that are the minds of the American people such as terrorism and the economic crisis in a way that showed he understands the mood of the American people without offering specifics (which would have been inappropriate), but in an even handed way. One example of this was his early comments on the economic crisis which he attributed to the greed of some, but also a collective unwillingness to take difficult decisions. In speaking in this way the President acknowledges the concern placed blame where it belongs, but avoids the trap of making the issue and, therefore, the solution too simple, thus allowing himself plenty of room for developing specific approaches.

While this was well done, as previously mentioned, the really important part of the speech for me was its closing. The similarity to Lincoln's approach with the Gettysburg address is to me too great for this to be a coincidence. In Gary Wills classic book "Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America," the author writes that Lincoln changed the way Americans thought about themselves, arguing that the founding values of the country were found in the Declaration (all men are created equal) not in the Constitution which does not mention equality. In another book about the address ("The Gettysburg Gospel"), the author stresses that the speech was a war speech directed at the north - the message being simply that the war in spite of all its horrors had to go on.

Combining these two ideas, brings us to the position that the war had to go on because of what it was really about - equality without distinction or qualification. Lincoln thus linked that crisis with revolutionary values. President Obama, I think, used a similar approach connecting the current crisis to the revolutionary spirit. Of that spirit Bruce Catton once wrote that "at the core of the American effort was an unconquerable toughness." No where is that toughness that spirit better evidenced in December of 1776 when as the British historian, George Trevelyan observed never in history has such a small group of men used such a small period of time for such an impact on the history of the world. The point being if that generation of Americans could do it so can we.

There seems to have been some post inaugural discussion about exactly what the President was referring to with this quote. I didn't recognize it at the time, but as DT reminded me it is from Thomas Paine's "The Crisis" - remembered for the famous line - "These are the times that try men's souls." That of course means even a closer connection to New Jersey history. No one knows exactly where Paine wrote that essay, but it was clearly in New Jersey during the "retreat to victory," there is some speculation that he wrote it in Newark by a campfire.

Finally a cautionary word about inaugural addresses. Supposedly John Kennedy when preparing his own inaugural read all of the speeches of his predecessors. He was reportedly shocked to find that some of the most highly respected presidents had given some of the worst inaugurals and, perhaps even more surprisingly, some of the least regarded had given some of the best. Ultimately of course, the old idea that what we do is more important than what we say applies to inaugurals as well. DT is fond of quoting a saying attributed to St. Francis - "Preach the Gospel always, when necessary use words."

How's the Book Going? - It's Here!!!!!!!!!

Breaking News - "The Major League Pennant Races of 1916" has been published!!!!

President Obama's Inaugural Address - Part I

My running buddy (and intellectual buddy) DT (Deep Thinker) is an incredibly generous person. Just one example of this is how each December he spends time thinking up resolutions for the rest of the members of the running group. All designed to make for a better world, especially for DT himself. This generosity carries over to some of his favorite quotes from Shakespeare. While Macbeth is his special area of expertise, DT is particularly fond of a line from Hamlet - "Since brevity is the sole of wit, I shall be brief." DT really treasures brevity- especially in others.



All of this came to mind as I was thinking about President Obama's inaugural address to which I have two reactions - one a disappointment, the other positives. The disappointment is about the length of the speech and how it therefore, in my opinion, weakened it.


It's not that a speech of 20 minutes or so is inordinately long, it is more the question of length in inaugural addresses. Inaugural addresses are typically thought of as not being the time or place to get into a lot of detailed proposals. Rather they are an opportunity for a statement of vision, goals, values etc. or a discussion of one major subject. Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural is an example of the second kind of speech which reportedly lasted about 35 minutes. The focus of the speech was secession and Lincoln justifiably took the time for a detailed statement on the issues and why the nation should remain united. President Obama might have done something similar with the economic situation, but understandably he probably felt the need to address a broader spectrum of issues.


Lincoln's second inaugural which supposedly lasted only seven or eight minute, some 703 words.
Ronald White in his book, "Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural" provides some excellent analysis of this kind of speech. One of his main points is that the opposite of verbosity is not brevity, but precision. And here lies what I felt was the weaknesses in the new President's speech. If the one in depth issue approach is not chosen, then it is important to be brief. Failing to do so creates the risk of falling into platitudes and cliches and/or providing a laundry list of values, vision that lacks the power it might have otherwise had. Unfortunately I found that to be true of much of the early part of the speech.

On the other hand, things changed towards the end of the speech. My thoughts on that and the good things in the speech (of which there were plenty) in a second post because I have still not reached the "soul of wit" goal that DT has set for me.

President Obama's Inaugural Address and New Jersey history - Perfect Together

If I am going to write much about President Obama's inaugural address, I want to wait to read it and think about it, but there is one thing I can't resist saying. I thought the ending where he went back to the darkest days of the revolution and the battle of Trenton was inspired. My guess is that it is to some degree a Lincolnesque touch. Lincoln used the Gettysburg address to tie the Civil War into the Declaration of Independence. In the same way our new president tied our current problems to a time when the American spirit triumphed in the face of far greater odds. Even if that opinion is not correct, I just want to remind all of us where that happened - not in Massachusetts or Virginia, but here in our state - our New Jersey!!!

"Team of Rivals"

One of my goals for 2009 is to keep a written record of all the books that I read this year. That's not hard to do in January, but I need the discipline of starting now. Last night I finished my second book, Doris Kearns Goodwin's Pulitzer Prize winning "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln." Finishing it reminded me of something that DT has pointed out several times recently - the trend towards authors writing a biography or narrative that focuses on specific issues and doesn't get bogged down in detailed academic writing. DT has always been a little cynical about academic writing.

Of course, the key to such writing is choosing the best point or points to focus on. Goodwin has always been good at this kind of thing, but in "Team of Rivals" she takes it to a whole new level. By focusing not just on Lincoln, but his cabinet (some of whom were his rivals for the Republican nomination) the reader learns about these complex characters and how they both helped and hindered the Union war effort. Perhaps more importantly we get a fuller picture of the multiple challenges that Lincoln faced as a minority president.

Of particularly emphasis and importance is how Lincoln was able to ignore the verbal "slings and arrows" of others, including his cabinet, in order to bring their gifts to bear on the Union cause. One of the best examples of this is his bringing Edward Stanton into his cabinet as Secretary of War although years before Stanton had been unconscionably rude to Lincoln when they were ostensibly working together on the Reaper case. One can only imagine what it would have been like if the hypo sensitive Andrew Jackson had been president at this time - regular duels between the president and his cabinet members. This may an illustration of a point I tried to make about Lincoln in another post - that this was a time where the man and the moment met - there were few other people before and since who could have led the country through this struggle.

I am reminded of something I read in Alan Jones' "Journey into Christ." Although I couldn't find the exact quote it is about an image that Jones found in Buddhism - the image of a bowl that holds all of our frustrations, bitterness, hurt from unfair treatment. We hold this bowl in front of us and the question is will we empty it on to the ground or pour it back into ourselves - thereby magnifying those negative feelings even more. Thought about like that the right course is obvious, but it is much easier to say than to do. If Lincoln dealing with such vast matters could do this perhaps there is a lesson for all of us.

It is important to also say that what Lincoln accomplishes in this way is without wavering on his principles. As Goodwin and other writers have shown convincingly, this is not adopting the lowest common denominator or allowing everyone to follow their own course. Lincoln hold firmly to his principles no matter what their cost.

One other thing that I want to praise about this book is how the author writes about the last days of Lincoln's life. If Greek tragedy is watching the main character struggle against a fate that they can't avoid, the last part of "Team of Rivals" dramatically portrays a president, a cabinet and even a nation thinking and hoping that as the war winds down better days are ahead when the audience knows otherwise. This magnifies the ultimate tragedy even more - brilliant writing.

Beowulf - The monsters

Last summer I was re-introduced to "Beowulf," the early English poem which I had read part of in high school. I read the Seamus Heaney translation that came out some years ago and I enjoyed it a great deal. Trying to understand Beowulf is even harder than trying to understand Shakespeare and not just because of the language. As my intellectual friend, DT (Deep Thinker) and I were saying the other day, while there is no surviving documentation of Shakespeare's intentions, we at least know something of his sources which along with some other things gives us some guidance.



With "Beowulf" on the other hand, we don't even know the poet's name, much less what he read so there are few, if any, clues about his intentions. At some point in reading the poem last summer I was introduced to a famous essay by J. R. R. Tolkien (pictured left) about "Beowulf" called "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," which supposedly revolutionized the scholarly debate on "Beowulf."



One of the challenges of reading academic essays is that they are often written in an esoteric language that is almost impossible for the lay person to understand. I realize that some shared technical language is often necessary, but sometimes it severely limits those who appreciate the content. Yet I often find that if one avoids becoming concerned with understanding every word, one can find a lot of information that promotes a better understanding.



I had the opportunity to read Tolkien's essay over the past two days and other than some phrases in Latin and early English, his essay is fairly free of the more esoteric academic language. According to Tolkien many critics believed that the unimportant material in "Beowulf" is at the center of the poem (that is occupying a lot of space) while the important things are on the fringes. In this view the unimportant things are monsters - specifically Grendel, Grendel's mother and the dragon. Tolkien believes this view is wrong because the monsters are the important things in the poem - the primary means of exploring what for the poet are the important issues.



It seems clear how such a position could revolutionize "Beowulf" criticism. The monsters then become important symbols or metaphors, but symbols or metaphors for what. Interestingly Grendel and his mother are both connected to Cain, according to the bible, the first human born of a man and a woman. Tolkien refers to Grendel as being the enemy of God, yet in the bible, Adam says that he received Cain from God and then even after Cain kills Abel, God forbids anyone to kill him in for his crime. So there seems to be some inconsistency in Tolkien's position.


The dragon, on the other hand, who mortally wounds Beowulf before being killed by Beowulf is seen by Tolkien (or at least as I understand it) as a symbol or metaphor for death - for our own mortality. The issue then seems to be knowing that this final defeat awaits all of us, how to we respond to that defeat. The way Tolkien seems to phrase it if the dragon is faced heroically, the dragon wins the victory, but not the honor. I am not sure if this is intended by the poet or by Tolkien to extend to all of us, but with the recent death of my friend Edie Ewing, it certainly connects with some of my recent thoughts.

It is fascinating how something so ancient can still speak to us today. I am getting interested in learning a lot more about "Beowulf" and also turning my attention to the new translation of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" that I purchased about a year ago. It looks like DT and I will have a lot to talk about.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes

For the past five years I have been part of a running (running - not jogging) group that meets weekday mornings at 5:30 a.m. in Verona Park. The other day one of the more intellectual members who we will call "deep thinker" or DT for short asked me a question about mystery
stories. Usually literary conversation with DT is about his fascinating theory regarding the witches in Macbeth. But this time, he was looking for suggestions on mystery fiction.

A number of possibilities came to mind beginning with Dorothy Sayers' classic Lord Peter Wimsey mystery, "The Nine Tailors" considered by many, including Sinclair Lewis, to be the greatest murder mystery of all time. Another possibility was Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone," technically not the first full length mystery novel in the English language, but effectively so. While these are great works that anyone would enjoy I fell back another classic, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles."

I first read this Sherlock Holmes classic when I was in the fifth or sixth grade and I have always regretted reading it that early in life, for at least two reasons. The first is that it scared me to the extent that I couldn't sleep at night. My mother then read it and said she understood why I couldn't sleep. The other reason is that I was far too young to understand or appreciate the intricacies of the plot, but by the time I was old enough I already knew what happened. On reflection now my negative feelings about having read it at such an early age have changed. While I might have appreciated the plot more when I was older, I don't have any confidence that age would have helped me figure out the mystery. In reading all 60 of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novellas and short stories, the only one I ever figured out was "The Adventure of the Speckled Band."

By coincidence I was on the web site of the Harvard (the St. Leo's of the north) Library the other day looking for information about a Lincoln symposium as part of the Lincoln bicentennial observations. I was surprised to also find information about a Conan Doyle symposium in May due to the fact that this is the sesquicentennial of Doyle's birth. It sounds like something that I might very well want to attend.

Both of these things happening more or less simultaneously re-awakened my interest in reading Sherlock Holmes stories. A couple of years ago Paul and Sarah gave me one volume of the new "Annotated Sherlock Holmes.'' In addition to having all of the stories it contains footnotes with a lot of commentary and background information. I started reading the introduction the other night and plan to start off with "A Scandal in Bohemia" in the near future.

Like most readers there are always some books and stories that I like to reread. Once again I got an idea about this from Elaine at Random Jottings who makes re-reading books and series of books a regular part of her reading schedule. I plan to do that at as well and there is no better place to start than by returning to a world where "fog rolls through the gas lit streets, a hansom cab waits at the door and the game is always afoot." Of course as DT knows the phrase "the game is always afoot" is drawn from Shakespeare - a popular line in Henry V's "Once more onto the breach" speech, but I think it appears earlier in "Henry IV, Part I."

Fiction - the Acid Test

To me the acid test (a chemical test for true gold) of a writer of fiction is the ability of the author to create characters who's life experience are completely different than their own. For example, I really liked the late Bebe Moore Campbell's novel, "Brothers and Sisters" because as an African-American she created white characters who were not stereotypes. The same thing would be true of a white author writing about African-Americans and this idea goes beyond race.

As noted in an earlier post, I think Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot) is a great writer well up there with all the great novelists. I am currently reading "Daniel Deronda," her last novel for the Victorian challenge and about about 200 pages into what is almost a 700 page book. I enjoyed the first part which is about a young woman in a structure that seems to be almost a parody of a Jane Austen novel including a line that seems to be almost a commentary on the famous opening line of "Pride and Prejudice."

The second section of the book turns to the title character who was already introduced as a young man. It picks up his story at the age of 13. While there is no resemblance between Deronda's life and my own, I found myself completely identifying with his feelings. It was almost scary the way Eliot as a woman who had not children of her own, could capture so perfectly the feelings of a young adolescent male. I have no idea where this book is going, but at the very least it illustrates why I think Eliot is such a great writer - she passes the acid test by producing literary gold.

The Challenge Begins

I have written a number of times in this blog about how Elaine from Random Jottings has been a great source of authors who are new to me. Now I have something else to thank her for. About a week ago, Elaine wrote that she was

going take the Victorian challenge. I asked for more information which as always she gladly provided.

Organized by Alex from Paris, the challenge is to read from three to six books either about the Victorian era or that take place in the Victorian era. Since the Victorian novel is one of my primary reading interests this is something I had to sign up for. In my case it provides some structure for my reading and also helps me to achieve one of my goals - reading my way through the books that I already own.


The challenge began on January 1st and runs through June 30th. Given everything else that I have going on, I decided for once in my life to start modestly so I signed on for only three books. My choices are "Daniel Deronda" by George Eliot (pictured upper right), "The Way We Live Now" by Anthony Trollope, (pictured center) and "Mary Barton" by Elizabeth Gaskell (pictured immediate right). Another reason for picking only three books is that both "Daniel Deronda" and "The Way We Live Now" are fairly lengthy.

Trollope is one of my favorite authors, I have read almost 20 of his novels which puts me about half way through his works. Gaskell is a new author to me so I am looking for a new experience. In the case of George Eliot, I have read all of her novels except this one and "Romola" which I think I am going to pass on.

I think Eliot is one of the greatest writers that I have ever read and the first 150 pages of this book has done nothing to change my opinion. I forgot to mention is that the other part of the challenge is the opportunity to post about one's reading on a blog(victorianchallenge.blogspot.com) that Alex has setup. I am not sure how I am going to work that with this blog so we will see how this develops. Anyway on with the challenge.

"American Lion" - Part III

In "American Lion," Jon Meacham understandably focuses on the political aspects of the bank war and does not try to explain how the Bank of the United States (BUS) operated, how it impacted the economy and/or its impact on the average person of the time. In trying to write a book of less than 400 pages about someone like Jackson it would be almost impossible to get into that kind of detail. I didn't expect anything different, but I am still left with those and other questions unanswered and, thus far, unable to find a book with those answers.

Meacham does write about corruption issues in the bank and various inappropriate ways that it tried to influence public policy. At one point Meacham writes about how a congressman from North Carolina was originally anti-bank, but voted for the re-charter supposedly because he had received a $20,000 loan from the bank. If true this was clearly inappropriate. Yet while I did not see it in Meacham's book, I know I have read elsewhere that when Jackson had the federal government's deposits moved from the BUS to various state banks, the majority of those banks were, in fact, banks that supported Jackson. State banks it should be remembered were banks with state charters, they were private businesses and this kind of behavior doesn't seem any more appropriate than that attributed to the BUS.

Meacham does repeat a story that I had never heard before which suggests an almost paranoiac attitude on Jackson's part. Jackson's then Secretary of the Treasury, William Duane refused to go along with removing the federal deposits from the BUS so Jackson fired him. Nothing wrong with that, but supposedly afterwards Jackson believed that Duane was a secret agent for the BUS put into his cabinet to support the bank's interest. Given that a number of Jackson's supporters in the bank war (inlcuding his Vice President Martin Van Buren) opposed the removal of the deposits this seems like a highly irrational response on Jackson's part.

In his review of Meacham's book for the New York Times, Andrew Clayton, history professor at Miami of Ohio, praises the author's work, but suggests that an opportunity was missed to "reflect on the nature of American populism as personified by Jackson." As I understand it Clayton is questioning what happens when someone elected by the majority of the people thinks and acts as if his positions represent not just the majority, but the entire people. He then specifically asks "Was the United States better off without the Bank of the United States?"

I think that to answer that question one has to understand more about the bank and how it functioned in the economic world of its day especially its impact on every day life. It seems like the bank may have combined central bank functions (today's Federal Reserve) with commercial bank for profit functions. Under the best of circumstances that could lead to confusion about which function takes priority and how public funds held by the bank are used. But that doesn't mean that the best solution is simply to destroy the bank without anything to go in its place.

I guess what I am trying to say is that what I have read about the bank war seems incomplete. And until the issues raised here and in other posts are researched, analyzed and written about I am unconvinced that the bank was the evil that Jackson and others considered it to be. I would also like to see more analysis on the claims of the corruption of the bank and how it tried to inappropriately influence government and public policy. As noted previously the amount of energy I feel about this may be some kind of "calling" to take this on as a book, but as promised, no decisions about future books will be made until the end of 2009. I think my next step is to read Nicholas Govan's biography of Nicholas Biddle (President of the BUS - pictured above) and Bray Hammon's book about banking in the ante bellum United States. Until then at least this should be the last post about Andrew Jackson .

"American Lion" Part II

In his book "American Lion," Jon Meacham understandably concludes that Andrew Jackson's greatest triumph was holding together the young country during the secession crisis of 1832-33.
Certainly Jackson's leadership at this time deserves high praise, combining clear warning that he would use force if necessary, but also giving South Carolina a way to back off while preserving some semblance of dignity.

While Meacham's praise for Jackson is well founded, it led me to reflect on what would have happened if someone other than Jackson had been president at that crucial time. In other words was this a meeting of the man and the moment such as Lincoln and the Civil War where it appears that no one else could have done what Lincoln did.

Historical speculation of this kind is both fascinating and risky. Suppose, for example, Jackson had died either between 1824 (the corrupt bargain election) and 1828 or some time during his first term as president. This was certainly a possibility as Jackson was in his 60's and not in good health.
It seems reasonable to conclude that in either case the presidency would have most likely been occupied by John Quincy Adams (right) and/or Henry Clay.

It would be hard to argue that either man would have been less than a Unionist than Jackson and both had qualities that Jackson lacked. The issue in 1832-33 was the tariff, but there already those in South Carolina who felt that the real underlying issue was slavery. As Meacham points out Jackson was a whole lot less interested in enforcing the constitution when it came to the right of abolitionists to send material through the mail to South Carolina. Adams, on the other hand, was opposed to slavery and his tenacity and skill in fighting the gag rule in the House of Representatives suggests that at the very least his position on the Union would have been more consistent and contributed to the anti-slavery cause.

No less committed to the Union than Adams or Jackson, Clay was a major force in the compromise that resolved the 1832-33 crisis as well as in the compromises of 1820 and 1850. Although a slaveholder, Clay was opposed to the war with Mexico that produced the territories that became the hot button issue of slavery expansion. Robert Remini has speculated that had Clay been president instead of Polk that the war would not have happened and the slavery issue might not have escalated so dramatically. He mentions other historians who believe that had Clay won what was a very close election that there would not have been a Civil War.

All of this is, of course, just speculation and is not to denigrate Jackson's role in resolving the secession crisis over the tariff. However it is still interesting to note that in Adams who was a president and Clay who could have been president there were to other leaders just as committed to the Union as Andrew Jackson. One more post to come on this book as I can't leave off without mentioning the bank war.

"American Lion" - Part I

As noted previously the first book that I finished in 2009 was Jon Meacham's "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House," which is currently riding quite high on the New York Times best seller list. Meacham is very clear that this is not an academic history of Jackson' presidency, but rather a biographical study of that presidency including not just Jackson, but his immediate family both official and unofficial.

Writing in this manner allows Meacham to cover his subject in some 360 pages focusing on what he believes to be the major issues and personalities. There is real merit in such an approach as there are a limited number of people today willing to commit the time, money and energy necessary to read a two-three volume biography of our seventh president. This is not unlike the approach taken by David McCullough in his biography of John Adams another best selling work of history that became a popular HBO special.

This book also has real value for someone like myself who has read a lot about Jackson. Books of this type tend to be more analytical which is of interest to those of us who already have more than a basic familiarity with the people and the issues. For me the only negative feature of the approach was the decision to devote as much space as Meacham did to Andrew and Emily Donelson who served respectively as Jackson's secretary and official hostess. Personally I would have preferred more information on Roger Taney, Jackson's Attorney General who as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would write in the Dred Scott decision that Negroes had no rights or at least no rights that whites had to respect.

Quite a statement for one of the leaders of what was known as Jacksonian Democracy with its emphasis on the people. This ties into what Meacham's categorizes as Jackson's tragedy - his inability to see that the principles of liberty and equality could and did apply to all. Indeed Jackson's attitudes towards Indians and slavery not only make it hard for us today to have a high opinion of Jackson, but also make it difficult to understand the favorable opinions held of him by respectable historians like Arthur Schelsinger and Robert Remini.

To be fair to some things that I have written about other leaders of the pre-Civil War era, part of this depends upon the perspective we take in looking at Jackson or anyone else of that time. If we look backward from today which is our natural inclination we find Jackson's constant pronouncements about the people more than a little hypocritical given his narrow definition of the people - whites especially white men. However, if we try to put ourselves into that time as if it were the present, it is at least possible to see the idea that Jackson's popularity both then and with historians is because he broadened or helped broaden the definition of the people from just white men of property.

The point being that Jackson's opponents had even narrower definitions of who the principles of liberty and equality applied to. Or at least that is what is often presented either directly or by implication. At this point, however, I am not accepting that without some more investigation. Certainly Henry Clay and others criticized Jackson not because of a broader definition of the people, but because of his (Jackson's) desire for power. So I have more reading and thinking to do.

On a side note I found it very interesting to be reminded again that the leading opponent of Jackson's Indian removal policy in the Senate was Theodore Frelinghuysen (picture above), a Senator from New Jersey. Descended from one of New Jersey's oldest families Frelinghuysen would go on to be the Vice Presidential candidate on the Whig ticket with Henry Clay in the election of 1844. I would be interested to know more about why Frelinghuysen was so moved by the Indian's plight given he probably had no vested interest nor were his constituents much impacted by the issue. This is an important part of New Jersey which I am going to guess, like much of our state's history, is little known or studied.

Meacham believes that Jackson's greatest triumph was holding the Union together during the tariff nullification crisis. While his conduct in that situation is certainly admirable, I have some differing thoughts on that which will be subject of my next post.

"Every Man's Death Diminishes Me"

The title of this post comes, of course, from John Donne's famous poem that begins "No man is an island" and ends "Send not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." While I can certainly agree with Dunne's broader philosophy, my thoughts at this point are more focused on how my life is now diminished by the death of my friend Edie Ewing on December 22nd.

One of the obvious realities of the finality of death of a loved one or close friend is that all contact with them is permanently cutoff or at least in this lifetime. That in turn leads to thoughts of the relationship when the person was alive, the good things we did as well as the not so good things or perhaps more importantly the things we didn't do.

I am blessed or cursed with an exceptionally good memory so that I tend to remember almost everything that I have done or not done. Unfortunately that memory is also accompanied by a tendency to focus on the bad things rather than the good things. A few years ago I was talking to a man who was a basketball manager with me at Rutgers over 40 years ago. He said that when he thinks about all the games we were part of, he doesn't remember the games we won (which far exceeded the losses), but rather the losses especially the bad losses.

I tend to be the same way in terms of relationships in terms of the things that I didn't do that I now wished I had done. In terms of my relationship with Edie there was one important time in her life when I now think she wanted me to do something, but couldn't bring herself to ask and I wasn't perceptive enough to figure it out for myself. Fortunately there weren't many of those moments because in a grace filled moment sometime after that a third person told me how much Edie depended on me and my friendship.

I will always be grateful to that person for telling me that because it enabled me to be more focused and I made it my business to visit Edie any time she was hospitalized as well as staying in touch with her on a regular basis. That's not to say that there still aren't some regrets, but far less than there would have been about that information. As I think about it now there are two things that were and still are a surprise - that my support could have been that important to her and that she needed support. Even after she became ill with cancer, Edie always seemed so self sufficient and I had my doubts and still do as to what I could do that would make that much difference.

Unfortunately I think that is a reality of the human condition, most of us are not conscious of how our behavior influences and impacts others. And even more unfortunately, we are even less conscious of how we can impact people in a negative way. Most of us, I think, don't believe that what we say or do has the power to hurt people to the extent that it does. My guess also is that one place where this is especially true is in how we relate to children especially our own.

As I am thinking about how to move forward now that Edie is gone, I am naturally reflecting on how I need to be more intentional about staying in touch with people. I certainly didn't do a great job of that in the last year of Edie's life and I am committed to doing better with others. In addition I also want to be more conscious of how my behavior has the capacity to both help and hurt people and try to do more of the former. There was another occasion many years ago where I helped a former co-worker through a difficult situation at a funeral where I found myself offering to do something I had no intention of offering. It turned out to be exactly what she wanted and I think the key was that I was there when the opportunity came around. In any event I hope that these are not just good intentions, but some things that I will act on and that writing them now will make me hold myself more accountable.

How's the book going? - It's gone!!!

This morning the proofs and manuscript of "The Major League Pennant Races of 1916" were sent to the publisher. The index follows by e-mail tomorrow and not too long after that it will be on its way to the printer. (Hopefully on presses somewhat more modern than what is pictured to the left.)

My best guess at this point is that the book should see the light of day around the middle of February, just in time for spring training. In an earlier post I wrote about how fact checking and proofreading were the two worst parts of writing a book. Unfortunately I had forgotten about how unpleasant a task it is to prepare an index - about as tedious as it gets. There was also a lot of checking to do on the proofs - this is a bigger stage. If you misspell the name of a New Jersey Civil War soldier few people will notice, if you misspell the name of a Hall of Famer like Christy Mathewson (one t, not two) everyone will notice.

Interestingly as Paul and I were finishing these mind numbing tasks, I was also finishing Jon Meacham's new book - "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House" which I will write about in a day or so. In reading the acknowledgements, I noticed that he had somewhere between 6-7 fact checkers as well as 2-3 people who both check citations and found material. A slightly larger operation than Paul and myself - if I sound jealous that's because I am! You can also tell that his day job as editor of "Newsweek" opened more than a few doors including that of the White House itself.

His acknowledgements did confirm something that I had been thinking about since the Lincoln Forum. During the forum I heard about how authors such as Harold Holzer have peers/friends in the field who read their manuscript sometimes chapter by chapter while it is being written. Not to proofread it, but to comment on the content. Meacham makes similar comments which made me realize that I need to do the same thing on a smaller scale - find people with expertise in the field who can serve as a sort of writing seminar. If I have enough time, I may try to do that with the Pioneer Project, but definitely with the Lloyd letters - the challenge is finding the right people.

The final stages of working on "The Major League" made me realize some of the things I have learned about writing the history of a baseball season. Since 1871 there have been almost 140 seasons of professional baseball with only a small number having their histories written and with good reason. In fact this is one of the few season histories that I am aware of that will tell the full story of both leagues - Cait Murphy's "Crazy 08," for example devotes one chapter to the American League. The volume of material is such that this had to be a two author project.

There is another aspect of the sheer amount of information that makes season histories hard to write. The best seasons are those with dramatic finishes, typically over the last month of the season. But the season encompasses another five to six months including spring training. How to tell that story without getting bogged down in mind numbing detail is a challenge. I think Paul and I did this as best as we could for the first time with this genre, but I also think if I do another one that what I learned this time will be helpful. It might, for example, be better to spend less time covering the details of say April-June and devote that space to the stories of the players, managers who make up the season.

Decisions about another full length book won't be made until the end of 2009 (at the earliest) while I finish off other writing projects. But I would certainly consider another history - the 1889 baseball season when the Brooklyn Bridegrooms and New York Giants won tight pennant races to play in an early subway series has some appeal. And then there is the story of the 1914 Braves who were in last place on the 4th of July, didn't hit .500 until August, but won the pennant going away before sweeping the heavily favored Philadelphia Athletics in the World Series. So many possible books - so little time.