Telegrams and Trains    

 

Harry T. Cook
By Harry T. Cook
7/4/14


One is commonly considered to be clinging to the past when with obvious nostalgia he speaks or writes of such antique objects as telegrams and trains. Notwithstanding, herewith is offered commentary on both.

 

I made my first real pocket money by hanging around the Pere Marquette Railway depot in the northwestern Michigan village of Alden on Torch Lake in the late 1940s and early '50s. I delivered Western Union telegrams and hustled baggage onto and off of four passenger trains a day during those summers.

 

Telegraphy was once considered to be a major technological leap, though in this day it is pretty much forgotten. Not even the otherwise enlightened editor of the New York Times crossword puzzles knows the correct transliteration of the clicks and clacks of Samuel Morse's code. They are not the dits and dahs of the International Code; they're the dots and dashes of Mr. Morse's much too uncelebrated technology.

 

I hearkened back to my arcadian past when I came upon a passage in the recently published diaries of the mid-20th century U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan. In them, he bemoaned the passage of his own arcadia, writing that he would trade "the entire American space program, in all its forms military and civilian, for a good national telegraph system and railway transportation network such as we used to have."

 

Although Kennan was in many ways a world citizen and for a number of years occupied a central place in the nation's foreign policy apparatus, he was at heart a Midwesterner. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he returned again and again to meander up and down the state's rural byways of his native state -- and that while a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton at which top scholars in many fields conducted their research and wrote important articles and books.

 

In various of those writings over more than half a century, he would turn again and again to his disappointment in the evolving crudities of American society that, in his view, were not redeemed by television sets, bigger and faster automobiles, airlines and their airports. One can scarcely imagine what he would think of Twitter, Facebook and whatever the names of other down-to-date communications miscellany might be.

 

It is not for nothing that Kennan's most noted piece of writing was called "The Long Telegram." Kennan neither apologized for nor spared its recipients the density of his text and the lengthy process by which he came to his monumentally significant recommendation of "containment" rather than war where the Soviet Union was concerned.

 

The importance of the broad, long thought is demonstrated in Kennan's work. Yet, he must have known in his latter years that the American culture had pretty much abandoned substantive thinking for the sound bite, the repetitive clich�, and the too-clever-by-half slogan.

 

Kennan loved to travel by train because it gave him the time to think, read and write between glimpses of the territory through which he was passing. He loved the telegram, that ancient ancestor of today's texting or e-mail, because it was presented on the familiar yellow form, its text typed by human hands after being heard in code by the human ear. Kennan respected the facility of the telegrapher to be able to do so without error. I understand him on the subject because I once tried to master that technology myself before it fell into desuetude.

 

As to rail networks that, as Kennan wrote, "we used to have," their connectivity and efficiency had a profound affect on late 19th and early-to-mid 20th century America. One could put down stakes almost anywhere and not be prohibitively far from a railroad right-of-way on which passenger, express and freight trains were run night and day binding the singular threads of a country into a fabric of whole cloth.

 

If you can find one, take a look at a railway map circa 1914 and observe the sprawling web representing the rights-of-way that spanned the country, crisscrossing and intersecting here and there. Use the index finger to trace a route of your choosing from any Point A to any Point B you fancy. You'll find connections. Try that with today's airlines or, have mercy, bus lines.

 

In the historical museum of the little town in which I spent the last years of high school, one can look today at the pages of the guest register of a hotel that flourished there in the early 20th century. To a village tucked away in the north woods, which were not so long before the dwelling place of Native Americans of the Potawatomi tribe, salesmen came by train from as far away as California, Colorado, and New York State.

 

Not today. The village is a good 35 miles of tough driving from an interstate freeway, 350 miles from Chicago and 250 from Detroit. Mostly people who live there see each other and, except for the influx of summer residents and tourists during the short season, few others. No tin ware vendor from Arkansas has detrained 150 yards east of the two-block main street for 80 or more years.

 

Affluent residents of Cincinnati, St. Louis and Detroit no longer step off their Pullmans early of a summer morning refreshed from a night's sleep to seek lodging for a week or a month of vacation. No one is Red-capping their luggage for a 25-cent tip or pedaling his Schwinn to their rustic redoubts with important telegrams from faraway cities.

 

Something important has been lost. I've thought so for some time. I write about it now because in so doing I am in the distinguished company of the late George Kennan, who never stopped wishing that the telegraph and the train had lasted in our national culture.

 


Copyright 2014 Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.
 

Readers Write 
Essay 6/27/14: A Big 'What If?'

 

Laverne Morse, Flagstaff, AZ:

I majored in philosophy and have longed for some one like you to write about it or to use it in articles. Epistemology always baffled me, but I can see how it works in figuring out who may be a deviant as opposed to a dissident. As I see it, many governments would prefer to designate almost anyone who disagrees with whatever public policy a deviant. Yes, where would be have been without Gandhi and King and the others you mentioned?

 

Tracey Martin, Southfield, MI:

History imposes no limits on those whose prattle had to be corrected by history. Most recently Bush-Cheney et al. Would Big Data have saved us from them? But two names are missing from your list of decisive dissidents: Sherwin T. Wine and yourself.

 

Burt Schroeder, Knoxville, TN:

I have often wondered what it was philosophers did. If it's what you did in your article "A Big What If," then I understand the subject a bit better. I gad never heard or read the word "epistemology." I guess I'd like to have you say more about the business of "how we know what we know." I would have thought that was a topic for scientists. Thank you for your provocative writing. It makes Friday mornings invigorating.

 

Don Worrell, Troy, MI:
You neglected to include among your list of "deviants" Margaret Sanger.

 

Nadine Kennedy, Alexandria, VA:

Thank you for pointing out the deviant/dissident connection. I had never thought of Antigone in that way, and it helps me to do it. You are inspiring me at the age of 68 to go back to college and study philosophy.

 

Fred Fenton, Concord, CA:

Big Data was not required for senators Clinton and Obama to know the sad outcome of America going to war in Iraq. All that was necessary was a rudimentary knowledge of the history of three warring groups cobbled together to make a nation. Ironically, Clinton sent Obama a note that he would regret a negative vote. Her calculus was purely political. However, it was she who suffered politically as a result of supporting Bush and the Neocons hell bent on war. Obama used that vote against her when they both ran for the Democratic nomination. To know the outcome of one's actions by means of Big Data or any other predictor, including a simple knowledge of history, should not be the determining factor. Decisions need to depend on moral will and determination, as in the lives of heroes like Gandhi and King and in Obama's vote against war in Iraq.
Readers Write
Special Essay 6/30/14: Infamy

Nicholas S. Molinari, Brick, NJ:

One nation under Mammon.

 

Rev. Robin R. Meyers, Ph.D., Oklahoma City, OK:

Very well said, my old friend. I have forwarded to the people who will appreciate your wise words.

 

Richard M. Schrader, Jacksonville, FL:

Your spirited reaction to object to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling by failing to pay taxes harks back to the Declaration of Independence. Morally, two wrongs will not make a right. Basically, the problem is not one of belief, but of a delusion shared by many in the U.S. That delusion is "American Exceptionalism." During our lifetime we have had the misguided thought that we could export "Our American Way of Life" to the rest of the world through example, and, if need be, by force and bribery. On examination "Our American Way of Life" is a thing of exaggerations, inconsistencies, inequalities and sometimes just plain "wrongheadedness." An English teacher, whom I knew, used to mark failing papers with an "I" cubed (" I" to the 3rd Power)." I" cubed stood for: "Irrelevant," Immaterial" and "Inconsequential." The Supreme Court ruling in "Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc." merits this grade. But civil disobedience is not the answer to a wrongheaded decision of the Supreme Court. The task is far greater: Replace the concept of American Exceptionalism with a more profound understanding of the Constitution of the United States, particularly the Bill of Rights.

 

Mort Crim, Amelia Island, FL:

Especially liked this essay. You nailed it. Of course, emotion always trumps facts, sadly, but you clearly have the facts on your side. As they used to say in the church where I grew up, "Preach it, brother!!" And I know you will.

 

Jean T. Long, Dayton, OH:

Bravo! I marched for Roe v. Wade . Why is it that people who didn't have to work for something somehow cannot appreciate what they have had? This has been building from county elections to the Congress of the USA for years: blind blind blind -- with freedoms hard-won, slinking away. Alas. Thank you for an excellent article.

 

Michael Howard, Palm Springs, CA:

The five Supreme Court justices' position, as made clear in the Hobby Lobby decision, is simple and clearly politically biased. Whenever possible, matters of law that favor personal advantage and private prejudice are to be approved, and, whenever possible, matters of law that favor common sense and the common good are to be denied. The "religion" element of the decision is intentionally misleading. As must be evident to every thinking person (if not these five justices), this ill-considered ruling will invite all sorts of "religious" claims that will flaunt the accepted and rational laws of the nation.

 

Peter Chintis, Ferndale, MI:  

Thanks to that Supreme Court decision I know what a constitutional originalist does: makes s_ _t up.

 

Robert Brooks, East Lansing,MI:  

I will join you, and I hope others! 

 

Gus Nussdorfer, Ohio:

I could not agree more with you. What a slippery slope we have started down with this decision. It is just the tip of an iceberg that threatens to sink the ship of state. My religious views oppose war so why not be exempt from the war payments in my taxes? Why not except Viagra along with birth contraceptives Thanks for the essay. May we find ways to try and stop this madness!!!

 

Diane Lake, Franklin, MI:
"Yes" is my answer to the next to the last questions. Of course we would lose. The Supreme Court would most likely not accept the case, but it would be a hell of a lot of fun to try. I'm not the right kind of attorney to lead this case, but would be a very happy helper. Please let me know if this gets going. Yours in righteous anger! Cheryl Addington, Royal Oak, MI: I'm in. Freakin' unbelievable! I have no idea how to do what you're describing, so we need to discuss it.

Harry Dyck, Elkhart, IN: 

Bravo! An excellent counter to the likes of Hobby Lobby and other similarly oriented corporations. If certain religious belief systems can be used to skirt the law to the advantage of the powerful, than why not make it permissible, as you say, for those of us with a conscience against war to be exempt from paying for such inhumane acts as war invariable manifests? It boggles the mind that the judges referred to can be so selective about what is permissible for right wing corporations but indifferent if not absolutely contrarian to what the best minds theologically and ethically propose. Once more you have hit the nail on the head. Your essay is a must-read for my friends and acquaintances.

 

Mark Bendure, Grosse Pointe Park, MI:

I am currently printing and will be reading the Opinion (about 95 pages in all), and if you are serious about it, I will be happy to discuss litigation options. Bear in mind, though, that the decision is not based on the First Amendment but on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, a piece of right wing legislation fueled by the fundamentalist mantra that government was discriminating against Christians. That statute allows an exemption from otherwise neutral laws that "substantially burden a person's exercise of religion" unless the law is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of accomplishing that governmental interest. Apart from the issue of whether a corporation is a person capable of holding or exercising religious beliefs, weighing the two balances (governmental interest and religious belief) is inherently subjective and depends on how much weight one ascribes to the Affordable Care Act's goal of making complete medical care available, including contraception, and how much weight one attaches to religious opposition to funding contraception. In view of the subjective nature of the inquiry it is no surprise that the justices, and U.S. population, as a whole break down on fairly predictable lines between religious "Right to Life" sorts and women's reproductive rights supporters. The same subjective weighing of the competing interests which the RFRA entails would arise in any attempt to apply the Hobby Lobby decision in other contexts, such as tax withholding, and I predict that in the ensuing years the RFRA will be viewed as only protecting the views of the Christian religious right.

 

Richard and Jill McKee:

We agree 100%. But I see it getting worse for our country with no way out. At 85, I see it as sad for our kids who did not live through the Depression and WWII. 

 

Tom Hall, Foster, RI:

One nation under Mammon? One nation under a court of heaven consisting of theistic deities? Surely a nation in which I am obligated to pay taxes that furnish support for religious schools whose students are inculcated with all sorts of super-naturalist nonsense that is passed off as eternal truth, shouldn't we insist on sauce for the gander?

 

Carole Jacobs:

Thank you! You remind me that I am not alone.

 

Janet DeMerchant, Farmington Hills, MI:

The decision was outrageous! People such as the Hobby Lobby owners only agree to their own interpretation of religious freedom. As you so well point out, the rest of us have our beliefs trampled upon in many ways. The only hope we have is for several of the present justices to resign or die.

 

Blayney Colmore, Jacksonville, VT:

How long has it been since I believed a Supreme Court decided something based on its best understanding of the law and Constitution? At least since Warren Burger, who was too conservative for me, but at least felt the constraints of a lawyer who respects the path he takes. Supreme Courts have always gone out of their way to avoid decisions that flew in the face of the opinions of most people, but until the Rehnquist court, they felt some obligation to shroud their political views in constitutional law. I deplored the Bush v. Gore decision, but I understood the court believed it was called on to sidestep a constitutional conundrum (and had the gall to say the decision set no precedent), but it seems to have opened the floodgates. I am old enough (and lived in the South) to remember the uproar when the Warren court handed down Brown v. Board and then Roe v. Wade. I believe those angered by those decisions have been working since to have retribution. The court once made it possible for this nation to live up to the ideals framed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Now it is dismantling those ideals. It was considered a bold experiment in the 18th century. In the 21st it looks like a failed experiment.

 

Rev. Carolyn E. Woodall, Minister, Vegreville and Salem United Churches, Alberta, Canada:

Several years ago, I read Parker Palmer's "Courage to Teach." Part of his thesis was that Martin Luther King and others in the civil rights movement came to the point of action when they realized that nothing the domination system could do to them could be worse than what they were living with already. I hear your outrage, and it is right to be outraged, and I agree with you. But I am Canadian so cannot help you directly (and with Stephen Harper in power, we have our own issues -- he used to attend Young Republican conventions, so it's been reported). Could you make common cause with Parker Palmer, or Jim Wallis at Sojourners, or both? The fire in the belly of the civil rights movement was stoked by good church people who felt the time had come to stand up for the downtrodden, the outcast, the misused.

 

Linda Samelson, West Bloomfield, MI:
Thanks for speaking out with such clarity on this outrageous decision. What kind of country do I live in when five Catholic men decide the most personal issues regarding reproductive health for women? Action is required and I am awaiting leadership from women's pro-choice group. 
 

Doug Chestnut, Spring Lake, MI:

Count me in if a class action suit is possible. In attempting to find an adjective that would sum up this ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States, I went through "preposterous, ridiculous, ludicrous, farcical, laughable, idiotic, stupid, foolish, silly, inane, harebrained, cockamamie, unreasonable, irrational, illogical, nonsensical, incongruous, pointless, senseless, crazy and daft." And then I finally landed on "big money" and "misogyny." I realize these terms are nouns and not adjectives, but there's no other way I can think of to succinctly bring it into focus.

 

Michael Fultz, Clarkston, MI:

All I see is just a giant slippery slope. Let's hope that the deity that is currently in charge has mercy on the poor employees who now have to jump through the employer's religious hoops. Some people's "religious freedoms" trump other people's freedoms. Way to go, Supreme Creeps.

 

Brian H. O A. McHugh, Silver City, NM:

I try to remember that this same court declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. And I believe that that was to make a better America. This recent decision only plunges America into deeper and deeper barbarianism, uncivilization, and utter whack craziness. Looking forward not to living in it anymore! Glad you wrote this.

 

What do you think?
I'd like to hear from you. E-mail your comments to me at revharrytcook@aol.com.