On A Consular Appointment

Tom was tired of art. He’d been an artist most of his professional life. In fact he’d made decent money at it. But he wanted a change. Call it a late-age crisis (if you consider 62 to be late-aged), but Tom knew he had more in him than simply art. So, having been interested in politics from an early age, Tom applied with the United States State Department for a position as a consul, preferably, he said, to Europe. Now, this was 1902, during a time when the US Civil Service was still being standardized and the best practices were still being established. Tom had no real qualifications to be a US consul except he had some friends in some powerful places, so he pulled some strings and made some inquiries and was able to get an appointment as a consul. Granted, it was not in Europe like he had preferred, but it was still a posting at a consulate. Besides, he had heard great things about the beauty of Guayaquil, Ecuador. So, Tom accepted the position and sailed for Ecuador in July.

Now, Guayaquil is a beautiful city on the coast of Ecuador and was, at the time, one of the major ports on South America’s western coast. Being so important to trade, the United States was extremely interested in maintaining a political presence there in the form of its consulate (the US Embassy was in the capital city of Quito, located high in the Andes in the interior). So, while the posting for Tom wasn’t particularly glamorous, it was an important appointment. And, despite not having any real public administration experience, Tom soon found that he really enjoyed the work. After all, the real paperwork and administration were done by those permanent officers in the consulate; most of what Tom did was assist Americans who made their way through the area on business or pleasure and who needed help with visas or passports or what have you. He was also wined and dined by the local dignitaries and the consular officers of other nations. Schmoozing? Tom could do that.

As the summer of 1902 turned into the fall (Ecuador really has no seasons other than rainy and not-rainy), people in the city began coming down with Yellow Fever. Remember that this was in the days before a viable vaccine for the disease, and the work of Dr. William Gorgas in eradicating the breeding of the disease-carrying mosquitos was still a couple of years away. People started dying in droves. It was discussed that the consulate in Guayaquil should be evacuated, and orders were approved in Washington to allow those able to travel to leave the city and go to a place where the Yellow Fever had yet to come or even, possibly, return home. But Tom did an incredibly selfless thing. He decided to stay. “People will need me now more than ever,” he said to an aide. Tom knew that his signature on travel documents would allow American families to leave the stricken area quicker. So, he stayed on and helped many Americans to escape the clutches of the disease. Of course, you can guess what happened. In December, Tom got Yellow Fever. He died on December 7th. His body was brought back to the US, and he was buried in the Bronx, New York.

But we don’t remember Tom for his courageous and selfless work as the US representative in Ecuador that deadly autumn. No, we remember him for his art, actually. You’re quite familiar with his work. When you think of the two American political parties, you might think of the animals associated with them–the elephant for the GOP and the donkey for the Democrats. Tom did that. And, every December, you imagine Santa Claus looking like, well, like Santa Claus. Tom did that, too. And, today, every year, a prize is given in his name to the best political cartoon of the year.

In fact, Thomas Nast was the foremost political cartoonist of his day.

On a Funny Face

The old “sticks and stones” saying is true but only to a point. Words can hurt, especially when someone is commenting on your physical appearance. That was the case for one man who was born over 200 years ago in the United States. One of the first descriptions of him was “homely and haggard,” and that description was one of the kind ones.

Harsher criticisms included “horrid…ugly and repellent.” Well. That’s blunt. And it seems to have been the general consensus. He looked, one said, like someone drew an overly-exaggerated caricature of a human. Other said that he was “too ugly” to even appear in public. Still others said that the sight of the man’s face was the “object of mirth” and “foolishly comical.”

Add to these descriptions of the man’s face was the fact that he was incredibly awkward in public. His arms and hands seemed to belong to someone else because they were overly large and seemed too long for his body. That made him appear “ape-like” and inhuman. One of the most kind reactions was that of a British man who said he “lacked all that we consider to be debonaire or desirable.”

Now, you’d think such descriptions would cause the poor man to suffer from insecurity and self-doubt, and it did, to a point. However, to his credit, he developed a good sense of humor that fought against those who derided his physical appearance. Someone once accused him of being two-faced, and he is supposed to have responded, “If I had two faces, do you think I’d wear this one?” And another time, he joked that a man once pulled a gun on him and said, “If I ever met a man uglier than me, I’d shoot him.” His reply? “If I’m uglier that you, fire away.”

Yet, the abuse about his appearance never seemed to wane. One friend–yes, friend–said that his head was shaped like a coconut with hair on the top just as uncontrollable as coconut hair. His ears were said to be from someone twice his size. The lips were described as being non-existent. Scraggly sprigs of twine appeared where a normal person’s beard should be. Add to this already funny picture the fact that the man seemed to be covered with moles and warts. His nose was also too big. To complete the picture, a kick from a horse when he was a young man caused one of his eyes to rove independently of the other.

Yet, we don’t remember these descriptions of this man today. In fact, many people today consider this funny face to be the depiction of the prototypical American.

No, we only remember the beautiful heart, the generous nature, and the wonderful leadership of Abraham Lincoln.

On a Beating

The rhetoric that surrounds much of the modern political discourse walks a razor’s edge of violence. Politicians know precisely what to say that will encourage their like-minded supporters to move to physical action while allowing the politicians at the same time to argue that their words were misconstrued. They rely on the plausible deniability to protect them from not only prosecution but also responsibility for the resulting violence. All of this has resulted in a polarization in the public discourse in the US that hasn’t been seen in a while. We need to remember that words have power and choose them carefully.

But what happens when the politicians who speak in these “dog whistles” become the ones who act out the violence? That’s something that happened in a most unusual place–the United States Senate floor. There was a time that tempers were running high between a Republican senator from the north against a Democratic senator from the Old South. The two men were on opposite sides of most issues, but the emotional issue of Civil Rights divided the pair the most. And it got personal. The Republican even made fun of the Democrat’s slurred speech that he had developed as a result of a recent stroke. True, this type of personal attack is unwarranted and uncouth, but politics is a nasty business, after all.

But a relative of the Democratic senator took great offense at the Republican’s attacks of both political and personal natures. And while the saying about sticks and stones is true, words can lead to the use of them for a certain. This man, this relative of the senator, he actually made plans to kill the Republican. And, to make this bad situation even worse, the relative with the murderous intent was a member of the US House of Representatives and also a prominent Democratic politician. A friend talked him out of murdering the poison-tongued northern senator and instead convinced the man to merely beat him. The younger relative reluctantly agreed.

Well, the Republican was at his desk on the almost empty Senate floor after the day’s business. He was busy writing a speech for the next day and was so intent on his work that he failed to notice the representative approaching him. The Democrat pulled out a cane with a golden handle and, with a mighty backswing, struck the sitting senator in the head with all his force. The blow knocked the man from his chair. He later said that he blacked out at that point and barely remembers holding his arms up in a vain attempt to defend himself against the blows that began raining down on his head and shoulders.

The attacker got several blows in before anyone nearby could intervene. Some later privately said that the northern senator got what was coming to him, but then others managed to tear the attacker away. The northern man was so severely beaten that pools of his blood surrounded his desk; he had to be carried from the chamber on a stretcher and then treated for a concussion and also received several stitches. The attack was so violent that the man wielding the can broke it in several places; his swings were so violent that he hit himself with the cane and had to also receive some stitches.

Sadly, the senator from the north was so badly beaten that it would be over a year before he was physically able to return to his desk. And equally as sad, many in the nation agreed with the attack. Some media recommended that the senator receive such a beating regularly. And some other people sent the young representative a new cane, one even inscribed with the words, “Do It Again.” However, other supporters of the beating said that it was not as bad as the senator made out. The severity of the beating was, in effect, fake news.

But it wasn’t fake. Nor were the divisions between the two sections of the nation.

The beating of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner by US Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina in 1856 symbolized the moment when the rhetoric about the issue of slavery turned violent and presaged the bloody Civil War that would follow four short years later.

On a Political Moderate

It’s difficult for us today to grasp how divisive the issue of slavery was in the United States before the American Civil War. Of course, today, we think that the United states is terribly divided politically between Republicans and Democrats. However, today’s political divisions pale in comparison to the schisms that led this nation to the bloodiest conflict in American history.

Even politicians we might think of as moderate for that time still professed strongly held beliefs in the idea that the races were unequal and so created by God. One typical mid-western moderate politician of the era said, “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races.” This same former member of the United States House of Representatives went on to argue that Blacks should not have the vote, were unqualified to be on juries, hold office, and most certainly should never be allowed to marry white people. God, forbid!

On another occasions, this same moderate argued for the resettlement or colonization of Blacks to, well, somewhere else in the world. Liberia, the African nation set up by former slaves of the U.S., was one of the possible places Blacks could be sent, he said. Central America was also floated as a potential resettlement spot by this man. He justified this belief by saying that the differences between the races were simply too great to be resolved and, therefore, separation was the only safe and sane recourse.

He further held that he must support slavery simply because he believed in the United States Constitution. While the Constitution did not specifically mention slavery as a right, the fact that such things as the 3/5 Compromise and the reference to Fugitive Slave Laws in the document supported the idea in his mind—even if he personally disliked the institution. These feelings echoed those of Thomas Jefferson—himself a slave owner—who supposedly said that slavery, “was like holding a wolf by the ears. You didn’t like it, but you sure didn’t let it go.”

You can see that even moderates of that period such as this man held beliefs that today are wildly inappropriate and wrong. That should show you how deeply held the racial animosity was among those considered to be radical in the period leading up to the Civil War.

Yet, this politically moderate man further felt that the institution of slavery was a “necessity” in those area where it existed. When, during the Civil War, the discussion of declaring slavery to be illegal in the areas of the United States where it did not exist—the idea of an Emancipation Proclamation—he posited again that he wished to not interfere with those parts of the nation where slavery still was legal.

Yes, Abraham Lincoln’s position on slavery was indeed moderate for its time, even if he eventually came to see the Civil War as the method for eliminating it once and for all.