Woody vs, Teddy

Intrigue from July 1913

The Connersville Evening News was on top of this yarn, one that somehow inspired the women of Fairfield to stand their ground on national politics. The deal was, somebody wrote something in a newspaper that was carried in another newspaper and the Fairfield Ladies Aid Society wasn't happy about that.

“The best recollection of the writer is that it was from the Richmond Item and its position in the paper and style of setting indicated that the item had been copied from another paper (which was not identified).”

The gist of it was that the Aid Society had sent bits of fabric off to Presidential candidates Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, hoping to get them to sign the squares of cloth and send them back. Apparently, Wilson had done that; Roosevelt had not.

OK, good enough. 

Wilson was the Democrat. Roosevelt had run as a Republican before becoming the Bull Moose party. The news item said Teddy the Bear returned the square without comment or signature and “therefore, Mr. Wilson held a high place in their regard while Roosevelt, if a candidate, could not get a vote from the society.”

So the Aid Society found that a bit unfair – and said so. The Connersville paper explained:

“Mrs. Wilbur Logan writes the News to say that the item did the society serious harm. She wishes it clearly understood that the society is in no sense political. That Mr. Roosevelt would receive the same courteous treatment as would Mr. Wilson should he enter their room.”

Mrs. Logan said the squares came from her, not the society. “She regards it as noble on the part of the great men of the nation to respond as they did.”

Furthermore: “The ladies of the society can feel assured that the News had no other part in the matter than to pass along what evidently had been more than once before in print. On the other hand, the free advertising of their good and public spirited work ought to help rather than harm the society. Who knows but it may bring bids for the quilt when put up for sale from afar and from sources not dreamed of.”

No news on how all that turned out.

Wilson was re-elected in 1916 and doubtless thanked Fairfield for making it possible.

Roosevelt got his face on the side of a hill in South Dakota.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poet of the Sierras

Joaquin Miller, it was said after his death in 1913, was fond of all animals except dogs.

Along U.S. 27, there's a stone on the side of the road marking Miller's connection to Liberty and Union County, where he was born in 1837.

(Miller allegedly later on said he wasn't born in Liberty at all but on a wagon headed west … and a full four years later. So, 1837 or 1841 … your choice.)

When he was 12, he traveled west with his family, first to Oregon and later to California when gold was dug up at Sutter's Mill.

Miller was born with the uninspiring name of Cincinnatus Heine Miller and became Joaquin because it was easier to spell. Later on, he became known as the “Poet of the Sierras.”

In 1915, after his death, Union and Wayne counties collaborated on some kind of memorial marker to the poet, who dreamed Utopian dreams and managed a life that cemented him as one of the more curious people to come out of Liberty.

As the freak events of history conspired, the weirdest part of the story from the U.S. 27 perspective was -- in 1950, a motorist went off the road and trashed the monument. Yeah, 15 miles of wide open highway and the guy had to hit Joaquin Miller's plaque. 

Miller gained his fame in the 1880s in the richly self-important area not far from San Francisco where his work became widely appreciated. Such was the life of the poet in Miller's time. As an eccentric, he had the opportunity to promote a form of awareness that found favor among the elite of his time.

To say that he was influential is understating it. In the tradition of Carl Sandburg, Walt Whitman, Will Rogers … Miller was well known.

A far cry from the dusty road between Liberty and Richmond where he was purportedly born. The guy may have been born humble, but there's no evidence he lived that way. He appears to have had substantial wealth as his fame grew.

Miller ascribed to the belief that there truly was an “American” literature.

“Will we ever have an American literature? Yes, when we leave sound and words in the winds. American science dashes along at fifty, sixty miles an hour but American literature still lumbers along in the old fashioned English stage coach at ten miles an hour and sometimes with a red-coated outrider blowing a horn. We have not time for words. When the Messiah of American literature comes he will come singing so far as may be in words of one syllable.”

SELECTED POETRY