PYRAMIDS, POKER, PEACEKEEPING AND PROTEST

QUITE A MONTH THE MONTH OF MAY

A bit of catching up on dates – items and observations for the between the 27^th and 31^st May.  On the 27^th May, it seems that a Mr. Campbell was in Egypt on a visit the the Great Pyramid of Giza.

On that day s/he entered the top chamber and somehow printed on a stone CAMPBELL’s CHAMBER, MAY 27, 1837. There is quite a lot of graffiti dating back some 5000 years to the crew of builders who left there mark in the chamber before departing. It is worth watching Egypt’s Lost Cities on the BBC. 

Whilst Mr, Mrs or Miss Campbell was busy despoiling the Great Pyramid, on the 27 May 1837, over in the United States, at Homer, Illinois (now called Troy Grove) James Butler Hickok a.k.a. Wild Bill, was born. He had a colourful life and became the stuff of legend, in particular the manner of his death.

On August 2, 1876, Hickok (then aged 39) was playing poker at Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood, in the Black Hills, Dakota Territory. Hickok, as a precaution, usually sat with his back to the wall. The only seat available when he joined the poker game was a chair that put his back to a door. Twice he asked another player, Charles Rich, to change seats with him, and on both occasions Rich refused. A former buffalo hunter named John McCall (then aged 24, and better known as "Jack" or “Broken Nose Jack” McCall) walked in unnoticed. Jack McCall walked to within a few feet of Wild Bill and then suddenly drew a pistol and shouted, “Take that!” before firing. The bullet hit Hickok in the back of the head, killing him instantly. The bullet emerged through Wild Bill’s right cheek, striking Captain Massie in the left wrist. Legend has it that Hickok had lost his stake and had just borrowed $50 from the house to continue playing. When shot, he was holding a pair of aces and a pair of eights, all black. The fifth card is debated, or, as some say, had been discarded and its replacement had not yet been dealt. In 1979 Hickok was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.

On the 28^th May 1961 – English lawyer Peter Benenson's article The Forgotten Prisoners is published in several internationally read newspapers. Following publication of his article in The Observer 28 May 1961. Amnesty was founded in London. It is celebrating its 50^th anniversary. Amnesty International draws attention to human rights abuses and campaigns for compliance with international laws and standards. The organisation was awarded the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize for its "campaign against torture’ and the United Nations Prize in the Filed of Human Rights in 1978.

It was also on the day 28th May in 1964 that the Palestine Liberation Organisation was founded.

On the 29^th May 1948, the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) was founded on 29 May 1948, for peacekeeping in the Middle East. Its primary task was providing the military command structure to the peace keeping forces in the Middle East to enable the peace keepers to observe and maintain the cease-fire, and as may be necessary in assisting the parties to the Armistice Agreements in the supervision of the application and observance of the terms of those Agreements. The command structure of the UNTSO was maintained to cover the later peace keeper organisations of the United Nations.

On the 30^th May 1972, members of a protest group from North East London, the 'Stoke Newington Eight' were prosecuted for carrying out bombings as the Angry Brigade in one of the longest criminal trials of English history (it lasted from 30 May to 6 December 1972). As a result of the trial, John Barker, Jim Greenfield, Hilary Creek and Anna Mendleson received prison sentences of 10 years. A number of other defendants were found not guilty, including Stuart Christie, who had previously been imprisoned in Spain for carrying explosives with the intent to assassinate the dictator Franco, and Angela Mason (née Weir) who became a director of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights group Stonewall. She was awarded an OBE in 1999. In my early days as a Solicitor's Clerk I has assisted during the defence of Ms Angela Weir. (Part of the personal memoir) An interesting time. This documentary, introduced by Stuart Christie is worth a view.

On the 31^st May 1962, Adolph Eichmann is hanged for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel.  This is not pleasant.

Am away for a couple of days - will resume Monday 30th

DESERT ROMANCE

Libya is much in the news today, indeed as much as it was in the news 69 years ago in 1942. The names of places have meaning to anyone who is familiar with the story of the North African campaigns of the Second World War; Benghazi, Tobruk, Sidi Barrani, El Alamein. Whereas we now have the siege of Misurata in the western part of the country, we than had the various sieges of Tobruk. Since 1944 Hollywood and other studios have featured the battles in and around Tobruk - The Rats of Tobruk 1944, Ice Cold In Alex 1958, Un Taxi pour Tobrouk 1960, Tobruk 1967, Quella dannata pattuglia (The battle of the damned) 1969, Overrun 1970, Raid on Rommel 1971,  Gli eroi (The heroes) 1973, Tobruk 2008 – to name but a few. 

In reviewing the events of today the 26^th May, I find a reference to the Battle of Bir Hakeim. It was remote oasis in the Libyan desert south of Tobruk, and had been the site of a Turkish fort. During the Battle of Gazala (situated further north between Derna and Tobruk) the Free French Division of General Marie Pierre Koenig defended the site from 26^th May 1942 to the 11^th June 1942, against attacking German and Italian forces directed by General Erwin Rommel.  Their resistance for 16 days, against overwhelming odds (3703 men against 45,000 Axis troops) gave the retreating British Eighth Army enough time to reorganise and halt the Axis advance at the First Battle of El Alamein.

General Rommel near Bir Kakeim

General Koenig with his superior

 officers at Bir Hakeim

                                                                                                                                                                           The Free French Forces are not always given much credit for their part in defeating the Hitler and Mussolini; however, as with all war stories there are heroic love stories, usually involving an English Nurse. In this case that lady was called Susan Travers. Her story is the stuff of movies.

Susan Travers (23 September 1909–18 December 2003) was an Englishwoman who was the only woman to serve officially with the French Foreign Legion. Travers was born in Southern England, the daughter of a Royal Navy admiral, but grew up in the south of France, where she was a semi-professional tennis player.

At the outbreak of WWII, Travers joined the French Red Cross as a nurse, but later became an ambulance driver with the French Expeditionary Force in Finland. With the German invasion of Denmark and Norway, she retreated from Denmark to Finland. She then escaped by ship to Iceland and returned from there to England where she joined General de Gaulle’s Free French Forces.

By 1941, she was the chauffeur for a medical officer of the 13^th Demi-Brigade of the French Foreign Legion, during the Syrian campaign in which Vichy French legionnaires fought Free French legionnaires. She was nicknamed "la Miss" by the legionnaires. She then travelled to North Africa via Dahomay and the Congo. During that journey, she had a brief affair with Georgian nobleman and Foreign Legion officer Dimitri Amilakhvari, who was subsequently killed. She was then assigned as driver to Colonel Marie-Pierre Koenig and also became his lover.

In late May 1942, as the Afrika Korps prepared to attack Bir Hakeim, Koenig ordered Travers and other women out of the area. The Germans attacked on 26 May. Not long after, Travers joined a convoy into the rear area and Koenig agreed to her requests to return to Bir Hakeim.   Koenig's forces were almost pounded to dust by Rommel's Afrika Korps in what became one of the greatest sieges in the history of the Western Desert campaign. With Stuka planes, Panzer tanks and heavy artillery at their disposal, the Germans expected to take the fort in 15 minutes. In what became a symbol of resistance across the world, the Free French held it for 15 days.  The Luftwaffe flew 1,400 sorties against the defences of Bir Hakeim, whilst four German/Italian divisions attacked on the ground. During the bombing, a piece of shrapnel tore a hole in Koenig's car and Travers (with the assistance of a Vietnamese driver) carried the part to a field workshop where mechanics fixed it. Refusing to leave her lover's side Susan Travers, stayed on in Bir Hakeim, the only woman among more than 3,500 men. Her fellow soldiers dug her into a coffin-sized hole in the desert floor, where she lay in temperatures of 51C for more than 15 days, listening to the cries of the dying and wounded. When all water, food and ammunition had run out, Koenig decided to lead a breakout through the minefields and three concentric rings of German tanks. (see plan below)

On 10 June,  as Keonig’s driver, Travers was ordered to take the wheel of his Ford and lead the midnight flight across the desert. The convoy of vehicles and men was only discovered when a mine exploded beneath one of their trucks. Under heavy fire, she was told by Koenig: "If we go, the rest will follow." She floored the accelerator and bumped her vehicle across the barren landscape.

"It is a delightful feeling, going as fast as you can in the dark," she said later. "My main concern was that the engine would stall."

Under heavy machine gun fire, she finally burst through enemy lines, creating a path for the rest to follow. At 10:30 on 11 June, the column entered British lines. Travers' vehicle had been hit by eleven bullets, with a shock absorber destroyed and the brakes unserviceable. Her affair with Koenig ended after this battle, when he returned to his wife. Almost 2,500 troops had escaped with her. Koenig was promoted to the rank of general by de Gaulle.  Travers stayed on with the Legion seeing action in Italy, Germany and France driving a self-propelled anti-tank gun. She was wounded after driving over a mine.

After the war, she wanted no other life and applied formally to the Legion to become an official member, omitting her gender on the application form. The man who rubber-stamped her admission had known her in Bir Hakeim. After creating her own uniform, Travers became the first and only woman ever to serve with the Legion, and was posted to Vietnam during the First Indo-China War.

It was there that she met and married a fellow legionnaire, Nicholas Schlegelmilch, who had also been at Bir Hakeim. In 2000, aged 91, assisted by Wendy Holden she wrote her autobiography, Tomorrow to Be Brave: A Memoir of the Only Woman Ever to Serve in the French Foreign Legion, having waited for all the other principals in her life story to die before writing it.  

Susan Travers was decorated with the Légion d’honneur, Croix de Guerre and Médaille Militaire. She died at the age of 94. She was survived by a son, Thomas, and two granddaughters, Adela and Eleanor.

Now that's what I call a war story.  Here is a short French tribute.                                     

LOVE IN THE WIND

Yesterday 24th May was Bob Dylan's birthday. Today 25th May is the 90th birthday of another lyricist, Harold Lane 'Hal' David born in 1921. He worked mainly with Burt Bacharach. They apparently met in the Brill Building in New York in 1957. Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, I’ll Never Fall in Love Again, Do You Know the Way to San Jose, Walk On By, What the World Needs Now is Love, I Say a Little Prayer, Always Someone There to Remind Me, Anyone Who Had a Heart… to name but a few of his songs.  I believe just as many people have heard Hal David's lyrics as have heard Bob Dylan's. Indeed, according to the figures I have gleaned, David has written the lyrics to roughly twice the number of songs than Dylan; yet, the Wikipedia entry for Hal David is some 350 words, whereas the entry for Bob Dylan is in excess of 30,000. They were born 20 years apart.  How strange is the cultural impact of one song, as opposed to another. 
What the World Needs Now  has been covered by many performers, as has Blowing In the Wind. Here are two Spanish compilation videos relating to each song. Note the cultural differences.

JAZZ MEMORIES

Archie Shepp

I came across the name of Archie Shepp in the births column today, 24^th May 1937, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I had an encounter back in 1967 one evening with Archie Shepp and some of his musicians at a late night, after hours, gathering in Holland Park. They had just come from Ronnie Scott’s. During that evening I also met the bassist Jimmy Garrison, a musician I admired, particularly for his work with John Coltrane. Jimmy Garrison did not ‘smoke’, but he drank a lot of whisky.  He was an extremely charming and gentle man. During the course of our conversation (I confess I cannot now recall after 43 years just what it was we talked about) he said “I believe”. He did not specify just what it was he believed, but at the time, I felt I knew what he meant. He was a believer. It is a matter for others to decide. There are a couple of You tube videos of John Coltrane’s Quartet from 1961 which includes a rendition of a track entitled Impressions, with a long bass solo by Jimmy Garrison. The Quartet also includes McCoy Tyner on piano and Elvin Ray Jones on Drums. 

In addition, there is a clip from a jazz film directed by Jack Smight entitled The Music of Miles Davis. It was a made for television film released on the 9^th April 1959, with Miles Davis on trumpet, John Coltrane on Sax., Jimmy Wilbur Cobb on drums, Gil Evans on piano and Paul Chambers on bass. I’m sorry to say I do not know the names of some of the other musicians, but so what.

As to Archie Shepp, that's another story.

LET'S TALK

Yesterday driving back to London from Devon, I listened to Andrew Marr’s interview of President Barak Obama. It was a joy to listen to a United States President who was able to speak with such clarity. No president since John Kennedy (in my view) has been able to project such clear thinking and intelligence, without the trace of folksy bonhomie that usually accompanies such public relations exercises. On should not forget that the interview was a prelude to the President’s visit to the United Kingdom and Ireland. Not that it was totally without substance. One may or may not agree with the Presidents approach to the killing of Bin Laden, but he stated his reasons clearly and with confidence. His posture was that of a man in control of the situation, as would be expected of a person in his position. He was equally clear about his view and policy related to the problems of Israel, Palestine and the Middle East in general. In short he presented the articulate and intelligent American, fully conscious of the image he projects abroad. Not a gun toting southern cowboy, or hail fellow well met, dripping strategic condescension, but a thoughtful, confident without arrogance, representative of the American public. He does not pretend to have all the answers but gives a strong indication of the direction that should be taken to find solutions to seemingly insoluble problems. He satisfies the cowboy element with a clear statement that he is not averse to using the gun when he thinks it advisable to do so, to uphold his particular brief to protect the lives of American citizens. Some may disagree with the extent of that brief and its application throughout the world, but at least with this President it is pretty clear where he stands. He claims to be always open to dialogue. Hearing him speak, it is not surprising as he uses it so well. It is that image of the intelligent American, rather than the ugly and brash American, his fellow citizens should most appreciate and be thankful for. There is no question, in my mind, that it is more difficult to hate, or incite hatred towards, a thinking conciliatory disarming individual, than a stubborn intransigent do it my way character. Tough talk, rough talk smooth talk or smart talk, he is open to talk. Americans do not appear to have any idea how much that short 27 minutes of just talk, with Andrew Marr, can affect the rest of the world. They really should take note.

FLIGHT TO FAME AND FORTUNE

Charles Lindbergh (left) accepted his

prize from Raymond Orteig (right)

in New York on June 14, 1927

On the 20th May 1927 Charles Lindberg took off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York on the world's first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic. He touched down at Le Bourget Field in Paris the next day after some 33 hours of flight. He was awarded the Orteig Prize of $25,000 for the crossing.

Lindberg's Spirit of St Louis

I find it difficult to make too much comment about Lindberg. He was the father of the victim of one of the most notorious kidnapping cases in the United States, referred to by the press at the time as "the crime of the century", and which was the inspiration for the plot of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (1934). He and his family were deeply affected by the tragedy and the resulting never ending publicity and attention. As a consequence the family left the United States to live in Europe. Initially in the U.K. at Sevenoaks Weald in Kent and after three years they moved to Brittany in France. Politically however, he leaned very far right and was by all accounts an anti-Semite and racist. His personal life was a bit of a shambles as well. He distinguished himself during the second world war, and was disgusted and angered by what had happened in Nazi Germany's death camps; although, it's hard to say whether any of that changed any of his views. His only real redeeming feature was his exploit of 1927 and his account of it in his book Spirit of St Louis, 1953, won him a Pulitzer Prise the following year and a very lucrative film contract. The rights were sold for a sum in excess of one million dollars, which in 2011 would be something equivalent to over nine million. He also benefited from a performance by James Stewart.

GROSS SENTENCING

Kenneth Clarke

There seems to be a bit of discussion going round about the length of prison sentences imposed for criminal activity. The current Department of Justice is considering offering a discount of 50% for persons who plead guilty at the first opportunity, to whatever offence they have committed. This is all very well, if one knows just what the sentence will be. On the face of it, the offer is 50% of whatever the Judge has in mind at the time. Who can know what that is? If, for example, the maximum penalty for an offence is life imprisonment, than are we to assume the sentence would be half the remainder of one’s life expectancy? The ‘tariff’ sentence is an open question. It is a matter of speculation, depending entirely on what view is taken by the judge at the time. Some judges are more severe than others and 50% off could mean more to some than others. It is all really a matter of some speculation, and the reality is that in these austere times, the quicker a defendant’s case is disposed of the cheaper it is for the state. One has to face the fact that this encouragement to plead guilty is a mater of economics and nothing else. It is an exercise in saving money. It is unfortunate for the government that the question of sentencing in rape cases should have been the focus of attention; but if the idea is to reduce the prison population, than the particular offence for which the reduction is proposed is neither here nor there.

Mr Justice Wills

Today, the 19^th May, just happens to be the day in 1897, 114 years ago, that Oscar Wilde was released from Reading Gaol. Wilde and his co-defendant appeared for trial on a charge of Gross Indecency, in front of Mr. Justice Alfred Wills. He had pleaded not guilty, but was found guilty by the jury on the 25^th May 1895. He was sentenced to two years hard labour, the maximum sentence allowed at the time. Mr Justice Wills said the he thought the sentence was “totally inadequate for a case such as this” and that it was “the worst case I have ever tried”. Wilde apparently tried to speak but was drowned out with cries of shame from the courtroom. I am not sure if the cries were directed at the defendant or the judge, but I think it’s safe to assume that at that time the shouts were directed at Wilde. In the light of what we now know and feel about such offences, the sentence was savage in the extreme and the Judge totally out of touch with humanity. The sentence completely destroyed Wilde’s health and he died in France only three years later at the age of 46.

Lord Alfred Douglas

Out of his sentence came De Profundis (1897), written whilst still in gaol as a letter addressed to Lord Alfred Douglas, under extreme circumstances, and The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898).

I am not suggesting that every prisoner is a budding writer in the making, nor am I suggesting that every prisoner suffers from the same conditions that existed in the 1890’s; but, being in prison, or under any form of custody, is not a pleasant adventure. Physically and mentally it is top of the list of stressful and debilitating experiences. Any reduction, whether for purely economic reasons or not, is in my view welcome. Criminal justice should not be about revenge and pure punishment alone, there should also be a degree of enlightenment and civility.

From De Profundis:

When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and forget who I was. It was ruinous advice. It is only by realising what I am that I have found comfort of any kind. Now I am advised by others to try on my release to forget that I have ever been in a prison at all. I know that would be equally fatal. It would mean that I would always be haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace, and that those things that are meant for me as much as for anybody else – the beauty of the sun and moon, the pageant of the seasons, the music of daybreak and the silence of great nights, the rain falling through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass and making it silver – would all be tainted for me, and lose their healing power, and their power of communicating joy. To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.

SEPARATE BUT EQUAL? A REVIEW

The 18^th May 1896 and 17^th May 1954, fifty-eight years later, are landmarks in the ‘civilising’ of the United States. Both days concern the decisions of the United States Supreme Court. The later being the overturning of a decision that the only dissenting judge in 1896 said would “become as infamous as that of Dred Scott –v Sandford (1857)”

Why bother going over it? At a time when the whole concept of the rule of law is being severely tested, I think the attitudes of those Justices (who are the final arbiters on the laws of their country) are, what Martin Heidegger would call, fragwürdig (worthy of being questioned).

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), was a ruling by the United States Supreme Court that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves (or their descendants, whether or not they were slaves) were not protected by the Constitution and could never be U.S. citizens. The court also held that the United States Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories and that, because slaves were not citizens, they could not sue in court. Furthermore, the Court ruled that slaves, as chattels or private property, could not be taken away from their owners without due process. The Court actually ruled that the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States prohibited the federal government from freeing slaves brought into federal territories.

The Fifth Amendment reads:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

It’s that final clause that reveals the attitudes of those 19^th century gentlemen Justices of the Supreme Court. “...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”  "They're slaves, not citizens but chattels, they have no standing before this court, so what's the problem? Go away"

Roger Taney

The Supreme Court ruling was handed down on March 6, 1857. Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney delivered the opinion of the Court, with each of the concurring and dissenting Justices filing separate opinions. In total, six Justices agreed with the ruling; Samuel Nelson concurred with the ruling but not its reasoning, and Benjamin R. Curtis and John McLean dissented. The court misspelled Sanford's name in the decision.

And so we move on the the wonders of the 18th May 1896, only 39 years later and 31 years after a brutal civil war was fought in order to preserve a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. On that day the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the matter of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) holding that the separate but equal provisions of private services mandated by state government is constitutional under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. In other words they upheld the validity of state laws requiring racial segregation in private business (particularly railroads) under the doctrine of "separate but equal".

The 14th Amendment reads:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

This is precisely the part of the Constitution that Plessy was arguing supported the claim that segregation was unconstitutional and therefore against the law; yet, in a 7 to 1 decision handed down on 18th May, 1896  the Court rejected Plessy's arguments based on the Fourteenth Amendment, seeing no way in which the Louisiana statute violated it. In addition, the majority of the Court rejected the view that the Louisiana law implied any inferiority of blacks, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, it contended that the law separated the two races as a matter of public policy. Justice Henry Billings Brown the author of the opinion for the Court that upheld the legality of racial segregation in public transportation and the doctrine of separate but equal.

Henry Billings Brown

When summarizing, Justice Brown declared, "We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the coloured race chooses to put that construction upon it."

John Harlan

How can any thinking being come to the conclusion that enforced separation is perfectly OK after reading the 14th Amendment? How can one interpret "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" as statement supporting the concept of segregation? Seven Justices of the Supreme Court did. It was only the lone voice of Justice John Marshall Harlan, a former slave owner who decried the excesses of the Ku Klux Klan, wrote a scathing dissent in which he predicted the court's decision would become as infamous as that of Dred Scott v. Sandford.

Earl Warren

This decision stood for 58 years until the matter of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision finally overturned Plessy v, Fergusson Handed down on the 17^th May, 1954, the Court’s unanimous (9–0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Amendment of the United States Constitution. This ruling paved the way for integration and the civil rights movement. The presiding Justice was Earl Warren who was the 14^th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He is best known for the sweeping decisions of the Warren Court, which ended school segregation and transformed many areas of American law, especially regarding the rights of the accused, ending school prayer, and requiring "one-man-one vote" rules of apportionment. He made the Court a power center on a more even base with Congress and the presidency. Warren’s Court stated, inter alia:

"Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does... Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system... We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment."

Finally a decision that used common sense as opposed to prejudice. Warren, who served three terms as Governor of California, was nominated to the Supreme Court by a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man who said 'we go' on the 6th June 1944. California now has Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

It would not be inappropriate, in my view, to return to Warren's common sense approach, and a greater respect for individual human dignity than is being shown at present. Even dare I say, a more christian approach, of not being so quick on the draw towards even the most heinous evil doer. In any event, this video worth a look.

PIONEERS - THE STUFF OF DREAMS

In my looking into the 16th May I came across a number of people and incidents which I had always supposed to be the stuff of dreams. Stories depicted in the films that I grew up with and which continue to be part of the American Myth as depicted by Hollywood. 
On the 16th May 1842 Dr. Elijah White led the first wagon train over the Oregon Trail to Oregon that had more than 100 people. Trapper and later politician Osborne Russell served as guide to this migration. The party set out on from Elm Grove, Missouri, with 112 people, 18 wagons, and a variety of livestock. Along the journey, some in the migration grew wary of White’s leadership and L. B. Hastings was selected as leader for a time until the party split into two groups. François X. Matthieu along with several other Canadians joined the party along the way to Oregon. White arrived at Fort Vancouver ahead of the main party, arriving on September 20, 1842.

Elijah White

White was born in New York, in 1806. There he received his education, including medical training at a school of medicine in Syracuse New York. In May 1837 he and his family went to Oregon. After arriving the family took up residence at the Methodist Mission along the Willamette River at Mission Bottom. His infant son Jason drowned in 1838 after a canoe his wife and David Leslie (another missionary and pioneer, later Oregon Politician) were traveling in flipped over on the Columbia River. His other son also drowned that year while trying to ford the Willamette River. Elijah White and a Mr. Jason Lee would develop animosity towards each other and differences in opinion on the direction of the mission leading to White leaving in 1841 to return to the East. In 1842 he established the wagon train. For those of you who have seen How the West was Won (1962) and The Way West (1967), you will appreciate just where the plots for those films originated.

Osborne Russell (we think)

Osborne Russell (1814–1892) was a mountain man and politician who helped form the government of the State of Oregon. He was born in Maine. He kept a journal of his travels which was later published in 1921. As you will see from the account below, Russell did not actually join White's wagon train until it was half way across the Oregon Trail at Fort Hall, some 1000 miles from Missouri.

" March 25th — I started, in company with Alfred Shutes, my old comrade from Vermont, to go to the Salt Lake and pass the spring hunting water fowl, eggs and beaver. We left the fort and traveled in a southerly direction to the mountain, about thirty miles. The next day we traveled south about fifteen miles through a low defile and the day following we crossed the divide and fell on to a stream called "Malade" or Sick River, which empties into Bear River about ten miles from the mouth. This stream takes its name from the beaver which inhabit it, living on poison roots. Those who eat their meat become sick at the stomach in a few hours and the whole system is filled with cramps and severe pains, but I have never known or heard of a person dying with the disease. We arrived at the mouth of Bear River on the 2nd of April. Here we found the ground dry, the grass green and myriads of swans, geese, brants and ducks, which kept up a continual hum day and night, assisted by the uncouth notes of the sand hill cranes. The geese, ducks and swans are very fat at this season of the year. We caught some few beaver and feasted on fowls and eggs until the 20th of May and returned to the fort, where we stopped until the 20th of June, when a small party arrived from the mouth of the Columbia River on their way to the United States, and my comrade made up his mind once more to visit his native Green Mountains, after an absence of sixteen years, while I determined on going to the mouth of the Columbia and settle myself in the Willamette or Multnomah valley. I   accompanied my comrade up Ross Fork about twenty-five miles on his journey and the next morning, after taking an affectionate leave of each other, I started to the mountains for the purpose of killing elk and drying meat for my journey to the Willamette valley. I ascended to the top of Ross mountain (on which the snows remain till the latter part of August), sat down under a pine and took a last farewell view of a country over which I had traveled so often under such a variety of circumstances. The recollections of the past, connected with the scenery now spread out before me, put me somewhat in a poetical humor, and for the first time I attempted to frame my thoughts into rhyme, but if poets will forgive me for this intrusion I shall be cautious about trespassing on their grounds in future.

In the evening I killed an elk and on the following day cured the meat for packing. From thence I returned to the fort (Fort Hall), where I staid till the 22d of August.

In the meantime there arrived at the fort a party of emigrants from the States, on their way to the Oregon country, among whom was Dr. E. White, United States sub-agent for the Oregon Indians. 23d — I started with them and arrived at the falls of the Willamette river on the 26th day of September 1842.

It would be natural for me to suppose that after escaping all the dangers attendant upon nearly nine years' residence in a wild, inhospitable region like the Rocky Mountains, where I was daily, and a great part of the time, hourly, anticipating danger from hostile savages and other sources, I should, on arriving in a civilized and an enlightened community, live in comparative security, free from the harassing intrigues of Dame Fortune's eldest daughter, but I found it was all a delusion, for danger is not always the greatest when most apparent, as will appear in the sequel.

On arriving at the Falls of the Willamette, I found a number of Methodist missionaries and American farmers had formed themselves into a company for the purpose of erecting mills and a sawmill was then building on an island standing on the brink of the falls, which went into operation about two months after I arrived. -In the meantime. Dr. John McLoughlin, a chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company, who contemplated leaving the service of the company and permanently settling with his family and fortune in the Willamette valley, laid off a town (the present Oregon City) on the east side of the falls and began erecting a sawmill on a site he had prepared some years previous by cutting a race through the rock to let the water on to his works when they should be constructed.

The following spring the American company commenced building a flour mill and I was employed to assist in its construction. On the 6th day of June I was engaged with the contractor in blasting some points of rock in order to sink the water sill to its proper place, when a blast exploded accidentally by the concussion of small particles of rock near the powder, a piece of rock weighing about sixty pounds struck me on the right side of the face and knocked me, senseless, six feet backward.I recovered my senses in a few minutes and was assisted to walk to my lodgings. Nine particles of rock of the size of wild goose shot each had penetrated my right eye and destroyed it forever. The Contractor escaped with the loss of two fingers of his left hand. "

Jedidiah Smith

This is clearly the stuff from which many a script was derived. Jeremiah Johnson  (1972) which actually owes more to the life of Jedediah Strong Smith, is just one of many mountain men movies. Jedediah Smith was often recognized by significant facial scarring due to a grizzly bear attack along the Cheyenne River. In 1824, while looking for the Crow tribe to obtain fresh horses and get westward directions, Jedediah was stalked and attacked by a large grizzly bear. The huge bear jumped and tackled Jedediah to the ground. Jedediah's ribs were broken and members of his party witnessed Smith fighting the bear, which ripped open his side with its claws and took his head in its mouth. The bear suddenly retreated and the men ran to help Smith. They found his scalp and ear nearly ripped off, but he convinced a friend, Jim Clyman, to sew it loosely back on, giving him directions. The trappers fetched water, bound up his broken ribs, and cleaned his wounds. After recuperating from his bloody wounds and broken ribs, Jedediah wore his hair long to cover the large scar from his eyebrow to his ear. He featured large in Steven Spielberg’s TV Mini Series Into the West (2005).

Extraordinary stories, about extraordinary people and the stuff of dreams. Herewith a 1940 version, with young Tim Holt in his first western for RKO. Wagon Train .