Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader (74 page)

The laws also fueled the already widespread problem of prejudice against immigrants. And that was especially true in Montana.

MONTANA

When the federal government amended the Espionage Act in 1918, it did so by copying, almost word for word, the Sedition Act that the Montana legislature had passed earlier that year. Some historians say the law was largely a result of efforts by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, the largest industrial employer in the state, to quash growing activity by labor organizers.

At 75 mph, it would take a car 258 days to drive around one of Saturn’s rings.

More than half of the 78 people convicted there were immigrants, most of them poor blue-collar workers: miners, farmers, butchers, and bartenders. All but three of them had simply said something in public and were turned in to police. A few of them had said things that most people would consider inflammatory, such as the woman who said that “she wished the people would revolt and that she would shoulder a gun and get the president the first one.” (She served two years in prison.)

But most of the so-called seditious statements were benign criticisms. A liquor salesman in a bar was reported to have said that wartime food regulations were a “joke.” He got a 7-to-20-year prison sentence for that. A furniture salesman standing in a lobby of a motel said, “This is a rich man’s war and we have no business in it.” He, too, was sentenced to 7 to 20 years. One man served 10 months because somebody claimed he had said something critical …even though they couldn’t remember exactly what it was.

More than 1,500 people nationwide were arrested before the Sedition Act was repealed in 1921 (the Espionage Act remains in place). No new laws regarding sedition have been enacted since.

THE PARDONS

In October 2005, University of Montana, Missoula, journalism professor Clem Work published the book
Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West
. The book sparked law professor Jeff Renz to ask seven of his students to see if they could find legal grounds for posthumous pardons of the “seditionists.” They contacted living relatives of the convicted, and in March 2006 wrote to Governor Brian Schweitzer to urge him to formally pardon them. Schweitzer, a descendant of German immigrants himself, was happy to do it.

On May 3, 2006, Work, Renz and his students, and 40 family members of the long-dead “criminals” gathered for a ceremony in the capitol rotunda in Helena, where they watched Schweitzer sign the proclamation of pardon. Drew Briner, the grandson of Herman Bausch, a German immigrant who served 28 months in prison, read from his grandfather’s memoirs, written long after his imprisonment: “No, I do not regret what I have done or rather what I refused to do,” Briner read. “I have lost much, but I am more than ever in possession of my soul, my self-respect, and the love and affection of my beautiful wife. I end with a prayer for the early establishment of world peace, for a greater humanity, a greater love among men.”

King George III once referred to Benjamin Franklin as an “evil genius.”

“Neighbor informing on neighbor—this isn’t the American way, it isn’t the Montana way, it isn’t the cowboy way,” Governor Schweitzer concluded. “We weren’t the only state to have this kind of hysteria, but we will be the first state to say, ‘We had it wrong.’” His pardons were the first in Montana’s history.

*        *        *

HOW TO PLAY WITH “TOUNGE OF FROG”

The misspelled, mistranslated English instructions for a toy made in Taiwan.

• Frog. If it is thrown with full of your strenght, it will spit out the tounge, which is like the genuine one from the frog.

• A product has the stickness and is just like a soft rubber band with high contractility. It can be played to stick the remote objects.

• Inspite of it is sticky, it is never like the chewing guns which is glued tightly and cannot be separated.

• If the stickness is not good enough, it can be washed by soap. After it is dried, it can be used continously many times.

• The packing paper has printed the bug picture, which can be cut as per the black frame and placed on the table; then you can stick the picture with your tounge of frog.

Cautions:

• Never throw out the other person’s head.

• Inspite of it is non-toxic, it cannot be eaten.

• Never pull out tounge of frog hard, as it might be separated.

• Never put on surface of any object, shall keep in polybag.

• Its content has the oil, so if it touches on cloth, precious object or wall, the stains will remain if you don’t care about it.

8 flavors of NECCO wafers: lemon, orange, lime, clove, cinnamon, wintergreen, licorice, chocolate.

CAN YOU PASS THE U.S. CITIZENSHIP TEST?

Bad news! You were supposed to use a #2 pencil on your citizenship test on
page 334
, and you used a ballpoint pen. Let’s try it again. This time there are 17 “hard” questions. (The answers are on
page 517
.)

1.
What is the most important right granted to United States citizens?

2.
Who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence?

3.
How many amendments are there to the U.S. Constitution?

4.
If both the president and the vice president die, who becomes president?

5.
Name the original 13 colonies.

6.
What three qualifications does the U.S. Constitution require of candidates for president?

7.
In what year was the U.S. Constitution written?

8.
Name your U.S. representative and your two senators.

9.
Name the four amendments that guarantee or address voting rights.

10.
What officials and departments make up the executive branch of the federal government?

11.
What is the introduction to the U.S. Constitution called?

12.
Whose rights are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights?

13.
Who was president during the Civil War?

14.
Name the major river running north to south that divides the United States.

15.
What type of democratic government does the U.S. have?

16.
What is the basic belief of the Declaration of Independence?

17.
Where is the White House located? (Include the street address.)

Thanks, Mom: Clark Gable was listed on his birth certificate as a girl.

RARE CONDITIONS

If you’re like Uncle John, when you get an ailment—say, a cold—you ask yourself, “Why is it called a ‘cold?’” If you get one of these odd diseases, you probably won’t have to ask how it got its name.

• MAPLE SYRUP URINE DISEASE.
An inherited metabolic disease that makes the urine and sweat smell like maple syrup.

• KABUKI MAKEUP SYNDROME.
This birth defect causes facial features to distort, resembling the overpronounced and elongated made-up faces of Japanese Kabuki actors.

• PRUNE-BELLY SYNDROME.
An absence of abdominal muscles gives the stomach a wrinkled, puckered look and a severe pot belly that stretches out grotesquely.

• JUMPING FRENCHMAN.
An acquired condition first discovered in the 19th century among Canadian lumberjacks. Patients have extreme reactions to sudden noises or surprises: they flail their arms, jump in the air, cry, scream, and hit people.

• HAIRY TONGUE.
Due to tobacco use or poor oral hygiene, the tiny hairs on the tongue grow to be several inches long and the tongue itself turns black.

• FOREIGN ACCENT SYNDROME.
After a severe brain injury or stroke, a person begins speaking their native language with a foreign accent. English-speaking Americans might suddenly sound Russian, for example.

• WANDERING SPLEEN.
The muscles that hold the spleen in position are missing or undeveloped, causing the spleen to “wander” around the lower abdomen and pelvic region.

• ALICE-IN-WONDERLAND SYNDROME.
Vision is distorted, making objects appear much smaller than they actually are. For example, a house may appear to be the size of a shoebox or a cat may look no bigger than a mouse.

North Dakota is the only state in the U.S. never to have had an earthquake.

BINGHAM’S LIST

You’ve probably heard of Oskar Schindler, but how about Hiram Bingham? Here’s the recently uncovered story of a U.S. State Department employee who secretly helped thousands of Jews escape Europe during World War II.

C
HARMED LIFE
Hiram Bingham IV was born into a prominent New England family. His ancestors settled in Connecticut in 1650, his great-grandfather was a missionary in the South Pacific, and his father was a globe-trekking archaeologist and senator. Hiram attended the best schools, and the world was wide open to him when he graduated from Yale University in 1925. Like his relatives, he immediately went overseas—he worked in Japan and traveled through India—then, at his father’s behest, returned home to attend law school.

But young Bingham had other ideas: He yearned to be far, far away again. So after less than a year of law school, he dropped out and took the Foreign Service exam, then landed a job with the State Department. After some paper-pushing assignments in China, Poland, and England, in 1939 Bingham was given a post as vice consul at the U.S. consulate in Marseille, France.

ESCAPE CLAUSES

Within a year, World War II was underway in Europe. Germany invaded France in June 1940; France surrendered and agreed to a Nazi-controlled puppet government in the southern part of the country, called the Vichy regime. Meanwhile, thousands of Jewish refugees from Austria, Germany, and Poland were passing through southern France, trying to get out of Europe as quickly as possible to escape the Nazis. Their favored destination: the United States, which hadn’t yet entered the war.

But the American government didn’t want the refugees. It didn’t want to antagonize Germany, or get involved in the escalating European conflict. Plus, thousands of political refugees would put added strain on the country’s financial resources, and there was always the possibility that they could be spies. Congress imposed immigration limits, decreasing the number of visas allowed to central Europeans from 27,000 in 1939 to 5,000 in 1940—not nearly enough to go around. To further hinder the visa process in southern France, the consulate was moved from downtown Marseille to the less-accessible suburb of Montredon.

What’s in a name? The sloth spends about 80% of its life sleeping.

BOLD MANEUVERS

Bingham didn’t care about the restrictions; he knew they weren’t fair. Every day outside his office window, he saw thousands of Jewish people waiting in a line that stretched for miles. By leaving them in Europe, he knew, the United States was ultimately sending them to their deaths. Bingham decided to use his position as vice consul and subvert the system: At work, he granted as many visas as he legally could. Outside of work, he came up with some creative ways to get the refugees out of the country.

• German novelist Lion Feuchtwanger was jailed for writing anti-Nazi articles. He fled to France, where he was caught and sent to a prison camp. Bingham met Feuchtwanger in a remote section of the camp, snuck him out, and dressed him in a woman’s coat, dark glasses, and head shawl. He told police at checkpoints that the novelist was his elderly mother-in-law. Feuchtwanger made it to the United States.

• Until he could get them to the United States, Bingham hid refugees in his villa, including the family of German writer Thomas Mann and artist Alma Mahler.

• He forged papers allowing refugees to cross from France into Spain, and then to Portugal. Just in case, he’d stuff their pockets with cigarettes to bribe German guards.

• Bingham would lie to prison camp guards, demanding the release of certain Jewish prisoners by producing fake documentation that proved the prisoner was American and could not be held. He got the French painter Marc Chagall out this way. Other artists Bingham helped escape: Max Ernst, Jacques Lipchitz, and Marcel Duchamp.

• Bingham personally funded many escapes. His consulate salary didn’t even cover his rent, but he had a large family inheritance to work with: his mother was the heiress to the Tiffany jewelry fortune. That money paid for bribes, travel expenses, and forged visas.

TV’s Mr. Rogers made Crayola’s 100 billionth crayon in 1996. What color? “Blue ribbon.”

THE JIG IS UP

German prison officials eventually complained to the Vichy government about Bingham’s “subversive activity.” They in turn complained to the U.S. government. In September 1940, Secretary of State Cordell Hull warned Bingham, in a letter to the French consulate, not to smuggle out refugees, because “they are carrying on acts evading the laws of countries with which the United States maintains friendly relations.”

Bingham ignored the letter and kept on forging documents, hiding refugees, and granting visas. In April 1941, the U.S. State Department had finally had enough. They transferred him to Buenos Aires, Argentina, far from the war. Bingham’s superiors thought this would get him out of their hair. It didn’t. After the war’s end in 1945, he started reporting on Nazi activities in Argentina, including evidence of the transfer of Nazi assets to South American banks and sightings of fugitive war criminals. But Bingham’s reports were ignored. Frustrated, he quit his job in 1946 and returned to his family’s Connecticut estate.