JF Ptak Science Books   Post 2519

This Outsider-y political pamphlet attracted my attention for the swastika and the date (1924) more so than anything else, including an absolutely luxurious use of quotation marks, capitalizations, and bolds that the text would reveal. Ernst Goener’s work looked like trouble in that mysterious way that some writers will use an now-unknown word or phrase upon which everything is balanced–in this case, “the Prize”. That, and who “our People” might have been¹. 

The swastika is of course an ancient symbol mostly happy in its antiquity–its existence as a symbol didn’t really become polluted and disgraced until the 20th century when it seemed to have made an impact on nationalist groups in Germany following some relatively popular (and innocnet?) exposure by  archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann. And of course the existence of the symbol in modern usage is basically terminated by the NSDAP/Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler.  

With this pamphlet I was thinking that use of the swastika may have been an innocent/antiquarian thing, except that I stumbled over  the “Jew” in bold a number of time in the pamphlet’s short little life (as in “the all-powerful Jew of Versailles” and so on–you get the picture). Goerner as it turns out was a vivid pro-German figure here in the U.S. during WWI, and was a Nazi sympathizer from the earliest days of that political movement at least through 1941, where I lose track of him. To finalize the connection I read that Hitler had designed the Nazi standard as far back as 1920², and that the use of the swastika in the Nazi flag began soon afterwards, well before 1924–so there was plenty of room for this pamphlet to employ the use of the Nazi swastika for its symbolic commentary on the cover.  

In the end Goerner winds up being a German propagandist through WWI, and was an American  supporter of the Nazis from the very earliest state of the party all the way into WWII.  He was indeed using the Nazi swastika as his calling card, in the U.S., in 1924.  Goerner was not an “Outsider” at all–he was a greased-rocket German/Nazi sympathizer and pamphleteer, with a lust for the NSDAP and a hate for Jewish people. 

JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

“Four score and keeping score”¹

A few years ago I had a fantasy conversation occur between Babe Ruth and Ho Chi Minh–they were several times in the same city at the same time (or so it seems), though I am not sure they shared a common language. I’m also not sure that Ruth and Ho would have much in common to talk about, but if they were cheek-and-jowl at a diner perhaps there would be an exchange–=in any event my creative powers failed me, mainly because outside of the idea of the two meeting and speaking, I’m pretty sure that there is no “there” there. 

I would like to think that Abraham Lincoln could enjoy watching a good game of baseball while he was president, having a little opportunity to get away from the war and politics–but that seems pretty doubtful; It seems that as a kid he played some form of baseball (“townball”) which feels far more likely to be a real story–beyond that his connection to the game looks pretty weak.

There is however this small campaign broadsheet which in 1860, received by the Library of Congress a month before the election, that a political cartoon was published by Currier and Ives with a strong baseball analogy.  I don’t know if Lincoln was ever recorded using the term “home run” but the artist happily put it in a word cloud for him in the detail above, taken from the image below:

[Source: the Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003674584/]

The longish and good summary of the image is from the LC:

• Summary: A pro-Lincoln satire, deposited for copyright weeks before the 1860 presidential election. The contest is portrayed as a baseball game in which Lincoln has defeated (left to right) John Bell, Stephen A. Douglas, and John C. Breckinridge. Lincoln (right) stands with his foot on “Home Base,” advising the others, “Gentlemen, if any of you should ever take a hand in another match at this game, remember that you must have a good bat’ and strike a fair ball’ to make a clean score’ & a home run.’” His “good bat” is actually a wooden rail labeled “Equal Rights and Free Territory.” Lincoln wears a belt inscribed “Wide Awake Club.” (See no. 1860-14 on the Wide-Awakes.) A skunk stands near the other candidates, signifying that they have been “skunk’d.” Breckinridge (center), a Southern Democrat, holds his nose, saying, “I guess I’d better leave for Kentucky, for I smell something strong around here, and begin to think, that we are completely skunk’d.’” His bat is labeled “Slavery Extension” and his belt “Disunion Club.” At far left John Bell of the Constitutional Union party observes, “It appears to me very singular that we three should strike foul’ and be put out’ while old Abe made such a good lick.’ Bell’s belt says “Union Club,” and his bat “Fusion.” Regular Democratic nominee Douglas replies, “That’s because he had that confounded rail, to strike with, I thought our fusion would be a short stop’ to his career.” He grasps a bat labeled “Non Intervention.”

Notes:

1. “Lincoln was game for baseball”, February 11, 2003, by Richard Rothschild, the Chicago Tribune. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-02-11/sports/0302110160_1_16th-president-historian-jules-tygiel-abner-doubleday