How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm?

“The present assault upon capital is but the beginning. It will be but a stepping-stone to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests will become a war of the poor against the rich.”

—Stephen J. Field, American judge, born November 4, 1816


Reuben, Reuben, I’ve Been Thinkin’

CoverHa. That’ll be the day. Stephen J. Field, appointed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, was one of the late nineteenth-early twentieth century US Supreme Court justices who were endlessly helpful to the Robber Baron capitalists during the first Gilded Age (the one before the one we’re enjoying so much now). Income Tax? We don’t need no stinkin’ Income Tax? Unions? See the quote. He also assented to Plessy vs Ferguson, the infamous 1896 case that upheld (legal) racial segregation. Field was the second-longest serving Supreme Court justice, only surpassed by William O. Douglas. He was repeatedly asked to resign by his colleagues, as he was intermittently senile in his later years, but he refused, insisting on breaking John Marshall’s record of thirty-three years on the court.

President James K. Polk annexed Texas and led the US to victory in the iniquitous Mexican War. He gets the Last Word today. Polk was the “54–40 or fight” guy, too, dear to generations of American schoolchildren. He has been called the “least known consequential president” of the United States. Tremble indeed.

 

Recorded Sound

 For today I’ll just note that prompted by a question about one of George M. Cohan’s songs, “Forty-five Minutes from Broadway,” used in the “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” the great biopic of Cohan with James Cagney, I looked up the 1919 hit song “How Ya Gonna Keep Them Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree?)” Most people in my generation know the song from the Brian Sisters’ performance in Our Gang Follies of 1936.

I also found recordings of the song on YouTube. Norma Bayes recorded it in 1919. In the repeat, instead of “How you gonna keep them away from Broadway,” she sings “How you gonna keep them away from records/Jazzin’ around, out on the town?” Recorded music is tied to the enticements of modernity, the real subject of the song. The secular trend was the movement of people away from the land as agricultural productivity soared in the twentieth century and new opportunities opened. America doughboys who had seen Paree—and Broadway—were not going to stay “down on the farm” for long.

Soccer Moms!

I had forgotten the minivan saved Chrysler’s bacon in the 1980s, and made the execrable egregious Lee J. Iacocca a “star.”


Today and Tomorrow in #westernma

MONDAY November 4  
8:00-9:00AM Westfield Westfield Chamber Mayor’s Coffee Hour
5:30-8:30PM Great Barrington Green and Sustainable Business Practices
TUESDAY November 5  
6:00-9:00PM Springfield Business Planning and Cash Flow
6:00PM Northampton Northampton Webdive
6:00-9:00PM Northampton Tools for Planning, Building, and Sustaining Your Business
8:00PM Amherst UMass Amherst Entrepreneurship Initiative Social

Reading

“The Rodney Dangerfield of the Automotive World”
minivans“…The minivan’s bigger-is-better, having-it-all ethos reflected the swelling prosperity enjoyed by many Americans. It is no coincidence that the minivan debuted just as the stock markets were embarking on a historic bull market, when inflation was tamed, interest rates reduced and unemployment began dropping to record lows. It was an era symbolized by McMansions and supersize meals and the growth of independent after-school sports leagues that turned parents into chauffeurs.

“But the ultimate domestic vehicle was soon cast as a symbol of shackled domesticity, with the ‘minivan stigma’ attached to soccer moms who, it was said, so closely identified with the vehicles that they surrendered their identity, their autonomy, to the demands of family and suburban life….”
Hail to the Minivan, Dowdy but Not Out


The Last Word

“Well may the boldest fear and the wisest tremble when incurring responsibilities on which may depend our country’s peace and prosperity, and in some degree the hopes and happiness of the whole human family.”
—James K. Polk, American president, born November 2, 1795

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