On This Date: Timothy Leary’s gubernatorial campaign song hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart

Former Harvard professor Timothy Leary became a worldwide celebrity in the 1960s, as the guru of LSD and other psychedelic drugs and coiner of the Hippie slogan: “Turn on, tune in, drop out.”

In 1969, Leary apparently figured that if actor Ronald Reagan could be elected Governor of California (which happened in 1966) then any celebrity could run for Governor. Besides, Leary loved publicity.

So, he threw his mushroom cap into the ring as a gubernatorial candidate, planning to run against Reagan in the 1970 election.

Leary came up with the tongue-in-cheek campaign slogan, “Come together, join the party,” and wanted a campaign song to go with it.

So, in June of 1969, while visiting John Lennon and Yoko Ono at their legendary Montreal “Bed-In,”  Leary asked Lennon to write one for him.

Lennon agreed. And, during the Montreal “Bed-In” days, in addition to writing and recording “Give Peace a Chance,” Lennon wrote an initial version of the song “Come Together.”

The melody was basically like the Beatles song we know today, but the original chorus was different. It went: “Come together, right now. Don’t come tomorrow. Don’t come alone.”

Lennon made a demo tape of the campaign song for Leary. Leary gave copies to local underground radio stations in California, and the song got some airplay.

But then, Leary’s campaign got derailed due to mounting legal troubles from a past marijuana bust, and he dropped out of the Governor’s race. (Lucky for Ronnie.)

So, Lennon took the song to his bandmates, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, when the Beatles were recording songs for the upcoming Abbey Road album. Together, they reworked it a bit and changed the lyrics to those we know today:

“Here come old flattop, he come groovin’ up slowly
He got ju-ju eyeballs, he one holy roller
He got hair down to his knees
Got to be a joker, he just do what he please
He wear no shoeshine, he got toe-jam football
He got monkey finger, he shoot Coca-Cola
He say, I know you, you know me
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
Come together, right now, over me.”

The first line of the song (Lennon’s homage to a similar line from Chuck Berry’s 1956 rock hit, “You Can’t Catch Me”) and the chorus — “Come together, right now, over me” — became famous pop culture quotations.

The Beatles released the song “Come Together” in early October of 1970. It reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart on November 29, 1969 — which is how, by a trippy route, those lines are the subject of today’s post on ThisDayinQuotes.com.

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“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

We’ve heard a lot about angry voters this past year. Some media pundits make it sound like it’s a new phenomenon.

But, of course, it’s not.

In recent stories about angry voters — and in comments posted on websites by those angry voters — a common quote used is: “I'm mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

When a source is given for that quote, it’s usually cited as a line by actor Peter Finch from the movie Network, which premiered in New York City on November 27, 1976.

Finch does say something very close to that in the movie. But the commonly heard “I’m mad as hell” version is not his actual quote.

Network was written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet. In addition to Peter Finch, the superb cast includes Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Robert Duvall, and Ned Beatty.

What Finch actually says in Network, as Howard Beale, “the mad prophet of the airwaves” is:

“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

He says the line a number of times in the movie, using “I’m as mad as” and “take this” — not “I’m mad as” and “take it.”

You can watch the scene in which Finch first unleashes his frequently misquoted line on YouTube and read an excellent in-depth summary of Network on the AMC website.

If you didn’t know Network is a 1976 movie, you might think Finch’s famed, glorious rant in it is a commentary on today’s current events.

He starts out by saying:

“I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter.”

After warming up a bit more, Finch delivers his call to action:

“So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out, and yell, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’”

Now that you know what Finch REALLY said in the movie Network, I’ll be mad as hell if you misquote his famous line.

And, if you ever think I’ve misquoted something on this blog, please shoot me an email or contact me via Twitter and let me know.

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“For every creature of God is good.”

This year, Thanksgiving Day falls on Thursday, November 26th – which happens to be its anniversary.

Two-hundred and twenty years ago, President George Washington declared Thursday, November 26, 1789 to be our country’s first official national Thanksgiving Day holiday.

I am dedicating my Thanksgiving Day post on this blog to one of our family dogs, who died recently and unexpectedly at the age of six, from a genetic autoimmune problem that could not be fixed.

Her name was Boojie.

She was a beautiful, sweet-natured Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier.

My wife and I loved her dearly, and her passing left a hole in our hearts that is still sore.

I am not a religious person. But I do believe that we all can have feelings that might be called “spiritual” or “religious.”

I had a bond with our dog Boojie that gave me such feelings.

The word “thanksgiving” was popularized in English by the Bible, in which it is used many times.

For today’s post, I offer one of those quotations in remembrance of Boojie:

“For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving.”

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The “pearl of great price”: an allegory for people who don’t want to win the lottery

Every once in a while, there’s a news story about somebody who won millions in a lottery and ended up being miserable as a result.

I remember one from a few years ago that sounded like a Shakespearean tragedy.

It was about a Pennsylvania man, William “Bud” Post, who won $16 million in the state lottery. After he won, people came out of the woodwork to try to con him and take advantage of him. His brother hired a hit man to try to kill him, so he could inherit the money.

Over time, Bud’s money was drained away by bad investments. He got in trouble with the law for firing a shotgun at a debt collector and eventually went bankrupt. He died at age 66, after telling a reporter “I was much happier when I was broke.”

Somehow, such stories still don’t make me NOT want to win the lottery.

Back in high school, I had a similar reaction to reading John Steinbeck’s famous cautionary novel about sudden wealth, The Pearl.

The title of this tragic novel, first published on November 24, 1947, is thought to be inspired by a famous Bible quotation, Matthew 13:45-46. It’s from one the parables of Jesus, in which he says:

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:
Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”

In Steinbeck’s novel, The Pearl, the son of a poor, but relatively happy Mexican pearl diver is stung by a scorpion. The pearl diver and his wife are too poor to pay a doctor for medical care and fear their son may die. But then the man finds a large, valuable pearl that makes him “wealthy.”

This saves his son’s life – in the short term. But it also makes him a target of con men and thieves. He gets in trouble with the law for killing one of them. Then, he takes his wife and son on the run to escape retribution. But in the end they are caught and the son is shot and killed. The pearl that originally had such great value ends up having a great price.

In a previous post here, I noted that, as a snotty high school kid, I wasn’t really moved by Thornton Wilder’s novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey. But today, as a 59-year-old married man, father and grandfather, I am.

I can say the same thing about Steinbeck’s novel The Pearl. I definitely appreciate it more now.

But I’d still kinda like to win the lottery.

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Beatles Quiz: “You say you want a revolution?” Should you count John Lennon (a) out, (b) in, or (c) both?

If you answered (a) to the question in the header of this post, you would have been right – but only for the period between August 11, 1968 and November 22, 1968.

The famous Beatles song “Revolution” was written by John Lennon, after he watched the news about the student riots in Paris in May of 1968.

The well-known lyrics Lennon wrote for the song as it was originally released said:

“You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world…
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out.”

The first version of “Revolution,” with the “count me out” lyrics, was released on August 11, 1968. It was the B-side of the single record with “Hey Jude” on the A-side.

On November 22, 1968, the Beatles released their famed double album with the white cover, usually called The White Album. (The actual original title was The Beatles.)

On the album, “Revolution” was retitled “Revolution 1,” reflecting the fact that it used a slower musical take of the song that was actually recorded first, before the single version. In the final audio edit of “Revolution 1,” Lennon added the word “in” after “out,” so we hear:

“But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out — in!”

Why the change? Because after the single version of the song was released in August, Lennon received heavy flak from many radical leftist leaders and groups, who felt “Revolution” dissed their efforts to change the world – by violent revolution, if necessary.

Lennon agreed with many key positions of the leftists, such as their opposition to the Vietnam War and racism. So, after being criticized by them, he felt conflicted.

As noted in an excellent article about Lennon’s music by Jon Wiener, in the December 18, 2000 edition of The Nation, Lennon explained the “out — in” version this way: “I put both in because I wasn't sure.”

Then, in 1971, after the Beatles had broken up, Lennon wrote the song “Power to the People,” a phrase borrowed from the Black Panthers and other radical groups that actually did sometimes espouse violent revolution.

In the lyrics of that song, recorded by Lennon, Yoko Ono and The Plastic Ono Band, Lennon says:

“Say you want a revolution
We better get on right away...
A million workers working for nothing
You better give ‘em what they really own
We got to put you down
When we come into town
Singing power to the people
Power to the people.”

On the record jacket for “Power to the People,” there’s a picture of Lennon with his fist raised in a revolutionary-style power salute.

So, is the answer is to the Beatles quiz posed at the beginning of this post (a), (b) or (c)?

I’m not sure. You decide. Power to my readers!

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The great “Coffee, Tea or Me?” hoax

Back in the 1960s, when air travel was more pleasant and our culture was less politically correct, airline stewardesses were hot – at least in terms of their cultural image.

Most stewardesses were young and single. In the media, they were often portrayed as both desirable and attainable – as women who liked to party at the stops along their routes and fool around with pilots and lucky travelers.

The airlines themselves helped promote this image in the mid-Sixties with ads that featured beautiful stewardesses and taglines like “I’m Cheryl. Fly Me.”

Then, on November 21, 1967, the book Coffee, Tea or Me? was published.

Subtitled The Uninhibited Memoirs of Two Airline Stewardesses, this book solidified and further popularized the stereotypical image of fun-loving, sexually promiscuous stewardesses.

It also made the sexually provocative phrase “Coffee, Tea or Me?” a common, humorous saying.

Authorship of the book was credited to two stewardesses named Rachel Jones and Trudy Baker. When it was published, two young women using those names went on a heavily-covered media tour to promote it.

Soon, Coffee, Tea or Me? became a national and international best seller. Millions of copies were sold. Three sequels were published. In 1973, Coffee, Tea or Me? was made into a TV movie in 1973, starring Karen Valentine and Louise Lasser.

Years later, it was revealed that the book had actually been written by the prolific veteran author and ghostwriter, Donald Bain.

“Trudy Baker” and “Rachel Jones” did not exist. The women who went on the book tour were two former stewardesses hired by the publisher’s publicity agent to pose as Trudy and Rachel.

It was a supremely great hoax that generated a lot of money for Bain and a memorable phrase that’s still quoted today.

If you’re intrigued by this story, I encourage you to read Bain’s own account, by clicking this link.

It’s a real hoot. (Or, should I say, unreal?)

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Before Marilyn Monroe, “The Seven Year Itch” was a skin disease

On November 20, 1952, the play The Seven Year Itch by George Axelrod debuted on Broadway at the Fulton Theatre.

The play starred Tom Ewell, as a married man attracted to a gorgeous young neighbor, played by Vanessa Brown.

Ewell was also in the famous 1955 movie version of The Seven Year Itch, directed by Billy Wilder.

But, in the film, the object of his desire was Marilyn Monroe.

It was one of Monroe’s most memorable roles, and the scene in which her white dress blows up around her shapely legs when she stands on a subway grate has became an iconic cultural image.

The play and the movie were both big hits.

Together, they popularized the term “seven year itch” in its marital and sexual sense – that being that previously faithful married people (especially husbands) tend to get an urge, or “itch,” to have an affair after seven years of marriage.

Playwright and screenwriter Axelrod gets credit for creating this current meaning. But he didn’t coin the phrase itself.

Before Axelrod’s play, the term “seven year itch” was a common slang name for a contagious and annoyingly long-lasting bacterial skin disease.

This older use of the term goes back at least to the mid-1800s and was still in the vernacular in the first half of the 20th century.

Thanks to modern antibiotics, the disease and its common name had started to fade away by the mid-Twentieth Century.

Then, thanks to Axelrod’s play and the 1955 movie with Marilyn Monroe, the phrase “seven year itch” was given a new life, albeit with a significantly different meaning.

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Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook group.

 

“Your eyes are full of hate.” In Ben-Hur, that’s good.

There’s a funny quote by screenwriter, playwright and novelist Gore Vidal that’s included in many books of quotations: “I’m all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.”

An even more famous quotation that may have been written by Vidal also has something to do with whipping.

It comes from the epic film, Ben-Hur, which had its world premiere in New York exactly fifty years ago today, on November 18, 1959.

I said may have been written by Vidal because there is some dispute about who wrote what in the final script for Ben-Hur.

Official credit was given to veteran screenwriter Karl Tunberg. However, at the request of the film’s director, William Wyler, several other writers did some extensive but uncredited rewriting on the script, including Vidal and the famous playwrights Maxwell Anderson and Christopher Fry.

If you’ve seen the movie, you probably know the quotation from Ben-Hur that is most often cited by movie buffs and quote books.

It’s in a scene in the galley of a Roman warship, where barechested Charlton Heston is chained with dozens of other sweating, near-naked slaves who row the ship.

The Roman naval commander, played by British actor Jack Hawkins, comes down into the galley to inspect the slaves.

He asks Heston, who he calls by his seat number – Forty-one – how long he’s been a galley slave. Heston answers in a grumpy tone that annoys Hawkins. So, Hawkins lashes him on the back with the multi-stranded whip he’s carrying.

Heston rears up and glares menacingly at Hawkins, with gritted teeth, but says nothing. Hawkins looks down at him and remarks: “You have the spirit to fight back, but the good sense to control it.”

Then Hawkins says:

“Your eyes are full of hate, Forty-one. That's good. Hate keeps a man alive.”

It’s not certain that Gore Vidal was the writer who contributed those famous lines to the script. It could have been Tunberg, Anderson or Fry.

But given Vidal’s sexual preference (he came out of the closet long before it was fashionable), and given his oft-quoted quip about mutual birch lashings by consenting adults, something tells me Gore would have a special flair for writing a scene that included sweaty, near-naked men and a whipping.

Would you buy a used car from a man who says “I’m not a crook”?

On November 17, 1973, during a televised press conference, President Richard M. Nixon said one of his most famous lines: “I’m not a crook.”

He said it at a time when he was still trying to stonewall the world on his connection to the Watergate break-in.

In his remarks that day, Nixon tried to make it sound like he welcomed the Watergate investigation. He said:

“I made my mistakes, but in all my years of public life, I have never profited, never profited from public service. I’ve earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I can say that in my years of public life, that I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their President’s a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”

The welcoming part was especially hard to believe, for a number of reasons.

One glaring one was that, just a few weeks earlier, Nixon had fired the Special Prosecutor assigned to investigate him, Archibald Cox, and abolished the Office of the Special Prosecutor, in the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre.”

After that, the dominoes kept falling for Nixon, eventually leading him to become the first U.S. president to resign, in August of 1974.

In retrospect, it’s ironic to note that one of the slogans used in Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign was:

“The ‘I’ in Nixon stands for integrity.”

Today, the more remembered slogan is the one used against him during the 1972 presidential election, which is usually attributed to comedian Mort Sahl:

“Would you buy a used car from this man?”

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The day John Paul Jones planted the phrase “in harm’s way” into our language

In 1778, American Navy Captain John Paul Jones went to France, hoping to persuade the French government to give him a ship to use in the American colonies’ rebellion against the British.

Toward that end, he wrote a letter to Monsieur Le Ray de Chaumont, dated November 16, 1778. In it, he said:

       “I wish to have no Connection with any Ship that does not Sail fast
        for I intend to go in harm's way.”

His phrase “in harm’s way” has since become a common figure of speech, meaning “in the path of danger.”

Is is most often used to refer to men and women in the military, who are sent “in harm’s way” during wartime.

Not long after Jones wrote his letter to Chaumont, the French government gave him a frigate that he named the Bonhomme Richard.

On September 23, 1779, Jones and the crew of the Bonhomme Richard fought their famous battle off the coast of England against the British war ship Serapis.

At one point, the Bonhomme Richard seemed to be sinking. So, the captain of the Serapis asked Jones if he would surrender.

That’s when Jones supposedly gave his legendary reply: “I have not yet begun to fight.”

After lashing the Bonhomme Richard to the Serapis and fighting ferociously, the Americans won the battle and the crew of the Serapis surrendered to them.

In 1962, James Bassett’s bestselling World War II novel, Harm's Way, helped make this term taken from Jones’s letter more widely used than ever.

In 1965, the novel was made into an epic movie under the title In Harm's Way, further enhancing the use and recognition of the phrase.

I haven’t read the novel, but I have seen the movie. If you haven’t, you should.

In Harm’s Way is justifiably considered one of the greatest war movies ever made. It was produced and directed by Otto Preminger and stars John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda, Patricia Neal, Tom Tryon, Paula Prentiss and Dana Andrews.

How Ron Popeil pitched “It slices! It dices!” into our language – and inspired Dan Aykroyd's classic "Bass-O-Matic" SNL sketch

Decades before the late Billy Mays started his pitchman career, Ron Popeil was pioneering the “As Seen on TV” product market.

Popeil, born in New York City in 1935, was the son of inventor Samuel Popeil, who created the Chop-O-Matic and it’s ultimately more famous relative, the Veg-O-Matic.

Ron started out selling these kitchen wonders and other gadgets invented by his father in live demonstrations at stores in the 1950s. He had a knack for it and sold thousands of units.

By 1960 the Popeil-coined name “Veg-O-Matic” was on its way to becoming a household word. And, on November 15, 1960, the family received a trademark registration for it.

To go along with the catchy name, Popeil used and popularized the catchy slogan: “It slices! It dices!”

Around that time, Popeil realized there was a huge potential for marketing his products on television. He created the Ronco company and developed TV “infomercial” versions of his product demonstrations. Some featured him doing the same kind of pitches he’d used in stores. Others were voiceover style demos.

In the 1960s and 1970s, spots featuring Popeil and other Ronco ads sold millions of dollars worth of products.

If you were around at the time, you may have bought something from Ronco, like Mr. Microphone, the Ronco Bottle and Jar Cutter, the Buttoneer, the Pocket Fisherman, the Smokeless Ashtray, the Salad Spinner, or the famed Veg-O-Matic.

I admit that I bought a few Ronco gadgets myself. I also admit that I can never think of the Veg-O-Matic without also thinking of one of the greatest Saturday Night Live faux ads, Dan Aykroyd’s 1976 “Bass-O-Matic” sketch. It’s a hilarious send-up of Popeil-style demo ads.

In addition to inspiring that classic spoof, Popeil’s pioneering TV ads led the way for other famous infomercial pitchmen like Billy Mays and Anthony "Sully" Sullivan.

Some of the products Ron Popeil and Ronco sold over the years may have been a little, er, dicey. But I respect Popeil’s genius as a marketer and as a coiner of product names and slogans.

You can read a good bio about Popeil on the Ronco website.

He’s also written an autobiography, humbly titled Ron Popeil: The Salesman of the Century. (Hey, he’s a pitchman.)

And, you can still buy the new, improved Ron Popeil Ronco Veg-O-Matic online.

As the description explains:

“The Ronco Veg-O-Matic is the one kitchen appliance you'll wonder how you ever did without! It slices, it dices, and so much more!”

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Lee Atwater and the Republican Party’s “big tent.”

In November of 1989, the first year of George H. W. Bush’s presidency, there were two closely watched gubernatorial elections — one in Virginia, the other in New Jersey.

The Democratic candidates won both races. And, in both campaigns, the candidates’ positions on abortion played a role.

The winning Democrats, Douglas Wilder in Virginia and James Florio in New Jersey, were pro-choice. Their Republican opponents, J. Marshall Coleman and Jim Courter, were anti-abortion.

This led to speculation that the Republican Party’s hardline position against abortion would be a problem in the 1990 mid-term election, allowing the Democrats to gain seats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

On November 14, 1989, reporters asked the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Lee Atwater, what he thought.

Atwater had helped design the winning presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He was a master and pioneer of the use of political “wedge issues” like abortion and crime.

It was Atwater who created the notorious “Willie Horton ad” that played a key role in Bush’s victory over Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988, by making Dukakis seem soft on criminals.

When asked what the November 1989 gubernatorial election meant for Republicans, Atwater gave a much-quoted answer that helped popularize the political term “a big tent.”

“Our party is a big tent,” Atwater told reporters that day. “We can house many views on many issues. Abortion is no exception.”

Some language reference books say that Atwater coined the phrase “a big tent” that day.

But, although his use is the most famous and gave the term wide familiarity, it had been used previously in politics by both Republicans and Democrats.

In 1975, for example, Democratic House Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill told a reporter: “The Democratic Party is a big tent. We are widely diversified.”

During the 1980 presidential election, the Republican National Chairman at the time, Bill Brock, urged the party to embrace a “big tent” strategy. That year, Ronald Reagan won in a landslide over President Jimmy Carter and Republicans gained control of the Senate — the first time Republicans controlled one of the Houses of Congress since 1954.

Lee Atwater died from a brain tumor less than two years after making his own, more famous “big tent” remark.

Before he died, he said he regretted the divisive wedge issue style of politics he helped create. In a widely-noted article published in the February 1991 issue Life magazine, Atwater wrote:

“My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood.”

After writing those revelatory words, Atwater passed away on March 29, 1991 at the age of 40.

If he were still alive, it would be interesting to hear what he’d say about the current state of political “discourse.”

For further reading and viewing, I highly recommend the book Bad Boy: The Life And Politics Of Lee Atwater by John Brady and the documentary Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story.

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Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook group.

Jefferson’s bloody “Tree of Liberty” quote still fertilizes freedom and fanaticism

One of the signs held by a gun-toting protester against the Democratic health care proposal earlier this year said “IT IS TIME TO WATER THE TREE OF LIBERTY!”

This is a shorthand reference to an oft-used and abused quotation by Thomas Jefferson:

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Jefferson made this remark in a letter to Col. William Smith, dated November 13, 1787.

It was part of a what he said in the letter about Shays’s Rebellion, a brief uprising of poor farmers and revolutionary war veterans in western Massachusetts that reached a head that year.

They were mad as hell about the crushing taxes they were forced to pay and the laws that let the government confiscate their property if they couldn’t pay those taxes.

As a symbol of their protest, they designated certain trees as “liberty trees,” like those used during the Revolution to hang tax collectors working for the British Crown. They demanded changes in the tax laws, they had guns – and they were prepared to use them.

The Massachusetts state government reacted forcefully to put down this threat to their power, with encouragement from Founding Fathers like Samuel Adams. In the rebellion’s most significant “battle,” dozens of protesting farmers were killed or wounded by the state militia. Hundreds were eventually put in prison. Some were executed.

Thomas Jefferson was in Paris at the time. From that distance, he adopted a philosophical view of Shay’s Rebellion.

In his letter to Col. Smith, Jefferson did not justify the rebellion. In fact, he said it was “founded in ignorance.”

But then, Jefferson went on to say the part that people who are mad as hell about something love to quote:

“What country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms...The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”

Protesters against “Obamacare” are fans of Jefferson’s “tree of liberty” quote.

So was Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people by blowing up the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, as an anti-government “protest.” When arrested, McVeigh was wearing a t-shirt that had a picture of a tree of liberty dripping blood, and the words: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Indeed, for over two centuries now, Jefferson’s “tree of liberty” quote has been used by various people who think it somehow justifies what they believe and do.

And, I expect it will be for years to come.

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For further reading and viewing, check out Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle by Leonard L. Richards and the recent DVD A Little Rebellion. There’s also an interesting discussion of Jefferson’s “tree of liberty” quote on the American Creation blog.

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How "The Almighty Dollar" was created by God and Washington Irving

The Bible probably popularized the word almighty in English. If you do an online search in the Bible for “almighty,” you’ll find dozens of uses associated with God.

He is referred to as “Almighty God,” “God Almighty,” “Lord Almighty,” “Lord God Almighty” – and, for short, “the Almighty.”

The term “the almighty dollar” is not in the Bible.

That was coined by the American author Washington Irving (1783-1859), whose best known works include the short stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.”

Irving used the phrase in a travel story he wrote about a steamboat trip he took in the Louisiana bayous in the 1830s.

The story, titled “The Creole Village,” was first published in the November 12, 1836 issue of Knickerbocker Magazine.

Irving – who was from New York City – was impressed by the comparatively laid back lifestyle of the Creole people and how unconcerned they seemed about making money.

He wrote:

“The inhabitants, moreover, have none of that eagerness for gain and rage for improvement which keep our people continually on the move...In a word, the almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages; and unless some of its missionaries penetrate there, and erect banking houses and other pious shrines, there is no knowing how long the inhabitants may remain in their present state of contented poverty.”

Like many people who have plenty of money, Irving probably overestimated how content people were to be poor.

And, fifty years later, when “The Creole Village” was published in a book collecting Irving’s stories, called The Crayon Book (1887), he made it clear that he hadn’t meant any offense – to the almighty dollar, that is.

In a satirical footnote he added to the story in the book, Irving said:

“This phrase [the almighty dollar], used for the first time in this sketch, has since passed into current circulation, and by some has been questioned as savoring I fear, however, my prayer is of irreverence. The author, therefore, owes it to his orthodoxy to declare that no irreverence was intended even to the dollar itself; which he is aware is daily becoming more and more an object of worship.”

Or, going back to the Bible, as it’s said in Job 22:25, “Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defence, and thou shalt have plenty of silver.”

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For Churchill, “Business as usual” was defiant. For Martin Luther King, it was the thing to defy…

Many sources – including the venerable BBC – suggest that the phrase “business as usual” was created by Winston Churchill.

A page for students on the BBC website says: “Business as Usual: Phrase coined by Churchill to suggest how British society should react to the wartime situation.”

I love the BBC, but it’s wrong about that.

The phrase “business as usual” can be found in newspaper articles dating back to the early 1800s (as I’ve confirmed by searches in the great online resource, NewspaperArchive.com). The original usage was literal, as in “the banks were open for business as usual.”

But Churchill did give the phrase a famous new political meaning during World War I.

In a speech on November 9, 1914, he sent a message of defiance to the Germans and inspiration to the British people by saying:

“The British people have taken for themselves this motto – ‘Business carried on as usual during alterations on the map of Europe.’”

Churchill’s quote was remembered and reused in the same spirit during World War II.

In 1940 and 1941, when German planes were making devastating nightly bombing raids on London, shopkeepers put notices on their bombed shops that said “Business as Usual.” These signs were both a message of defiance and inspiration, echoing the intent of Churchill’s original speech.

Then, somehow, in the decades after World War II, the phrase took on a negative connotation that meant complacency and blind obedience to the status quo.

For example, in 1962, a statement by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) condemned the typical college campus as “a place of commitment to business-as-usual.”

The following year, the phrase was used with a negative meaning by civil rights leader, Martin Luther King.

It was in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963 in Washington D.C. Referring to recent race riots, King said:

“Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.”

Today, “business as usual” is heard in both a positive and a negative sense, depending on the context.

You can either be happy that something is back to “business as usual” – or unhappy that it’s stuck in some boring or bad “business as usual” rut.

Linguistically, that’s not usual.

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NOTE: If you’re interested in the origins of famous quotations and phrases, check out my Quotation Bookstore.

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“O Liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!”

In 1781, a French gentlewoman named Marie-Jeanne Philippo married the wealthy businessman Jean-Marie Roland. After that she was usually referred to simply as Madame Roland, and still is in most books of quotations.

Her famous quote came on the last day of her life, when she was sent to the guillotine during the French Revolution’s bloody Reign of Terror.

Madame Roland and her husband were supporters of the the democratic goals of the French Revolution when it began in 1789. 

The Rolands became active leaders of a moderate Revolutionist party called the Girondists. Unfortunately for them – and for thousands of other French citizens – a more extreme group took control of France a few years after the storming of the Bastille.

They were called the Jacobins and their leaders initiated “la Terreur,” which was essentially designed to eliminate anyone the Jacobin leaders thought might threaten their power. That included the Rolands.

In the spring of 1793, Madame Roland was taken prisoner in Paris. Her husband was away at the time and went into hiding.

Madame Roland was kept in prison for months. Finally, on November 8, 1793, she was sent to the guillotine, a few weeks after Marie Antoinette had met the same fate.

On the way to her execution, Madame Roland passed a large statue of the goddess Liberty that her former Revolutionist comrades had erected nearby (the same goddess portrayed by the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor).

According to historical accounts of the day, when Madame Roland saw the statue she looked at it sadly and said what would become a famous and still relevant quotation:

“O Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!” (“O Liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!”)

Shortly thereafter, Madame Roland was beheaded. When her husband heard the news, he killed himself with his own sword.

For further reading, check out The Terror: The Shadow of the Guillotine: France 1792--1794 and, for further watching, I recommend Marat / Sade, the film version of the play by Peter Weiss, now available on DVD.

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Is Nixon’s November 7, 1962 rant a “teachable moment”?

Long before dogged news coverage of the Watergate scandal helped force Richard M. Nixon to resign as President in 1974, he disliked the press.

In fact, throughout his long political career, Nixon felt the media generally had a liberal bias and an unfairly negative attitude toward him.

He disliked the way the press failed to fully embrace his anti-communist fervor in the late 1940s, when he was a Congressman and member of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

He was annoyed by some of the coverage he got as Vice President under President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s.

He thought the press was unfair to him in his unsuccessful campaign for President against John F. Kennedy in 1960.

And, in 1962, after Nixon lost the race for Governor of California to Democrat Pat Brown, he was convinced that slanted press coverage was a factor in his loss.

On November 7, 1962, the morning after that election, Nixon held a press conference in which his ire at the press infamously overflowed.

Most people know this frequently quoted part of what he said that day:

“You won't have Nixon to kick around any more because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”

But that quote is just the short sound bite from what Nixon said that day – a famous quotation with no context.

If you’re interested in politics and the media, you should read the entire transcript of what Nixon said, especially since it has some ironic relevance to recent political events. (The transcript is posted on the venerable Language Log. There’s also a video excerpt on YouTube.)

I particularly suggest the transcript of Nixon’s November 7, 1962 rant as recommended reading for President Obama and his team, because their recent attacks on Fox News seem eerily Nixonian to me.

I don’t say that because I believe Obama will be creating an “enemies list” or tapping reporters’ phones or doing other evil Nixonian things like that.

I say it because, to me, the attacks on Fox News seem as petty and counterproductive as Nixon’s “last press conference.”

Here are some of the other famous quotes and phrases linked to November 7:

• “She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world.”  - American politician Adlai Stevenson’s famous comment to the press when he learned about the death of Eleanor Roosevelt on November 7, 1962. He was adapting an old Chinese proverb that was also used as the motto of the Catholic humanitarian group, the Christopher Society, in the form: “It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness.”

• “It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” - The title of the classic movie comedy that spawned the linguistic formula of four repeating adjectives: “It's a —, —, —, — , [something].” The film, with it’s all star cast of great comedians, had its world premiere at the Hollywood Cinerama on November 7, 1963.

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“When it rains, it pours” started out as a good thing

Earlier this week, after the Boston Bruins hockey team lost another game, player Blake Wheeler told a reporter that the team’s losing streak was “a when it rains, it pours type of thing.”

The next day, commenting on the Democratic health care proposal in Congress, Republican Congressman Dave Camp from Michigan said: “When it rains it pours. This amendment only increases the government involvement in health care, raises more taxes and opens more taxpayer subsidies to illegal immigrants.”

Indeed, nowadays, most uses of the “when it rains, it pours” tend to be negative.

But the most famous use of the phrase, the original use that popularized it, was designed to be positive. 

It dates back to 1911, when the Morton Salt Company developed a new breakthrough in table salt technology.

Up until then, most table salt was sold in a raw, coarse-grained form that clumped and caked in humid weather.

The Morton food scientists solved this problem by reducing the grain size and adding a small amount of magnesium carbonate, an anti-caking agent.

As a result, the salt didn’t cake and clump. It could be poured or shaken out as nicely as dry sand regardless of the humidity.

The Morton execs asked their ad agency – the renowned N.W. Ayer & Son firm – to create a catchy ad slogan for this new and improved salt.

Morton rejected a couple of initial slogan ideas, but the Ayer admen eventually came up with a winner: “When it rains, it pours.” It put a witty, positive twist on the old English proverb “It never rains but it pours.”

As expected, American consumers of that era – who previously had to put up with inconveniently clumpy salt when the humidity was high – knew exactly what the slogan meant. It meant that Morton Salt would stay dry and come out of the box or shaker perfectly, even when it was raining outside and humid inside.

It was a good thing (unlike the way the phrase is used today).

The Ayer firm also created the familiar image of the little girl with an umbrella to go with the slogan. This famous combination was trademarked by Morton and first used in commerce on November 6, 1914.

Here are some of the other famous quotes and phrases linked to November 6:

• “I recommend to you to take care of the minutes: for hours will take care of themselves.” - A famous piece of advice written by Lord Chesterfield (Philip Dormer Stanhope) in a letter to his son, dated November 6, 1747.

• “They misunderestimated me.” - Another gem for collectors of Bushisms, uttered by President George W. Bush on November 6, 2000 during a visit to Bentonville, Arkansas.

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“As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.”

In the 1936 presidential election, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reelected for a second term in a landslide victory over his Republican opponent, Kansas Governor Alf Landon. Roosevelt received more than 60% of the vote and won in all but two states – Maine and Vermont.

On November 4, 1936, the day after the election, Roosevelt’s campaign manager James A. Farley gave what would now be called a good sound bite to the press.

“As Maine goes, so goes Vermont,” he quipped.

Farley’s witty remark soon became a famous humorous political quotation. It was funny because it’s a take-off on the older saying “As Maine goes, so goes the nation.”

Where does that older political saw come from?

It has been claimed that it’s based on the fact that Maine was the first state to enact a law prohibiting alcohol in 1851. For example, several years ago, I read an article in the Boston Globe that said it “was coined at the peak of the state’s 19th-century temperance movement, in an era when New England shaped national opinion on fundamental issues from slavery to child labor to women's suffrage.”

But that temperance theory is wrong.

Nor is the saying based on Mainers’ record on votes for president. In fact, historically, Mainers have voted for a higher percentage of losing presidential candidates than many other states.

The saying “As Maine goes, so goes the nation” primarily stems from the fact that Maine once held its state elections for Governor, U.S. Senators and Congressmen and other non-presidential offices in September – two months before other states. And, the outcome of this unique early election was seen as an indication of how the political winds were blowing in general for the Democrat and Republican parties.

Maine’s September election, on the second Monday of the month, was created in its constitution in 1820, when it split from Massachusetts to became a separate state. In presidential election years, Mainers also went back to the polls in November to vote on the presidential race.

In 1957, Maine changed its election law and, in 1960, started holding all general elections on the same November election dates as other states.

But even though Maine’s old September election tradition is gone, the traditional saying “As Maine goes, so goes the nation” has lived on – as has James Farley’s update, “As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.”

NOTE: If you’d like to read more about the 1936 election, FDR and James Farley, check out the book Mr. Democrat: Jim Farley, the New Deal and the Making of Modern American Politics.

Here are some of the other famous quotes and phrases linked to November 4:

• “It's alive! It's alive!” - The famous jubilant line of Dr. Henry Frankenstein, played by actor Colin Clive, in the classic 1931 film Frankenstein. The film, starring Boris Karloff as the monster, debuted at the Mayfair Theatre in New York City’s Time Square on November 4, 1931.

• “The other white meat.” - The well-known, oft-satirized ad slogan of the National Pork Producers Council which, according to the Council’s trademark filing, was first used on November 4, 1986.

ThisDayinQuotes.com is finally back online

Welcome to any returning or new readers.

Since October 21st I have been unable to post to this blog because of some mysterious problem with the Google server it is on.

Finally, tonight, my This Day in Famous Quotes blog it is back online and I plan to start regular posts here again tomorrow, November 3rd.

In the meantime, below is a post I put today on my other quote blog, www.QuoteCounterquote.com.

If you’re a quote buff and like this site, you may like that one, too.

Best regards…

- SubtropicBob

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“The rich are different” – a famous quote-counterquote legend

You may have heard about a legendary exchange between the American novelists F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) and Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961).

Usually, Fitzgerald is quoted as saying: “The rich are different from you and me.” And, Hemingway is quoted as responding: “Yes, they have more money.”

In fact, this is a mythical quote-counterquote. Here’s how it became a legend…

In 1925, Fitzgerald wrote a short story titled “Rich Boy.” It was later published in a popular book of his short stories titled All the Sad Young Men (1936). The story begins with this passage:

"Let me tell you about the very rich.  They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves.  Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different."

Clearly, that’s not a favorable view of the rich.

But years later, Ernest Hemingway, who was supposedly a friend of Fitzgerald, mocked the famed opening lines of “Rich Boy” in his short story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” In the original version of that story, printed in Esquire magazine in 1936, Hemingway wrote:

“The rich...were dull and they drank too much, or they played too much backgammon. They were dull and they were repetitious. He remembered poor Scott Fitzgerald and his romantic awe of them and how he had started a story once that began, “The very rich are different from you and me.” And how some one had said to Scott, Yes, they have more money. But that was not humorous to Scott. He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him as much as any other thing that wrecked him.”

Understandably, Fitzgerald was offended. He complained to Hemingway’s publisher and when the story was reprinted in a 1938 collection of Hemingway’s short stories, “Scott Fitzgerald” was changed to the name “Julian.”

But in his personal notebooks, Fitzgerald made the mistake of writing a cryptic entry that said: “They have more money. (Ernest’s wisecrack.)”

After Fitzgerald’s death, entries from his notebooks were included in The Crack-Up (1945), a book compiled from Fitzgerald’s writings by his friend Edmund Wilson.

Wilson added a footnote to the notebook entry about Ernest’s wisecrack that explained: “Fitzgerald had said, ‘The rich are different from us.’ Hemingway had replied, ‘Yes, they have more money.’”

After that, books began citing this footnote as if it were an actual conversation between Fitzgerald and Hemingway. And, thus a famous quote-counterquote myth was born.

For more about famous misquotes and quote myths, I highly recommend the books The Quote Verifier by Ralph Keyes and They Never Said it by Paul F. Boller Jr. And John George.

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