The Histories

On the 14th of April in 1865, John Wilkes Booth shot and mortally wounded President Abraham Lincoln while the President and his wife watched “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre. Lincoln died the next day and with him died the hope of a relatively peaceful Reconstruction. Without Lincoln to push for leniency in dealing with the post-war South, the radical Republicans in Congress were free to institute a much harsher Reconstruction policy. Those harsh policies left a lasting impact on the South and it could be argued that it is still feeling the effects of them.

John Wilkes Booth was a professional actor who had an even more famous actor brother by the name of Edwin Booth. John sympathized with the Confederate cause, so worked on a plan to overthrow the Union government through March and April of 1865. He did not originally plan to assassinate Lincoln, however. Originally, he had intended to overthrow the Federal Government by only kidnapping President Lincoln. He hoped that this would disrupt the North’s war effort while giving the defeated South a powerful position from which continue fighting and to make demands for a prisoner exchange.

By the time he attended Lincoln’s second inauguration on March 4, 1865, he had assembled a group of at least eight conspirators who agreed to help him in some capacity in his attempt to kidnap the President. They planned to do this while Lincoln attended a theatrical production of “Still Waters Run Deep” at Campbell Military Hospital on March 17th. The attempt failed, however, when Lincoln failed to attend the production as planned. He attended a ceremony at the National Hotel instead.

Booth was in the crowd when Lincoln delivered a speech on April 11 in which he discussed the possibility of voting rights for freed slaves. Booth was reportedly so angry by this notion that he changed his plans, deciding to kill Lincoln instead of merely kidnapping him. To that end, he formulated a new plan which, if successful, he believed would give the Confederacy time to regather its strength. He meant to assassinate the President, Vice-President, and Secretary of State in the same night.

To do this, Booth had to rely on the help of other people who ultimately proved unreliable.   The killer assigned to Vice President Andrew Johnson, George Atzerodt, got a room in the hotel Johnson was staying and loitered around a bit, but he never attempted the assassination. He left after asking a few questions about the President of the bartender. The attempt on Secretary of State Seward did not work out either. The assassin stabbed him and some members of his household in a violent, confusing attack, but failed to kill him.

Booth assigned himself the task of killing Lincoln while his conspirators killed Seward and Johnson. The three attacks were supposed to be carried out simultaneously while Lincoln watched “Our American Cousin.” Although the conspirators were not successful in killing the other two men, Booth was successful in his attempt at Lincoln. As an actor at Ford’s Theatre, he was able to come and go without arousing suspicion. When Lincoln arrived late along with Mary Todd Lincoln, Major Henry Rathbone, and Clara Harris, Booth was waiting for him.

Booth crept behind the President who was sitting in a rocking chair and shot him in the back of the head. Rathbone tried to prevent Booth from escaping, but Booth stabbed him and jumped from the balcony to the ground level. His foot got caught on a flag, however, and he fell face first into the audience below. Nevertheless, he jumped up and exclaimed, “Sic Semper Tyranis”. This is a Latin phrase which means “Thus always to tyrants.” It also happens to be the state motto of Virginia.

Booth escaped by running across the stage, through an unlocked door, and riding off on his waiting horse. On the way to meet an accomplice, he broke his leg when his horse tripped and fell on it. After receiving medical treatment, Booth and his accomplice went on the run. Union Soldiers eventually caught up with them at a barn. Booth refused to come out, so the soldiers tried to burn him out. In the subsequent confusion, Booth failed to hear the approach of a soldier named Boston Corbett. Corbett shot Booth in the back of the head in almost the same way that Booth had shot Lincoln just a few days earlier. Booth’s last words were, “Tell my mother I died for my country…..unless…..unless.”

By this time, Lincoln was already dead, having died the day after the attack. The death of his assassin several days later did not close the case, however. The government put all eight of the conspirators on trial and ended up hanging four of them. The rest were either pardoned by President Johnson or died in prison.

Lincoln’s death was a huge blow to many people. After four years of brutal war, many had believed that the bloodshed was finally over. His death destroyed any chance for a positive approach to reconstruction. His successor, President Johnson, proved a very weak and unpopular president who was unable to reign in the radical Republicans in Congress. These radicals instituted a very harsh Reconstruction that included military occupation and the banning of all former Confederates from serving as elected officials. Rather than healing the wounds of the country, Reconstruction led to a whole host of its own problems. The history of the South may have been very different if not for that one gun that fired after the end of the Civil War.

The Caesar Cipher, named for Julius Caesar who used it in his military campaigns, is one of the simplest and easiest substitution ciphers in the world. While it is rarely used by itself because of the ease with which it is broken, it is still sometimes incorporated into more complicated ciphers.

A substitution cipher is a type of encryption that replaces each letter of a message with a different letter. The Caesar Cipher simply replaces each letter with the letter a set number of places from the original one. Thus, if you were to use a right shift of three letters, the text, “this is a test” would become “wklv lv d whvw.” A left shift of three would make the message, “qefp fp qbpq.”

According to the biographer Suetonius, Julius Caesar used this cipher with a left shift of three in his military campaigns. While there are a few older ciphers in the world, this was the first recorded use of any encryption technique. It is therefore of great historical significance. It not only helped Caesar in his military campaigns, but it left a lasting influence on cryptology. Among the public, the Caesar cipher is still the most popular method of encryption in use.

Given the ease with which it is broken, it is not known if the cipher was effective at keeping Caesar’s messages secret. We can speculate that it was successful, however, because most of his enemies could not speak Latin, so they would have found it especially difficult to crack his encoded messages without any specific techniques for doing so. Such techniques were not invented until the 9th century.

Two of these techniques are as simple as the cipher itself. The first involves frequency analysis. Given the fact that letters like “e” and “t” are more common in English writing than letters like “x” and “z”, one can break a substitution cipher by matching the letters that appear most frequently in the message with the letters that appear most frequently in the language was written. After decoding some of the more common letters, it should be clear how the cipher has changed the text. This should make it easy to decode the less common words. Of course, this requires that one know in what language the message was written. Alternatively, one could simply try all possible results. Given that there are only 26 possible results for a standard Caesar cipher in English, it would not take very long to try them all.

Despite the ease with which it is broken, the cipher has been used by people for thousands of years in all kinds of settings. Sometimes, it has been broken, as it was when the Russian army tried to use it in World War I. Much of the time, however, it has worked perfectly, so it has remained one of the most popular encryption schemes for over two thousand years.

There are some who claim that Fanta, a popular soft drink produced and distributed by the Coca-Cola company, was actually invented by Nazis during the Third Reich. Others go so far as the say that Coca-Cola produced this product themselves to sell in Nazi Germany when they feared the backlash that might come if they marketed Coca-Cola to both Allied and Axis powers at the same time. Is there any truth to these accusations?

Coca-Cola was a tremendously popular beverage in post-war Germany. Germany was its most successful market and many people, including the Nazi’s enjoyed it. That did not end with the beginning of World War II, although the Coca-Cola company in Germany found it increasingly difficult to procure the necessary ingredients to make the beverage. When the American born director of the German Coca-Cola company died in 1938, the German born Max Keith took over. Max Keith is the man who invented Fanta.

The war had essential isolated the German branch of the Coca-Cola company from Atlanta from the rest of the world. Thus, the only way that Keith could communicate with the companies headquarters was through Coca-Cola’s Switzerland company. Although this connection through a neutral country allowed some limited communication with the company’s headquarters, Keith could not use it to obtain the necessary ingredients for making the popular beverage. He had to come up with something else.

What he came up with is what we now call Fanta. It is called that because when telling his employes to let their imaginations (”fantasies” in German) run wild, someone offered that “fanta” itself would be a good name. The beverage was originally made with what limited ingredients Keith had at his disposal. For example, he used whey, a byproduct of making cheese, and apple fiber, a byproduct of making cider. He also used a sugar substitute and whatever fruits he could obtain. The necessity of having to use different fruits as necessary accounts for the great variety of fruit flavors we still see in Fanta today.

By this time, the German government had placed Keith in charge of all of Coca-Cola’s properties in Germany and all occupied countries. Thus, he was in a powerful position to make a serious profit himself, if he wanted. He could have continued bottling under his own name and made himself rich. He proved a good steward of the company, however, and kept the company going during the war, saving many jobs. At the same time, Keith refused to join the Nazi party even under pressure to do so.

Fanta did not come out of the war spotless, however. The German Coca-Cola company probably used forced labor during the later years of the war. It also gave German soldier the last of the original Coca-Cola it had in 1941 and advertised with the Nazi party extensively prior to and during World War II.

It is difficult to say, however, what Keith should have done during the war. If he had not cooperated with the Nazi government, he would have been simply removed and replaced with someone who would probably not have been as good a steward of the company as he was. After the war, he handed his profits back to the Coca-Cola company who bought the recipe for Fanta in 1960. It has been distributing Fanta ever since.

So the Coca-Cola company itself did not make the product for the Nazis nor was it invented by a Nazi. It was invented by the German head of the Coca-Cola company during the war when he could no longer produce Coca-Cola. Nazis may have been among those to whom he marketed the new product, but it was not designed specifically for them.

 

I - FIRST PERIOD

I was born at Millerton, Louisiana May 3, 1884, the sixth child born to John Calvin and Laura Ann Foster Murphy, on a farm of some 300 acres. This was just 20 miles south of Magnolia, Arkansas and 20 miles north of Homer, Louisiana. These two towns were our market towns where we sold cotton and other farm products and bought what few groceries and household needs we had to buy.

Life was simple and frugal but unspoiled and happy - always plenty to eat and wear - no distractions of radios, televisions, autos and pictures shows, not even a telephone. I remember the first telephone conversation I had in Homer with my aunt, Mrs. J. E. Moore, and I didn’t know how to end the conversation! I just hung up!

There was always plenty of hard work to do - plowing, planting cotton and corn, cultivating all crops, feeding the livestock morning and evening - in the morning before daylight, milking cows and slopping pigs also.

The days were long and hot chopping cotton and plowing the crops until “lay by” time about July. Then picking cotton in the fall, going out before sunrise in heavy dews, I picked 1500 pounds (all clear of trash!) in one week, but it developed muscle and sinew. I could lift a 200 pound sack of fertilizer when necessary.

But all wasn’t work. We went to school 3 or 4 months in the winter and 2 months in the summer!

Then in the spring time on Sunday afternoons what a joy to spend hours in Hawks Creek Woodland picking violets and the fragrant pink wild honeysuckle - sit on a log above the quiet creek water and “rooster fight” with violets by hooking the heads together and seeing whose had the strongest neck. Or tell fortunes by popping the unopened buds of the honeysuckle on the forehead. And hear the warning bloodthirsty cry of the hawk overhead, and watch the saucy jaybird fussing at us - or watch the ground squirrel scamper about, his curiosity having forced him to venture near. Or in the fall time Sunday afternoon treat was to go to the ribbon cane patch, cut nice long stalks and enjoy chewing the tender cane (it makes my flesh crawl now to think of it!) juice so rich in vitamins. The favorite place to go and eat this was the nearest log hut where thousands of pounds of white cotton was stored waiting to go to the gin. This was a good place to lounge while we ate the cane.

There were no Sunday Schools to go to (the nearby Hardshell Baptist Church did not believe in Sunday School or Missions) and other churches were 4 to 6 miles away and I only attended them as I got older.

What a change from that to this space age!

Yes, I had my sweet hearts! Could hardly wait from Friday to Monday at school!

At length it appeared to our dear Father that he must do something with the farm and provide better schools for his children. The oldest son had died many years before, the next son, Gordon, had followed the land rush to open Oklahoma, and the third, Lawrence, had chosen teaching as his life work. This one knew that he did not want to farm! So Father sold the 300 acre farm for $5.00 per acre, bought a small farm at Magnolia, Arkansas with a nice 2 story home. There we had better schools. A few years later, upon discovery of oil at Haynesville, Louisiana the royalty on this land was worth thousands of dollars!

I cannot close this section without a deserved tribute to my parents.

They were married at 25, about the year 1870 or 1871, and had 9 children, the eldest, Charles, died in early youth, and the youngest, Acrchie, in infancy. Early years after the war were hard years - the slaves were all free.

My parents were great people. My father was the Saul of Honor, his word his bond, and the personification of dignity. A very hard worker, received little formal education as his four sisters had first chance at school.

He was a prodigious reader - during the hot, long hours in the summer when it was too hot to work in the sun, or at night, he read the Bible, a few available good books and the Encyclopedia Britannica (paper back!) nearly all through and was a most charming host and conversationalist. He had many bouts with educated school teachers who always boarded at our home. He was a devout Christian, read his Bible, the Christian Observer, was an elder in the Magnolia Presbyterian Church, but was no public speaker.

My Mother was a sunny, sweet, great soul in a very small body, subject to migrain headaches most of her life. She worked hard, keeping the home, feeding the large family, sewing, and even hand washing the family wash much of the time.

The clothes I wore (Hickory shirts, home made jeans) she made. I never had a bought suit until quite a big boy.One happy memory of family life was the large family dining table. Long evenings after supper when we all (Father excepted. He would be reading. An impaired hearing made it impossible to share the light chit-chat of family fun) spent many an hour, Mother jawing very heartily with us (sometimes he would walk back down the long porch to see what we were doing.)

Mother loved her Bible and the Church and read it several times through.

She spent many quiet Sunday afternoons reading the Bible and the Christian Observer.

They both entered their heavenly reward at past 90 years of age.

Thank God for them.

II. SECOND PERIOD

The second period of my life began with the removal of the family from the farm in Louisiana to Magnolia, Arkansas about 1902. It was a continuation of farm life, but just one mile from the court house, and the school - “Southwestern Academy” about 4 blocks beyond the courthouse and business part of the town. This school was a nice two story brick structure.

Here was my introduction to a real education. I entered the 9th grade and was graduated in 1904 with 4 boys and some 6 or 8 girls. The Supt. was a godly Methodist and impressed me with his Chapel exercises once a week. Among many passages read was Joshua 1, Gods’ Charge to Joshua and from the Proverbs, subh as 24:30-34. Professor J.M. Williams of Vanderbilt University influenced my older brother, Lawrence, a born teacher, to attend Vanderbilt.

I was unversed in literary society procedure, and soon revealed my ignorance.At the country school in Louisiana, each Friday afternoon, “programs” with recitations, spelling, matches, etc. were common - but no “Literary Society”.

Soon after school opened in the fall the first meeting was held and I was appointed “critic”. When time came for report on the program, the President said, “We will now have the Critics’ report.” I sat there in chagrin not knowing what to say. I finally did stammer out “I did not know what you wanted me to do.” All the way home I got caught in a rain and thoroughly soaked, including my new tie, which thereafter I called my “Critics Tie”.

In the fall of 1904 I began a years post-graduate study in Magnolia, but was taken ill with typhoid fever for 7 long weeks so I lost that year in school and went 40 miles down the country to my sister, Mrs. T. B. Leak’s farm home to recouperate.

The next summer I taught a two-month school. Then in 1905-06 I taught the 6th and ith [7th?] grades in Waldo, Arkansas, following that with another two-month summer school.

I saved my meager earnings and went for the year 1906-1907 to Columbia (Missouri) University. I selected that school because I wanted to study law in the Law school there.

“Man proposes, but God disposes”, were the words of remonstrance to Napoleon when the Conqueror decided to invade Russia. That affair left Napoleons soldiers in Russian snow, food for the wolves, and sealed the doom of Napoleans empire.

So I proposed to be a Lawyer. But in Magnolia Mr. Lucas, then Supt. of Schools, had quietly one day suggested to me that I be a preacher. That was a seed that bore fruit, for I could not get away from the call.That day, after many years of losing to the “Jayhawkers” (Kansas) team, Missouri University won the game. There was great rejoicing in Columbia that night - a “night-shirttail” parade to Dr. Jesse’s home on the quadrangle and he appeared and made a speech.

It is significant that I was named for two preachers: “Thomas” for Rev. Uncle Tommy Foster, my grandfather who was a “Hardshell” Baptist preacher and “Davidson” for Rev. John ? Davidson, Presbyterian Home Missionary, who baptized me at our home, Millerton, Louisiana.

On Thanksgiving 1906 at 4 p.m. in my room I quietly committed my life to God for service, and I never regretted it.

But back to my conversion and joining the Methodist Church in Magnolia (There was no Presbyterian Church there at the time).

“Brother” Hays a one-armed ex-confederate soldier was the zealous pastor. For some time I had been under conviction of sin. One day I settled the matter in the barn on my knees and became a Christian. Soon thereafter I joined the Methodist Church and continued a member until the Presbyterian Church was organized and then I joined it.

My struggle for an education was not easy at Missouri University. I had little money to meet expenses. But I worked extra hours after school at whatever offered at 15c per hour! This work was secured through the student employment bureau of the Y.M.C.A.: washing windows, house cleaning, delivering papers, firing furnaces before dawn, etc. I remember washing the windows in the old Agriculture Building on the quadrangle, hanging on for dear life as I washed the outside of the windows on the second floor.

Finally a tutoring job in Algebra for a girl in Stephens College provided me room with a senior law student. He did most of the cooking for our “batching”. The menu had large place for Karo (corn syrup), oleo, and dry cereals. The girl could not learn well and I wasn’t much of a tutor.

The Missouri legislature, after much haggling, made appropriation for the University Cadet Corps. to go see the Jamestown Exposition in June, 1907. So I joined the Cadets and marched, etc. Three times a week for the privilege of going to Virginia, see Washington (the George Washington Monument included which I climbed 500+ feet because I had no money), take a night boat ride down the Potomac, and stay nearly a week at Jamestown.

One “chore” was guard duty in the wee hours of the night. I was discharged at St. Louis and went home. Not desiring any more “army” life.

That summer I helped Mr. Smith, building on my brother Gordon’s home next door.

Then, in Sept. 1907 I entered sophomore class at Arkansas College. What a change from a large, recognized university to a little, struggling church college! But God disposes! It was there that I met Christine Murphy of Pine Bluff, whom, after many “noes”, I married on June 10, 1914.

Just a little incident of a date, a shotgun, and a straw Katy. She was Fannie Mae Pearce, a country lassie down country about 6 or 7 miles with large intelligent, grey eyes, brown hair, a smile like the rainbow, and a laugh like sweet music!

I borrowed a horse and a nice little trap from Mr. Smith and went to see her. We had been seated only a short time in the “parlor” with small kerosene lamp, when in walked Mr. Pearce carrying a shotgun and abruptly stated “I want you to know my daughter is engaged to be married.”

I meekly stated “Well, I didn’t know it” and took my departure “pronto”. Yes, I recovered the hat later - she left it nearby with a neighbor girl in town. Mr. Pearce rightly regarded an engagement as a life commitment.

My real happiness began at “A.C.”. Christine soon came into my life - her beautiful brown eyes and hair, my ideal, and her sweet lips which I never kissed until after we were married! We need more girls like that now! She completed my life. Bore me three children and literally gave herself, whether in America and Korea, to her home and church. A great pastor’s helper and Bible teacher and Missionary.

In June, 1910 I was graduated from A.C. with a B.S. degree and that fall (1910) entered Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary where I received the B.D. degree in 1913.I preached in 1910 (summer vacation) at Osceola, Arkansas, and at Hope, Arkansas in 1911. In 1913 I went on call to be pastor at Malvern, Arkansas.

For 4 or 5 years she had said “No”, but I think grew tired of teaching at De Valls Bluff where the kids called her “Mrs. Murphy” and finally in Little Rock, on February 7, 1914, the weather being so cold we could get no heat from the gas stove, but still she would not even let me hold her hands, she said “Yes”. So that is a high day in our calendar, and we were married quietly in her Pine Bluff home on June 10, 1914, and reached Malvern that night.

My pastorates before Korea where:

Malvern: May - December 1915 (here Leland was born June 21, 1915)

Vernon, Texas: December 1915 - February 1918 (Main Street Church) (Main Street federated with U.S.A. Church February 1918, on account of shortage of ministers during World War I with the stipulation that both pastors resign.)

Cordell, Oklahoma: February 1918 - July 1921(Here Thomas D. Jr. was born 3/24/20 and I had call to go to Korea. Sailed for Korea on Empress of Japan from Vancouver, B.C., August 12, 1921, and arrived in Korea August 31, 1921.

I was called all kinds of “fool” for going to Korea - 37 years old with a wife and 2 sons 6 years and 18 months of age. The F.M. Committee at Nashville opposed my going on account of age - “37 years, too old”!

My facility with the Korean language astonished all, Koreans and Missionaries alike. But this “Gift from God” was no miracle. I studied harder than I had ever studied even Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.

Account of a little thrill: In language study in Seoul, our teachers said “Listen constantly” for Korean. I was walking along a winding street in Seoul and passed a little tad of a girl just about big enough to talk, and had just passed her when I heard the Korean greeting which translated is: “Goodbye English Woman-have sons and daughters born.”

You would have to know Korean to realize that it also shows such a perfect illustration of euphonic changes in word connections.

Also another interesting experience in Seoul: There I met Dr. Walter Williams whose Bible class I attended in Columbia, Missouri. He was at this time touring the Orient after having been elected President of the World Press Association in Tokyo. He established and was first head of the Missouri University School of Journalism, and was later President of Missouri University.

Recently on my 77 birthday after 35 years back in America I could converse considerably with Rev. Duk Whwan La in Korean when he came to see me.

This was a great day in my life.

Rev. Duk Whwan La gives me credit for his success, an honor which I scarcely deserve. My help to him to attend Bible Institute and then theological seminary encouraged him. He is Vice-Moderator of the Korean Presbyterian General Assembly, pastor of a church of 1500 members in Soonchun which he organized and of which he has been pastor 25 years, and started a number of other churches in that city. Was in prison by the Communists during the war. He came to America as a fraternal delegate to attend our Centennial meeting in Dallas. With him was his son, a student of political science in North Carolina University at Chapel Hill, N.C., as interpreter.

My service in Korea was cut short - I was under appointment for life - to 5 years on account of illness of Christine in 1926.

I was appointed as “Evangelistic Missionary” and after due course of study in Korean, given one country near Mokpo where we lived and the islands - about 100 - in the Yellow Sea which had been the “field” of Rev. H. D. McCallie. Some of them I never got to visit, but one at least, which had never been visited by a white man. When we drove our sampan to shore and started up the hill the 100 men scattered like a flushed covey of quail. But we found one man who lived there who was a Christian, served communion to him, and with our helpers witness and distributed gospels.

I must tell you something of this trip. It was only 2 or 3 weeks after my arrival in Mokpo. Mr. McCallie thus introduced me to itinerating. The party numbered about 8, his elder Mr. Choi, my language teacher, a cook and coolies to carry our loads of food, cots, etc. Mr. J. K. Unger also a new mission was with us. Also a colporteur and other helpers.

The date was set for latter part of September, but when it arrived all could not go on account of a sandstorm. That’s right! For several days shipping was banned! A huge dust storm firm the Gobi desert in Western China blew in a great cyclone across Eastern China, the Yellow Sea, and like fog settled down over Korea. Weather clearing, we took a Jap steamer and rode it to Hook Sohn (Black Mountain) as far as it traveled in the direction of Shanghai. This was halfway point to our destination.

It was a splendid land-locked harbor where the Japanese Fleet anchored during the Russeo-Japanese War, and a whaling station. Also, across the bay we visited the historic execution rock where Korean Emperors executed offenders. There we took a swim and oh, how cold the water was, about October 1 (and how foolish not it seems to me!).

Ka guh Do, fartherest island toward Shanghai. From Hook Sahn we had to travel by sampan. We had a church at Hook Sahn, spent 2 days there, held services, and next day set out for Ka Guh Do. No work had ever been started there. First day out we visited the island just now referred to, and the next day we set sail. But by night fall the tide had closed - outgoing tide would bear us toward our destination, but when it [illegible] closed for a time between outgoing and incoming, our sails just flopped slightly - we were some hours in the night in the “doldrums”! (It was a welcome fact, therefore, when the tide started moving in, in the middle of the night.) Our direction with some wind, we were happy and reached our island just before night fall. Yes, we navigated by the stars.

Ka Guh Do at last! A rugged mountain about 5 miles long and half as wide, with 2 villages, one at the south where we anchored and the other over the mountain pass - which we visited one day.

I have in my home a little No. 2 Brownie Kodak picture which showed the nice crescent beach where the breakers roll constantly. I took 2 exposures each showing about half the beach and the village with its thatched huts. This I sent to a Japanese artist, had tinted and enlarged and put together. It is a keepsake I would not part with.

We anchored near the shore and our boat bobbed up and down like a cork. But the first night we had to stay on it. There were no Christians there and though the Koreans are proverbially hospitable, they were afraid if they took us in, the fish wouldn’t bite!

But we found one “peg-leg” who had received amputation in Mokp at the hands of a Presbyterian medical missionary and he secured us a place in the camp.

There is no farming there - no level land for rice irrigation, and the economy is fishing. Then, too, a little hard wood sprouts cut from the second growth of thousands of years is brought down on the top of the heads of Korean women. This they sell in Kokpo for fire wood.

The men fish all night, going out at sunset, and returning at dawn. They have a bundle of this hard wood burning at the front end of the boat, and when they come in driving the sardines in front with much yelling and beating the sides of the boat they force them into nooks along the beach where they pick them up by the half bushel in nets. Then they dry the in the October sun, and take them to market! No canning factory, but beautiful sardines, small like the Norwegian.

The only way we could reach these men was to catch them on the fly as they went out! And yes, they were religious too! I saw a “priest” perform some religious rite, pouring out some libation of something in a boat, invoking, I presume, the good will of the “spirits” which cause them success in their fishing.

The day we went over the high mountain pass to visit the other villages we passed through a sacred grove of tall pines and other trees where for generations not a pine needle or a fallen limb had been touched and there were numerous broken pieces of crockery where offerings of rice had been placed, presumably to appease the “spirits”.

We though to visit the village, putting out Christian literature and then get a boat to ride back, but no! We had to walk back over the pass; they were afraid to offend the “spirits”. Thus superstition.

We “bought” A BOAT HOMY BY BUYING a load of wood. 37,000 sticks - each stick some four or six feet long which we missionaries used for firewood.

The return home was quite difficult. The winds were “contrary” - we stopped one night at lonely rock island. The next day we came in sight of a flashing Japanese beacon which guided us the second night. There were no islands to stop, but we feared we might run onto sharp rocks. It was exceedingly dangerous.

We were thankful, therefore, when we finally reached Chindo early in the morning where we could leave the sampan, Korean wood and all, and catch a Japanese launch into Mokpo. The North October wind was almost more than our sailboat could negotiate. But the boat with the [illegible] in due course reached Mokpo.

But the trip to Kaquhdo paid off, soon a church was organized. Women attending Bible class in Mokpo. I had the pleasure of eating a meal with Mr. McCallie and a “healed” leper from Kwangju hospital whom we sent out there as “pastor”.

Island travel was nearly always dangerous and difficult. The tides ran some 20 feet high, northward as the tide came in, and southward as it ebbed. I have walked from one island to another on stepping stones, where at high tide it must have been twenty feet deep. Some time we would coax the reluctant ferry man to take us across when wind and wave and current made it extremely hazardous.

My recreation was in taking my gun and ammunition for deer and pheasants on my long trips. Thus I had fresh pheasant in season.

This will give another insight into superstition. I had killed a deer. As I cut its throat the Koreans rushed up (and they were Christians!) with their bamboo quills to suck the blood, which they think gives strength! But first they asked me if it would be o.k. with me. I told them I had no objection.

The typical Korean house is 2 or more rooms, 8 feet by 8 feet, with walls about 6 feet, mud and overhead pine rafters which carry the roof thatched with rice straw. At the back is a little shed room where the rice is cooked in a pot with fuel of pine needles, twigs, and leaves and dead grass. This fuel is secured by raking with bamboo rakes under all the wooded area that is not too steep and rugged to rake over.

The heat from the cooking rice is carried under the floor by means of a flue that goes out on the front to carry off the smoke. Thus the floor of the house is heated and on which they sit and sleep. They have no chairs. But during hot weather it is too hot and they sleep outside!

The Koreans eat dog meat and regard broiled puppy quite a delicacy. I have seen them cooking by the side of the road. But I never knowingly ate any. My helper would guard against that. There are no dogs, however, on Ka Guh Do. I don’t know why; maybe they, by barking, offended the fish “spirits”.

Sleeping while itinerating was often difficult. Ordinarily a round to churches and missions points would be made twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. The winter season was taken up with Bible Classes in Mokpo and elsewhere. All carried mosquito nets as protection from flies and mosquito net. One hot night I went out to an island and forgot my mosquito net. It was all night torment! Itinerating in summer was too hot!

One night in winter I was out on an island not far from Mokpo, but snow and high wind kept me from going home. No place to put my cot except in an 8 x 8 Korean room with Koreans sleeping all over the floor, one or two under my cot! They have all windows and doors closed to keep out the cold. I almost suffocated! I put my head as near as possible to the door and punched holes in the paper door (paper is all that covers their doors) and got as much air as I could! The room was quite odiferous!

A visit of a day or two to a church was usually spent thus:

1. Checking over the roll and handling cases of discipline

2. Examining catchumens

3. Examining for Church Membership and Baptism

4. Comunion service at night

It was inspiring to hear a Catechison recitation, where the person would ask the questions from memory and then give the answers. They have wonderful memories! A rebuke to us.Where there was a church building I would camp in the Church, but during cold weather the stove (if they had one) would usually make more smoke than heat.

My trip to Cheiju (Quelport) the largest island away to the south (and not in my territory) to teach in a 10-day Bible Class was a notable experience. The island is 6 or 7,000 foot elevation and has an extinct volcano. The trip was by Japanese steamer and many of the Japanese were sea-sick because of the choppy waters.

My visit was cut short by a wireless announcing the sudden death of Kitty Gilbert the beloved wife of Dr. Gilbert in Mokpo. Her baby had been born only a few days before.

The economy of Cheiju, in addition to fishing is harvesting sea weed and pearl diving. I saw a man on the horizon as our boat approached Cheyai, and he appeared to be standing on the surface of the water! But when we came close we saw he was on a raft and hauling seaweed with a pitchfork.

This seaweed makes wonderful food to eat with rice. They press it and cut it and slice into thin pieces about 10 X 12′, dry it in the sun, and when toasted, it is very good with butter on it with rice.

The diving for pearls is by Korean women experts - Cheiju women that is - for here is one place in the orient where women rule! They strap a sharp knife on one hand with which they cut loose the pearl bearing oysters from their moorings on the rocks.

I saw a very interesting clothes washing place there. They say at low tide the spring is dry, but when the tide presses in, it pushes up fresh water and then they can wash in nice water. Many times in Seoul I would see women washing their clothes in green slimy looking water. But after they “battered” them on a flat rock and then spread them out on the rocks - what a miracle of whiteness!

After a year or so in Korea I was supplied with a “limousine” (1922 model Ford touring car) for use on the Mainland. One stormy, cold night I met the boat when Miss Elise Shepping and another lady were coming in from Cheiju. They were grateful to be met by a man in a “fiery Chariot.”

V - FIFTH PERIOD - Back in America (1926 - 1961)

The return from Korea was in July 1926 on account of the illness of Christine. We went by train from Mokpo to Fusan, there by transport to Shimonoki, and then by train to Kobe where we waited about 4 days for the sailing of the Japanese ship Shinyo - Naru. We docked a few hours at Yokohama and then were off to Hawaii the beautiful. But we docked there only about 12 hours, but long enough to take a sight seeing motor ride and saw the huge pineapple plantations and the sugar cane fields - beautiful to behold.

We sailed from Honolulu to San Francisco where H. Leland Murphy, Christine’s only brother, met us and took us to his home in San Jose. We stayed with him and his wife Gertrude about 3 weeks.

Then we boarded a train and came across California, Utah, Colorado, etc. to Pine Bluff with the T. Y. Murphys, Christines parents. Christine had improved in spite of the long trips, and after a week we went to Richmond, Va., Mission Court, where we would spend the furlough year. Leland entered 6th grade at Richmond schools (Christine had taught him in Mokpo) and I started a year of post graduate study in Union Seminary.

But we could not stay there - housekeeping for the family was too heavy for Christine and we returned to Pine Bluff. Where she could be free from any responsibility. The boys entered school there. In late winter I took Christine to Methodist hospital in Memphis. Dr. Sanders performed surgery for her and in March we returned to Pine Bluff. After six months she was able for me to leave her and I came to Midland to be pastor. She and the children joined me there in 1928.

There Christine plunged into the church work with me and the children all entered school there. We spent four years, then amid the amazing development of Midland - until the depression crash. Then we went to East Texas and were at Troup and Kilgore until 1937. That year oil business came alive again and I accepted call to Odessa where I was pastor 6 1 years until 1944.

In 1944 I was called to Fort Stockton, a strong old church, where I thought to continue until I retired. But in 1947 an urgent call to Junction led by Wart Terrell to build a church which they had needed for 20 years (Ward and his good wife Cleo were wonderful. They passed to their reward in 1961). Then in 1949 arthritis struck me down, and as I was unable to carry the load longer of an active pastorate, I retired August 31, 1949 and moved back to Odessa, September 1, 1949.

We lived with Lois and Louis, 804 West 24th until March, 1953 when we moved to 922 E. Wink. From 1950 to 1961, having become better of the arthritis, I served as Justice of the Peace and did much supply preaching until in 1959 I had to decline further invitations to preach. In 1961 I resigned as J.P. and am now confined to home, and mostly to bed by ill health.

When I feel able, I want to write of vacation trips with Rev. H. D. McCallie in Texas and New Mexico. “Maing” McCallie introduced me to mission work in Korea. He retired from the mission work soon after we returned to America, then not long after his wife, Alice, died, and his daughter married and he was so lonesome that he spent much time with us in Troup, Kilgore and Odessa. He lived mostly in a trailer, but took at least one meal each day with us, and sold Bibles and Christian literature for an avocation.

We took five or six vacation trips together in Texas and New Mexico. He was a good camper and liked to roam thus. We went in my car and took food, cots, and camped many nights. In fact only about twice did bad weather drive us in doors.

One pleasant memory is a trip to Palo Duro Canyon near Amarillo. The wind blew so hard in the canyon that we could hardly stay on our cots.

We went for long tours in New Mexico, to Sante Fe, Ruidoso, Cloudcroft, White Sands, Ft. Davis and Big Bend, sleeping out most every night. One night we spent in Mt. Air and went next day to the National monument of the Natives and its ruins. We were impressed with the huge beam across the main building which was still supported by the old adobe walls. We wondered how the builders carried such heavy timbers, so far from the forests without any power but man power.

It is thought the mission was massacred by the blood thirsty Apaches. We went from there to Ruidoso but night caught us between El Capitan and Ruidoso where we camped out. A fearful looking thunderstorm made us uneasy but no rain fell.

We visited Santa Fe and the oldest mission in America. We drove some distance north and camped out. Next day we visited Bandelier Monument. One of the examples of the cliff dwellers, multi-story buildings of adobe, hundreds of years old showed how they lived. The fort, or council headquarters, was entered only by a ladder which extended to the top, and was then taken inside to prevent enemy attack.

In the middle of the night where we camped under the trees in the valley we were aroused by rattling of the leaves near our cots. There in the moonlight just a few feet away was a “Kitty” skunk hunting scraps. Did we hold our breath until he moved away!

Next day we went up a steep mountain road that carried us up high near the Continental Divide. In the heat my Ford became gas locked and we had a terrible time getting on top amid the huge pines. We camped again at Jiminez and next day went to Albuquerque.

We camped one night at Cloudcroft, making our beds down on the pine needles under a thick growth. Here again clouds threatened but no rain. Although it was August the temperature was in the low fortys.

One night we were overtaken by night just South of Seminole, We made camp, got supper and reposed our bodies for sleep. Soon McCallie yelled “Oh, a rattlesnake must have bit me! I had told him before we stopped that I thought there were no more rattlesnakes there than any where else! It was a grass burr in his bed clothing! We spent one night way up on Mt. Locke, out from Fort Davis not far below the observatory. The stars were beautiful there even without a telescope.

The last trip I took with Maing was from Ft. Stockton to go to Big Bend Park during the war when I could not get any tires. It was April and a very hot day. We got 10 miles beyond Marathon and had a big “blow out”. A passing motorist told us we could get tire work 10 miles further on toward the park. So we drove gingerly to that station to find it deserted! Our hopes to get to the park blasted, we got permission from the lone resident to camp about 300 years back of the house among the grease wood, about 3 feet high, the only cover. In the latter part of the night a “Norther” and sandstorm such as only West Texas can produce blew in! We got up early and got our breakfast as best we could in the cold wind and dust and crept back - 20 miles - to Marathon. There we got the tire vulcanized and went on to Ft. Davis for refuge from the cold in a tourist camp. How good the gas felt! It froze that night.

Next day we went back to Stockton, sadder and wiser.

In six months or so Maing was dead. He was visiting a mutual friend in McKinney, took seriously ill with cancer. He wrote me if I wanted to see him to hurry up. I did in a few days, had a wonderful love feast with him and went back home to hear in about a week that he had gone home.

He was a wonderful missionary, Bible student, and teacher, and an insatiable reader. He hated sham, formality and hypocrisy, and conventionality. He was a good traveler, and a loyal friend. I missed him.

I left Ft. Stockton on a call to Junction in 1947 after building the church there, in 1949 arthritis hit me, and it’s still got me in 1961! I retired in August, 1949 and came back to Odessa to “settle” as Tommy and Lois both lived here, we lived with Lois until March, 1953 when we “settled” here at 922 E. Wink in a 4 room cottage which Murphy & Rochester so generously provided for us. But my arthritis got better and I was busy as J.P. with supply preaching all over this area until I had to decline further invitations to preach in 1960, and then had to resign as J.P. in 1961, due to inability to do the work further. So her I am confined to the home, not having been out of the house since Fathers Day 1961 when we went to Lois’ home for dinner.So I stop for now.

To be continued - I hope

My father Thomas D. Murphy died in Odessa, TX on Dec. 4, 1970 at the age of 86 - Thomas D. Murphy, Jr.

P.S. Both 1st Presbyterian Churches in Odessa and Midland became self supporting under his pastorate. I am very proud of the great church work my Father and Mother did in their life.

Although Michael Nesmith is best known as a member of The Monkees, he would have had some minor fame if he had never learned to sing or play an instrument. His mother, Bette Nesmith Graham, was the inventor of the substance known as correctional fluid or liquid paper. While he was a successful musician himself, the bulk of his wealth can be attributed to his mother and the successful marketing of her one invention. As her only heir, he received half of her $50,000,000 estate when she died in 1980.

Bette Nesmith Graham married Michael’s father, Audrey Nesmith, during World War II, but divorced him in 1946. Although she had dreamed of being an artist, she obtained work as a secretary in a Dallas, Texas bank to support herself and her young child. By all accounts, she was a skilled a professional secretary and quickly became the executive secretary at the bank. Hoping to find a way to work more efficiently, she invented white out as a way of quickly covering typing errors that might otherwise take a great deal of time to fix.

From her limited experience with art, she knew that artists rarely erase mistakes they make while painting. Instead, they hide the mistakes by painting over them. Bette realized that there was no reason that she could not use the same process to correct typing mistakes. To that end, she went home used her blender to mix some tempra waterbased paints into a color that matched the stationary she used. She mixed the colors so well that her boss could not tell when she had used it. In a time when a single mistake might require retyping an entire page, this correctional fluid greatly reduced the time required to correct errors.

As other secretaries saw her use her invention, they wanted to try it. Soon, Bette started a home-based business in which she produced and sold her new invention. In 1956, she started the Mistake Out Company (later called Liquid Paper) although it was not profitable for many years. When she was eventually fired from her job, however, she began concentrating on the business and it began to prosper. By 1967 it was a million dollar business and by 1968, Bette had moved Liquid Paper to a new plant/headquarters with 19 employees. The company continued to grow and was producing over 25 million bottles a year for a net profit of over $1,500,000 in 1976.

Bette sold Liquid Paper to the Gillette Corporation in 1979 for $47,500,000 plus royalties. She died six months later and her son, Michael, inherited half of her estate. By that time, he had already achieved a great deal of fame as one of the members of The Monkees. If not for that success, however, he would have been known to history only as the son of the woman who invented white out. Fortunately for Michael Nesmith, however, there is more to the story than that.

Speech delivered on December 8, 1941 asking Congress for a Declaration of War on Japan. Click here to listen to the audio of the speech.

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives:

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.

And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.
Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As commander in chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph — so help us God.
I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.

Speech delivered to the Virgina House of Burgesses on March 23, 1775. The image is a painting of Patrick Henry by George Bagby Matthews from Wikipedia.

No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the house. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The question before the house is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at the truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the numbers of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received?

Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlement assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation.

There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free–if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending–if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained–we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength but irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable–and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extentuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace–but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

 

Like so many of our holidays, Halloween has become commercialized by American society. It has grown to the point that few people who celebrated it a few hundred years ago would recognize it today. At the same time, most people today do not know where the Halloween tradition came from. What was its original purpose and how did it develop? We will try to answer these questions in this article.

Halloween is really a shortened name for “all-hallow-even” which is the day before “All Hallow’s Day” or “All Saint’s Day” which is celebrated by the Catholic church on November 1st. It has been celebrated by Christians since the 3rd century, although it was not moved to November 1st until the 8th century. For Catholics, All Saint’s Day is a time to honor the lives of all of the saints, known and unknown. But what does that have to do with Halloween?

Obviously, Halloween gets its name from its proximity to All Saint’s Day, but that is about it. The origins of the traditions that we associated with Halloween are much older and come from pre-Christian cultures that celebrated October 31st as the end of the summer and the beginning of winter. In particular, Halloween has its roots in the holiday of Samhain that Celtic people in Britain and Ireland celebrated in ancient times.To the Celts, the summer represented life while the winter represented death. Thus, they believed that the two days out of the year that marked transitions from one to the other were days when the boundaries between the living and the dead were blurred. They believed that Samhain and its counterpart Beltane were times when spirits might be especially active in the land of the living. Thus, they invented traditions and rituals to either ward off evil spirits or make use of them while they were active.

For example, the Celts built bonfires to keep those evil spirits away. This is a a tradition that remains popular in Halloween celebrations. Similarly, because the Celts believed that Samhain was a particularly good time for divination, Celtic children played a variety of games that they believed would tell them who they were going to marry. A hundred years ago, this remained an important part of Halloween celebrations as it was common for a young woman to sit in a dark room on Halloween looking into a mirror to see what her future husband would look like. Even today, the Celtic tradition of “bobbing for apples” remains popular. Again, it is associated with divination and fertility. The Celts believed that the first person to catch an apple at one of their large Samhain celebrations would be the next person to be married. People continue playing the game despite forgetting its original meaning.

Halloween evolved slowly over the years, coming to the United States with Irish immigrants during the 19th century. Here it continued to evolve to better accommodate American culture. For example, the Irish only started carving pumpkins on Halloween once they got to the United States. In Ireland, were pumpkins are scarce, they had carved turnips. Thus we do not carve pumpkins on Halloween as part of any long established tradition, but because of the simple fact that there are far more pumpkins than turnips in North America!

Trick-or-treating, however, is also a fairly new addition to Halloween tradition. It comes from the All Saints Day practice of “souling” in which poor people would go door to door offering prayers for the dead in exchange for food. It remained unconnected to Halloween for many years and it was not until after World War II, when the practice started being promoted by the media, that children began going door to door demanding candy on Halloween. Some say adults started the tradition to channel Halloween celebrations away from mischief. Others see it as one of the first obvious attempts at commercialization of a holiday in America.

Different places around the world have put their own “spin” on Samhain, but it is still celebrated, in the guise of Halloween, by most of the English speaking world. The traditions that we associated with Halloween today have their roots in many different practices of many different cultures, but most of them come, to a certain extent, from the ancient Celts. Ironically, despite being celebrated by millions of people around the world, Halloween is one of the least understood holidays on our calendar. We would like to think that people would want to know something about the number two holiday in the United States, but that does not seem to be the case. Many people are ignorant to the origins of Halloween itself as well as the traditions that we associate with it.

For further reading, see Wikipedia. The image is a postcard by Ellen Clapsaddle from 1904. It shows a young woman attempting to divine who her husband will be. It can be found at Wikipedia.

Speech delivered to the House of Commons on June 4th, 1940 soon after the evacuation of Dunkirk. See The Churchill Center for further reading. The image is a photograph taken around 1941 from Wikipedia.

From the moment that the French defenses at Sedan and on the Meuse were broken at the end of the second week of May, only a rapid retreat to Amiens and the south could have saved the British and French Armies who had entered Belgium at the appeal of the Belgian King; but this strategic fact was not immediately realized. The French High Command hoped they would be able to close the gap, and the Armies of the north were under their orders. Moreover, a retirement of this kind would have involved almost certainly the destruction of the fine Belgian Army of over 20 divisions and the abandonment of the whole of Belgium. Therefore, when the force and scope of the German penetration were realized and when a new French Generalissimo, General Weygand, assumed command in place of General Gamelin, an effort was made by the French and British Armies in Belgium to keep on holding the right hand of the Belgians and to give their own right hand to a newly created French Army which was to have advanced across the Somme in great strength to grasp it.

 However, the German eruption swept like a sharp scythe around the right and rear of the Armies of the north. Eight or nine armored divisions, each of about four hundred armored vehicles of different kinds, but carefully assorted to be complementary and divisible into small self-contained units, cut off all communications between us and the main French Armies. It severed our own communications for food and ammunition, which ran first to Amiens and afterwards through Abbeville, and it shore its way up the coast to Boulogne and Calais, and almost to Dunkirk. Behind this armored and mechanized onslaught came a number of German divisions in lorries, and behind them again there plodded comparatively slowly the dull brute mass of the ordinary German Army and German people, always so ready to be led to the trampling down in other lands of liberties and comforts which they have never known in their own.

I have said this armored scythe-stroke almost reached Dunkirk-almost but not quite. Boulogne and Calais were the scenes of desperate fighting. The Guards defended Boulogne for a while and were then withdrawn by orders from this country. The Rifle Brigade, the 60th Rifles, and the Queen Victoria’s Rifles, with a battalion of British tanks and 1,000 Frenchmen, in all about four thousand strong, defended Calais to the last. The British Brigadier was given an hour to surrender. He spurned the offer, and four days of intense street fighting passed before silence reigned over Calais, which marked the end of a memorable resistance. Only 30 unwounded survivors were brought off by the Navy, and we do not know the fate of their comrades. Their sacrifice, however, was not in vain. At least two armored divisions, which otherwise would have been turned against the British Expeditionary Force, had to be sent to overcome them. They have added another page to the glories of the light divisions, and the time gained enabled the Graveline water lines to be flooded and to be held by the French troops.

Thus it was that the port of Dunkirk was kept open. When it was found impossible for the Armies of the north to reopen their communications to Amiens with the main French Armies, only one choice remained. It seemed, indeed, forlorn. The Belgian, British and French Armies were almost surrounded. Their sole line of retreat was to a single port and to its neighboring beaches. They were pressed on every side by heavy attacks and far outnumbered in the air.

When, a week ago today, I asked the House to fix this afternoon as the occasion for a statement, I feared it would be my hard lot to announce the greatest military disaster in our long history. I thought-and some good judges agreed with me-that perhaps 20,000 or 30,000 men might be re-embarked. But it certainly seemed that the whole of the French First Army and the whole of the British Expeditionary Force north of the Amiens-Abbeville gap would be broken up in the open field or else would have to capitulate for lack of food and ammunition. These were the hard and heavy tidings for which I called upon the House and the nation to prepare themselves a week ago. The whole root and core and brain of the British Army, on which and around which we were to build, and are to build, the great British Armies in the later years of the war, seemed about to perish upon the field or to be led into an ignominious and starving captivity.

That was the prospect a week ago. But another blow which might well have proved final was yet to fall upon us. The King of the Belgians had called upon us to come to his aid. Had not this Ruler and his Government severed themselves from the Allies, who rescued their country from extinction in the late war, and had they not sought refuge in what was proved to be a fatal neutrality, the French and British Armies might well at the outset have saved not only Belgium but perhaps even Poland. Yet at the last moment, when Belgium was already invaded, King Leopold called upon us to come to his aid, and even at the last moment we came. He and his brave, efficient Army, nearly half a million strong, guarded our left flank and thus kept open our only line of retreat to the sea. Suddenly, without prior consultation, with the least possible notice, without the advice of his Ministers and upon his own personal act, he sent a plenipotentiary to the German Command, surrendered his Army, and exposed our whole flank and means of retreat.

I asked the House a week ago to suspend its judgment because the facts were not clear, but I do not feel that any reason now exists why we should not form our own opinions upon this pitiful episode. The surrender of the Belgian Army compelled the British at the shortest notice to cover a flank to the sea more than 30 miles in length. Otherwise all would have been cut off, and all would have shared the fate to which King Leopold had condemned the finest Army his country had ever formed. So in doing this and in exposing this flank, as anyone who followed the operations on the map will see, contact was lost between the British and two out of the three corps forming the First French Army, who were still farther from the coast than we were, and it seemed impossible that any large number of Allied troops could reach the coast.

The enemy attacked on all sides with great strength and fierceness, and their main power, the power of their far more numerous Air Force, was thrown into the battle or else concentrated upon Dunkirk and the beaches. Pressing in upon the narrow exit, both from the east and from the west, the enemy began to fire with cannon upon the beaches by which alone the shipping could approach or depart. They sowed magnetic mines in the channels and seas; they sent repeated waves of hostile aircraft, sometimes more than a hundred strong in one formation, to cast their bombs upon the single pier that remained, and upon the sand dunes upon which the troops had their eyes for shelter. Their U-boats, one of which was sunk, and their motor launches took their toll of the vast traffic which now began. For four or five days an intense struggle reigned. All their armored divisions-or what Was left of them-together with great masses of infantry and artillery, hurled themselves in vain upon the ever-narrowing, ever-contracting appendix within which the British and French Armies fought.

Meanwhile, the Royal Navy, with the willing help of countless merchant seamen, strained every nerve to embark the British and Allied troops; 220 light warships and 650 other vessels were engaged. They had to operate upon the difficult coast, often in adverse weather, under an almost ceaseless hail of bombs and an increasing concentration of artillery fire. Nor were the seas, as I have said, themselves free from mines and torpedoes. It was in conditions such as these that our men carried on, with little or no rest, for days and nights on end, making trip after trip across the dangerous waters, bringing with them always men whom they had rescued. The numbers they have brought back are the measure of their devotion and their courage. The hospital ships, which brought off many thousands of British and French wounded, being so plainly marked were a special target for Nazi bombs; but the men and women on board them never faltered in their duty.

Meanwhile, the Royal Air Force, which had already been intervening in the battle, so far as its range would allow, from home bases, now used part of its main metropolitan fighter strength, and struck at the German bombers and at the fighters which in large numbers protected them. This struggle was protracted and fierce. Suddenly the scene has cleared, the crash and thunder has for the moment-but only for the moment-died away. A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valor, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquerable fidelity, is manifest to us all. The enemy was hurled back by the retreating British and French troops. He was so roughly handled that he did not hurry their departure seriously. The Royal Air Force engaged the main strength of the German Air Force, and inflicted upon them losses of at least four to one; and the Navy, using nearly 1,000 ships of all kinds, carried over 335,000 men, French and British, out of the jaws of death and shame, to their native land and to the tasks which lie immediately ahead. We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations. But there was a victory inside this deliverance, which should be noted. It was gained by the Air Force. Many of our soldiers coming back have not seen the Air Force at work; they saw only the bombers which escaped its protective attack. They underrate its achievements. I have heard much talk of this; that is why I go out of my way to say this. I will tell you about it.

This was a great trial of strength between the British and German Air Forces. Can you conceive a greater objective for the Germans in the air than to make evacuation from these beaches impossible, and to sink all these ships which were displayed, almost to the extent of thousands? Could there have been an objective of greater military importance and significance for the whole purpose of the war than this? They tried hard, and they were beaten back; they were frustrated in their task. We got the Army away; and they have paid fourfold for any losses which they have inflicted. Very large formations of German aeroplanes-and we know that they are a very brave race-have turned on several occasions from the attack of one-quarter of their number of the Royal Air Force, and have dispersed in different directions. Twelve aeroplanes have been hunted by two. One aeroplane was driven into the water and cast away by the mere charge of a British aeroplane, which had no more ammunition. All of our types-the Hurricane, the Spitfire and the new Defiant-and all our pilots have been vindicated as superior to what they have at present to face.

When we consider how much greater would be our advantage in defending the air above this Island against an overseas attack, I must say that I find in these facts a sure basis upon which practical and reassuring thoughts may rest. I will pay my tribute to these young airmen. The great French Army was very largely, for the time being, cast back and disturbed by the onrush of a few thousands of armored vehicles. May it not also be that the cause of civilization itself will be defended by the skill and devotion of a few thousand airmen? There never has been, I suppose, in all the world, in all the history of war, such an opportunity for youth. The Knights of the Round Table, the Crusaders, all fall back into the past-not only distant but prosaic; these young men, going forth every morn to guard their native land and all that we stand for, holding in their hands these instruments of colossal and shattering power, of whom it may be said that…

Every morn brought forth a noble chance

And every chance brought forth a noble knight,

…deserve our gratitude, as do all the brave men who, in so many ways and on so many occasions, are ready, and continue ready to give life and all for their native land.

I return to the Army. In the long series of very fierce battles, now on this front, now on that, fighting on three fronts at once, battles fought by two or three divisions against an equal or somewhat larger number of the enemy, and fought fiercely on some of the old grounds that so many of us knew so well-in these battles our losses in men have exceeded 30,000 killed, wounded and missing. I take occasion to express the sympathy of the House to all who have suffered bereavement or who are still anxious. The President of the Board of Trade [Sir Andrew Duncan] is not here today. His son has been killed, and many in the House have felt the pangs of affliction in the sharpest form. But I will say this about the missing: We have had a large number of wounded come home safely to this country, but I would say about the missing that there may be very many reported missing who will come back home, some day, in one way or another. In the confusion of this fight it is inevitable that many have been left in positions where honor required no further resistance from them.

Against this loss of over 30,000 men, we can set a far heavier loss certainly inflicted upon the enemy. But our losses in material are enormous. We have perhaps lost one-third of the men we lost in the opening days of the battle of 21st March, 1918, but we have lost nearly as many guns — nearly one thousand-and all our transport, all the armored vehicles that were with the Army in the north. This loss will impose a further delay on the expansion of our military strength. That expansion had not been proceeding as far as we had hoped. The best of all we had to give had gone to the British Expeditionary Force, and although they had not the numbers of tanks and some articles of equipment which were desirable, they were a very well and finely equipped Army. They had the first-fruits of all that our industry had to give, and that is gone. And now here is this further delay. How long it will be, how long it will last, depends upon the exertions which we make in this Island. An effort the like of which has never been seen in our records is now being made. Work is proceeding everywhere, night and day, Sundays and week days. Capital and Labor have cast aside their interests, rights, and customs and put them into the common stock. Already the flow of munitions has leaped forward. There is no reason why we should not in a few months overtake the sudden and serious loss that has come upon us, without retarding the development of our general program.

Nevertheless, our thankfulness at the escape of our Army and so many men, whose loved ones have passed through an agonizing week, must not blind us to the fact that what has happened in France and Belgium is a colossal military disaster. The French Army has been weakened, the Belgian Army has been lost, a large part of those fortified lines upon which so much faith had been reposed is gone, many valuable mining districts and factories have passed into the enemy’s possession, the whole of the Channel ports are in his hands, with all the tragic consequences that follow from that, and we must expect another blow to be struck almost immediately at us or at France. We are told that Herr Hitler has a plan for invading the British Isles. This has often been thought of before. When Napoleon lay at Boulogne for a year with his flat-bottomed boats and his Grand Army, he was told by someone. “There are bitter weeds in England.” There are certainly a great many more of them since the British Expeditionary Force returned.

The whole question of home defense against invasion is, of course, powerfully affected by the fact that we have for the time being in this Island incomparably more powerful military forces than we have ever had at any moment in this war or the last. But this will not continue. We shall not be content with a defensive war. We have our duty to our Ally. We have to reconstitute and build up the British Expeditionary Force once again, under its gallant Commander-in-Chief, Lord Gort. All this is in train; but in the interval we must put our defenses in this Island into such a high state of organization that the fewest possible numbers will be required to give effective security and that the largest possible potential of offensive effort may be realized. On this we are now engaged. It will be very convenient, if it be the desire of the House, to enter upon this subject in a secret Session. Not that the government would necessarily be able to reveal in very great detail military secrets, but we like to have our discussions free, without the restraint imposed by the fact that they will be read the next day by the enemy; and the Government would benefit by views freely expressed in all parts of the House by Members with their knowledge of so many different parts of the country. I understand that some request is to be made upon this subject, which will be readily acceded to by His Majesty’s Government.

We have found it necessary to take measures of increasing stringency, not only against enemy aliens and suspicious characters of other nationalities, but also against British subjects who may become a danger or a nuisance should the war be transported to the United Kingdom. I know there are a great many people affected by the orders which we have made who are the passionate enemies of Nazi Germany. I am very sorry for them, but we cannot, at the present time and under the present stress, draw all the distinctions which we should like to do. If parachute landings were attempted and fierce fighting attendant upon them followed, these unfortunate people would be far better out of the way, for their own sakes as well as for ours. There is, however, another class, for which I feel not the slightest sympathy. Parliament has given us the powers to put down Fifth Column activities with a strong hand, and we shall use those powers subject to the supervision and correction of the House, without the slightest hesitation until we are satisfied, and more than satisfied, that this malignancy in our midst has been effectively stamped out.

Turning once again, and this time more generally, to the question of invasion, I would observe that there has never been a period in all these long centuries of which we boast when an absolute guarantee against invasion, still less against serious raids, could have been given to our people. In the days of Napoleon the same wind which would have carried his transports across the Channel might have driven away the blockading fleet. There was always the chance, and it is that chance which has excited and befooled the imaginations of many Continental tyrants. Many are the tales that are told. We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous maneuver. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye. We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if it can be locally exercised.

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. 

King Leonidas I, whose name meant “lion-like,” was king of Sparta between 488BC and 480BC. He is best known to history as the commander of the Spartan army at the Battle of Thermopylae during the Persian Wars. The story of his sacrifice has been an inspiration to generations and was recently brought to the big screen by Gerard Butler in the movie 300 which was based on a graphic novel of the same name by Frank Miller.

Leonidas was born around 520BC to King Anaxandridas II, a descendant of Hercules. Anaxandridas had two wives, so Leonidas had a half-brother, Cleomenes I, in addition to his younger brother Cleombrotus I and his older brother Dorieus. Although Cleomenes succeeded Anaxandridas after his death because he was probably the firstborn of the four, he was the son of Anaxandridas’ second wife, so his claim to the throne was not entirely solid. The throne could have gone to Dorieus as Anaxandridas’ oldest son by his first marriage.

Whether it was because he feared him as a rival or because he really did have an interest in foreign expansion, Cleomenes supported Dorieus in several foreign expeditions. Fortunately for Cleomenes, Dorieus was killed on one of these expeditions. Dorieus was not the only rival that Cleomenes faced, however. One of his greatest political enemies was his co-king Demartus. The two Spartan kings frustrated each others plans for several years until both were finally forced into exile. Demartus found his way to Persia where he became an adviser to Xerxes. It was he who cautioned Xerxes not to underestimate the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae.

Cleomenes, on the other hand, was eventually allowed to come home. He was soon accused of being insane, however, so he was put into prison and chained under the orders of his half-brothers, Leonidas and Cleombrotus. Before long, he was found dead with pieces of flesh cut from his body and a bloody knife on the floor next to him. Whether he was murdered or committed suicide remains as much of a mystery to historians as whether or not he was actually insane.

Cleomenes had no children except for his daughter Gorgo, who was already married to Leonidas, so Leonidas became king in 489BC or 488BC. He inherited a city-state in danger of conquest. For many years, the Persian Empire had exerted a powerful influence on Greece. Make city-states, especially in the region of Ionia, had already submitted to Persian rule and as recently as 491BC, Persia’s King Darius had attempted to conquer Greece outright. That the Greeks defeated the Persians at the Battle of Marathon in 490BC did little to ameliorate the Persian threat. Leonidas and others knew that they could always return.

That is just what the Persians did. Darius died in 486BC and was succeeded by his son Xerxes. After making extensive preparations, Xerxes set out to conquer the Greeks in 480BC. Like his father, he sent messengers to the various Greek city-states demanding a tribute of earth and water to signify submission to Persia. Most accepted the offer, but Sparta and a few others did not. The Athenians killed the messengers outright while the Spartans threw them down a well instructing them “dig it out for yourselves.”

Soon, Xerxes left Babylon at the head of the enormous army he had been preparing for years. Although modern historians cannot be sure how big it was, the army probably contained several hundred thousand men. Whatever their numbers, the Persians greatly outnumbered the Greeks in Sparta, Athens, and the other resisting city-states. This was an advantage they retained throughout their campaign in Greece.

The resisting city-states put aside their differences to work together for their common defense. Their only hope in the face of such overwhelming numbers was to meet the Persians at a key choke point. After missing their opportunity to stop the Persians at the Vale of Tempe, the Greeks decided that Thermopolyae would be the place to block the Persian advance into southern Greece. There, the terrain was so narrow that it would prevent anything but a small part of the Persian army from engaging the Greeks at any given time. At Thermopolyae, Persia’s numbers count for very little.

Unfortunately, Leonidas was forced to meet the Persians without the use of the full Spartan army. Whether it was intentional or not, Xerxes had planned his invasion during important religious festivals for the Greeks. The Athenians were celebrating the Olympic Games in honor of Zeus and the Spartans were celebrating the Carneian festival in honor of Apollo as the Persians threatened to conquer them. But because Spartan law forbid the army from fighting during the festival, Leonidas was only able to take his personal bodyguard to fight with him at Thermopylae. Athens was also unable to commit a full force and what troops it did send had to be used to stop the Persian navy.

It was believed that a small Greek force at Thermopylae would be sufficient to hold the Persians long enough for the Greek allies to mobilize their full forces after celebrating their various religious festivals. With the addition of troops from several smaller city-states, the Greek force probably number about 7,000, so they did have a reasonable chance of holding the Persians for a while. Again, the terrain of Thermopylae would be their biggest asset.

Nevertheless, Leonidas clearly realized that he would not return from Thermopylae. Partially, that was his intention. The oracle at Delphi had already prophesied that Sparta would either mourn the loss of its city, or one of its kings who was descended from Hercules. Therefore, Leonidas believed that if he went with a small force and sacrificed himself, Sparta would be saved. Obviously, he would have probably to take the whole army with him, but he had to obey Sparta’s laws. Therefore, he took only a personal bodyguard consisting of 300 of his best warriors, all with born sons to carry on their family names.

That he did not plan to return home can seen in his final words to his wife, Gorgo. According to Plutarch, before Leonidas left for Thermopylae, Gorgo asked him what he wanted her to do. He said, “marry a good man that will treat you well, bear him children, and live a good life.” He knew he was not coming home. He would go to Thermopylae and sacrifice himself to save Sparta. He was right because Gorgo never saw him again.

The Greek coalition army was successful at holding the Persian advance for several days. It was not until a local named Ephialtes told the Persians about a path around the Greek lines that the Greeks were doomed. Surrounded, they had no chance at all. Leonidas therefore sent most of the army away, remaining only with his 300 Spartans, their slaves, and a few others. In total, this force probably numbered about 2,000. With the exception of some Thebans who surrendered, all of the remaining Greeks were killed.

Thermopylae may have been a defeat for the Greeks, but it was no great victory for the Persians. It is hard to say exactly how many men the Persians lost, but modern estimates put the figure around 20,000 men. Further, the battle gave the Athenians enough time to evacuate Athens and flee to the island of Salamis. Because of the men and time the Persians lost at the Battle of Thermopylae, the Greeks were able to defeat them in a naval battle at Salamis and later at a land battle at Platea. Persia never again attempted to i