As we honor the victims of Sept. 11, we are also reminded how our country came together to stand as one.

The Golden Rule
by Norman Rockwell
April 1, 1961

We love Norman Rockwell’s 1961 Post cover, The Golden Rule, which reflects that same sentiment. Each person depicted in this illustration is one of Rockwell’s neighbors from Arlington, Virginia, and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It represents the universal fact that all men, great or unknown, are members of one family.

After The Golden Rule appeared as a magazine cover, Rockwell was presented with the Interfaith Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews, recognized for “his dedication to the highest ideals of amity, understanding, and cooperation among men.”

Remembering Sept. 11 The Saturday Evening Post

Illustration by SHOUT.

“Politics ain’t beanbag,” said a Chicago humorist in 1895; it’s not a game for children. Ever since then the saying has been used to justify the rough-and-tumble nastiness of American politics. The competition always involves trickery and demagoguery, as politicians play fast and loose with the truth, using their inner press secretaries to portray themselves in the best possible light and their opponents as fools who would lead the country to ruin.

Why does it have to be this nasty? The country now seems polarized and embattled to the point of dysfunction. Up until a few years ago, there were some political scientists who claimed that the so-called culture war was limited to Washington, and that Americans had not in fact become more polarized in their attitudes toward most policy issues. But in the last twelve years Americans have begun to move further apart. There’s been a decline in the number of people calling themselves centrists or moderates (from 40 percent in 2000 down to 36 percent in 2011), a rise in the number of conservatives (from 38 percent to 41 percent), and a rise in the number of liberals (from 19 percent to 21 percent).

This shift to a more tribal mentality owes a lot to the stories we tell about ourselves. Everyone loves a good story, and these narratives are not necessarily true stories—they are simplified and selective reconstructions of the past, often connected to an idealized vision of the future. But even though life narratives are to some degree post hoc fabrications, they still influence people’s behavior, relationships, and mental health.

One such narrative, which the sociologist Christian Smith calls the “liberal progress narrative,” organizes much of the moral matrix of the American academic left. It goes like this:

Once upon a time, the vast majority of human persons suffered in societies that were unjust, unhealthy, repressive, and oppressive. These traditional societies were reprehensible because of their deep-rooted inequality, exploitation, and irrational traditionalism. … But the noble human aspiration for autonomy, equality, and prosperity struggled mightily against the forces of misery and oppression, and eventually succeeded in establishing modern, liberal, democratic, capitalist, welfare societies. While modern social conditions hold the potential to maximize the individual freedom and pleasure of all, there is much work to be done to dismantle the powerful vestiges of inequality, exploitation, and repression. This struggle for the good society in which individuals are equal and free to pursue their self-defined happiness is the one mission truly worth dedicating one’s life to achieving.

This narrative may not mesh perfectly with the moral matrices of the left in European countries (where, for example, there is more distrust of capitalism). Nonetheless, its general plotline should be recognizable to leftists everywhere. It’s a heroic liberation narrative. Authority, hierarchy, power, and tradition are the chains that must be broken to free the “noble aspirations” of the victims.

Contrast that narrative to one for modern conservatism. The clinical psychologist Drew Westen in his book The Political Brain extracts the master narrative that was implicit, and sometimes explicit, in the major speeches of Ronald Reagan:

Once upon a time, America was a shining beacon. Then liberals came along and erected an enormous federal bureaucracy that handcuffed the invisible hand of the free market. They subverted our traditional American values and opposed God and faith at every step of the way. … Instead of requiring that people work for a living, they siphoned money from hardworking Americans and gave it to Cadillac-driving drug addicts and welfare queens. … Instead of adhering to traditional American values of family, fidelity, and personal responsibility, they encouraged a feminist agenda that undermined traditional family roles. … Instead of projecting strength to those who would do evil around the world, they cut military budgets, disrespected our soldiers in uniform, burned our flag, and chose negotiation and multilateralism. … Then Americans decided to take their country back from those who sought to undermine it.

The two narratives are as opposed as could be. But research shows that the obstacles to empathy are not symmetrical. Even though conservatives score slightly lower on measures of empathy and may therefore be less moved by a story about suffering and oppression, they can still recognize that it is awful to be kept in chains. And even though many conservatives opposed some of the great liberations of the twentieth century—of women, sweatshop workers, African Americans, and gay people—they have applauded others, such as the liberation of Eastern Europe from communist oppression.

But when liberals try to understand the Reagan narrative, they have a harder time. Many in the audience actively reject these concerns as immoral. Loyalty to a group is the basis of racism and exclusion, they say. Authority is oppression. Religion is used to suppress female sexuality and justify homophobia.

John Lennon captured a common liberal dream in his haunting song “Imagine.” Imagine if there were no countries, and no religion too. If we could just erase the borders and boundaries that divide us, then the world would “be as one.” It’s a vision of heaven for liberals, but conservatives believe it would quickly descend into hell.

Illustration by SHOUT.

As a one-time liberal atheist, I’ve come to believe, based on my own research, that conservatives are onto something. They understand the importance of what I’ll call “moral capital.” (Please note that I am praising conservative intellectuals, not the Republican Party.) Capital, in economics, refers to the resources that allow a person or firm to produce goods or services. There’s financial capital (money in the bank), physical capital (such as a wrench or a factory), and human capital (such as a well-trained sales force). When everything else is equal, a firm with more of any kind of capital will outcompete a firm with less. We can define moral capital as the resources that sustain a moral community. More specifically, moral capital refers to the degree to which a community possesses interlocking sets of values and practices that mesh well with evolved psychological mechanisms and thereby enable the community to regulate selfishness and make cooperation possible.

What does it take to sustain moral capital? Is it enough to just link people together in healthy and trusting relationships? Will that lead to good behavior for years to come?

If you believe that people are inherently good, and that they flourish when constraints and divisions are removed, then yes, that may be sufficient. But conservatives generally take a very different view of human nature. They believe that people need external structures or constraints in order to behave well, cooperate, and thrive. These external constraints include laws, institutions, customs, traditions, nations, and religions.

Large-scale human societies are nearly miraculous achievements. Our complicated moral psychology co-evolved with our religions and our other cultural inventions (such as tribes and agriculture) to get us where we are today. We need groups, we love groups, and we develop our virtues in groups, even though those groups necessarily exclude nonmembers. Conservatives fear that if you destroy all groups and dissolve all internal structure, you destroy your moral capital.

This, I believe, is the fundamental blind spot of the left. It explains why liberal reforms so often backfire, and why communist revolutions usually end up in despotism. Left-wing reformers often overreach, change too many things too quickly, and reduce the stock of moral capital inadvertently. Conversely, while conservatives do a better job of preserving moral capital, they often fail to notice certain classes of victims, fail to limit the predations of certain powerful interests, and fail to see the need to change or update institutions as times change.

The third-century Persian prophet Mani preached that the world is the battleground between the forces of absolute goodness and the forces of absolute evil. His preaching developed into Manichaeism, a religion that spread throughout the Middle East and influenced Western thinking. Unfortunately, the rising rancor and polarization between liberals and conservatives has turned our politicians into Manichaean priests. Compromise is a sin. God and the devil don’t issue many bipartisan proclamations, and neither do our politicians.

America’s political class has become far more Manichaean since the early 1990s. Before 1995, congressmen from both parties attended many of the same social events on weekends; their spouses became friends; their children played on the same sports teams. But nowadays most congressmen fly to Washington on Monday night, huddle with their teammates and do battle for three days, and then fly home on Thursday night. Cross-party friendships are disappearing; Manichaeism and scorched Earth politics are increasing.

Illustration by SHOUT.

I don’t know how Americans can convince their legislators to move their families to Washington, and I don’t know if even that change would revive cross-party friendships in today’s poisoned atmosphere, but anything we can do to cultivate more positive social connections might also alter behavior. Other structural changes that might reduce Manichaeism include changing the ways that primary elections are run, the ways that electoral districts are drawn, and the ways that candidates raise money for their campaigns.

The problem is not just limited to politicians. Technology and changing residential patterns have allowed each of us to isolate ourselves within cocoons of like-minded individuals. In 1976, only 27 percent of Americans lived in “landslide counties”—counties that voted either Democratic or Republican by a margin of 20 percent or more. But the number has risen steadily; in 2008, 48 percent of Americans lived in a landslide county. Our counties and towns are becoming increasingly segregated into “lifestyle enclaves,” in which ways of voting, eating, working, and worshipping are increasingly aligned. If you find yourself in a Whole Foods store, there’s an 89 percent chance that the county surrounding you voted for Barack Obama. If you want to find Republicans, go to a county that contains a Cracker Barrel restaurant (62 percent of these counties went for McCain).

Morality binds and blinds. This is not just something that happens to people on the other side. We all get sucked into tribal moral communities. We think the other side is blind to truth, reason, science, and common sense, but in fact everyone goes blind when talking about what they hold sacred. So if you really want to open your mind, open your heart first. If you can have at least one friendly interaction with a member of the “other” group, you’ll find it far easier to listen to what they’re saying, and maybe even see a controversial issue in a new light.

The next time you find yourself seated beside someone from “another” group, give it a try. Don’t just jump right in. Don’t bring up morality until you’ve found a few points of commonality or in some other way established a bit of trust. And when you do bring up issues of morality, try to start with some praise or a sincere expression of interest.

We’re all stuck here for a while, so let’s try to work it out.

To view a video of Jonathan Haidt with journalist Bill Moyers, visit saturdayeveningpost.com/haidt.

An excerpt from The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. © 2012 by Jonathan Haidt. Published by arrangement with Pantheon Books, an imprint of The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.

America’s Painful Divide The Saturday Evening Post

The Upper Peninsula's Porcupine Mountains. Photo by Jeffrey Foltice, courtesy michigan.org

With two national forests, America’s first National Lakeshore, and dozens of state parks and woodlands, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula offers as many beautiful fall locales as anywhere in the U.S. Furthermore, it is one of the most isolated places in the mainland. The UP makes up one quarter of Michigan’s land area but is home to only three percent of the state’s population, making it secluded enough that visitors can enjoy natural serenity without getting overrun by “leaf peepers.” Here are some of the most notable places in the UP.

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Lake Superior waves meet cliffs at the Pictured Rocks' Battleship Row.

This destination in north central UP on Lake Superior is worth visiting at any time. There are hundreds of miles of trails, sandstone cliffs, waterfalls, a seemingly endless beach, and sparkling turquoise blue water. Unlike most Great Lake beaches that are simply sandy, Pictured Rocks’ shoreline is strewn with literally billions of small rocks, each a different color, and a reminder that Superior sits on much more rocky terrain than its cousins. Spring brings a myriad of wildflowers, summers are a pleasant 70 degrees, and winter affords snowmobiling and cross country skiing opportunities.

Chapel Rock, a famed sandstone formation at Pictured Rocks. Photo by Joel Feenstra.

However, Pictured Rocks becomes positively enchanting in fall. Trees such as beech, aspen, maple, and birch put on a show each autumn, their vibrant colors complemented by a palette of evergreen, sandstone, and shimmering blue. An interesting species is the Tamarack, a deciduous conifer tree. Although this may sound like an oxymoron, it is one of only a few trees in the world that sheds needles in fall, changing from a dark evergreen to a golden yellow in the process. Due to the moderating influence of Superior, Pictured Rocks is one of the last places in the UP to experience leaf change even though it is at the northern edge, making it available later in the year. Perhaps best of all, cooler temperatures mean that fall is a time when visitors can enjoy the park without being pestered by what locals call the “UP State Bird”–the mosquito.

Waterfalls

Upper Tahquemenon Falls, the second largest waterfall east of the Mississippi.

One special thing about the UP is its unique geology. It sits at the southern edge of the Canadian Shield, a feature named because it extends from the Great Lakes all the way around the Hudson Bay into the arctic, giving it a shield-like appearance. In the last ice age, receding glaciers stripped the Shield of most of its topsoil, exposing massive quantities of bedrock. This means water doesn’t easily carve out riverbeds in the UP, but instead travels over unyielding rock. The end result: waterfalls. The UP has over 300 of them, including Tahquamenon Falls , the second largest east of the Mississippi.

Bond Falls in the western UP. Photo by Myron Reynard.

It is hard to think of a better example of nature’s beauty than a waterfall surrounded by fall foliage, and this is a sight that welcomes visitors regardless of location on the peninsula. Majestic Tahquamenon is in the east. In the west, Ottawa National Forest offers Agate Falls (see photo at top) and Bond Falls. Chapel, Sable, Munising, and Miners Falls are among over 20 waterfalls in Alger County, which is also the home of the Pictured Rocks. Eagle, Silver, and Canyon Falls await in the northern Keweenaw Peninsula, and Pemene, Rapid River, and Haymeadow Falls exist to the south.

Keweenaw Peninsula

The Northern Lights reflect off Lake Superior. Photo by Dan Urbanski, courtesy pasty.com

Keweenaw is the Upper Peninsula’s, well, upper peninsula, and its remoteness makes it consistently listed among the top places in America for leaf color road trips. Some say that it is the best place in the U.S. mainland to see another type of fall color—the aurora borealis—for a number of reasons. Keweenaw is, of course, northern. Its small population makes light pollution low. Fall brings clear night skies and one can see for miles across the lake, and it is the season when the aurora begins to pick up.

A typical autumn drive in the UP. Photo by Brenda Leigh, courtesy pasty.com

Keweenaw’s history also makes it worth a visit. It was once home to the largest copper deposit in the world, which American Indians started mining before the Egyptians built the pyramids. Occasionally, visitors stumble across the ancient hammers and tools they used. Copper really boomed in the 1800s, and historical mining ruins are everywhere. One last thing worth seeing is Brockway Mountain Drive. This scenic road travels along the Keweenaw Fault, a remnant of a billion-year-old continental rift system, and offers endless panoramic views.

Special thanks to Brody Block at Pictured Rocks, Charlie Hopper at pasty.com and the good people at michigan.org.

Fall Travel: Michigan’s Upper Peninsula The Saturday Evening Post

Remember it was the French who gave us that wonderful statue celebrating liberté in New York Harbor, of the lady holding a torch, the one they so aptly named Liberty Enlightening the World.

Liberty is what America has been all about over the years. Most American families came from somewhere else. What all looked for in the United States has been freedom and independence. A meritocracy where anything is possible—a country where striving, regardless of race, creed, or color could pay off. A land where dreams come true. Is that so wild a dream? President Obama is living proof it isn’t. But the idea of “yes we can” did not start with him. Over the years, American inventors from Benjamin Franklin, Eli Whitney, and Robert Fulton, to Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers confronted naysayers who told them it simply couldn’t be done. Of course, they proved otherwise, thanks to a combination of inspiration and perspiration—Edison claimed it was mostly perspiration. Thanks to their tireless efforts and vision, they made life better for themselves and everybody else, too.

And we Americans could not only dream, we could build as well. Not only do we create new machines, we make them run.

Today, we hear sophisticated people say that America can’t make what we create anymore, that we have to outsource manufacturing because Americans don’t want to get our fingers dirty. When I hear that statement, it makes me sad, even angry. And I don’t believe it for a minute. Given half a break and a level playing field, American workers today are still the most productive and efficient in the world. While far from perfect, we are still the nation of dreamers and strivers. And one thing we still dream of and strive for is freedom, not just for a chosen few, but for everyone in America.

Once when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was singing at Lincoln Center, they asked me to write a patriotic poem. The choir hummed “My Country ’Tis of Thee” in the background. Here’s what I wrote:

America, land of the free,

My home sweet home of liberty, of thee I sing;

Let freedom ring for everyone in America:

Freedom from want, freedom from fear,

Freedom to speak, freedom to hear.

And when we bow our heads to pray,

To worship God in our own way,

I have a dream, may it come true

For everyone in America.

Working for Liberty The Saturday Evening Post

The national monuments of America carry a wealth of meaning. Visitors get a powerful sense of connection when they visit, or just see, the Lincoln Memorial, the Alamo, or the Iwo Jima memorial. But no monument carries more symbolic meaning than the Statue of Liberty. Yet she, too, had to accumulate meaning over many years.

When she was unveiled in 1886, “Liberty Enlightening The World” was a remarkable feat of engineering, and a powerful testament to the historic ties between France and the United States. But her future was uncertain. She survived by working as a tourist attraction and, more importantly, a light house.

She started to seriously represent the spirit of freedom as she became the first thing that the flood of post-1886 immigrants saw in the new world: America’s great, silent sentinel, rising up in the western waters.

For many GIs in the world wars, she was the last, memorable glimpse of the states. She became a powerful, almost haunting image of home and all it stood for. Seeing her again would be their assurance that they’d made it home.

Blake Ehrlich visited Miss Liberty for an article he wrote in 1948. There, he struck up a conversation with another tourist — a young Japanese-American veteran.

'Lighted by a system of incandescent and mercury vapor lamps, the torch is a beacon to approaching ships. Here a workman replaces a wind-smashed bulb.' - from 'The Lady We Can't Afford to Forget,' - January 17, 1948

“First visit to the statue?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I was here yesterday too. I’ve only got three days. Got to get back tomorrow.”

He was from Milwaukee, a student at Marquette. His outfit had been shipped to the New York zone for overseas embarkation.

“I thought that would be my chance to see the Statue of Liberty. We didn’t get out of camp into New York before we sailed, though, and when we shipped out, it was from down the bay somewhere, or maybe Brooklyn. Anyhow, there was a blackout and it was night, and we were kept below decks. Just didn’t have a chance.

“Well, when we got orders to come home from the ETO (European Theater of Operations), I thought sure this time I’d see the Statue of Liberty. I was really excited; it would have meant more this time. Because, you know, whether you’ve seen the statue or not, overseas you never forget about her. But the Army landed us at Norfolk. Then separation center and home and school. But I finally made it. I’ve had a good long look.”

I told him his story might be good for this article, and I asked his name.

“It’s Joe,” he said, and grinned. “Just put me down as Joe.”

During this visit, Ehrlich was dismayed at the condition of the island and the statue. It had been named a National Monument in 1924, but had been poorly maintained. The island was overgrown and cluttered with refuse from previous military use.

'Anna McManus removing lipsticked initials from the interior of the statue. A cage recently erected around the spiral stairway forestalls many scribbling initials.'- from 'The Lady We Can't Afford to Forget,' January 17, 1948

A visit to the statue may disappoint you today. Of the two acres not forbidden to the public, almost all the area is occupied by the base of the statue. What it doesn’t stand on, you can. The cluttered remainder of the island will continue to spoil the scene until $1,000,000 can be found to finish the plan.

There’s no indication that this particular $1,000,000, or any part of it, will be forthcoming from an economy-pledged Congress, which slashed the National Park budget by three fifths this year. If this were a commercial enterprise, improvement could be financed with profits, for earnings derived from concession licenses and elevator fares generally exceed its $65,000 share of the Park Service fund. But the Government maintains it isn’t in the business of making profits, and all collected moneys go to the Treasury’s General Fund, instead of reverting to the Park Service.

The service has scheduled the improvements in $5000 units, but since the cost of one unit is almost enough to pay unemployment benefits to five veterans for a year, the Government has remained unmoved by the embarrassed pleas of the statue’s superintendent.

The statue continued to get by with basic maintenance, but she was showing her age. Then, in 1983, a $62 million campaign was launched to give the her a major renovation. Over the next three years, workers cleaned the statue’s copper skin, replaced the torch flame, and removed the original metal ribs, replacing them with Teflon-coated pieces of stainless steel.

What is true for the Statue of Liberty is true for the Principle of Liberty. It is only after years of neglect, and the prospect of disaster, that Americans take action and preserve what they can never replace.

Post Script

Has there ever been a love-hate relationship like that between America and France?

We were blood brothers during the Revolutionary War, when they gave us the arms, money, training, and ships we needed to win our independence. But within 20 years, we were considering declaring war on them. Then, in 1812, they were our ally again. Then they were trying to establish an empire in Mexico, and we were trying to steal their global markets.

The world wars came, along with the American complaint “We liberated France and they’re not grateful enough.” (In fact, we only waged war when we felt Germany threatened us. America might never have raised a single rifle if the goal was simply to liberate France.)

The acrimony continues today. France, it seems, is an easy country for some Americans to dislike. It’s stubbornly foreign. Its people refuse to speak English. Its government won’t join in our wars. They’re arrogant. And they don’t like us, for some reason.

This weekend, if you think about “Liberty Enlightening The World,” remember that its concept, design, and creation all came from France. The statue was the tribute of the people of France, who wanted to proclaim their solidarity with the American republic and their admiration for the bloody cost we paid to end slavery.

France and America will always have differences. The Statue of Liberty, though, will endure.

Read “The Lady We Can’t Afford to Forget” [PDF].

Learning to Appreciate Liberty The Saturday Evening Post

Henry David Thoreau is an unusual hero among the millions of freedom seekers in American history. His sought freedom not from government or capital, but from human nature.

He took his search for personal freedom to the wilderness in 1845, on July 4th — the significance wasn’t lost on him. That day, he moved away from home to live in the woods around Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts. For the next two years, Thoreau tried to liberate himself from a life of distractions, comforts, and routine. As he put it:  ”I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

He declared an independence from society to pursue a life of simplicity and honesty. “Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.” He gardened. He wrote. He visited friends (he was living only 1.5 miles outside Concord). But he continued to reside in the tiny house for over two years. The account he wrote of his time there has changed many an American’s life.

In 1849, the Post reprinted a New York review of Thoreau’s lectures about his experiences.

A Young Philosopher Henry D. Thoreau, of Concord, Mass., has recently been lecturing on “Life in the Woods,” in Portland and elsewhere. There is not a young man in the land — and very few old ones — who would not profit by an attentive hearing of that lecture. Mr. Thoreau is a young student, who has imbibed (or rather refused to stifle) the idea that man’s soul is better worth living for than his body. Accordingly, he had built himself a house ten by fifteen feet in a piece of unfrequented woods by the side of a pleasant little lakelet, where he devotes his days to study and reflection, cultivating a small plot of ground, living frugally on vegetables, and working for the neighboring farmers whenever he is in need of money or additional exercise. It thus costs him some six to eight week’s rugged labor per year to earn his food and clothes, and perhaps an hour or two per day extra to prepare his food and fuel, keep his house in order, &c. He has lived in this way four years, and his total expenses for last year were $41.25, and his surplus earning at the close were $31.21, which he considers a better result than almost any of the farmers of Concord could show, though they have worked all the time. By this course, Mr. Thoreau lives free from pecuniary obligation or dependence on others, except that he borrows some books, which is an equal pleasure to lender and borrower. The man on whose land his is a squater is no wise injured or inconvenienced thereby. If all our young men would but hear this lecture, we think some among them would feel strongly impelled either to come to New York or go to California.

It wasn’t easy being Henry David Thoreau. He was a loner, a lifelong bachelor, an eccentric, and, at times, a contrarian who opposed the Mexican-American war and, with greater fervor, slavery. He who died young (at age 44, from tuberculosis.) His life was rough and irregular, but the rough passage is inevitable when you have to clear your own roads.

Thoreau would been quickly forgotten if he had not been championed by Ralph Waldo Emerson and his students. “Walden” was printed in small editions over the years. Scholars recognized it as a work of great talent, but not for 40 years after Thoreau’s death. Its renown among American letters is only partly due to the endorsement of English professors. His lasting fame rests on his ability to address that American hunger for independence, as in “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

My Life.*

by H. D. Thoreau

My life is like a stroll upon the beach,

As near the ocean’s edge as I can go;

My tardy steps its waves sometimes o’erreach,

Sometimes I stay to let them overflow.

My sole employment is, and scrupulous care,

To place my gains beyond the reach of tides;

Each smoother pebble, and each shell more rare,

Which Ocean kindly to my hand confides.

I have but few companions on the shore—

They scorn the strand who sail upon the sea;

Yet oft I think the ocean they’ve sailed o’er

Is deeper known upon the strand to me.

The middle sea contains no crimson dulse**,

Its deeper waves cast up no pearls to view;

Along the shore my hand is on its pulse,

And I converse with many a shipwrecked crew.

* This poem, taken from Thoreau’s A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, appears with the title “The Fisher’s Boy” in modern collections.

** “dulse”: a red seaweed that lives attached to rocks in deep water.

An Unlikely Hero in the Fight for Personal Liberty The Saturday Evening Post

Singing PraiseDick SargentMarch 7, 1959

Singing Praise
Dick Sargent – March 7, 1959

“Never before has that little boy heard anything like Mrs. Bellows,” the editors said of this painting. Typical of artist Dick Sargent’s delightful humor, “Singing Praise” was a cover in March 1959. We don’t have to tell you the boy’s face is priceless (but we’ll say it anyway).

Walking Home in the RainJohn ClymerOctober 20, 1962

Walking Home in the Rain
John Clymer – October 20, 1962

The exhibit features several John Clymer covers, and this one from 1962 combines the artist’s talent for painting nature with a charming scene of children walking home in a chill autumn rain. The artist came across the scene in Rockport, Massachusetts while traveling and “looking for Americana”. “If there is a puddle to be found,” the artist noted, “kids will find it and walk in it.” Well, gee, isn’t that what boots are for?

Construction CrewNorman RockwellAugust 21, 1954

Construction Crew
Norman Rockwell – August 21, 1954

This is progress? Home plate is giving way to the bulldozer for a new house. Always one for authenticity, Norman Rockwell found the boys by knocking on doors in Stockbridge and asking for members of the Little League team. Some were used as models in later covers. Is the tiny boy sucking his fingers too cute or what?

Patriotic Band ConcertStevan DohanosJuly 7, 1951

Patriotic Band Concert
Stevan Dohanos – July 7, 1951

Stevan Dohanos did over 120 memorable Post covers, and readers loved this one from 1951. There is a lot going on at this Fourth of July concert in Delhi, New York. Grandparents listening, dogs and kids checking things out, sailors chatting, and tiny tots are having meltdowns. The editors noted, “When Dohanos set up his easel opposite Town Hall, passers-by forgathered to see why, and the first thing they knew, the were on canvas.”

Jamming With DadJohn FalterDecember 1, 1956

Jamming with Dad
John Falter – December 1, 1956

Dad crashes junior’s jam session and the guys are, well, less than enthused. Artist John Falter also did well over 100 Saturday Evening Post covers, and life with kids was a favorite topic. Note the college band photo on the wall – straw boaters and all. The photo montage of jazz greats gives us a clue to the type of music dad finds cool, and the kids…well, let’s just say they don’t dig all that jazz.

St. Bernard in Lamp ShopGeorge HughesOctober 25, 1952

St. Bernard in Lamp Shop
George Hughes – October 25, 1952

Another frequent Post cover artist, George Hughes, clearly sympathizes with the nervous clerk in this painting from 1952. Editors noted, “it can be said in this lady’s favor that she would not take a bull into a china shop.” One swipe of Bernie’s tail would probably make the point moot.

Classic Covers: “Covering America” Art Show The Saturday Evening Post

Who can forget their first visit to the fair — a magical land of sights and sounds and smells beyond the reach of teachers, bosses, worries, and chores? There is nothing quite like that strange, veritable city that rises anew year after year on the outskirts of town to fill youths with wide-eyed wonder and adults with vivid memories of their own childhoods. For many people and many generations, the fair has occupied its own special place on the calendar and in the heart.

The American state fair is a conceptual curiosity, a celebration of agriculture that is at once a fantastic departure from the discipline and labor of the farming life. Even at the earliest fairs, agricultural displays and discussions competed for space and attention with horse races, carnivals, and shows. And innovations only widened the gap. The plowing contest became the tractor pull, and the horse race led to auto and motorcycle races and automobile stunt shows. Horse and hog contests blossomed into competitions among every kind of animal and vegetable, with baking and sewing contests right alongside. Like the prizewinning livestock and produce they showcased, state fairs expanded in size and number, becoming a national institution.

Agricultural fairs reach back to biblical times and promise to stretch far into the future. In America it was around the time of the Civil War when many of the country’s best-known and largest state fairs were first held. Before that, fairs were mostly local or county-wide affairs, more serious and less entertaining. But after the Civil War, the thrill shows, contests, and pageants that became such an integral part of our fair experience appeared to enliven the event.

The farming community began to shrink after World War I — a trend that accelerated after World War II. At the time of the Civil War, the vast majority of Americans supported themselves through agriculture; by 1940, only a quarter of all Americans lived on farms, and by 1980, that number was down to three of every hundred. Rural America was disappearing, and although fairs were thriving, the crowds in attendance were more often city or suburban dwellers who saw livestock about as often as they saw animals in zoos.

Fairs have changed with the people who have sponsored them, but tradition and innovation remain constant. In the 1860s and 1870s, fairs closed at dusk because gaslights and electricity were still decades in the future. Implements from that time, then considered revolutionary, live on in exhibits of agricultural history. By the 1950s, the Texas fair was installing a monorail, and the Indiana fair was displaying a replica of an atomic pile at an exhibit of nuclear energy. But at both fairs, the venerable Ferris wheel, invented at the turn of the century, was still a centerpiece of the midway. New meets old at the fair, and always takes something fresh from the encounter.

A retrospective of state fair snapshots and anecdotes includes a cavalcade of exciting, old, funny, heart-warming, startling, and amazing things. Monkeys dressed in hats danced to minstrel music at the Ohio State Fair in 1853. Monkeys drove miniature hot rods in California in the 1950s (the first aid tent, one year, treated 10 people for monkey bites, along with the usual hundreds of stomachaches and dozens of lost children).

Fairs held butter-making contests. A dairy company presented a butter sculpture of Teddy Roosevelt, posed with his foot on a dead lion; a live lion once rode in a racecar. Elsewhere, a butter sculptor carved a John Deere tractor. Fairs featured tractors when they were newfangled inventions that some farmers figured would never replace horses. Those same tractors appeared at displays of antique farm equipment 100 years later, where they evoked nostalgia for a simpler time.

Sure, fairs are corny — that’s why folks love them. Where else could you see a replica of the Statue of Liberty made of ears of corn? Or the state’s tallest corn stalk? Or watch contestants vie to slice off the longest apple peel? Or see a Liberty Bell made of apples?

Such attractions were irresistible.

Pretty girls wore new styles during fashion shows. Pretty girls in coochie shows wore not much at all. Pretty cows had their own events, as did fat cattle.

You could see the eruption of Mount Vesuvius depicted on a huge mural. The Battle of Manila in fireworks shot high into the night sky. A daredevil shot from a cannon. A car (the Torpedobile) shot from a cannon.

Big shots gave speeches. Trick shots entertained the crowds. Suffragettes rubbed elbows with prohibitionists; bootleggers offered shots of illicit liquor. Bamboozlers thrived. Bamboo novelty canes sold like hotcakes.

Parched fairgoers swilled draft beer and eyed draft horses. Draftees poured into fairgrounds during four wars, turning barns into barracks. One fairground became a prisoner-of-war camp during the Civil War. At another fairground, a huge family campground has been popular for generations.

At fairs from Florida to Alaska, farmers and ranchers have shown enough livestock to fill 10,000 Noah’s arks, and gardeners enough jars of fruits and vegetables to build a pyramid for a pharaoh.

You can see cages of pigeons with names you’ve never heard: Oriental Frills, Modenas, Fantails, Birmingham Rollers, and White Kings.

You could have seen Blue Boy (the prizewinning hog in Phil Stong’s novel State Fair) or Old Oscar (the Iowa State Fair’s famous sturgeon, who spent 28 years as an attraction at the fair before dying in his tank on the last day of the fair in 1954). You can still peer up at Big Tex, the giant robot who greets people (in English and Spanish) at the Texas State Fair.

Honest Abe spoke at the Wisconsin State Fair in 1859 (he was paid $150, which included his expenses). A century later, the Kentucky State Fair held Abraham Lincoln look-alike contests.

Racers galore vied for ribbons, trophies, and loot; events featured horses, mules, camels, burros, dogs, boys, people riding on bikes or riding in wheelbarrows. Ostriches raced. At the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, an entrepreneur named E. R. Johnson of Fallbrook, California, did a steady business by serving omelets made from the eggs laid by his flock of 28 ostriches.

For generations, Americans took fairs to heart and expanded them in an unprecedented fashion. Along the way, the state fair became a piece of bedrock Americana, with elements so familiar that they seem quintessentially domestic.

The reason for this popularity is that, throughout their sprawling, tumultuous history, state fairs have always reflected the basic elements of the national character: the strengths and weaknesses, the common sense and faddishness, the unities and discords that have long marked Americans’ unique development as a culture.

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The American State Fair The Saturday Evening Post

We’ve had setbacks along the way of course; hard times and wars, struggles against the enemies of human liberty including ignorance, intolerance, injustice, and even slavery. We’ve come through though. We have “overcome” as the song says. And, taking full advantage of our birthright, we’re still here in every part of this country, thinking, working, playing, praying, and pursuing happiness in our own ways. The journey isn’t over, but look how far we’ve come!

The people of France grasped the essence of what this country is about more than a century ago when they gave us Bartholdi’s famous statue that stands in New York Harbor, a woman holding high a lamp. We call her the Statue of Liberty. They named her La Liberté éclairant le Monde or “Liberty Enlightening the World.” I think she’s still beautiful, don’t you?

So did a man I knew who spent years on the road, traveling to every state in the union, discovering America and Americans. Charles Kuralt died on the Fourth of July, 1997. He was my friend, longtime CBS colleague and predecessor on CBS News Sunday Morning. The “road” for him did not mean the interstate. And the people he sought out were not in the big-city centers of finance, industry, and mass media. Kuralt and his camera crew used the back roads to get to the small towns where they found those wonderfully colorful individuals whose stories would often end the CBS Evening News. Kuralt believed that these Americans could tell us at least as much about the character of this country as the politicians and other supposed leaders who populate most of the rest of the news stories on a given day.

When people asked Kuralt about the mood of the country or how Americans felt about some burning issue of the day, he would always smile and tell them that America is much too big a country, too diverse, too free to pigeonhole people the way the pollsters try to. “It depends on who you are and where you are, what’s going on in your life, and what your dreams are,” he’d say. Kuralt hated the idea of dividing the people of this country into voting blocks or into red states and blue states.

After traveling around this country so much, Kuralt used to say he didn’t think in terms of state borders anymore. He thought instead of geography and geology. He thought of the great natural formations of rock and water, the mountain ranges, the lakes and rivers. He thought of canyons and forests, starkly beautiful deserts, and fertile plains. These were what shaped not only the land, but the people too, and determined what was important to them, how they would live, what they would love, the mouth-watering regional foods they’d eat, and the delicious accents in which they’d speak. These things meant much more than lines on a map. With modern technology comes some creeping homogenization of course. You’ll see the same signs in the airports and on the interstates, hear the same accents on the radio and TV, and eat the same burgers, pizzas, and fried chicken at the fast-food chains coast to coast. But you can still find the real thing, the real accents, foods, music, and people of the real America. They’re out there if you look for them. Kuralt was always looking for them.

As Kuralt and his crew would pull into a small town, there’d be a welcome sign telling travelers what the locals wanted to boast about. What year it was founded in New England, population in the rural south, elevation in the mountain states. Once at a CBS Radio convention in Phoenix, a station owner from Montana came up to Kuralt and me, introduced himself, and said, “I want to ask you two Charleses a question. How far can you see from your house?”

I was living in New Jersey at the time, and Kuralt in Greenwich Village. “Not much more than across the street,” we admitted.

The Montana man beamed and told us, “Well, I can see four states from my house.”

Kuralt nodded and said, “Elevation is important!” and went on to tell us about how he and the crew went up to Pikes Peak in Colorado, 14,000 feet. “Great view from there,” he said, “makes you feel you were looking clear across the country!” He then told us how in the summer of 1893, an English instructor named Katharine Lee Bates from Wellesley College went west to teach a short summer course at Colorado College. And one day a group of teachers took a covered wagon ride to Pikes Peak. Miss Bates was worn out from the wagon ride and the walk to an observation deck at the pinnacle. But when she looked out and saw the sight, she was so thrilled and inspired that she pulled a piece of paper out of her bag and started writing a poem which she called “Pikes Peak” to be published two years later in the Fourth of July edition of The Congregationalist newspaper. The poem has since been engraved on a tablet at that viewpoint, and when visitors see it they smile in recognition because they already know the words. And so do you:

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

The whole country got to know those words when they were combined with the music of a Samuel A. Ward hymn into the song we now know as “America the Beautiful.” Miss Bates wrote several more stanzas. If you’ll indulge me, it may be time for another:

O beautiful for liberty
Whose light shines for us now
As through the years of pioneers
It shined to show them how
America! America!
God’s Grace is with us still
With brotherhood each dream of freedom’s promise
We’ll fulfill.

Charles Osgood: As I See It The Saturday Evening Post

But things aren’t always hunky-dory in paradise — especially when you are counting on it to be that way. The tent you and the family set up to enjoy the forest primeval can have a mind of its own. A little lightning can crash a delightful beach party, and that gorgeous ocean view can come too close for comfort. Our roaming artists have captured these scenes and more, as they portray the natural wonders of traveling America. We invite you to grab some sunscreen and mosquito spray and come along for the ride!

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Classic Covers: America the Beautiful The Saturday Evening Post

The July 1, 1939, cover by artist Arthur H. Fisher features a dramatic eagle against the stars and bars, complete with a don’t-mess-with-me glare. Shades of impending war? The next decade saw a delightful 1945 John Falter cover depicting a Fourth of July parade in Perkasie, Pennsylvania, complete with patriotic bunting, brass bands, and a crowd having fun. Alas, it wasn’t the real thing that year, as the townspeople didn’t have time for parades. “They’re busy writing letters to the girls and boys in service,” said the editors, who speculated that many a hometown soldier would enjoy the vicarious thrill of receiving the cover in their mail.

Another delightful celebration is shown on the July 4, 1953, cover by artist Ben Prins. The night sky is exploding with festive color and light, and the onlookers are mesmerized at the sight. Well, maybe with the exception of the young boy and girl chasing each other with sparklers (not advisable, by the way).

It would appear that of all our many artists, J.C. Leyendecker (we won’t say he was the most patriotic) stands above the crowd for the sheer number of Fourth of July covers. We’re counting 15, and like all of Leyendecker’s covers, they are a delight, as you can see below.

The Post, as you may know, is revamping and moving into new directions, as shown by our July/August 2009 cover by Eric Bowman, depicting “America the Beautiful” from the perspective of a new generation of talented illustrators. We welcome them with open arms!

But you didn’t really think we would leave our beloved Norman Rockwell out of our celebration, did you? His July 6, 1946, cover shows workmen cleaning the torch on the Statue of Liberty. The editors tell us this happened every year around this time, after which “the mighty lady of Bedloe’s Island (now called Liberty Island) sheds a brighter light, to the general satisfaction of free spirits everywhere.”

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Classic Covers: The Fourth of July Throughout the Decades The Saturday Evening Post

You can also click on any of the images below to see an expanded gallery.

Congaree National Park, South Carolina According to the National Park Service, more than 104,000 people made a recreational visit to the park in 2008, compared to the more than 9 million people that visited the Smoky Mountains. Congaree, the largest old-growth floodplain forest in America, is a treasure trove of wildlife, including everything from river otters to marbled salamanders. The swampland is also noted for its hiking trails, fishing, kayaking, and its 2.4-mile elevated boardwalk.

Crater Lake, Oregon More than 7,000 years ago, Oregon’s Mount Mazama erupted in one of the most violent explosions known to man. The resulting implosion of the mountain created this 6-mile wide, ½-mile deep lake which features some of the clearest blue waters in the world and is the deepest in the United States. According to the Smithsonian’s Global Volcanism Program, Crater Lake was one of very few eruptions since 10,000 B.C. with a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 7. To put it in perspective, Mount Vesuvius (known for the destruction of the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum) was a 4. The region’s long winter season, lasting from October to June, makes it one of the snowiest areas in the Northwest.

Isle Royale, Michigan Located 55 miles north of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and accessible only by boat or plane, Isle Royal creates an incredibly unique ecosystem where scientists and citizens alike flock to study some of the most untouched wildlife in the world. Many of the island chains’ inhabitants, including grey wolves, moose, and muskrats, are normally found over larger areas. Due to Isle Royale’s smaller habitat and limited amount of natural resources, it creates fierce competition among the wildlife, resulting in a survival of the fittest mind-set. Isle Royale exemplifies virgin, pristine wilderness and the ability of life to adapt and flourish against the odds, and that is what makes this park truly special.

Guadalupe Mountains, Texas Although the Guadalupe Mountains are located in a desert, one of the biggest attractions is a well-preserved, 250-million-year-old fossilized Coral Reef, a reminder of how much life and landscape can change. In modern time, the mountain elevation creates a biological event uncommon in the Southwest: seasonal leaf change. The cactus is king throughout most of the park, but the temperatures at higher elevations are cool enough for deciduous plants to thrive, resulting in a colorful autumn that seems like September in New England with a Texas twist.

Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller, Vermont The natural splendor of this national historic park’s Vermont countryside is reminiscent of the land that made our founding fathers fall in love with America. Rolling hills and captivating forests form a backdrop against which the relationship of nature and man is explored. The park is named after four well-known conservationists: George Perkins Marsh, considered by many the father of the American Conservationist Movement; Frederick Billings; and Laurence and Mary Rockefeller. Visitors can tour the mansion and gardens, which were home to all three of the namesakes at different periods of time, as well as enjoy the picturesque woodlands and programs on forestry and other conservation efforts.

Conkles Hollow, Ohio Located in Ohio’s Hocking Hills State Park, Conkles Hollow is a hiker’s dream. The cooler climate, a holdover from the last ice age, allowed trees such as the Canada yew, Eastern hemlock, and yellow birch to grow farther south than normally found, and Conkles Hollow’s natural coolness has allowed these northern trees to thrive, millennia after the glaciers receded. These trees blend with several native trees, resulting in over 150 different species putting on a colorful display every fall. Several trails lead through this scenic area, including a 3-mile rim trail overlooking the gorge from atop its 200- to 300-foot cliffs.

Great Basin, Nevada The Great Basin National Park, which was visited by less than 70,000 people in 2008, is only a small piece of the large area known as The Great Basin, which covers virtually all of Nevada and a good portion of the surrounding states. It has an independent hydrology, meaning water here does not flow into larger systems like the Pacific or the Gulf of Mexico, but instead remains self-contained. This national park showcases the best facets of this region. The varying elevation (between 5,000 feet and 13,000 feet) allows a wide variety of life to flourish, and at night stargazers get a chance to see an astounding array, including spectacular views of the Milky Way, with the naked eye.

Redwood National Park, California Visitors are astounded by the sheer magnitude of the Redwoods towering up to 325 feet overhead—the tallest trees on Earth. Home to salmon-filled streams, grassy meadows, the Pacific coast, and tide pools (rocky formations that hold water during low tide and sustain unique life forms), Redwood National Park has more to offer than the trees. An immense variety of animals, from the aptly named banana slug to the Pacific gray whale, live here. Fewer than 400,000 people visited this pristine forest last year, while neighboring Yosemite hosted more than 3.4 million.

Glacier Bay, Alaska The name “Glacier Bay” offers unique insight into these icy giants which shaped the natural landscape of North America. In 1794, Captain George Vancouver and his crew surveyed a glacier of immense proportions (4,000 feet thick, 20 miles wide, and 100 miles long). This icy, barren landscape supported little life. However, it retreated some 60 miles over the next 125 years, and a bona fide wildlife haven was left in its wake. Killer whales stalk seals in these icy waters, while their larger relatives, humpbacks and gray whales, come for prey of a much smaller variety—plankton and krill. Another predator, the extremely rare blue bear (or glacier bear) can be found on land in this hidden treasure, along with hundreds of other animals, scenic mountains, and new-growth forests.

Nantahala, North Carolina The Cherokee, who are native to this national forest, call it Nantahala, meaning the “Land of the Noonday Sun.” High noon is the only time the sun is not blocked by the western North Carolina Appalachians. This forest boasts a wealth of attractions, including awesome waterfalls, 400-year-old trees, scenic gorges, and the 5,200-foot high Wayah Bald. The Nantahala River is known as one of the best places to go whitewater rafting in the United States and is a great spot for fishing. This place also boasts a captivating history. During one of the darkest times in American history, the Cherokee were forcibly removed from much of the southeastern United States in the “Trail of Tears.” However, a brave few used the Nantahala as cover, hiding among the trees and successfully avoiding Andrew Jackson’s forces. They live here to this day, preserving a way of life that was nearly destroyed and demonstrating the resilience of the human spirit.

Waimoku Falls, Hawaii The adventure of getting to this spectacular Hawaiian waterfall is almost as much fun as seeing it. First, visitors hop on to Maui’s famed Hana Highway, a 60-mile stretch of road known for hairpin turns and breathtaking views. Then, they venture onto Haleakala National Park’s Pipiwai Trail. Roughly 4 miles round trip, this hike showcases scenic waterways, stunning ocean views, and lush vegetation. The trail ends at majestic Waimoku Falls, a 400-foot waterfall that drops over a sheer lava wall into a pool of boulders. Waimoku Falls is one of Hawaii’s “Seven Sacred Pools,” many of which can be seen along the trail.

Black Canyon, Colorado Narrow walls and stunning, sheer vertical drops of well over 2,000 feet render Black Canyon a sight to behold—for anyone without a fear of heights! The Gunnison River, which runs at the bottom of the canyon, settled on its current course millions of years ago. Slowly but surely, the river has been cutting away ever since, sometimes as slowly as 1 inch every hundred years. The combination of water and time created an awesome natural wonder, as well as a rocky timeline of Earth’s history. From relatively young rock at the top to nearly 2-billion-year old Precambrian-age rock at the bottom, the canyon showcases geology from almost every era of life. Only 160,000 people visited the Black Canyon in 2008, compared to the 2.7 million visitors to Rocky Mountain National Park and over 4.4 million to the Grand Canyon, making it a hidden treasure indeed.

Mammoth Cave, Kentucky At roughly 367 miles long, Mammoth Cave is the longest cave system in the world. To put its “Mammoth” size in perspective, consider that it is more than 200 miles longer than its runner-up, South Dakota’s Jewel Cave. Mammoth Cave offers beauty in addition to sheer size. Astonishing geological features have been created from thousands of years of water running over limestone. More than 80 forms of trees and 1,200 types of flowering plants reside harmoniously above ground and 300-million-year-old fossils have been discovered in the cave.

North Cascades, Washington Washington’s Olympic Park, renowned as one of the best national parks in the country, features a fabulous array of different terrains, wildlife, and ecosystems and attracted more than 3 million visitors in 2008. However, visitors who prefer the road less traveled will rave about nearby North Cascades, an off-the-radar wilderness that rivals its interstate neighbor in astonishing natural scenery and ecological diversity. This National Park Service Complex, which also includes Lake Chelan and Ross Lake, is a true gem. The relatively small number of visitors—about 19,000 to North Cascades, 25,000 to Lake Chelan, and 253,000 to Ross Lake in 2008—is astonishing. Those that do come enjoy a serene, tranquil landscape with privacy harder to come by at other, more well-traveled parks.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota Theodore Roosevelt had no idea what was in store when he first came here on a hunting trip in 1883. He, like many at this time, had come to hunt the prized buffalo. After the deaths of both his mother and wife, mere hours apart, he returned here to start a new life as a cattle rancher. This rebuilding period changed Roosevelt. Enchanted by the wide-open spaces and captivating scenery inherent to the Badlands, he realized that America is a special place, full of beauty, and that it is important to preserve it. Without this chapter in his life, we might never have had the conservationist president, whose efforts created the National Park Service as we know it today. This park, which was initially part of the ranching business, is named in his honor. Today, visitors enjoy the same landscape; a wide variety of northern grassland plants and animals, including a healthier bison population; and a spectacular night sky, occasionally featuring the northern lights.

Glacier National Park, Montana Driving along the “Going to the Sun” highway, visitors will be awestruck by the glacially carved mountain backdrop and 1 million-plus acres of untouched wilderness, teaming with a thousand types of wildflowers and wildlife ranging from bighorn sheep to the Canada lynx. Across the border, Canada’s Waterton-Lakes National Park preserves the uninterrupted natural landscape, and together they form the world’s first international park, appropriately titled Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

America’s Hidden Treasures The Saturday Evening Post