“A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing” for “the tree of liberty”…

In 1786, the new democratic government of the United States of America wasn’t quite working out like some Revolutionary War veterans had expected.

Many had not been paid for their military service in local state militias or the Continental Army as promised.

And, when they went back to their family farms, they found they were subject to heavy new state taxes imposed to help pay off government war debts owed to rich merchants.

Many farmers who couldn’t afford to pay their taxes and other debts had their farms seized and were sentenced to serve time a debtors’ prison.

In response, angry veterans in Massachusetts began joining together to take over and shut down local courts. One group of vets tried to take over the Springfield armory.

This mini-revolt — called “Shays’ Rebellion” after one of its leaders, Daniel Shays — was quickly and forcefully crushed by the Massachusetts state militia, under orders from Governor James Bowdoin.

In the confrontation at the Springfield armory, four Shaysites were killed and twenty wounded. The rest fled.

Eventually hundreds were rounded up and indicted.

Some were sent to prison. Eighteen were sentenced to be hanged, as recommended by Founding Father Samuel Adams.

Drawing a somewhat arbitrary distinction between governments with and without kings at the top, Adams said:

“Rebellion against a king may be pardoned, or lightly punished, but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.”

Adams’ fellow Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, who was in Paris at the time, agreed that there was a distinction between a monarchy and America’s new system of government.

However, his view of the anti-tax uprising in Massachusetts was less harsh.

In fact, two of Jefferson’s most famous (and arguably most misused) quotations are from letters he wrote about Shays’ Rebellion.

One of those oft-cited quotes — “I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing” — was in a letter he wrote to James Madison on January 30, 1787.

Jefferson said in the letter that a democratic government like America’s “has a great deal of good in it. The mass of mankind under that enjoys a precious degree of liberty and happiness. It has its evils, too, the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing.”

He added:

“I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people, which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”

Later that same year, Jefferson penned another famous quote that referred to Shays’ Rebellion:

In a letter to Col. William Smith, dated November 13, 1787, he said:

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

Both of Jefferson’s famous quotes about Shays’ Rebellion are still frequently cited by people who are “mad as hell” about something the government has done.

Today, relatively few people actually believe that the sentiments Jefferson expressed should be interpreted and acted out literally, through a violent revolution. 

Some anti-gun control protesters who carry signs referring to Jefferson’s “tree of liberty” quote apparently do.

So, apparently, did the anti-government “rump militia” members who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

I wonder how many of them know what happened to the Shaysite rebels Jefferson was referring to when he wrote that line.

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How a political backlash turned “a grand old rag” into “a Grand Old Flag”...

On January 19, 1906, American composer, playwright and performer George M. Cohan copyrighted a new song he’d written titled “You’re a Grand Old Rag.”

It was one of the songs Cohan created for his upcoming Broadway musical George Washington, Jr.

The chorus of the song went like this:

      “You’re a grand old rag,
       You’re a high flying flag
       And forever in peace may you wave.
       You’re the emblem of
       The land I love. 
       The home of the free and the brave.
       Ev’ry heart beats true
       Under Red, White and Blue,
       Where there’s never a boast or brag.
       But should auld acquaintance be forgot,
       Keep your eye on the grand old rag.”

On February 6, 1906, “You’re a Grand Old Rag” was recorded as a 78 RPM single by the popular singer Billy Murray.

That same week, the musical premiered at The Herald Square Theater in New York City.

Cohan himself was the star and the highlight of the show was his rendition of “You’re a Grand Old Rag” as he marched up and down carrying an American flag.

Although George Washington Jr. and singer Billy Murray’s recording were both big hits, many critics, military veterans and groups complained to him that “You’re a Grand Old Rag” was disrespectful to the American flag. It should not, they said, be referred to as a “rag.”

This political backlash surprised and bothered Cohan.

He explained that patriotism was a main theme of the musical and that he actually got the phrase “grand old rag” from an old Army veteran.

However, he was sensitive to the criticism and ultimately decided to change the song’s name and lyrics.

Here’s how the story is explained by a page about the song on the Library of Congress website:

The original lyric for this perennial George M. Cohan favorite came, as Cohan later explained, from an encounter he had with a Civil War veteran who fought at Gettysburg. The two men found themselves next to each other and Cohan noticed the vet held a carefully folded but ragged old flag. The man reportedly then turned to Cohan and said, “She’s a grand old rag.” Cohan thought it was a great line and originally named his tune “You’re a Grand Old Rag.” So many groups and individuals objected to calling the flag a “rag,” however, that he “gave ‘em what they wanted” and switched words, renaming the song “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”

On June 2, 1906, the song was copyrighted with its new name and the sheet music was reprinted, with “old flag” in place of “old rag” in the lyrics.

“You’re a Grand Old Flag” was hugely popular and became the first song from a musical to sell over a million copies of sheet music.

Ironically, at least one critic felt that Cohan’s George Washington Jr. and the songs in it were too patriotic.

Life magazine critic James Metcalf wrote that they exuded “mawkish appeals to the cheapest kind of patriotism.”

Presumably, as Liberace once quipped about negative reviews of his music, Cohan cried all the way to the bank.

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The origin of the slogan “Sisterhood is Powerful.”

In 1970, feminist leader and author Robin Morgan edited an anthology of articles about the growing woman’s liberation movement titled Sisterhood Is Powerful.

The book quickly became a bestseller and the title became a famous phrase and slogan. But it wasn’t created by Morgan.

According to many sources, “Sisterhood is Powerful” was coined in 1968 by another pioneering feminist leader, Kathie Sarachild, who was then known as Kathie Amatniek.

It was part of something Amatniek wrote for a leaflet distributed at an anti-Vietnam War event by the Jeanette Rankin Brigade (a coalition of women’s groups named after the first woman elected to Congress in 1917).

The event was held on January 15, 1968 in Washington D.C.

One of the best recollections of what happened that day was written by another well-known feminist and peace activist of the era, Shulamith Firestone.

In her account (published on the Marxist.org website), Firestone said:

A coalition of women’s groups united for a specific purpose: to confront Congress on its opening day, Jan. 15, 1968, with a strong show of female opposition to the Vietnam War...

Peg Dobbins wrote a long funeral dirge lamenting woman’s traditional role which encourages men to develop aggression and militarism to prove their masculinity. There were several related pamphlets, including one written by Kathie Amatniek which elaborated on the following Progression:

TRADITIONAL WOMANHOOD IS DEAD.
TRADITIONAL WOMEN WERE BEAUTIFUL...BUT REALLY POWERLESS.
“UPPITY” WOMEN WERE EVEN MORE BEAUTIFUL...BUT STILL POWERLESS.
SISTERHOOD IS POWERFUL!
HUMANHOOD THE ULTIMATE!

Finally, by way of a black-bordered invitation we “joyfully” invited many of the 5,000 women there to attend a burial that evening at Arlington “by torchlight” of Traditional Womanhood, “who passed with a sigh to her Great Reward this year of the Lord, 1968, after 3,000 years of bolstering the egos of Warmakers and aiding the cause of war...”

“Sisterhood is Powerful” went on to become a popular feminist catchphrase. 

Shulamith and Amatniek went on to found the famous/infamous “Redstockings” women’s lib group.

Amatniek, now known as Kathie Sarachild, is now the director of the Redstockings “Archives for Action.” 

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“I have nothing to declare except my genius” – the famous Oscar Wilde quip that he probably didn’t say…

On January 3, 1882, the Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde disembarked from the ship that brought him from England to New York.

It was the beginning of what would be a high-profile, 11-month-long speaking tour of America and Canada.

As noted by the definitive website about that tour, Oscar Wilde in America, the ship arrived in port the night before but was held in quarantine until the next morning.

That’s apparently why the date some sources attach to a famous quotation attributed to Wilde is January 2, 1882.

In point of fact it was the morning of January 3rd when Wilde left the ship and went to the New York Customs House, where government agents asked their standard question: Do you have anything to declare?

Wilde supposedly answered: “I have nothing to declare except my genius.”

This quip is cited by thousands of books of quotations and websites. Indeed, it’s one of the best known of Wilde’s many witty quotes.

However, unlike those that come from Wilde’s plays and other writings, it’s not a line that can be verified as something he actually said.

In the new book Declaring His Genius: Oscar Wilde in North America, historian Roy Morris, Jr. notes:

“No one actually heard him say it, but it sounded like something Wilde would have said, and by the time literary biographer Arthur Ransome quoted it first in his 1912 study of the author, the quip already had passed into legend.”

Arthur Ransome himself didn’t put the famed wisecrack in quotation marks in his book, Oscar Wilde, a Critical Study. He simply alluded to it, writing that one of the famous things Wilde did in America was “to tell the Customs Officials that he had nothing to declare but his genius.”

The first known appearance of the witticism as an actual quote, with quotation marks, is in the biography Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions by Frank Harris, published in 1916.

That’s the source cited by most books of quotations that actually provide a source, instead of simply listing the quote as “attributed.”

Harris wrote in his book about Wilde:

“His phrase to the Revenue officers on landing: ‘I have nothing to declare except my genius,’ turned the limelight full upon him and excited comment and discussion all over the country.”

However, there’s no known reference to the legendary quote in any of the many newspaper articles written about Wilde during his North American tour.

Thus, the claim that it played a key role in focusing attention on Wilde during the tour seems to have been made up by Harris.

And, it appears likely that the quote itself was made up after Wilde died in 1900.

The most in-depth source of information on this question is probably the Oscar Wilde in America website. It’s maintained by John Cooper, an amazingly knowledgeable Wilde aficionado from England who now lives in the US.

On his web page about the quote, Cooper notes that Ransome and Harris both wrote their biographies of Wilde more than a decade after his death.

There is no known record of the quote in anything written while Wilde was still alive.

Based on his extensive research, Cooper classifies “I have nothing to declare except my genius” as a “dubious quotation.”

His Oscar Wilde in America site also provides the background on a number of verified quotations that Wilde made during his North American tour and, later, about Americans.

Many are quite funny.

But none are quite as famous as Wilde’s alleged declaration of his genius — about which the one certain thing is that it is linked to his arrival at the Customs House in New York in January of 1882.

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