Final blog post, #437

Antonio Benedetto Maria Puccini was born this date in 1747 – his great-grandson was named for him, his son and grandson, musicians all: Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Puccini. Let’s not wait until December to celebrate Giacomo, a hit even in China:

Those who can…

Only one source claims this is the birth date of Eunice Hunton Carter (1899-1970), but while double-sourcing is usually required, she is a lady whose life we can celebrate any day of the year.

Eunice Carter at work.

She was Smith College Class of ’21, the first African-American woman to receive a law degree from Fordham University and the first black woman assistant district attorney in New York State. As an assistant D.A., she convinced her boss – D.A. Thomas Dewey – to pursue a case against Lucky Luciano and helped send the mob boss to jail for ten years.

The granddaughter of a slave who was able to purchase his freedom just before the Civil War, Eunice Hunton carried on a family tradition of accomplishment – her father had founded the black division of the YMCA and her mother was a social worker.

She married Lisle Carter, one of New York’s first African-American dentists.  Their son Lisle Carter Jr. became an attorney and fathered five children, one of whom – Steven L. Carter – is a Yale law professor as well as an author.  His first book was a bestseller - The Emperor of Ocean Park.

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Belated birthday wishes to Van Cliburn, who turned 78 last Thursday.  He’s still the only classical musician ever to have a NYC ticker-tape parade held for him. And that’s because he singlehandedly won a major Cold War victory when he was named winner of the USSR’s first International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958 – reportedly they had to ask Kruschev’s permission to give him first place.

Here he is on a return visit in 1962:

Debt of honor

The United States Congress – clearly convinced it should begin as it meant to go on – blew off its debt to Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais in 1794, calling it a gift from France to the U.S. and basically telling the little Frenchman he could go whistle. 

Beaumarchais, an old hand at government intrigue, was cynical about just about everything, but if there was one model of virtue still close to his heart, it was the fledgling country he had worked so hard to help during the American Revolution.

It was a great disappointment and he wrote ‘America! I have served you with indefatigable zeal and have received …only bitterness as a reward, I die your creditor…’

To the tune of more than 2 million francs, about 3 and a half million dollars (though there were no dollars at the time) and if my math comes even close, the equivalent of more than $40 million today.

The story of how one of our earliest debts came to be is long, rich with detail and certainly one of the most fascinating aspects of our break with England.  I highly recommend Improbable Patriot by Harlow Giles Unger (University Press of New England) for the whole picture.

Unger’s story takes place on both sides of the Atlantic, painting a picture of the ill-equipped ragtag colonial troops nearly overwhelmed by a professional British army, while in the halls of Versailles the little watchmaker from the provinces  - who worked his way up the social scale to become a close advisor to the king’s ministers – ultimately prevailed upon his government to provide the Americans with munitions.

Silas Deane – Beaumarchais’ contact in the arms deal

He began as  Pierre-Augustin  Caron, taking his second wife’s title of de Boismarché and making it a bit classier. He came to Versailles on the strength of his invention of a miniature timepiece that could be worn on the wrist – he had created the first escapement – and Louis XV was entranced.

Beaumarchais was not just a courtier – he was also a writer, performer and bon vivant.  He created an unforgettable rascal named Figaro and lived lavishly off the proceeds of The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro.

But like his hero Voltaire – whose works he would publish at great personal expense – he was often in prison, either as a result of the whims of nobility or the dangerously provocative speeches of his characters.

In the end, Beaumarchais barely escaped the Reign of Terror, spent two years in exile, and lived the last few years of his life trying to rebuild his fortune for the sake of his wife and daughter.

Exactly how and why he became an arms dealer is crisply told by Unger, but there’s no denying we owe the little watchmaker a great debt – it’s estimated he provided nearly 80% of the gunpowder used by Americans during the Revolution.

Civilized

Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964  - intitiated a year earlier by John Kennedy –  on July 2, the first of his many legislative accomplishments.

Lyndon Baines Johnson

Surprisingly, the photo of Johnson shown here is an official one from whitehouse.org. Surprising, I think, because it does not show the affable-fellow-from-the Rotary-Club persona that most politicians like to project. It shows instead those beady eyes that reflect an iron will and the ability to terrorize both friends and enemies.

LBJ was a very interesting guy.  He spent 32 years in government service, exactly half his life , and between his first day in Congress in 1937 and his last day in the White House in 1969, he was never out of  office.

After a while, he knew where all the bodies were buried and how to get what he wanted.  For the very best stories about LBJ as deal-maker, Robert Caro’s four volume biography is unequalled, and Robert Dallek’s biography is on-line in a short version here.

We have him to thank – or not, as you choose – for the Clean Air Act, several education acts (he’d started as a teacher),the Wilderness Act, urban mass transit legislation, the Economic Opportunity Act, the Housing Act, the Food Stamp Act, the Social Security Act of 1965 that created Medicare and Medicaid, the Voting Rights Act, the Freedom of Information Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968, among others.

Did I mention that he was president for only six years?

Vietnam is another story, admittedly, but it terms of domestic legislation, he may have been the most effective president ever.

Beaumarchais, btw, is still cooking – mostly because life in 18th century France was so staggeringly complicated – but next week for sure.