History Snoopin': Every nobody is a somebody to someone

Every nobody is a somebody to someone

---

by Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune

Monday, January 27th 2020

Most of us are nobody to the rest of the world.

History is usually only about the famous people, and seldom do we get the chance to share a few moments of a common person’s life — those unknown strangers who have felt happiness, sadness, fear and love just the same as we have.

William Stinson died in 1956, and I wouldn’t have known anything about him if I hadn’t come across a couple of letters he had written to his mother in 1918. He was serving with the U.S. Army during WWI.

I wondered if he had left enough tracks to help learn something about who he was and how he lived life through his 58 years. It wasn’t much.

Born in 1897 on his father and mother’s farm just east of Roxy Ann, he was the youngest of three children.

It began with William, 20, writing from Kelly Field, just outside San Antonio, Texas, where he was training to be an airplane mechanic. After briefly working to help build the COPCO Dam (California Oregon Power Company) on the Klamath River, he spent nearly a year at Oregon State College before joining the Army, Jan. 9, 1918.

“Dear Mother,” he wrote. “I don’t have much time as I am sergeant and have to see to things. I don’t pick up paper and clean up like most of them do, but I have to oversee it and be sure it is done right, and I have to call the fellows out in the morning at 6:15 and call the roll and report to the captain.

“The flying machines here are almost as thick as birds, and they sure do some flying.”

A month before his 21st birthday, he was transferred to Hempstead, New York, and was waiting to be sent to France. Apparently his mother wanted to send him a birthday cake.

“I sure would like the birthday cake, mother, but I don’t think it will be here. You might send me a small cake any time, as it doesn’t cost much and they are sure good.”

By the time his unit was ready to ship out to France, the Armistice was signed, war was over, and the men not needed anymore. In a telegram a week before Christmas 1918, William said he was discharged and coming home for good.

The following May he married Katherine Conser, the wedding said to have been a big surprise for friends and relatives, but no reason why was given.

William was once again working for COPCO, his career flourishing as he and his growing family moved from one location to another.

In 1921, using only a Ford roadster, some rope, and long poles; he supervised a Medford crew called out to repair a light pole that had been blown down by a storm and was lying dangerously across a 4,000 volt power line.

He spent some time in Prospect and then Grants Pass, before transferring to Crescent City, where he lived from 1928 until he returned to Medford in 1934.

In 1941, Katherine filed for divorce. The couple had six children.

William remarried and moved to Roseburg as COPCO’s area superintendent. Still there in 1954, he became severally ill and transferred to California. There he died in January 1956. He is buried in Medford’s Siskiyou Cemetery.

William’s was a simple, everyday life, and for the most part, known only by friends and family, yet for a brief few moments, it was a life that turned a nobody I never knew into a somebody — a somebody for me, and maybe for you.

Writer Bill Miller is the author of five books, including“Forgotten Voices of WWI,” Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.

 

https://mailtribune.com/lifestyle/every-nobody-is-a-somebody-to-someone

History Snoopin': The Impeachment Rhyme

The impeachment rhyme

---

by Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune

Sunday, January 19th 2020

“History does not repeat itself — but it rhymes.”

Mark Twain may or may not have said that; however, he usually gets the credit.

Now, I’m not sure if past events rhyme with the present, or vice versa, but let’s take a trip back to the spring of 1868 and see if any of this echoes with anyone.

Let’s imagine a U.S. president under siege — with a difference. Andrew Johnson was never supposed to be president. The Tennessee senator, a Democrat, was chosen as President Abraham Lincoln’s second vice president because he had supported the Union after Tennessee had seceded from the

President Andrew Johnson

United States. In what was believed would be a close election in 1864, it made sense to Republican experts that a Democrat on the Republican ticket might win Lincoln many more votes.

Lincoln and Johnson began serving in March 1865, just over a month before Lincoln’s assassination. For the next three years, President Johnson was in constant conflict with the Republican-controlled Congress over many things, especially reconstruction and how soon the secessionist Southern states would be allowed back into the Union.

By 1867, the Republican-owned Jacksonville newspaper published its strong opposition to Johnson and to local Democrats who were talking of a second Civil War over impeachment.

“It is yet to be ascertained whether a public servant is to be a public master. Whether the American people are to be governed by the fundamental law of the land, or compelled to bow their necks at the dictum of a narrow-minded, selfish, passionate, and revengeful President, possessing all the elements of a tyrant, but devoid of the dignity that often makes tyranny passably comfortable. His impeachment, without war, is the slim, but only hope for the future peace and security of our country.”

On Nov. 21, 1867, the House Judiciary Committee did vote on a bill of impeachment against Johnson. It failed on the House floor, with 57 members voting impeachment and 108 voting no.

On Feb. 21, 1868, Johnson replaced Republican Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, defiantly opposing a law passed by Congress the previous year that said he did not have that authority.

Three days later, on Feb. 24, in 19th-century “Breaking News,” the Jacksonville telegraph began

rapidly clicking with “startling news that the Congress has impeached the President!”

On a 126-47 vote, the impeachment resolution was forwarded to the Senate for trial. Oregon’s only representative, Rufus Mallory, had voted in favor.

After the Senate trial in May, with 36 votes needed for conviction, Johnson was acquitted and saved by a single vote, 35-19. Both of Oregon’s senators voted to convict; however, surprisingly, 10 Republicans voted no. Those 10 never served in Congress again.

Jacksonville’s Democratic newspaper celebrated.

“The battle is over, the victory is ours.— Into the sepulcher has been pitched the corpse of the most fanatical, corrupt, and merciless sect that ever disturbed the peace, blighted the prospects, and endangered the life of any nation.”

Shocked and surprised at the outcome, the Republican newspaper’s response was relatively quiet.

“The only hope now is that Andrew Johnson will take warning and conduct himself in a manner becoming of the Chief Magistrate of a great people.”

In the election that fall, Johnson tried to get the Democratic nomination for president, but failed. During his campaign, he accused his chief rival, Ulysses S. Grant, of being a drunk, a charge long lodged against Johnson.

“If it be true that Grant was drunk all the time,” said the Jacksonville Republican newspaper, “what, in the name of God, will Democrats expect if ever he gets sober?”

On Nov. 3, 1868, Grant overwhelmingly won the White House.

Writer Bill Miller is the author of five books, including“History Snoopin’,”a collection of his previous history columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.

History Snoopin': 1871 in less than a nutshell

1871 in less than a nutshell

---

by Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune

Monday, January 13th 2020

History Snoopin': A census joke and a fairytale

A census joke and a fairytale

---

by Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune

Monday, January 6th 2020

In 1920, for the first time, the national census would start on Jan. 1 instead of June 1. It wouldn’t be without controversy.

Enumerators would have just two weeks to count the people and livestock living in their assigned district. Their pay was 10 cents for each man, woman, child — and beast.

The previous month, dozens of local census takers had qualified for their task with an examination held at the county courthouse in Jacksonville.

With the First World War behind them, everyone in the county expected a rosy future. Ashland leaders even expected their population to top 6,000 people, an increase of over 1,000 citizens counted in 1910.

However, no sooner had the two weeks of counting ended than Medford leaders were

smelling trouble. The chamber of commerce urged anyone who wasn’t counted, or believed they weren’t counted, “to report the same to the Chamber.”

The Mail Tribune printed a coupon to be filled in with name and address, entitled, “Have You Been Enumerated?” If the person wasn’t counted or was in doubt, they were urged to send the coupon to the Supervisor of the Oregon Census in Salem.

By July, initial results were announced and the controversy exploded under a first page Mail Tribune headline — “Joke Census. Figures Give Medford 5,756.” That was 3,084 fewer residents than those counted in 1910!

“Anyone familiar with Medford knows that this census figure is a farce,” the story said. “Conservative estimates place the population at 10,000 to 12,000.”

In its defense, the paper cited its circulation figures within the city. And based on mail receipts, the post office had estimated a population of 6,554. The article claimed that prominent citizens and their families were also missed.

The Chamber sent a protest letter to Salem and to Washington, D.C., demanding the city receive a re-enumeration, an investigation and a “square deal.”

With a column headlined, “a Fairy Story,” a Grants Pass newspaper relished its neighbor’s squeals.

“Once upon a time there was a city in the U.S.A. that aspired to excel all other cities in that part of the country in every particular, but especially in size.

“When results were published — Oh horrors! This proud city had lost nearly one-third of its citizens. There was a great hue and cry from the indignant dwellers, but when the calm succeeded the storm, some of them admitted that the previous census had been padded.”

The column ended with a question and an answer.

“Can you guess the name of this city?

“No, not Medford, for our neighbors have not yet admitted that they stuffed the 1910 census. The city connected with this little story is Omaha.”

Oregon Congressman Willis Hawley said he was sure he could get “a new census ordered” if Medford residents could “show they have not had a square deal,” and they made an effort to prove it.

By August, a month of screaming protests became mere grumbles. The Bureau of the Census issued final and official results.

Over the previous 10 years, Jackson County had lost over 5,300 residents. Ashland couldn’t reach its anticipated surge to 6,000 residents, actually losing over 700 people.

As for Medford, there was no recount, and the initial tabulation remained at 5,756 — a 34.9 percent loss; the worst loss of all cities in Jackson County.

What about Grants Pass you might ask?

Its population rose by nearly 8 percent. Hmmm. Could it have been the climate?

Writer Bill Miller is the author of “History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.

https://mailtribune.com/lifestyle/a-census-joke-and-a-fairytale