KEEPING TIME

 

I remember a proverb that says opportunity knocks only once. That may be true, but it is also true that having heard the knock you still have to open the door. And, in 1835, when the scientists at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England heard that knock, they were mightily annoyed. So they pawned off the job of dealing with the disturbance to one of their servants. He turned that disturbance into a career. In fact he made three life long careers out of simply telling the time.  

The Royal Observatory was founded by Charles II  (above) in 1765 as part of his restoration and “re-scientific-ication” of government after the religious fanaticism of that great Puritan villain Oliver Cromwell. The observatory was to use the stars to perfect “the art of navigation.” 

But the builders, despite going over budget by all of twenty pounds, went cheap on the materials, and the observatory, which was to house the most accurate telescopes of the day, was constructed 13 degrees out of alignment. The Royal astronomers, like the NASA astronomers dealing with the deformed mirrors on the orbiting Hubble telescope, have had to make mathematical adjustments from that day to this.

But besides powerful telescopes, the scientist at the Greenwich observatory also needed accurate clocks. In order to say a particular star was at a particular point in the sky at midnight, they had to know precisely when midnight was. So in the special built Octagon Room were installed two pendulum clocks, (above, center) built by Thomas Tompion, each accurate to within seven seconds a day.

By 1833 (sixty-four years later) the observatory had done its job so well that ships’ captains and navigators had come to rely on the precise time provided by Greenwich to follow the charts provided by Greenwich. That year the observatory began a practice they follow to this day. 

At exactly 12.55 p.m., (they do it then so as not to interfere with the weather observations made at noon) a large red “time ball” is raised half way to the top of a mast erected atop the observatory.

 At 12.58 the time ball is pulled all the way to the top (above). And then at 1:00 P.M., exactly, the ball is released and quickly falls to the bottom of the mast. If you have ever wondered why they use a ball to mark midnight on New Years Eve in Times Square, New York City, this is it. 

Any ship’s captain waiting in the Thames River to set sail could now synchronize their shipboard watches and clocks with the official time as they set off from the “prime meridian”....

....or “longitude naught” - "0" degrees, "0" seconds and "0" minutes east/west, because Greenwich is where the longitude starts (above, gold line) - and time.  

But our story properly begins in 1835, when the observatory got a new boss, George Biddle Airy (above). He figured his primary job was to perfect the astronomical observations for those ships of the British Empire, and he hired human “computers” to do just that.

Now, in the 19th century "computers" were actually men and women who did the dull and boring math required to confirm and correct the stellar charts used to navigate on voyages to the far flung corners of the empire. So, in 1835, when London merchants appealed to Mr. Airy to share in the time service he saw them as an annoyance. But it was not one he could ignore.

He gave the job to his second assistant, John Henry Belville, who had worked at Greenwich as a "Jack-of-all-trades" since 1811, when Belville was just 13 years old.  John Henry dropped his Christian  French name after the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815 to avoid anti-French bigotry. Over the years he became responsible for maintaining the  “Galvano-Magnetic” clock at Shephard's Gate,  (above,) until 1856, when it was replaced with an electric one, and for raising and lowering the red time ball every day. And to preform his new job of dealing with the merchants, Airy provided John Henry with one of the new very accurate and dependable pocket watches.

This particular watch  (above) had been originally owned by Prince Augustus Frederick, the Duke of Sussex and the sixth son of King George III of England. He was the favorite uncle of Queen Victoria and the man who gave her away at her 1840 wedding to Prince Albert.

The watch, number 485/786,  had been assembled by John Arnold & Sons in 1794. It had a spring detent escapement workings, a jeweled movement with a diamond end stone, all enclosed in a silver case (above), with a white enamel dial with gold spade hands and a subsidiary seconds dial.  The mechanics were accurate to within one tenth of second per day.

Each Monday John Henry would present himself and “Faithful Arnold”, the watch, to a clerk at the observatory time desk. The clerk would set the watch and then hand John  a certificate asserting to the watch’s accuracy for that day. 

Then John Henry would make his way by carriage and rail to London, where he would literally deliver the time to some two hundred customers; shops, factories and offices. The fees he charged for the service supplemented his small salary from the observatory.  For most of the people in London, John Henry was the face of official time, and he was earning four hundred pounds a year doing it when he died in 1856.  

After John’s death  the prigs at the government accounting office refused his widow, Maria, a pension. So she begged the observatory to allow her to continue the time service as a private business, and they reluctantly agreed. Every Monday Marie strode up the observatory hill, watched while Arnold was synchronized at the "Time Desk (above)" and then went on her rounds by rail and on foot. 

To those who saw her trudging across the streets of London, Maria Bellville became known as the Greenwich Time Lady. 

By 1884 some 25 countries had agreed to set their watches by Greenwich time, and every clock at every railroad station in England was connected directly via telegraph lines with the Royal Observatory. And still, the time delivered by Marie Belville was just as accurate, if slightly less convenient. Maria retired in 1892 (above), and her only daughter Ruth now took over the employment,  carrying the tool of her trade, which she simply called Arnold, in her handbag.

Beginning in 1924 the BBC Radio began broadcasting from the observatory and added the six “pips” on air before each hour announcement. In 1936 the Royal Observatory set up a “talking clock” (above) which anyone with a telephone could dial up at any time to get the correct time to within a hundredth of a second. In most of the rest of the world this technology replaced the quaint "time keepers" of the past. But the English have more respect for keeping what works, particularly if it is a living person. 

A hundred years after her family business had begun,  Ruth Belville (above) was still making her rounds every Monday; having Arnold set by the Royal Greenwich Observatory staff, getting a paper validation of the event, and then serving more than fifty paying customers. 

Finally, in 1940, Ruth celebrated her 86th birthday and decided to retire.  And, since she had no one to pass the task on to, when Ruth retired the Belville family work was finally completed.

Ruth received a pension from  “The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers” guild , where "Faithful Arnold" was also granted a place of rest and honor.  Then on the evening of Tuesday, 7 December, 1943, Ruth left a gas lamp burning in the bedroom of her home in Beddington, Surrey. Sometime during the night the flame sputtered and went out and Ruth suffocated in her sleep, at the age of 89.

In effect, she ran out of time.

- 30 -

THE PROFESSIONAL - Politics Is Not a Hobby

I hate the five dollar bill profile of Lincoln that most Americans hold. Abraham Lincoln saved the Union and ended slavery not because he was a saint but because he was the greatest politician who has ever occupied the White House.

And to those who despise “professional politicians”, my response is they have probably never seen a real professional in action. Such Pols don’t come along often, but when they do, they make the puny impersonations that must usually suffice seem like clowns.

And Lincoln’s professionalism was best displayed in his handling of the biggest clown in his cabinet, a man you have probably never heard of but whose best work you see every day of your life, Salmon Portland Chase (above). If Chase had been half as smart as he was ambitious, he would have been President instead of Lincoln. That to his dying day he continued to think he deserved to be so, shows what a clown he really was.

Doris Kerns Goodwin has called Lincoln’s cabinet “A Team of Rivals”, but I think of it more as an obtuse triangle. At the apex was Lincoln (above, center). He was the pretty girl at the party. His suitors didn’t really want to know him, but they all wanted to have him. 

On the inside track was the brilliant, obsequious William Seward (above)  - the Secretary of State who thought of himself as Lincoln’s puppet master. 

And the right angle was Salmon Chase (above), Secretary of the Treasury, born to money and brilliant,  but with a stick up his alimentary canal.

And on Tuesday, 16 December, 1862 , the competition between these two paramours of Old Abe's banged heads in the head of Senator Charles Sumner (above), the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and leading Senatorial Cassandra. 

Sumner had come into procession of a letter written by Seward to the American Ambassador to France. In the letter Seward complained that “…the extreme advocates for African slavery and its most vehement opponents are acting in concert together to precipitate a servile war, the former by making the most desperate attempts to overthrow the federal Union; the latter by demanding an edict of universal emancipation as a lawful and necessary if not, as they say, the only legitimate way of saving the Union.” 

It was an old letter, and Seward's position had evolved, but to Sumner this passage was proof that behind the scenes Seward (above) was not fully committed to destroying slavery and the Confederacy. And it confirmed what he already heard from Chase.

Stephen Oates writes in “With Malice Toward None”, “…what bothered Chase the most was the intimacy between Lincoln and Seward…In talks with his liberal Congressional friends, Chase intimated that Seward was a malignant influence on the President...that it was (Seward) who was responsible for the administration’s bungling...Seward became a scapegoat for Republican discontent.” (pp 355-356)

Sumner convened what I call "The Magnificent Seven", the 7 most anti-slavery members of the Republican Senate caucus - called by their opponents and historians "Radical Republicans".  Once the Seward letter was read out loud, Senator Ira Harris (above) from Albany, New York recorded the reaction. 

“Silence ensued for several moments," wrote Harris, "when (Senator Morton Wilkinson of Minnesota (above)) said that in his opinion the country was ruined and the cause was lost…” 

Senator William Fessenden (above) from Maine then added a bit of gossip. He'd been told by an unnamed  member of the cabinet there was “…a secret backstairs influence which often controlled the apparent conclusions of the cabinet itself.  Measures must be taken”, Fessenden concluded, “to make the cabinet a unity and to remove from it anyone who does not coincide heartily with our views in relation to the war.” 

It is sad to say there was not a first rate mind in that room. There might have been, but arrogance drops a person’s I.Q. by forty points or more.  Not one of the seven seems to have suspected they were being manipulated by Chase, that it was Chase who had whispered Fesseneden's ear, and Wilkinsen' s ear as well, and even Sumner.  But each was convinced that they and they alone held the solution as to how to conclude the Civil War and end slavery. It is startling to think that men who used an outhouse every day, could be that arrogant.

They skewered up their courage for two days before saddling up and calling on the President at 7 P.M. on Thursday, 19 December, 1862.  For three hours they harangued poor Mr. Lincoln on the dangers of Seward. 

Lincoln remained agreeable but noncommittal, and proposed that they meet again the next night. And the amazing thing was that throughout that meeting Lincoln actually had William Seward’s resignation in his coat pocket.

Understand, Seward had not offered his resignation out of nobility. He was a politician. After hearing of the intentions of the Seven, Seward had a flunky deliver his resignation in private, as a back door demand that Lincoln pick the genial New Yorker over the prig from Ohio. Of course, the loss of support from New York would poke a fatal hole in Lincoln’s ship of state. So Seward was not expecting Lincoln to pick the prig for the poke.

Lincoln’s problem was he also needed the prig. Chase’s handling of the Treasury was brilliant. He was financing the entire war. It was Chase who had begun issuing official U.S. government backed paper currency, greenbacks (above). That had not been done since the American Revolution. It was Chase who had put the words “In God We Trust” on every bill, and it's still there today. Of course, Chase had also put his own face on every $1 bill (above), as a form of political advertising, but Lincoln was willing to tolerate that because Chase was honest in his job, and because without Ohio, the Union would lose the war. 

The other factor was that the whispers about Seward’s “backstairs influence” were false. By December of 1862 it was dawning even on Seward that Lincoln was thinking for himself. When Lincoln had first heard read Seward's resignation - delivered by the portly enator Preston King (above)  - "remarkable for (his) obesity")  the President had exploded, and demanded to know,  “Why will men believe a lie, an absurd lie, that could not impose upon a child, and cling to it, and repeat it, and cling to it in defiance of all evidence to the contrary?” 

Lincoln (above) was beset by arrogance and delusion on all sides. It seemed that everybody in Washington thought they were smarter than Lincoln. But the skinny lawyer from Illinois was about to prove them all wrong.

At ten the next morning Lincoln told his cabinet about the previous night’s meeting. He made no accusations, but Chase immediately blubbered that this was the first he had heard about any of this matter.  The President, who had mentioned no names and made no allegations, asked them all, except Seward, to return that night to meet with the Seven. 

Not invited, Seward (above) felt the ground giving way under his feet. He had never expected Lincoln might pick Chase over him. Now, suddenly, the did. 

At the same time, Chase (above) was not entirely certain he had won.

That night the Seven became an audience, along with the cabinet sans Seward,  to a bravo performance. Gideon Welles (above), the Secretary of the Navy (then a cabinet office) recorded the festivities. 

First, according to Welles, the President (above)  “…spoke of the unity of his Cabinet, and how although they could not be expected to think and speak alike on all subjects, all had acquiesced in measures when once decided." At Lincoln's prompting, each agreed with The President, specifically,  "...Secretary Chase endorsed the President's statement fully and entirely…” 

There were hours more of talking but right there, when Chase agreed with Lincoln, that was the end of "Chase's mutiny".  As the Magnificent Seven were leaving the White House a stunned Senator Orville Hickman Browning (above) from Illinois asked how Chase could tell them that the cabinet was harmonious, after all his talk about division and the back stairs influence. 

Charles Sumner(above) 's reply was simple and bitter.  “He lied,” said Sumner. Chase was done as a malignant political influence in the cabinet. No Republican was going to believe anything he ever said again.

The next morning Lincoln called both Seward and Chase to the White House. Welles was again present, I suspect,  as a witness for Lincoln. Wrote Lincoln's "Old Neptune", as he called Welles,   “Chase said he had been painfully affected by the meeting last evening, which was a total surprise to him, and…informed the President he had prepared his resignation…“Where is it?” asked the President quickly, his eye lighting up in a moment." 

“I brought it with me,” said Chase, taking the paper from his pocket…”Let me have it,” said the President, reaching his long arm and fingers towards Chase, who held on, seemingly reluctant…but the President was eager and…took and hastily opened the letter. “This," said he, looking towards me with a triumphal laugh, “cuts the Gordian knot.” An air of satisfaction spread over his countenance such as I have not seen for some time. “You may go to your Departments,” said the President;…(This) “is all I want…I will detain neither of you longer.”  And with that both Chase and Seward left the oval office.

Both Seward and Chase spent a nervous night, not certain as to what Lincoln would do. They had both just been reminded who was in charge of this game. And it was not until a few days later that Lincoln sent a note to both Chase and Seward, saying that the nation could not afford to lose either of their talents. And it did not. 

Seward never tried to pull Lincoln's strings again. But he played a vital part in ensuring the XIII amendment to the constitution ending slavery for ever. 

Seward barely survived an assasian's knife in the plot that murdered Lincoln, but continued to served President Andrew Johnson, even guiding him to acquire the Territory of Alaska (above) - which was labeled at the time "Seward's Folly".  He served as Secretary of State until 8 March, 1869. Seward died in the afternoon of 10 October, 1872. His last words were "Love one another."

Salmon Portland Chase petulantly continued to resign annually until late October of 1864, when Lincoln no longer needed him to hold onto Ohio. But never one to waste talent, Lincoln took advantage of the death of that old racist Chief Justice Roger Taney, to nominate Chase to the Supreme Court. 

Chase (above, center) was as easily confirmed and sworn in on the same day as Chief Justice. His ego would not permit him to completely surrender his ambition, trying to achieve that office he was convinced he was so suited for, in 1868 as a Democrat and again in 1872 as a "Liberal Republican"

He never resigned his position on the Supreme Court, dying of stroke on 7 May, 1873.  His last vote on the court was in the minority, voting against the government's ability to regulate food safety.

So that is what it looks like when a skilled professional is on the job, using the best the troublesome foolish people who surround him or her have to offer to achieve great ends, like the end of slavery and the end of a civil war.   It often sounds like confusion and pettiness at the time, but as a Scottish/American newspaper editor would note of a later American political crises, it is all "...just the American people washing their dirty linen in public." 

- 30 -