TRUE BELIVER

I  tell you, if you travel long enough down any philosophical path you always reach the land of ad nauseum. And, having reached this never never land you will meet one particular spiritual Puritan in Quaker garb,  Neal S. Dow - a five foot two inch Napoleon of Temperance, this two term Mayor of Portland, Maine. And having met him you may never find your way back to sanity. Even the Rum Riot of 1855 failed to convince Mayor Dow that his own obsession had set the cause of sobriety in America back by a generation..

The first time Neal Dow (above) was elected Mayor was in April of 1851. He had been carried into office on his support of the new “Maine Law”, which made the sale of alcohol in the state illegal, except for medicinal and industrial uses. Wrote Neal, “Portland wharves groaned beneath the burden of West India rum.” Eighteen other states quickly followed Maine's moralistic lead. But as in all the other states, the new law was popular in Calvinist anti-immigrant Maine only so long as it was easily avoided.

The most famous bootlegger became “Handsome Jim” James McGlinchy, who along with his three brothers, operated the Casco Brewery, after the original name for Portland. It and a few distilleries survived the Maine Law because, officially, they exported all of their product. But a good part of all that rum seeped back into Maine. 

Such leaks in his prohibition boat infuriated Mayor Dow (above), who was also president of the Temperance League. And after raids of every Irish “grog shop” in Portland failed to cut off the local traffic in the demon rum, the Mayor insisted on searching all trains, boats and wagons entering the city. Since Portland was the primary rail and sea connection with Canada, the delays this created infuriated merchants up and down the eastern seaboard. Dow was even burned in effigy on Boston Common. And in April of 1852, when Mayor Dow came up for re-election, merchants from all over New England funded his opponent, Albion K. Parris. Mayor Dow lost re-election by 542 votes out of 3,300 cast.  That's a landslide.

Being a true believer (his maternal great-grandfather had the given name of “Hate-Evil”), the diminutive Mr. Dow could not believe the fault was his or his cause's . He was convinced he had been victimized by a conspiracy of merchants who provided fake I. D.s for the 2,200 Irish immigrants in Portland who had brought to America their strange Catholic religion and their vulgar sinful ways. Even worse, they almost all voted Democratic. Still at least the new Mayor Albion Parris was also a temperance man, if he was not quite as enthusiastic an enforcer of the law.  

So “The Grand Pooh-bah of temperance” -  as the Irish nick-named ex-mayor Dow -  retreated to his mansion at 714 Congress Street (above), to lick his wounds, and plan his comeback.

Under the theory that the only problem with his temperance law was that it was too weak, in 1853 Dow lobbied the state legislature in Augusta to doubled down. The new sterner temperance law they passed allowed a search warrant to be issued if three private citizens claimed liquor was present in an establishment. It also made the mere possession of alcohol proof of intention to sell. Thus every user was now a dealer. By now Dow was convinced the temperance movement was so strong...“The voters...will turn upon that point.” The little dictator even saw the growth of the Republican Party across the northern states not as primarily a condemnation of slavery, but as a rejection of alcohol.

In March of 1855 Maine passed two other pieces of legislation which Dow had come to see as essential for the eradication of liquor. First all immigrants must register and show their naturalization papers three months prior to election day. This disenfranchised hundreds of otherwise qualified voters for the approaching April elections, under the theory that what a local newspaper described as “Irish cattle” were also  “illegals” with false papers. The second law took care of most of the rest of Irish voter-wanna-be Americans. From now on, any voter rejected at the polls for whatever reason in Republican Maine, must appeal in Federal court. Cases here could take weeks just to get on the docket. The Democratic paper, the Eastern Argus put it best. “Dow...and company...have made up their minds to rule the state at all hazards.”

And they did. Dow was re-elected Mayor in April of 1855. But out of the 3,742 votes cast, Neal Dow's margin of victory was a mere 46 votes. Ignoring that sliming margin his close friend and political ally, Elder Peck, said it was “...a victory over Rum…Catholicism, and Corruption.” In his inaugural address, the zealot Mayor Dow warned, “I shall not fail... to employ all the power which the law has put into my hands.” He even suggested that his administration would “restrain the right of suffrage, now exercised by our foreign population...to prevent their overawing and controlling our elections, as they have done.” Democracy was not going to obstruct temperance. Mayor Dow had thrown down the gauntlet. And it would slap him right across the mouth.

As part of his new duties, Mayor Dow and the city council were supposed to jointly appoint a committee to pick a new liquor agent, whose job it would be to purchase liquor which would then be legally sold to the apothecaries and industries of the city. However Mayor Dow was so certain of his own nobility, he appointed himself to the selection committee, and to save even more time appointed himself the temporary liquor agent. As such he purchased $1,500 worth of alcohol (in his own name) and had it shipped to City Hall. Only after it arrived did he notify the city council. After all, who could question the morals of Mayor Dow?

The answer was the city council could. The council members promptly got into a shouting match with the Mayor over his actions. And one of them leaked details of the shipment to the Eastern Argus. On Saturday June 2, 1855 the paper printed up and posted handbills all over Portland, which laid out the facts, in particular that the liquor had been bought under the name of Neal Dow. The handbills then asked, “Where are our vigilant police... who think it their duty to...often push their search (of the poor man's cider) into private houses, contrary to every principle of just law? We call upon them by virtue of Neal Dow’s law to seize Neal Dow’s liquors and pour them into the street....Let the lash which Neal Dow has prepared for other backs be applied to his own when he deserves it.”

The timing could not have been worse for Mayor Dow. This was the four year anniversary of the original Maine Law. Three men found a judge who witnessed their testimony that there was illegal alcohol in City Hall, and he was thus required to issue a search warrant. A small crowd gathered at City Hall, mostly to see if the police were going to arrest Mayor Dow. They were not. But still the crowd held on. 

As the day wore on, and the shifts at the locomotive plant and other factories let out, the crowd began to grow. By seven that evening there were 2,500 people milling around City Hall (above)), their anger fueled by what they saw as the hypocrisy of the biggest temperance man in the state having his own $1,500 stash of booze protected by the police. To avoid antagonizing the crowd the ten police officers locked themselves in the Liquor Room in City Hall, with the booze. Mayor Dow sent word to two “private” militia companies to come quick.

At least one member of the militia sensed the approaching disaster. But when Sargent William Winslip suggested the militia should load blanks, Mayor Dow responded, “We know what we are about sir. We’ve consulted the law, sir.” At that point Sargent Winslip resigned from the militia. At ten that night one company of about twenty men, formed up in front of City Hall. Backed by armed troops, Mayor Dow ordered the crowd to disperse. The crowd responded with a hail of trash and garbage. Dow now ordered the troops to fire over the heads of the crowd. But their commander, Captain Green, said he needed more men. And for the only time that day Mayor Dow let a cooler head over-rule him.

It was a mistake. The sight of the twenty militia men retreating encouraged the crowd to surge forward. Rocks and bricks now replaced the garbage. One energetic fellow, a 22 year old sailor from Deer Isle named John Robbins, crawled through a broken window into the liquor room, unlocked the door, and the crowd stormed in.  At this moment the reinforced militia returned, and under Dow's command, opened fire. The uneven battle continued for twenty minutes. Only the fact the militia were armed with flintlock muskets prevented the death toll from being higher. John Robbins was killed, and seven others wounded. Eventually the crowd dispersed. To Republicans it was the Rum Riot. To Democrats it was the Portland Massacre.

Dow was charged with breaking the law he had helped pass, but he was acquitted after a one day trial for two reasons – first it was obvious the liquor was not really his, and second because the judge, Henry Carter, was a strong temperance man and a Dow supporter. Still, Mayor Dow learned nothing from the debacle. He immediately issued a “...Message on the Riot” which he blamed on un-named anti-temperance men, and claimed John Robbins was an Irish immigrant who was wanted by the law. But that charge fell apart when several witnesses under oath testified that John was a native American (i.e. born in America),  had never been arrested, was a mate on the barque Louisa Eaton and was a “steady, honest man, remarkable for his good nature and peaceable disposition.”  But whatever Robbins' disposition had been, it was suddenly clear the mob had been outraged at Mayor Dow's behavior and had not even been mostly Irish.

That fall the voters drove that point home by electing Democratic majorities to both houses of the state legislature, and the Governor's office, as well.  And quickly the Maine Law was overturned, ending Maine's five year experiment with prohibition. John Robbins was buried in the old Eastern Cemetery, with honors. Mayor Dow did not bother to even run for re-election. And even though prohibition was re-instated two years later, Neal Dow stayed out of that fight.

The new prohibition law was again rarely enforced. Thus it stayed on the books until the Federal government passed its own “noble experiment” in 1920. But long before then, in 1880, the bootlegger James McGlinchy had died, leaving behind an estate worth $200,000, marking him as one of the richest men in Portland., and proof that whatever people said in church, they were just people. 

As for the true believer Neal Dow (above),  he was lucky not to live long enough to see his dream produce what he feared most, the funding of organized crime, largely made up of foreign born and first generation immigrants (from lots of countries with different religions), who fed an increase in public drunkenness and alcohol addiction in response to the Great National Experiment in Prohibition. The Napoleon of Temperance died still blind to the truth of his folly in 1897 at the age of 93.

And if there is a lesson from the life of Neal Dow, it is that ad nausium is the land where all ideas, even good ones, go to die. Or, as Ben Franklin suggested, "moderation in all things - including moderation".

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IS ANYBODY THERE?

 

I think the primary problem facing democracy is that humans are too darn clever.   Consider the lesser genius of old John Q. Adams (above), son of a founding father, who, after a disastrous one term in the White House, won a seat in the House of Representatives, which he occupied for another 17 years.  Congressman Adams first dragged slavery onto the House floor for open debate, and then engineered the first compromise which delayed the Civil War for forty years -  earning the sobriquet the "Old Man Eloquent." 

But it was also Congressman J.Q. Adams (above) was clever enough to insist he should not be counted as “present” if he refused to respond when his vote was called for. It was a matter of principle to John Q, and a matter of temperament. He was just too old to stand up and walk out of the chamber every time someone asked him to vote on something he wanted to avoid voting on. How could he predict that two generations later, in the hands of hack politicians, this principle would be used to thwart democracy?

They called it a “Silent Quorum”. By October of 1893, when the Senate was trying to repeal price supports for silver, which were costing taxpayers millions of dollars every year, this procedure had become a monster whenever the majority was razor thin. Without a quorum present, (half the membership plus one) no vote was legal, so by remaining silent when their names were called, the minority could “filibuster” any action they wanted to avoid losing on. It was a maneuver which one particular House member described as a “...peculiar art of metaphysics which admits of corporeal presence and parliamentary absence”. 

That year, over two days, the U.S. Senate (above) tried 39 times to remove price supports for silver. And every time the vote was about to taken, the quorum evaporated. A decade later the obstructionists had so honed their craft that the same particular House member calculated that the House of Representatives spent “...a whole month...calling over our own names”. Usually the bills being  filibuster were either dropped, or the delay and deal making required to get them passed held the Congress up to public ridicule. Who ever heard of such a thing as that?

The 'particular' Congressman who finally broke the filibuster of silence was a fourteen year veteran who knew the lower house of Congress well enough to describe it as “A gelatinous existence, the scorn of all vertebrate animals”. He owned the biggest head in politics (in more ways than one) and the sharpest wit in the Washington, at the time.  Fifty year old Thomas Brackett Reed (above) was, said a critic, as “ambitious as Lucifer”.  

He was also a giant - 6'3” tall and 300 pounds – who inspired one who saw him strolling to say in awe, “How narrow he makes the sidewalk look.”  Republican Thomas Reed once lamented in his measured Maine drawl, “We live in a world of sin and sorrow. Otherwise there would be no Democratic Party.”  When accused of mockery by a Democrat, Reed responded, “I will say to the gentleman that if I ever ‘made light’ of his remarks, it is no more than he ever made of them himself.”   Reed described two politicians who annoyed him, this way; “They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.” He was imperious and dictatorial even with friends - a small “d” democratic Robespierre.

Like all political revolutions, newly-elected Speaker Reed's, was inspired by necessity. Specifically, on 23 January 1890, he received the Committee on Elections report concerning the 4^th district of West Virginia. The Democratic Governor had thrown out the results from two polling places and declared Democrat James Jackson the winner. The loser, Republican Charles Smith, had appealed to congress. The Congressional Committee's Republican majority had labeled the governor's actions so outrageous that it “seems like a farce to argue about it” and recommended giving the seat to Smith. As expected the Democrats wanted to argue about it. 

Technically Reed had three more than the 166 Republicans needed to push through Smith's election. But if three or more of his own party were out sick or away from the floor Reed's working majority would fall to the “tyranny of the minority” if he could not assemble a quorum. Thomas Reed was determined to do something about that.

Before the session was to begin that noon, on Wednesday, 29 January, 1890, Speaker Reed called the two ranking Republican members of the election committee into the hallway behind the Speakers podium, known as the Speakers' Lobby. There Reed warned Joe Cannon from Illinois (above) and William McKinley from Ohio that even with two Republicans dragged from their sick beds, what with several still out sick, one dead and another home with a dying wife, the Democrats could be expected to use a 'Silent Quorum' to delay or even kill action on their report. 

But Reed (above, right) had a plan. What he did not tell this allies was that he had recently secured a partnership in a private law firm, in case his plot blew up in his face and he was forced to resign from the Congress. Representative Cannon asked when the Speaker intended upon launching his plan. Reed responded simply, “Now”, and he strode into the chamber.

After the preliminaries for the opening of a session, Edward McPherson, the House clerk, called for a vote on the report of the election committee. The initial results were 162 yeas, 3 nays and 163 not voting. The Democrats immediately called for a “quorum call”. Again Mr. McPherson read out the roll call, pausing after each of the 332 names for a response. All 162 Republicans in the chamber answered “present”. Not a single Democrat in the room lifted his voice. The “Silent Quorum” had again triumphed - or so it seemed. 

But then Speaker Reed announced ponderously, “The Chair directs the Clerk to record the names of the following members as present and refusing to vote.” And slowly he began to read off the names he had marked down as being in the room.

According to the Associated Press reporter who was present, “Pandemonium broke loose...wild excitement, burning indignation, scathing denunciation...” When Reed called his name, the Democratic war horse William Breckinridge (above) bellowed over the mob, “I deny the power of the Speaker and denounce it as revolutionary!” By now Democrats were spilling into the aisle and pressing toward the podium, “...as if they intended to mob the Speaker.” But imperious, “utterly fearless”, and (said the New York Times) as “cool and determined as a highwayman,” Speaker Reed deigned not to acknowledge their outrage. He just kept reading the the names of the no longer silent minority.

When he called out, “Mr. McCreary”, the sexagenarian ex-Governor of Kentucky and ex-Confederate Colonel, James Bennett McCreary (above), shouted up at the podium, “I deny your right, Mr. Speaker, to count me as present!” Unexpectedly, Thomas Reed paused, and the entire bedlam paused as well, sucking in a breath of anticipation. Gazing down impassively from atop the massive podium, the New England Buddha pronounced, “The Chair is making a statement of fact that the gentleman is present. Does he deny it?” Representative McCreay was nonplussed. And calmly Reed continued with his roll call of the principled “absent”. And when he had finished, over the din and angry shouts which again tore the air, he announced he would now give his reasons for the revolution he had just launched.

The Constitution, in Article One, section five, said Reed, dictates that each house of Congress could “...compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner, and under such penalties as each house may provide.”  Speaker Reed argued, “If members can be present and refuse to (be)....counted as a quorum, that provision would seem to be entirely negated. Inasmuch as the Constitution only provides for their attendance, that attendance is enough. If more was needed the Constitution would have provided for more.” His words were not going to sway the losing side, but then that was not whom Reed was speaking to.  “Are elections a farce and is government by the people a juggle?” he asked. “Do we marshal our tens of millions at the polls for sport? If there be anything in popular government it means that whenever the people have elected one party to take control of the House or the Senate, that party shall have both the power and the responsibility. If that is not the effect, what is the use of the election?”

Having said his peace, Mr. Reed intoned, “The Chair thereupon rules that there is a quorum present within the meaning of the Constitution.” Breckinridge demanded to make a point of order. Reed dismissed him, saying. “The Chair overrules the point of order”, without even hearing it. “I appeal the decision of the Chair,” shouted the old war horse. Interjected the Republican Lewis Payson from Ilinois' 9^th district, “I move to lay the appeal on the table”. And with a Republican second, the Congress now debated the very idea of Reed's revolution.

It went on for three bitter, angry, frustrated days. And from atop the pyramid of the podium Thomas Reed sat impassive, “serene as a summer morning”, rendering Parliamentary decisions which kept the debate moving.  Speaker Reed used his gavel so often, he broke it (above).  Charles Landis, the Indiana Republican, insisted that Reed “...did not gag debate, he simply....thought that a man who had a private balloon to inflate should hire a field.”  If the Democrats “shouted until the acoustics bled,” wrote Landis, that was merely “prima facie evidence that they were in the vicinity”. In the beginning Republicans were not united, but the Democratic reaction had forced the doubters into the battle line. Even the one Texas Democrat who stayed seated while ominously wetting his bowie knife, helped to unite Reed's Republican troops.

Thomas Reed came out of this debate forever bearing the tag of “Czar Reed”. But he also won his point. On Monday, 3 February 1890, the Democrats admitted defeat and simply walked out of the chamber (above). This left the Republicans with just 165 votes - one short of a quorum. An hour later, Republican Joe Sweeny of Iowa, having raced from the train station, walked into the chamber and announced, “One more, Mr. Speaker”. And with that a quorum was achieved. And the reason for the drama (if anybody still remembered), Charles Smith, was officially elected to the 4^th district House seat for West Virginia, by 166 votes to 0. Twenty-six days later the United States Supreme Court rejected the Democratic appeal, and the matter was settled for at least a generation.

"Reed's Rules" gave the Republicans the power to fully enact their programs. And the public fully rejected them. In the election of 1890 Democrats gained the clear and working majority both sides had wanted, and immediately discarded Reed's Rules.  Reed's observation on this was, “The House has more sense than anyone in it.”  Two years later, the Republicans re-gained ground and it was the Democrats who were facing a intransigent minority, lead by Thomas Reed. The Democrats were forced to now accept and use Reed's Rules for themselves. In response, Thomas Reed said only, “I congratulate the Fifty-third Congress.” And he meant it.

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THE FAULT IS IN OKLAHOMA

 

I suggest that if you are part of the half of Americans who believe in the validity of astrology, you contemplate the chart for 30 December, 1867. It falls under the sign of Capricorn and the double influence of Saturn and predicts this particular birthday boy will be practical and realistic, with “entrepreneurial talents”.  

Our particular birthday boy, Henry Simpson Johnston (above), fashioned himself as a Biblical scholar, a “frail, bookish” lawyer, indecisive and nonconfrontational, who sought comfort in the numerological balance of the "5" in all things, who believed he had lived three lives before being born outside Evansville, Indiana, and adhered to an esoteric Christian mysticism known as a Rosicrucian. He also believed in astral-projection. He practiced hypnotism. He was active in the Klu Klux Klan, a Grand Mason, a founding father of the state and seventh Governor of Oklahoma, and the second Governor in seven years to be impeached.

“Capricorn: The stars say that you're an exciting and wonderful person, but you know they're lying”

Al Yankovic Poet and Social Commentator

Until 1907 it looked as if there would be two states between the Arkansas Plateau and the Great Plains along the 35^th latitude: Sequoya in the east for the 60,00 “Native Americans”, and a separate state for the 1.5 million “European Americans”, mostly in the center and west. That year the Federal government forced a compromise, and on 16 November, admitted the single whole as Oklahoma. That date made the oil rich Sooners, Scorpios: resolute, secretive, passionate, insensitive and stubborn to a fault. 

Which may explain why, in 1924 another ex-Hoosier became Oklahoma Governor. Jack Walton had the support of prohibitionist farmers, Masons, Catholics and progressives in central and western Oklahoma. But his active opposition to the Klu Klux Klan led to his impeachment after less than a year into his four year term.

“I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical.”

Arthur C. Clarke Scientist and Author

In November of 1926, Henry Johnston (above) won the Governorship with 56% of the votes. He was a “slim, long-nosed lawyer, with dark-rimmed spectacles”, a bookish moralist, given to long rambling speeches on proverbs and reincarnation. He was “intolerant of opponents, (and) seemed blind to weak friends” .  

Henry and his wife Ethel attended seances with his close friend, appeals court Judge James Armstrong (above), who Governor Johnston put on the public payroll in January of 1927 to provide astrological advice on all things political, such as the most prescient hour to sign bills into law. And then Henry hired Judge Armstrong's niece as Oklahoma's first gubernatorial confidential executive secretary.

“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”

John Kenneth Galbraith Economist

Her name was Mrs. Oliver O. “Mamie” Hammonds (above). The “small, attractive, dark-haired” and “formidable” Mamie had been a Democratic worker for years, and a successful oil well wildcat investor.  As the Governor's secretary, she took dictation, typed, screened the Governor's visitors and, to save money, astral-projected across the state's 68,595 square miles to do background checks on job applicants. She was also in the Klan's woman's auxiliary, 

But it was not Mamie's affection for the supernatural which initially drove the legislature batty, but according to a reporter for the Daily Oklahoman, it was because “She controlled the door to the governor. Legislators, friends, and supporters...found themselves unable to see the governor unless she acquiesced.” This irritation simmered during the first legislative session, and then rose to a boil during the summer break because of the deep systemic corruption of Oklahoma's government.

“Millionaires don't have astrologers, billionaires do.”

J.P. Morgan. Banker, ego maniac

Under the state's compromise constitution, each of Oklahoma's 77 counties was ruled by an elected three member council, with absolute power, setting salaries and awarding contracts for construction and maintenance for all county property. The graft was so ingrained that a county commissioner who required only a 10% kickback on contracts was hailed as “a model public servant”. To protect this system, Oklahoma violated their own constitution by refusing to redraw Congressional districts for sixty years. 

Graft and lethargy was part of the reason the state Capitol building (above) in Oklahoma City, still lacked a dome a decade after all other construction was completed. It would not get one until 2002.  Of course none of this prevented Oklahoma hypocrites from asserting their moral superiority over the rest of America.

“Horoscopes are nothing more than a mass cultural delusion that the sun's apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.”

Dr. Sheldon Cooper Sitcom physicist

Above this swamp of graft the state had created a five member commission to design, approve and build highways. The two new commissioners Governor Johnston appointed were members of the KKK, and they hired further Klan members and awarded contracts to KKK friendly builders. That weakened Johnston's support from Catholics, making him vulnerable. He was not helped by his own procrastinating. He almost seemed bent on self destruction, “by turns spectacular and pathetic.” 

But it was Johnston's insistence that concrete be used in highway construction - as opposed to asphalt, which Oklahoma was swimming in - Oklahoma oil hit its peak production level in 1927 (above), at 278 million barrels – that really set the boil to roiling.

"Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm."

Kurt Vonnegut Author

Sensing the Governor's weakness in the fall of 1927, the few Republicans in the legislature and rebellious Democrats signed a petition asking the Governor to call them into special session so they could impeach him. When he refused, they decided to meet anyway. 

Led by their leaders “The Four Horsemen”.  legislators labeled Mamie Hammonds (above) as the Shadow Governor, and the “She-svengali” of Oklahoma. She was put under oath and freely admitted her astral-travels, but denied she had done anything without Johnston's specific orders. Still, the legislature demanded Mrs. Hammond's resignation.

“Astrology, or when the stars enlighten illuminated who dazzle a bunch of lunatics.”

Paul Carvel Belgian Author

When questioned if he was willing to fire his executive secretary, Governor Johnston (above)  typically responded with a parable. “If you came to me with a thousand sheep, and I had only one ewe lamb and you wanted me to destroy that, do you think I would be so base as to destroy it? I repeat, gentlemen, it would be yellow, it would be unjust to Mrs. Hammonds to sacrifice her and her character on false charges.” Henceforth the impeachment became known as the Ewe Lamb Rebellion. 

Then Governor Johnston decided to strike back. When the “Horsemen” legislators showed up on Monday morning, Christmas day of 1927, they found seventy National Guardsmen blocking the door to the capital building. 

So they took testimony in the nearby Lee-Huckins Hotel, until the state Supreme Court ruled the legislature could not call themselves into special session. Wrote the Oklahoman, “Unhorsed, un-honored, unpaid and hamstrung, the rebel leaders and insurrectionists returned to their home".

Pisces: Try to avoid any Virgos or Leos with the Ebola virus

Al Yankovic Poet and Social Commentator

But the battle was merely postponed, until early 1929, when the House of Representatives filed 11 charges against Governor Johnston. The only new issues concerned Doctor Oliver O. Hammonds, who had been appointed Governor Johnston's Secretary of Public Health. He was the “disarming and dimpled” Mamies' husband. Her brother Scott sold machinery to the state highway department. And Governor Johnston's closest political adviser, Judge Armstrong, was Mamies' uncle, who was also an attorney for an insurance company that bonded the state highway department. The thinking seemed to have been there must be fraud somewhere in all those relative connections. But nothing was ever produced.

“In many ways, astrology, numerology and palmistry...have attempted to make a practice out of something that is essentially imaginative.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer Author

After a two month trial the state Senate acquitted Governor Johnston of ten of the charges, agreeing with Oklahoma founding father, William “Alfalfa” Murry (above), that conversing with “nymphs, gnomes and newts", was not an impeachable offense. “You must remember”, he told the Senators, “the people have a right to elect a fool.” 

However, that March, even after Mrs. Hammonds resigned, the Senators convicted Governor Johnston of the eleventh charge; general incompetence.

All Virgos are extremely friendly and intelligent - except for you.

Al Yankovic

Henry Johnston and Ethel packed their four adopted daughters into the family car, and drove the 40 miles north to his hometown of Perry. To his surprise he was met on the outskirts by hundreds of well wishers (above), who escorted the family to the county courthouse. There he gave one more speech. “I have lost the office of governor. I have retained my honor and integrity. I retire with a clear conscience. I retain the public confidence” 

And he did, as he was quickly elected to a four year term in the state Senate.  After which he returned to Perry again, to practice law until his death, in January of 1970. Then we can only assume, he started it all over again.

I know that astrology isn't a science... It's just to do with people thinking about people.

Douglas Adams Author

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