AMERICAN NARCISSIST

 

I can see Andrew Phillip Kehoe (above) as clearly, as if he was standing next to me.  According to his drivers' license, he was five feet, nine inches tall, weighed 150 pounds and had gray hair,  “ ...a slight, hollow-chested man”, of 46, with thin lips. And a neighbor, when shown several photographs of him, said, “ "I knew him well and he never looked like that.” And he was not just a physical enigma. 

Howard Kittle, the Clinton County agent and Farm Bureau manager, received a letter from Andrew, and admitted that if anyone else had written it “I would have thought sure he was insane.'” But that was before - when he was a community leader, a trusted guardian of the township's wealth and its future. Afterward the local newspaper - the Clinton County Republican-News - was forced to wonder, “Is the building of a modern institution which equips children to meet the problems of the world a burden - or is it a privilege?” You see, the man at issue was a anti-tax warrior and an American narcissist who murdered 34 children and 8 adults.

Bath in 1927 was a little farm town of about 300 people 10 miles northeast of Lansing, Michigan. “(It) had a ( grain) elevator, a little drugstore, and you knew everybody within 20 miles” said a life long resident.  Which means pretty much everyone knew Phillip Kehoe.  Or thought they did.

In 1922 rural Clinton County closed its scattered one room school houses. They used $8,000 of their own hard earned money to buy five acres of ground just south of Bath. They borrowed $35,000 to build a two story Consolidated School building. 

Here, classes would be divided by age,  to protect the younger, smaller children from older bullies. With fewer teachers, higher standards could be required of the instructors -  even a college teaching degree. And amenities such as a library, lunch programs, athletics, music and art were added. Buses now picked children up at their front doors and returned them safely home each night. It was the foundation for a secure world that future generations would grown up in. And it was not cheap for the older generations.

The future always costs. You either invest in it now, or it proves much more expensive.  In 1922 property taxes in Clinton county were $12.26 per thousand dollars of valuation ($160 today, or over $16%). In 1923 those taxes had gone up by half to $18.80 ($235 today). This was not the decision of a few liberals. This was debated for years within the community. And over time the decision was made to invest in the future of Clinton County,  in the counties' children, and to spend the money on their  future. 

Three years later, eager to eliminate the debt quickly, the elected leaders of Clinton County paid off $7,200 of their obligation, and taxes topped out at one dollar higher (to $240 per thousand of valuation in today's dollars). It was expected taxes would now start to drop, but that did not take into account the rising inflation of the 1920's, and the selfishness of one egomaniac who chose - chose -  not to have a future, and to steal the future of the entire town.

Let me tell you about Andrew Phillip Kehoe, the way most Americans learned of him by sharing a headline from the New York Times, dated Wednesday, 18 May, 1927; “Maniac blows up school, kills 42, mostly children; Had protested high taxes...Children Pinned in Debris. Others hurled against walls or out windows – Searchers still hunt for missing. Agonizing scenes in yard. Distraught parents find little ones dead beneath blankets...”. 

The early numbers were wrong, of course. The maniac killed eight adults and 34 children at the school, that day. The last little victim, nine year old Richard Fitz (above), would die of an infection caused by his injuries, a week short of a year after the explosion that killed his classmates. 

Just before he murdered 34 children, the maniac had bludgeoned his wife one last time - this time to death. 

He had tired his two horses' legs together and left them in the barn stacked with all his farming equipment. Then he set the barn on fire. Before that he had poisoned and killed every fruit tree on his farm. Interestingly, it was figured by the cleanup crews, that he could have paid off his mortgage and his property taxes by selling most of his well maintained farm equipment, which, according to his neighbors, he rarely used.  

Neighbor M.J. “Monty” Ellsworth wrote later, “He was at the height of his glory when fixing machinery or tinkering...He spent so much time tinkering that he didn't prosper.”  The maniac also stood out, as a farmer, for his meticulous appearance. He changed his shirt quickly should a spot of dirt appear on it and was often seen sitting on his front porch (above), in a smoking jacket,  puffing on a cigar.  But his primary interest, his obsession, was in reducing his taxes.

The maniac had been elected to the school board in 1924, two years after the new school had opened and the first election after the new higher tax rate had been announced. His platform was to cut the cost of the new school. In 1925, after the death of Maude Detluff, the school board's treasurer, he had been appointed to fill that position. His book keeping was, like his appearance, meticulous. After his suicide, his books showed  “a long and detailed explanation” of a 22 cent discrepancy.  

But in the spring of 1926, when he ran for election to officially take on that job, the voters had rejected him. Once again, the majority approved investment in the future  After that defeat he stopped paying his mortgage and the insurance on his farm. Eventually, the previous owners - his wife's relatives - began foreclosure proceedings.

Early Tuesday morning, 18 May 1927, after killing his long suffering wife, and every other living thing on his property, Phillip Kehoe set his house on fire (above) and drove off to carry out the rest of his plan for revenge for that election loss.

Decades earlier, Phillip's promising career as an electrical engineer in St. Louis had been cut short by a fall and a serious head injury.  So farming was the his second career choice. He married and moved to Clinton county, Michigan,  right after the First World War. He might have over paid for his farm, because land prices were inflated at time. And his wife was afflicted with tuberculosis, a wasting disease before antibiotics. But he still assaulted her, every time he felt the need to feel superior.

The Klu Klux Klan paid for and staged a funeral for Phillip. They expected to garner support by blaming his Catholicism for encouraging him to destroy the school because it was not a Catholic school. But even if all of that were true, none of it would justify the cold blooded murder of 34 innocent children, and nine adults, and the farm animals and his wife. He was probably a racist by modern standards, but all Phillip Kehoe could focus on was HIS taxes.

Before the school was built, he had opposed it. Once it was decided to build it, he insisted it should be a 10 grade institution, instead of 12 grades. He opposed the inclusion of a library, or athletic programs or a music department.  And he lost every argument. 

Once the building was constructed, the tax increase gave him enough supporters to win election to the school board, where his obstinacy continued. He even opposed giving the superintendent a paid vacation each year, and then argued it should only be one week, not two. And as he lost each of these arguments, his obsession grew, day by day. 

Words used to describe him during this time were “surly”, “obstinate”, “impatient” and “arrogant”.  Eventually he began to invest his money not in his farm, or his wife,  but in World War surplus explosives. He slipped the explosives into the basement of the new school, and rigged  them with a timer and set them to explode early on a Wednesday morning,  just after classes had begun. And just before that bomb went off, Kehoe set off the last bomb, packed into his car, killing himself , the school principle and others standing nearby.

The day after the bombing,  while still in shock and grief,  the Clinton Country Republican ran an editorial, which explains, far better than I ever could, the connection between the maniac's crime and his anti-tax fever. “That he was insane there is little doubt", wrote the editors of the paper. " But he was not always insane. To start with he was merely antagonistic. Then he became radical.. He was the victim of the progress of his own lack of balance...

"What a terrible price to pay for narrow-mindedness", continued the editorial. "What an awful calamity for one peaceful little community to bear for one man's lack of ordinary American ideals...Never before have we known of aversion of the cost of education taking such terrible form. There are, however, many people who unthinkingly hamper and discourage the progress of good schools and other institutions for the welfare and happiness of the public. What are we going to do about it?”

It is almost a century later, and the question begs to be asked again, this time of a nation which elected an admitted rapist as President, supported by the power hungry un-Christian unRight, - those who object to investing in the future because they choose not to believe we have one. And what are the majority of us going to do about it?  The answer after the 6 January 2021 assault on the U.S. Capital nd the poison of the Trump Presidency is...not yet answered,

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ANOTHER CRAZY POLITICIAN

 

I found myself wondering how, over my lifetime,  politicians got so crazy.  And then I was reminded of Representative Marion Anthony Zioncheck,  This combative warrior toiled for almost a decade in the lumber camps north of Seattle,  to earn his college tuition. Then, in law school,  he was elected class president, and then campaigned for a new student union building.  

His successful tactics so offended the football team, who preferred the money be spent on a new training room,  they shaved his head and dumped him in the Drumheller Fountain (above) on campus. Then, as a successful criminal defense attorney,  he was often cited for contempt, once appealing a $25 fine all the way to the Washington State Supreme Court. In November of 1932 , as a Democrat, Zioncheck won a traditional Republican seat in the U.S. House of Representatives by 12 percentage points.

"This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multi-tiered management structure. It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring."

Governor Eliot Spitzer, explaining a Staten Island vice ring he prosecuted after using their services.

In 1934 Marion Anthony Zioncheck was a freshman in the 73^rd Congress, one of 311 Democrats to just 117 Republicans. And while this was the congress famous for the Hundred Days of New Deal legislation, the 31 year old Marion earned his reputation as an intellectual bully, calling his G.O.P. colleges “fools and jackasses”.  He was once invited to “step out into the hall” so Republican William Ekwall of Oregon could “deal with him.”  

In a 1934 floor speech he referred to the director of the F.B.I., J. Edgar Hoover (above), as a dictator and a “master of fiction”.  That was politics as usual, but Marion then had a truckload of manure dumped on Hoover's front lawn. That was not usual politics, and the folks back on Puget Sound loved it.  Marion was re-elected that year with an even larger victory margin.

"The attractive lady...dropped into my lap....I chose not to dump her off."

Senator Gary Hart explaining a photo of Donna Rice sitting on his lap

In April of 1935, as part of the normal grease which helps the House to function, fellow Democrat Thomas Blanton from Texas sought to remove some of Zioncheck's more nasty attacks on Republicans from the official record. But Marion refused to allow it. To make a point he suggested, “I want it put in the record that Mr. Blanton is a son of Texas”. Marion then offered to have the offensive word “Texas” removed, and replaced by a blank space.

"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country"

Mayor Marion Barry explaining his cities' high murder rate

Fellow Democratic Congressman Blanton called Zioncheck's suggestion “ridicules and asinine”. Zioncheck protested the word “asinine” as “un-parlimentary”. The Congressional staff were forced to look up the exact definition in a dictionary. The interruption only angered Blanton more. He had been censured by an earlier congress and missed being expelled by a half dozen votes. Now he charged ahead with his reply, and in finishing he slipped and refereed to Zioncheck as the “gentleman from New York”.  Anyone else would have ignored the gaff, but Marion pounced, sneering at his fellow Democrat, “I long ago learned not to describe the beauty of a morning sunrise to a cat.” 

Blanton (above) leapt to his feet, and stormed toward Marion, who met him with balled fists. They were separated by fellow members and Congressman Zioncheck's remarks, now including the ones about Blanton, were removed by vote of 272 to 0. Even Zioncheck did not vote to retain them.

"I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it."

Sen. John Kerry explaining his voting record

Just after midnight on January 1^st, 1936, Marion stumbled into the lobby of a D.C. apartment building and hot wired the intercom so he could call every tenant at once. He identified himself and then wished them all a happy New Year. His sleepy victims did not appreciate the gesture, but the press did. It seemed some one had begun keeping newspapers notified of Marion's adventures...

,,,as when,  early in the morning a few weeks later the congressman was stopped by capital police doing 60 miles an hour up Connecticut Avenue (above).  Marion paid a $25 fine. Then in April, it happened again. This time the speed was 70 miles per hour. Marion paid a $45 fine, and the the judge slapped on a $20 fine for contempt. The papers began calling him the 'Salon Congressman” - as in "saloon", and “the House's Bad Boy”. 

It was even reported he had driven his roadster on the White House lawn. He hadn't. But when the White House did not strongly defend him, Marion mailed President Roosevelt a package of empty beer bottles and some mothballs, with no explanation.

"About this time, the Congressman's  car was stopped by the Park Service and Mrs. Battistella was able to open the door... The next thing I knew she was in the water."

Congressman Wilbur Mills explaining how his date, aka stripper Fanny Foxe, ended up in the Potomac River.

In April Marion (above, left) met a 21 year old Works Progress Administration typist from Texarkana, Texas, named Rubye Louise Nex (above, right).  Marion explained to Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, "I met her about a week ago, then she called me up one night. She asked me down and so I went down and looked her over. She was OK.” Marion asked the Secretary to officiate at their wedding, but Ickes demurred. So Marion and Rubye crossed into Maryland, which had no waiting period for marriages. Rubye told the papers “excitement and hubbub” just seemed to follow her new husband,  and she was “glad to go along with him”.

"American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains."

Senate Candidate Christine O'Donnell explaining why she does not trust science

They decided to honeymoon in Florida, but were stopped almost immediately in Alexandria, Virginia, and charged with speeding. Marion posted a $200 bond, and continued on his honeymoon. Four days later their trip was interrupted again, 2 ½ miles south of Shallotte, North Carolina, when a county sheriff pulled Marion over, supposedly because that morning the Congressman had missed his court date back in Virginia. 

The head line read “Zioncheck Again Arrested”, and although no one in Washington thought to ask how, in 1934,  a county sheriff  had heard within four hours about a missed court appearance 300 miles away, I suspect some one whom Marion had insulted, was engineering all of these police encounters. Like, say, Mister Hoover?  When Alexandria refused to pay for Zioncheck's  extradition over a misdemeanor, the couple was released - but for the rest of the trip to Miami, Rubye did the driving.  And she received a couple of speeding tickets.

"The governor is hiking the Appalachian Trail."

Spokesman for then South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford

At this moment the Puerto Rician legislature passed a bill applying for statehood status. American congressional leadership asked Marion, since he was in Miami, to check out the situation. Marion and his new bride (above) flew there on Monday, 7 May, and what they found was not what Roosevelt's appointed governor, Blanton Winslip, had been telling the White House. 

He saw violence in the streets (above). Their car was chased by rock throwing youths, shouting nationalistic chants. But the White House was not prepared to listen, telling Marion the governor “is the sole and competent authority to carry out this government's policy”. So Marion went public, warning the Associated Press, “The United States ought to either get in or get out of here. This thing is like a snowball. It grows.” But because of the damage already done to his reputation, Marion's report was dismissed as the ravings of a drunken lunatic. A couple of auto accidents on the island did not help his credibility. 

"I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under...President Jimmy Carter. I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."

Representative Michele Bachmann, attempting to explain the 2011 flue outbreak.

On his return to New York, two weeks later, Marion and Rubye (above) entertained several reporters in his hotel room, even inventing a new drink -  cough syrup, honey and rye, which he dubbed a “zipper”, as in 'zip your lip'.  But if Marion thought this meeting was off the record he was sadly mistaken.

The alcoholic invention and treatment was made and was duly reported, and afterwards the couple were dared by photographers to wade into a fountain. Which they both did. The headlines shouted, “Zionchecks Go For A Paddle”.

"How's my favorite young stud doing?"

Congressman Mark Foley, e-mailing a 16 year old male page

Back in Washington at the end of May, Marion found his apartment occupied by Mrs. Benjamin Young, whom he was subletting from. His landlady thought Marion was unfit to be either a Congressman or to rent her property.  Despite the Zioncheck's lease having another five months to run, she refused to leave. So all three occupied the one bedroom together. Marion returned to work the next day, riding a bicycle to the capital as a publicity stunt and to avoid any further traffic tickets. But as a pedestrian he was arrested by Alexandria police Sargent George Helmuth, for that missed court appearance. He was only in jail long enough for a few more press photos to be taken , which made the front pages from D.C. to Seattle.

"PETA is not happy that my dog likes fresh air."

Governor and Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, explaining why he strapped his dog on the roof of a station wagon

A few days later, after yet another confrontation with Mrs. Young,  Marion dragged the screaming and kicking woman out into the hallway, where he dumped her. Luckily the press was on hand to snap more photos. These headlines read, “Zioncheck Puts Woman To Rout”, and “Zioncheck Checks Out Landlady”.  Mrs. Young claimed a broken hip, but refused to be examined. Reporters quoted her as saying, “We've got to see whether this country is going to be run by Bolshevism or Americanism” Mrs Young insisted the police report her as 92 years old.  Her driver's license said she was 42.

"Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn't breathe and four guys jumped on top of me."

Congressman Eric Massa explaining his boisterous lifestyle

Rubye could take no more of the circus, and walked out. And while she was gone, Marion threw a temper tantrum, tossing dishes and furniture about the apartment. Eventually the police were called again, and Anthony was arrested again. This time a friend bailed him out, but warned him the Democrats would offer no further public support. 

From this Marion became convinced that his 21 year old bride had been kidnapped by the 66 year old Vice President, fellow Democrat John "Cactus Jack" Nance Garner (above). The next time the police responded to his bizarre behavior, Marion was committed to a hospital for "mental observation".

"I said a little prayer before I actually did the fingerprint thing, and the picture."

Congressman Tom Delay, explaining why he was smiling in his mug shot

They locked him up in the Gallinger Municipal Hospital Psychopathic Ward, aka the Washington Asylum. Rubye came to the hospital, but only to speak with Marion's doctors.  During his three week evaluation, Marion announced he would not run for re-election. 

Just as a grand jury was convening to consider his sanity, Marion's friends got him shipped (above) to a clinic in Baltimore, Maryland, and outside of the Grand Juries' reach. He stayed there for a few days, before climbing a fence and disappearing. He surfaced a week later with Rubye in Chicago, fresh and seemingly recovered, and boarded a train for Seattle.

"I wish we lived in the day where you could challenge a person to a duel."

Senator Zell Miller explaining how much he disagreed with interviewer Chris Matthews

On his return home, Marion's mother urged him to run for re-election, saying it was the only way to prove he was not crazy. And on Monday, 3 August, 1936, Marion paid the $100 fee and filed papers to run again in November. That night he told a Seattle radio station, “I have been pictured as a vicious wide eyed radical ever since I was president of the student body at the University of Washington. Now I'm going to go back to congress...I'm going to clear up of things that were falsely said about me.” 

He opened a tiny campaign office on the 5^th floor of the Arctic Club Building (now a hotel) in downtown Seattle, at the corner of Third Avenue and Cherry Street. But Rubye insisted Marion see a psychiatrist, which he finally did on the afternoon of Friday, 7 August,  when he was evaluated by Dr. Edward Hoedemaker.

"First of all it happened during a period after she was in remission from cancer."

Senator John Edwards, explaining the timing of his infidelity while his wife' was dying from cancer.

Doctor Hoedemaker warned Rubye and Marion's brother-in-law, Bill Nadeau, who were to drive him to a political meeting that night, that they should keep a close eye on the congressman. 

After leaving the doctor's office they stopped off at Marion's headquarters in the Arctic building  so Marion could pick up some papers before addressing a postal workers banquet. When he did not come out after a few minutes, Bill went in after him. He found the office locked. A janitor opened the door, revealing Marion writing at his desk.

"If you are not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin."

Congresswoman Katherine Harris, explaining her reasons for being a Republican

Bill looked at what Marion was writing, which he assumed were remarks for that night's meeting. The note read, “"My only hope in life was to improve the condition of an unfair economic system that held no promise to those that all the wealth of even a decent chance to survive, let alone live." 

The note made no sense to brother-in-law Bill Nadeau (above), so he told Marion, , “Come on, kid. We'll be late. Forget it”. As his charge stood up,  Bill held up Marion's suit jacket for him to put on. But instead Marion made a dive for the open window.  Desperately Bill reached for the Congressman's feet. By the time he reached the window, Marion was already dead on the sidewalk five floors below. 

"I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law."

New York City Mayor David Dinkins, explaining why he did not pay his taxes

Marion Anthony Zioncheck tumbled 60 feet....

...sailing past the cream white terra cotta walruses (above) which lined the third floor exterior of the Arctic building, and landed on his head, spattering a passing loan broker, W.H. McFarlane, with his blood and brains. Rubye was the next to reach the body. She fainted on the sidewalk. Two thousand attended Marion's funeral, at which the Reverend Fred Shorter called him “a shell shocked comrade who died at the barricades, fighting to the very last for the poor and dispossessed.” 

It might be added, with hindsight, that Marion Zioncheck was probably a manic-depressive who was self medicating with alcohol, or perhaps a victim of schizophrenia, which often onsets during the late twenties and early thirties in adults. But whatever his illness, he was certainly not helped by the soulless cut-throat nature of Washington politics and press. But it makes me wonder why so many of those drawn into politics are so freaking nuts, to begin with. And why we keep electing them.

"If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come he made them out of meat?"

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

(All clippings from Marion Zioncheck Papers, University of Washington Libraries.

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