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

- 30 -

THE GIANT KILLER Chapter Five

 

I believe that George Hull's reputation was so low even before the Cardiff Giant, it was his cousin William Newell who signed the bill of sale for the majority share of his stone fraud to the Syracuse syndicate. But as December was approached George got nervous and instructed his cousin to sell his remaining quarter share of the giant.

This buyer was three-term alderman and Syracuse agent for American Express,  Alfred Higgins (above).  It is unclear how much Higgins paid for his share in the unwieldy trinket, but with this final fraud George Hull was clear of all legal responsibility for the great lump of humbug.

The giant now belonged solely various citizens from Syracuse. Up to then the fame of the town of 40,000 rested on the brine springs on the south side. But now “Salt City”, which supplied preservative to the entire country, could also be known for the entrepreneurship of its most illustrious citizens, David Hannen, Dr. Amos Westcoff, Amos Gilbert, William Spencer, Benjamin A. Son, and now Alfred Higgins. Even the services of Ohio showman Colonel J.W. Wood, were dispensed with.  The Syracuse Six then proceeded to transport the Cardiff Giant  to the Yates Ballroom of the Geological Hall, at State and Lodge streets, in Albany, New York. But Barnum was not to be outdone..

Using the advertisements of the Syracuse Six as a guide, the King of Hokum had a plaster giant of his own made and painted it to resemble the heavier stone behemoth. And then, because his own museum was still in ashes, Barnum offered his giant for public perusal in Mr. George Wood's (no relation) Museum and Metropolitan Theater, at 1221 Broadway. Barnum's newspaper ads did not, of course, admit to displaying a copy. Barnum asserted the “Albany Giant” was the copy, while Barnum's plaster man was the original.

Readers of the Buffalo Express on Saturday, 15 January, 1870, found an article under the title, “A Ghost Story, by a Witness ”. The author claimed to be living in Manhattan and so short of funds that he had moved into an abandoned hotel on Broadway. There he was nightly terrorized by groans and apparitions, until one night the ghost finally appeared and explained, “I am the spirit of the Petrified Man that lies across the street there in the Museum. I am the ghost of the Cardiff Giant. I can have no rest, no peace, till they have given that poor body burial again” To this sad tale the writer responded, “Why you poor blundering old fossil, you have had all your trouble for nothing -- you have been haunting a PLASTER CAST of yourself -- the real Cardiff Giant is in Albany!”  The author was, of course, Mark Twain.

The original inventor of all this, George Hull, must have been gob smacked. How could this reprobate have ever imagined that his fraud, so carefully crafted and executed could be turned inside out - a humbug made of his humbug.  It was unbelievable, incredible, absolutely amazing. It was a lesson from the old master himself.  You think you know the “con?” game, Barnum seemed to be saying "You ain't seen nothing yet." Most of the crowds that now jammed both Manhattan's Wood's Theater and Albany's  Geological Hall,  knew their legs were being pulled, and were loving it.

And then a little purple pamphlet appeared for sale in Albany.  The title page read, “THE CARDIFF GIANT HUMBUG—THE GREATEST DECEPTION OF THE AGE”  The author was Benjamin Gue, editor of the Fort Dodge, Iowa, “North West”.   Between the covers were names, dates, bills of lading, interviews and witness statements documenting the creation of the Cardiff Giant, from the 1867 appearance of Mr. Martin in Fort Dodge, through the July 1868 shipment of the stone from Boone, Iowa, to Chicago, to the studio of Eduard Burkhardt, to the giant's arrival in Union, New York.  There were eyewitness memorials of the journey to within three miles of the Newell farm in Cardiff.  Gue had even uncovered records of the fund transfers between Stub Newell and the evil genius, George Hull.  The diligent Mr. Gue had even investigated Mr. Hull's career from marking cards, to insurance fraud, to selling cigars, to inquiring into Wisconsin Indian burial mounds, to the Cardiff Giant.  Most of what we can now confirm about George Hull, we know because of editor Gue. It was a hull of a story.

The pamphlet was on sale for a few hours before someone bought out the entire edition. However, because Mr. Gue had contracted with a printer in Albany, the next day the newsstand was again fully stocked with “The Cardiff Giant Humbug...” The printer and the author didn't care if the pamphlets were being read or being burned. They were just interested in selling them. The Syracuse syndicate issued a statement denouncing the pamphlet as its own fraud.  But the truth was, the truth didn't matter. The public took to calling the giant, “Old Hoaxy”, and they still paid to look at it.  As Barnum said, “Every crowd has a silver lining”.

The numbers of visitors in Albany did drop a little after the pamphlet appeared, but unless the giant expanded his repertoire by juggling or doing a soft shoe, once you had seen the Cardiff Giant, there was little interest in seeing it again. So the pamphlet revealing the fraud was just another revenue stream, like Mark Twain's ghost story in the Buffalo paper.  Barnum knew the real craft in advertising, or humbug as Barnum called it, is what I call the “Pet Rock” paradigm.  People will buy a “pet rock” as long as they know you know that they know its actually just a rock.

It appears the only person who failed to figure out that rule was the horse trader David Hannum (above), who demanded an injunction to stop P.T. Barnum from claiming that "The Albany Giant" here after referred to as the  "Fake Giant“ was the fraud, and not Barnum's "Fake, fake giant". 

 The court hearing on 2 February, 1870, was held before York City Judge George G. Barnard (above), a Tammany Hall jurist so corrupt that in two years he would be impeached and bared from ever holding public office in again.   Judge Barnard heard the case presented by Hannum and then from Barnum's lawyers, and even from George Hull, who admitted for the first and only time under oath that he had created the Cardiff/Albany Giant. 

Judge Barnard told Mr. Hannum (above),  “Bring your giant here, and if he swears to his own genuineness as a bona fide petrifaction, you shall have the injunction you ask for.”  Baring that event, he said, he was out of the “injunction business”.

Leaving the courtroom, David Hannum was asked why he thought his original fake giant, which had moved to New York City in December, was drawing smaller crowds than Barnum's fake fake giant. He shrugged and then uttered the immortal words, “There's a sucker born every minute.”  Barnum was later blamed for the quote, but he never called his customers suckers. Hull and Hannum both did.  and maybe that was why, the day after Judge Barnard's decision, Barnum's fake fake drew a huge crowd, while Hannum's original fake drew almost nobody. But on the second day, even Barnum's fake drew only 50 customers. It seemed, with the high drama and courtroom farce, the Cardiff Giant had run out of humbug.

The two giants then went their separate ways, never having met.  And over time they were both reduced to appearing in county fairs, and side shows and finally in museums of fakes and frauds.  But, it must be said, they both continue to produce an income stream for their owners, however small.

Not long after the lost injunction, David Hannum was on board a train when a man asked him to move over a seat. Hannum refused. Sharply the man demanded, “Do you know who I am? I am P. Elmendorf Sloan, the superintendent for this railroad., and my father is Sam Sloan, president of this railroad.” To which Hannum replied, “ "Do you know who I am? I am David Hannum and I'm the father of the Cardiff Giant."  Well, adoptive father, maybe.

Like the other investors in the “Cardiff Giant”,  Doctor Amos Westcoff made money. But for whatever reason he rose from the breakfast table on 6 July, 1873 , went upstairs to his bedroom, and shot himself in the neck. He died quickly of blood loss. His partner, Alfred Higgins, never lost faith in the giant, and until his dying day remained convinced it was a petrified man, straight out of the pages of the Holy Bible. The Reverend Turk, blamed for inspiring the Cardiff Giant, died in 1895, in Iowa.  He accepted no guilt whatsoever.  And that I think is the primary advantage of blind faith.

George Hull made a small fortune from his fraud, and invested it in a commercial block in downtown Binghamton, New York. But his profligate lifestyle quickly ran through his profits, and within five years he was almost broke again.  So....he conceived of an even bigger stone giant - this one with a tail. 

The “Solid Muldoon” was “discovered” outside Pueblo, Colorado on 16 September, 1877, and attracted crowds in Denver, Colorado and Cheyenne, Wyoming.  But by the time the Colorado Giant reached New York City,  the scheme had gone bust . Gloated a Binghamton newspaper, “This would seem to stop the Giant Man...getting rich without working.”  Little did the editorial writers realize how much work George had put into his frauds. 

Shortly thereafter, the long suffering Hellen Hull died of consumption at 42 years old.  The atheist George allowed her to be buried in a Methodist service. The evil genus himself went broke again and was reduced to living with his daughter in Bimghampton, He died on 21 October, 1902. Perhaps the most accurate thing he ever said was “I ought to have made myself rich, but I didn't.” Still, recorded another paper's obituary, "Hull was very proud of the (Cardiff Giant) affair, and he never tired of talking about it."  Fifteen days after George's death, in Chicago, the man who had carved the Cardiff Giant, sculptor John Sampson also died.

Barnum's Giant, the fake, fake fraud,  currently resides in Farmington Hills, Michigan, inside “Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum”. 

Since 1947, George Hull's original fake has been in Cooperstown, New York, reclining behind a white picket fence inside the “Farmers Museum”. 

And every fall, the folks at the LaFayette Apple Festival, in tiny Cardiff, New York,  provide a walking tour to the Newell farm, the site of the temporary grave for the original fake Cardiff Giant.  

They recreate his discovery and exhumation, around a plaster giant, and I urge you to visit this and the other sites, just to remind yourself to never pass up a chance to laugh at yourself. . It's very healthy.  I believe P.T. Barnum himself endorsed it.

                                - 30 -