Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (69 page)

A PAUSE FOR POETRY

A profound poem by Sir John Suckling, 17th-century cavalier poet:

 Love is the fart

              of every heart

                            For when held in,

                                          doth pain the host,

                                                        But when released,

                                                                      Pains others most.

A common housefly’s lifespan is about two weeks.

Here’s an episode that’s been forgotten by most historians: In 1916 Henry Ford sued the
Chicago Tribune
for libel after it called him “ignorant” in an editorial

B
ACKGROUND

On march 9, 1916, just before World War I, the United States was “invaded” by Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. He led a 1,500-man raid on Columbus, New Mexico, and killed 17 people—including eight U.S. soldiers.

President Woodrow Wilson’s response: He mobilized the National Guard to patrol the Mexican-American border. As a part of its coverage of the story, the
Chicago Tribune
asked the Ford Motor Company whether employees called up for the Guard would be paid by Ford while they served on the Mexican border. The
Tribune
wanted to talk to Henry Ford himself, but he wasn’t available, so they talked to company treasurer Frank Klingensmith instead.

THE CONFLICT

Without checking with his superiors, Klingensmith told the reporters that not only was Ford not going to pay employees who left their jobs to fulfill their reserve duties, it was also not going to reinstate them when they returned from patrolling the border.

Actually, Ford employees who were called up to serve in the National Guard were given special badges that guaranteed them their jobs back when they returned, and the company set up a special program to assist the families of reservists while they were away. But the
Tribune
ran the story without double-checking the information, and on June 23, 1916, it printed a scathing editorial titled
Ford Is An Anarchist
, attacking Ford for being “not merely an ignorant idealist, but an anarchistic enemy of the nation which protects him in his wealth”—and suggested that “a man so ignorant as Henry Ford may not understand the fundamentals of the government under which he lives.”

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THE LAWSUIT

Ford, no stranger to criticism, initially dismissed the
Tribune’s
assault on his character. But his lawyer, Alfred Lucking, wanted him to sue the paper for libel. Ford reconsidered the matter, and agreed.

It would have been easy to prove the libel charge against the
Tribune
if Ford’s legal team had sued the newspaper specifically for using the word “anarchistic”—which in earlier cases had been proven to be a libelous term. But instead the lawyers made their complaint against the entire editorial, which gave the
Tribune
more room in which to maneuver: Instead of having to prove that Ford was an anarchist, they had only to prove that he was “ignorant.” And they set out to do just that.

EDUCATING HENRY

The son of a farmer, Henry Ford had left school at the age of 15. To make matters worse, he rarely if ever found time to read the newspaper, and had only a superficial understanding of what was going on in the world. So Ford’s lawyers tried to give him a crash course on U.S. history, current events, and other topics, but Ford was a less-than-perfect student.

In the end the task proved too great; try as they might, Ford’s lawyers couldn’t fill his head with facts quickly enough, and when he arrived to testify at the trial on July 16, 1919, he was forced to admit “ignorance of ‘most things.’” Here are some quotes from the transcript of the
Tribune’s
lawyer, Elliot G. Stevenson, questioning Henry Ford:

On Ignorance

Q: Mr. Ford, have you ever read history?

A: I admit I am ignorant about most things.

Q: You admit it?

A: About most things.

On the Military

Q: Did you understand what a mobile army was?

A: A large army mobilized.

Q: A large army mobilized. Is that your notion of a mobile army?

A. An army ready to be mobilized.

Q: What is your understanding about a mobile army?

A: I don’t know.

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On History

Q: Have you ever heard of a revolution in this country?

A: There was, I understand.

Q: When?

A: In 1813.

Q: In 1813, the revolution?

A: Yes.

Q: Any other time?

A: I don’t know.

Q: You don’t know of any other?

A: No.

Q: Don’t you know there wasn’t any revolution in 1813?

A: I don’t know that; I didn’t pay much attention to it.

Q: Don’t you know that this country was born out of a revolution—in 1776—did you forget that?

A: I guess I did.

Q: Do you know when the United States was created?

A: I could find it in a few minutes.

Q: Do you know?

A: I don’t know as I do, right offhand.

Q: Did you ever hear of Benedict Arnold?

A: I have heard the name.

Q: Who was he?

A: I have forgotten just who he is. He is a writer, I think.

Q: What subjects do you recall he wrote on?

A: I don’t remember.

Q: Did you ever read anything that he wrote?

A. Possibly I have, but I don’t know.

Q. Would you be surprised to be informed that Benedict Arnold was a general in the American army who was a traitor and betrayed his country?

A: 1 don’t know much about him.

On Government

Q: Mr. Ford, have you heard of the Declaration of Independence?

A: Oh, yes. That is based on justice.

Q: Did you ever read it?

A: Yes, I have read it.

Q: Have you in mind any of the significant things in that?

A: No, I have not.

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On Reading

Q: Mr. Ford, I think the impression has been created by your failure to read one of these that have been presented to you that you could not read; do you want to leave it that way?

A: Yes, you can leave it that way. I am not a fast reader, and I have the hay fever, and I would make a botch of it.

Q: Are you willing to have that impression left here?

A: I am not willing to have that impression, but I am not a fast reader.

Q: Can you read at all?

A: I can read.

Q: Do you want to try it?

A: No, sir.

THE VERDICT

After hearing testimony from dozens of witnesses on both sides of the case for more than 14 weeks, the jury—composed of 11 local farmers and one public roads inspector—met to decide on a verdict. A short time later, they found the
Chicago Tribune
guilty of libeling Henry Ford. But Ford’s own testimony had damaged his case severely—the jury agreed that he was not an anarchist, but they weren’t convinced he wasn’t ignorant—and in the end they awarded the automaker a whopping 6¢ in damages.

THE PUBLIC RESPONSE

The public and the press began taking sides on the issue almost immediately. The
Nation
dismissed Ford as a “Yankee mechanic... with a mind unable to ‘bite’ into any proposition outside of his automobile business”; the
New York Times
editorialized that Ford had not “received a pass degree” in the case.

But the general public was more forgiving. According to Robert Lacey in Ford:
The Men and the Machine
, “His very nakedness when subjected to the city-slicker cleverness of the
Tribune
attorneys struck a chord with thousands who were equally hazy on their knowledge of the American Revolution, and who would have been even more reluctant to read aloud in public.”

The trial was big news in its day, but in the long run—like Ford’s isolationism, his anti-Semitism, and his early admiration of Adolf Hitler—it had almost no impact on the way he is remembered.

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Ever wondered what
really
happened to Marilyn Monroe? You’re not alone. Here’s a version that appeared in
It’s A Conspiracy,
by the National Insecurity Council. It’s great bathroom reading; be sure to pick up a copy for yourself.

A
t 4:25 a.m. on August 5, 1962, Sergeant Jack Clemmons of the West Los Angeles Police Department received a call from Dr. Hyman Engelberg. “I am calling from the house of Marilyn Monroe,” he said. “She is dead.”

When Clemmons arrived at 12305 Helena Drive, he found Marilyn’s body lying face down on the bed. The coroner investigating the case ruled that Monroe, 36, had died from “acute barbiturate poisoning due to ingestion of overdose...a probable suicide.”

THE OFFICIAL STORY

• The night before, Monroe had gone to bed at about 8:00 p.m., too tired to attend a dinner party at actor Peter Lawford’s beach house. A few hours later, Monroe’s housekeeper, Eunice Murray, knocked on the star’s bedroom door when she noticed a light was on inside, but got no response. Assuming that Monroe had fallen asleep, Murray turned in.

• When Murray awoke at about 3:30 a.m. and noticed the light still on in Monroe’s room, she went outside to peek into the window. She saw Monroe lying nude on the bed in an “unnatural” position. Alarmed, Murray called Dr. Ralph Greenson, Monroe’s psychiatrist, who came over immediately and broke into the bedroom. She also called Dr. Engelberg, Monroe’s personal physician. After Engelberg pronounced her dead, they called the police.

SUSPICIOUS FACTS

From the start, there were conflicting versions of what had happened.

When Did Monroe Die?

Although Murray told the police she’d found the body after 3:30 a.m., there’s evidence that Monroe died much earlier.

• Murray first told the police that she’d called Dr. Greenson at midnight; she later changed her story and said she’d call at 3:30 a.m. Sgt. Clemmons claims that when he first arrived on the scene, Engelberg and Greenson agreed that Murray had called them at about midnight. But in their official police statements, the doctors said they were called at 3:30 a.m.

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• According to Anthony Summers in his book
Goddess
, Monroe’s press agent, Arthur Jacobs, may have been notified of Monroe’s death as early as 11:00 p.m., when he and his wife were at a Hollywood Bowl concert. According to Jacob’s wife, Natalie, “We got the news long before it broke. We left the concert at once.”

• In 1982, Peter Lawford admitted in a sworn statement that he learned of Monroe’s death at 1:30 a.m., when her lawyer, Milton Rudin, called from the house to tell him about it.

• The ambulance crew summoned by the police noticed that Monroe’s body was in “advanced rigor mortis,” suggesting that she had been dead for 4 to 6 hours. That would mean she died about midnight.

Where Did Monroe Die?

Monroe supposedly died in her bedroom. But did she?

• Monroe’s body was stretched out flat on the bed, with the legs straight—not typical for a person who had overdosed on barbiturates. According to Sgt. Clemmons, barbiturate overdoses often cause a body to go into convulsions, leaving it contorted. “You never see a body with the legs straight. And I’ve seen hundreds of suicides by drug overdose.” He speculated that she had been moved. (
The Marilyn Conspiracy
, by Milo Speriglio)

• William Shaefer, president of the Shaefer Ambulance Service, insists that “in the very early morning hours”—well before 3:00 a.m.—one of his ambulances was called to Monroe’s house. She was comatose; the ambulance took her to Santa Monica Hospital, where she died. “She passed away at the hospital. She did not die at home.” And he was certain it was Monroe. “We’d hauled her before because of [earlier overdoses of] barbiturates. We’d hauled her when she was comatose.” (ibid.)

How Did Monroe Die?

• Though Deputy Medical Examiner Thomas Noguchi speculated that Monroe had swallowed roughly 50 Nembutal pills, a common barbiturate, he found “no visual evidence of pills in the stomach or the small intestine. No residue. No refractile crystals.” Yet, as Noguchi recounted in his book
Coroner
, toxicological reports of Monroe’s blood confirmed his suspicions of an overdose.

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• Why was there no pill residue in Monroe’s body? Noguchi said that some “murder theorists” have suggested that an injection of barbiturates would have killed her without leaving pill residue. Other theorists have suggested that a suppository with a fatal dose of barbiturates would also leave no residue in her stomach. Or, at some point after the overdose, Monroe’s stomach may have been pumped.

MISSING EVIDENCE

Why has so much evidence pertaining to Marilyn Monroe’s case disappeared or been destroyed?

Phone Records

• Did Monroe try to call anyone the night she died? When a reporter for the
Los Angeles Herald Tribune
tried to get her phone records and find out, a phone company contact told him, “All hell is breaking loose down here! Apparently you’re not the only one interested in Marilyn’s calls. But the tape [of her calls] has disappeared. I’m told it was impounded by the Secret Service....Obviously somebody high up ordered it.” (
Goddess
)

• In 1985, a former FBI agent claimed, “The FBI did remove certain Monroe records. I was on a visit to California when Monroe died, and became aware of the removal of the records from my Los Angeles colleagues. I knew there were some people there, Bureau personnel, who normally wouldn’t have been there—agents from out of town. They were there on the scene immediately, as soon as she died, before anyone realized what had happened. It had to be on the instruction of somebody high up, higher even than Hoover...either the Attorney General or the President.” (ibid.)