Joe's Daily U.S. History Lesson -- July 9

JULY 9 -- Happy Birthday Theresa! You are my love!; 1896 Bryan Delivers Cross of Gold Speech; INVENTION/PATENTS: 1802 Davenport (DC motor), 1819 Howe invents sowing machine, 1932 R.I.P. Gilette, 1872 Blondell invents doughnut hole

JULY 9– Happy Birthday Theresa !!! 1960 – Eisenhower and Khrushchev start threatening each other ...over Cuba. In 1959, Fidel Castro had overthrown the regime of Fulgencio Batista. When Castro began making it clear he would side with the Soviet Union instead of the US for economic aid and nationalized US industries, President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the CIA to train a small Cuban militia to overthrow Castro.

This of course, escalated the hostilities between Eisenhower and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev started by warning Eisenhower that it was prepared to use missiles to protect Cuba from the US. He said, One should not forget that now the United States is no longer at an unreachable distance from the Soviet Union as it was before. He accused the US of plotting insidious and criminal steps against Cuba. The relationship between the US and Cuba was just never the same after that least not until Raul Castro came into power.

These days Cuba, is one of the last communist countries in the world and according to Human Rights Watch, Cubans are systematically denied basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, privacy, movement, and due process of law. But don’t tell Che Guevara that, and American has a lot of Che Guevara fans, despite the fact that according to American Experience – Fidel Castro, People & Events on PBS from December 2007, before Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolt ion, Cuba was one of the most advanced and successful countries in Latin America. Keyword: was.

1896 – Bryan deliveres Cross of Gold speech.  

At the 1896 Democratic National Convention, Nebraska Representative William Jennings Bryan, argued his support in favor of free silver to hopefully end the current economic panic.  Farmers in the west and south were fed up with bankers not lending out gold, in fact they still had  $300+ million leftover in Greenback paper money still in circulation.

Since the Coinage Act of 1873, or the Crime of 73 as it called by many, silver money was taken out of circulation and gold was the sole specie.  The obscure Nebraska politician’s father was a Greenbacker, but saw the collapse of that party. Bryan therefore took the silver route to gain interest, and led the way to a presidential election in 1896 versus Ohio Representative William McKinley in perhaps the most fiercest US elections in post-civil war history. I’ll get into that another day.

Rather it was on this day in Chicago, the day of the 1896 DNC, a day where the money issue was the topic that all US Senators were giving their speeches, and then it was some guy named William Jennings Bryan who came up on stage, and argued his point. “We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin money and issue money is a function of government. We believe it. We believe it is a part of sovereignty. Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue paper money is a function of the bank and that the government ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson rather than with them, and tell them, as he did, that the issue of moneyis a function  of the government and that the banks should go out of the governing business.”

Bam! Excuse me, Congressman Bryan, did you just stick your middle finger at the jaws of the mightiest monster on earth?  Uh, yah! And he wasn’t done with a speech that would otherwise get some people assassinated. Bryan correctly pointed out that in no time in the history of civilization anywhere have the masses of the people chose the gold standard as a way, but rather one can only find the money makers in charge of the gold standard, and challenged the moneymaker:  “If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the uttermost…we will answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” Can you say Mic Drop boys and girls? This speech which amazingly enough is available on audio; if you google it you can hear it even though it’s ancient quality and tough to decipher.

After his speech, nobody said a word as Bryan walked back to his seat. But by the time he got there, the crowd had roared in applause, lifted this man William Jennings Bryan, a man who just a few minutes ago was virtually unknown, up into the air and instantly nominated him as their leading candidate for the Democratic party for the next three elections, all of which he would lose.

1802 – Happy birthday Thomas Davenport ...from Williamstown, Vermont. He’s credited for constructing the first American DC electric motor in 1834.

1819 –Happy Birthday Elias Howe, Jr. ...of Spencer Massachusetts, he invented the sewing machine Now he didn’t invent the idea, but he did come up with three major components for the sewing machine; a needle with the eye at the point, a shuttle operating beneath the cloth to form the look stitch and the automatic feed.

1932 – King Camp Gillette dies. ...According to Wiki, Gillette came up with his famous razor design saw bottle caps thrown away after the bottle was opened. This made him realize the value in basing a business on product that was used a few times, then discarded. Men shaved with straight razors that needed sharpening every day u sing a leather strop. As existing, relatively expensive razor blades dulled quickly and needed continuous sharpening, a razor whose blade could be thrown away when it dulled would meet a real need and likely to profitable. So you see where this is going all you hairy people.

My mornings would suck if I still had to use that old blade. Gillette has a beautiful ranch that’s owned by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation ?Authority and available for public tours. You may have seen it in the 2012 NBC reality show The Biggest Loser.

1872 – The doughnut hole is born, made with a doughnut cutter patented by John blondel of Thomason,