June 20, 2019 Thursday
Bedtime Story
"Running the Machine" (1864) by John Cameron
In 1864 in one of the dailies of New York a
very famous political cartoon was printed that was titled ‘Running the
“Machine”’ made by the artist John Cameron born in 1928.
Political cartoons are the epitome of
English language adage (a subspecies of aphorism):
“A picture is worth a thousand words.”
(Just as an aside the American computer and
cognitive scientist John McCarthy who developed the Lisp computer language and
coined the word “Artificial Intelligence” among other things makes a contrary
point in his quote:
“As the Chinese say, 1001 words is worth
more than a picture.”)
The political cartoon of 1864 was an open
mockery of the entire Lincoln Administration on its issue of handling the
monetary policy and making a complete mess of it.
The cartoon has seven top brass of the
Lincoln Administration sitting around a table that include secretary of war
Edwin McMasters Stanton, President Lincoln, secretary of state William H. Seward,
Navy secretary Gideon Welles and two unknown contractors.
The most significant figure is the then
Secretary of the Treasury William Fessenden (after the resignation of Salmon
Chase during one of the darkest hours in financial history of United States –
undoubtedly far worse than the recent subprime mortgage bubble burst of 2007-08)
at the head of the table.
He is seen working on the “Chase’s Patent
Greenback Mill” cranking out Greenbacks.
Salmon Chase still lingers today through
the phrase “In God We Trust” that he was instrumental in getting printed on the
United States paper currency which remains in place on the notes t this very
day.
He is missing in the cartoon even though it
was under his tenure as Secretary of the Treasury (1861-64) that both the Demand
Note and the United States Note came to be printed with his own face appearing
on a diverse range of U.S. paper currency - ambitious man that he was).
Fessenden who is rolling out endless
amounts of Greenbacks is seen to be saying glaring angrily at the others on the
table:
“These are the greediest fellows I ever
saw.
With all my exertions I can’t satisfy their
pocket, though I keep the Mill going day and night.”
Lincoln is seen to be roaring in laughter
and saying:
“All this reminds me of a most capital
joke.”
The Secretary of War Stanton is shown to be
very pleased with himself when he gets a messenger telling him that one
prisoner and one gun (of the Confederates) has been captured and it is a great
victory.
The two contractors at the bottom are shown
to be craving for more and more paper currency with the words:
“Give us more Greenbacks, Compound
Interest”.
If possible I will try to share the actual
cartoon with you.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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