Traitor

“A traitor is everyone who does not agree with me.” King George III

Imagine a crazed sovereign ruling a great empire (in the case of British King George III for 60 years beginning in 1760), and one inglorious leader comes to mind.  Watergate investigative reporter Bob Woodward’s new book “Fear: Trump in the White House” claims that the President described Attorney-General Jeff Sessions as a traitor, a dumb Southerner, and mentally retarded, allegedly telling staffer Rob Porter, “he couldn’t even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama.”  Lordy, lordy.  As Pee Wee Herman would say, “I know you are, but what am I?” Now comes a New York Timesop-ed by a senior White House official (rumored to be former Indiana Senator Dan Coats) claiming to be part of a “quiet resistance” of patriots dedicated to countering the President’s “misguided impulses” rooted in a basic amorality.  Trump has termed the author a traitor and demanded that the venerable newspaper (what Trump has labeled the “Failed New York Times”)reveal the writer’s name. Some even suspected Vice President Pence because of the use of lodestone (something that strongly attracts), one of his favorite words. Here is Ray Smock’s take on “Anonymous”:

    I wish the anonymous writer of the explosive op-ed piece that reveals a dedicated inside-the-White House opposition to President Trump’s haphazard and dangerous policies, had thought ahead and signed the piece “Publius.” It has become the hottest item of Breaking News, even overshadowing the Senate hearings on Judge Brett Kavanaugh for a seat on the Supreme Court.

    If the op-ed had been signed Publius, it would still be anonymous, but it would have a touch of class that referred back in time to the anonymous writings of the Federalist essays by three of the nation’s founders, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.  It would be doubly appropriate to make this connection with the founding era of the nation. We sorely need patriots right now who can stand up for the country. Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, and many others were worried that the Constitution might not survive. We have that same worry today. Publius was a common first name in the Roman Empire. It basically means one of the people or a citizen. It reminds us that the United States is a republic, where the people have the ultimate political power.

 Benedict Arnold

Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution” ends abruptly in the Fall of 1780, a month after the discovery of Arnold’s plot to surrender West Point to the British and his subsequent escape.  No epilogue describes Arnold’s exploits as a British general in Virginia and Connecticut and subsequent life in London nor General Charles Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown, much less Washington’s illustrious future service to his nation. Journal of the American Revolutionreviewer Richard F. Welch declared Philbrick’s title “Valiant Ambition” to be vague and confusing.  For one thing, Washington and Arnold had very different understandings of what the words meant. And can base ambition be valiant if the word implies self-sacrifice? Welch argued that the author exaggerated the importance of the collapse of Arnold’s plot:

  With the Congress stuck in deep incompetence, localism and self-interest rampant, and the Continental army suffering two catastrophic defeats at Camden and Charleston, Philbrick believes the loss of West Point would have collapsed the Revolutionary cause resulting in a peace settlement on British terms. Instead, the near success of Arnold’s treason re-galvanized the patriot cause: “Arnold’s treason had had a riveting effect. Government leaders were at long last beginning to focus on providing Washington the support he needed to fight the war.”If so, the effect was short lived as the woeful state of the Revolutionary cause between fall 1781 and November 1783 attests.

George Washington at Battle of Princeton by Charles Willson Peale

In October 1779, artist Charles Willson Peale, a captain in the Pennsylvania militia and veteran of several military engagements, tried in vain to prevent a Philadelphia mob from harming those suspected of being British sympathizers, including pacifist Quakers, and expelling the families of exiled loyalists.  A year later, Peale orchestrated a “Rogue’s March.” The horse-drawn cart paraded through the streets containing a life-size effigy of traitor Benedict Arnold with a two-faced rotating head.  Philbrick wrote: “Militiamen and Continental troops with candles in their muzzles escorted the cart to the tune of the “Rogue’s March.”  The night ended with Arnold’s effigy being consumed in fire.”  As Philbrick makes clear, however, Arnold was far from alone in seeking to profit from the chaos of revolution or to switch loyalties depending on the circumstances.

 Lucy and Joseph Plumb Martin in old age

Philbrick makes good use of Private Joseph Plumb Martin’s “Narrative,”  discovered a century later.  Martin joined the Connecticut Militia in 1775  at age 15 and served in the Continental Army throughout the war, enduring all sorts of tribulations.  He participated in combat at Brooklyn and White Plains, wintered with George Washington at Valley Forge, and crossed the icy Delaware to fight Hessians at Trenton.  Plumb compared fealty to his country to “a loyal and faithful husband and a light-heeled wanton of a wife.  But I forgive her and hope she will do better in the future.”  Things reached a breaking point, however, in 1780 at Morristown, New Jersey.  As Plumb wrote: “Here was the army starved and naked and the country sitting still and expecting the army to do notable things while fainting from sheer starvation. We had borne as long as human nature could endure, and to bear longer we considered folly.”It took a mutiny to obtain a measure of relief. Observing Arnold accomplice Major André’s last days at Tappan, New York, before he was hanged, Plumb wrote:

  He was an interesting character, but he was but a man, and no better, nor had he better qualifications than the brave Captain Nathan Hale, whom the British commander caused to be executed as a spy without the shadow of a trial, denying him the use of a Bible or the assistance of a clergyman in his last moments.  André had every indulgence allowed him that could be granted with propriety.

 Rosenbergs

Famous traitors in history include Marcus Junius Brutus, Judas Iscariot, Guy Fawkes (part of the Gunpowder Plot to assassinate King James I), and Norwegian fascist collaborator Vidkum Quisling (whose name became synonymous with treachery). Soviet spy Julius Rosenberg was branded a traitor, but his alleged crimes took place during World War II when the United States and the Soviet Union were allies and were much exaggerated during a subsequent period of Cold War hysteria. He and wife Ethel were found guilty, not of espionage, but of conspiring to set up a spy ring.  Ethel was certainly an innocent scapegoat; her brother David Greenglass lied  about her involvement to protect his own wife and obtain a reduced sentence. Treasonous motives range from religious or ideological fanaticism to various forms of self-interest.

 Anne Balay

I am preparing my contribution to an upcoming 90-minute Oral History Association roundtable in Montreal titled “Talking to Strangers: Teaching Ethical Oral History Methods to Undergraduates.” Don Ritchie is chairing the six-person panel, consisting of scholars from William and Mary College, Northern Illinois, and Haverford, including Anne Balay, who put together the proposal and wrote in the prospectus:“Oral History, when done well, should challenge both the narrator and the interviewer, encouraging each to reflect on their experience and achieve new levels of understanding, engagement, or activism. We ask what types of methodological and historical pedagogies best prepare undergraduates for this process ethically, responsibly, and safely.”  

My oral assignments have usually involved interviewing family members, not strangers, and dealt with such themes as ethnic roots, work experiences, race relations, and memories from past eras, such as the Great Depression, the World War II Homefront, Teen Years of the 1950s, and the like.  For a project dealing with Vietnam veterans, students had surprising success with strangers they located at local Legion halls.  Veterans were often eager to share their stories with someone truly interested who was recording their testimony for posterity.  When one class interviewed strangers participating in a senior bowling league, things could get somewhat dicey, especially if the interviewer was not a bowler. I suggested visiting a bowling alley with their subject. I stressed that the final product would be part of an Archives collection, be published in a future issue of Steel Shavingsmagazine, and would constitute an important social history source for the blue-collar Calumet Region of Northwest Indiana.   I suggested inquiring how alleys and bowling leagues had changed over time.  For example, I competed in a Sheet and Tin League once composed of 16 steelworker teams representing different Gary Sheet and Tin Mill departments.  My team, the Electrical Engineers, was the last vestige of an era when the steel industry was labor intensive.  Some bowlers started as pin setters and kept their own score without aid of a computer.

Don Ritchie, former Historian of the U.S. Senate

My methodology begins with the assumption that, ideally, oral histories should be shared experiences. I draw on insights Michael Frisch, Ronald Grele, Alessandro Portelli, and Donald Ritchie. Having students do life histories of active seniors often counteracts their misconceptions about old people. My participation forty years ago in an East Chicago, Indiana, mental health center “Life History” oral history project about seniors was an eye-opening experience, and students working on an oral history of Portage, Indiana, similarly benefitted from a visit to Bonner Senior Center.  Expecting to find old codgers in wheelchairs, folks were participating in an exercise class and playing ping pong and pinochle.  In Jyväskylä, Finland, for the 2018 IOHA conference, I was sitting with scholars from South Africa and Australia who had interviewed trauma victims of molestation and Rwandan genocide survivors.  “What are you working on?” one asked.  Senior bowlers and duplicate bridge players, I replied with a hint of hesitation.   Of course, there is considerable scholarly interest in the decline of social organizations over the past half-century as well as the lifestyle of aged Baby Boomers. Virtually no young students play bridge, but since many bridge players are retired teachers, several gave lessons to their interviewers.  Students ended up visiting bridge games and several lasting inter-generational friendships resulted.

One more thing: while interviewing bowlers and bridge players, interviewers are in effect collecting life histories, asking questions about ethnic roots, where the subject has resided (what might be called Flight Paths), school experiences, work experiences, and other facets of their lives that might be of interest to future scholars.

Leaving IUN’s Little Redhawk Café, I tripped over my own feet and would have fallen had I not lurched forward a half-dozen steps to grasp the library front desk.  A young coed asked if I were OK.  Whew!  Close call!  At Hobart Lanes, for the second week in a row, the Electrical Engineers took two games and series, as Mel Nelson again won the 4-dollar pot for most pins over average.  Our opponents, the Pinheads, had two new members, as Bob Sheid is nursing a bad back and Ken Cichocki wants to spend more time with an ailing mother. I had more splits than strikes but marked my final four frames as we went for the sweep. Opponent Don Mueller ended with a four-bagger, and we lost by a single pin, as Ron Smith converted a seven-pin for a spare and then picked up 8 more on his final ball, with one pin falling down at the last moment, breaking the potential tie. A couple years ago, Mueller wore a back brace when bowling.  He’s a believer in inversion therapy and has been hanging upside down to relieve back stress.