I was watching Stagecoach, John Ford’s 1939 film. It is truly a classic film, an American classic. It was the breakout film for John Wayne that made him a star and, well, made him the icon that stands tall. The film also stars Clare Trevor, Andy Devine, and John Carradine.
John Ford, was a master of detail and impressive camera angles in this film. I am no expert but this film gave me a realistic feel for that time period of the old west. The film was made only fifty years after the fact. I base this presumption on the notion that there were still people alive that lived through the Apache wars when this film was made. I watched this film today, 71 years after it was made and 130 some years after the period.
When I turned on the TV today, the movie was already in progress and showing a scene in the Stagecoach on its way to Lordsburg, the town where Ringo (John Wayne) would confront the brothers that killed his father and brother. I was just in time to see a soliloquy delivered by Berton Churchill who portrayed the thieving banker Ellsworth Henry Gatewood.
I don't know what the government is coming to. Instead of protecting businessmen, it pokes its nose into business! Why, they're even talking now about having bank examiners. As if we bankers don't know how to run our own banks! Why, at home I have a letter from a popinjay official saying they were going to inspect my books. I have a slogan that should be blazoned on every newspaper in this country: America for the Americans! The government must not interfere with business! Reduce taxes! Our national debt is something shocking. Over one billion dollars a year! What this country needs is a businessman for president!
I was taken aback by the resonance of the speech with the conservative sentiment of today. The world has changed in the years since this classic film was made. Technology has dramatically changed the way we live and work. We tend to think that changed our thinking. Consider some of the issues facing us today. We think we are enlightened and look at generations past as backwards as their technology.
It made me think of some of the quotes of Mark
Twain and Will Rogers and their view that also dispel this myth:
Mark Twain
- Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
- Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.
- Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.
- An honest man in politics shines more there than he would elsewhere.
- All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity
- Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals.
Will Rogers
- The man with the best job in the country is the vice-president. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, "How is the president?"
- Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.
- I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
- I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.
- Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock.
- Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.
This does not apply just to our view government. Poets from centuries ago and those of today are still trying to explain and make sense of romantic love and have made little progress in that regard. We have had scholars, clerics, and theologists have trying to explain God and the universal unknowns for just as long with an equal lack of success.
I think it
is important to keep an open mind and keep things in perspective. In closing, here are a few more quotes from
the Rogers and Twain about arguing which seems so common in these polarized times.
Rogers
- A king can stand people's fighting but he can't last long if people start thinking.
- The more ignorant you are, the quicker you fight.
Twain
- Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
- Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.
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