The Great American Saloon Series/The Milwaukee Turners
Hoeveler, J. David Jr.
CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 7) plainly misunderstood the book. Mr. Chesterton does not defend the Faith on the basis of some post hoc ergo propter hoc rationale as Brookhiser alleges,...
...Biographical Insights Here is an item that may qualify for your "Current Wisdom" section...
...Ho Chi Minh...
...The massive fortress of aged brick that stood for a century as a brewery landmark is deathly still, its imperial wrought-iron gate with bright Schlitz logo no longer open to the hundreds of daily visitors that once toured the plant and afterward tasted Schlitz's several varieties in the friendly confines of the "Brown Bottle" pub...
...Turners activities began here in 1853 and members did their tumbling at Bielfeld's Beer Garden...
...The present home is one hundred years old...
...Theodore J. Rosinski Schenectady, New York THE GREAT AMERICAN SALOON SERIES THE MILWAUKEE TURNERS by J. David Hoeveler, J r . Schlitz is gone...
...secretary of the Communist party...
...In my [Chesterton's] vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect...
...in the early nineteenth century the Turners linked that spirit to political reform in their homeland-parliamentary government and national unity...
...And it is full of history...
...In Milwaukee the German center city was breaking up and forming its modernday diaspora...
...The only "dictators" in this group were Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, and Tito...
...The Turners flourished through the nineteenth century and their gymnasts won in international competition...
...For such sentiments they were outlawed in 1819...
...No, today you have to go across town to Pabst and Miller for that kind of indulgenc e . But from the vacated Schlitz plant you are still in walking distance of German traditions that yet thrive in this city...
...Franco...
...Apparently, the "current wisdom" is that Communists are not "dictators" except (as in the case of Tito) when they happen to disagree with that great Soviet statesman, Stalin...
...Turners, victims again of a losing cause, were numerous among the '48ers who came to the United States and found its tolerant atmosphere congenial...
...is professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee...
...Family exercise programs and classes start for children at the age of four...
...Then I wondered how his contemporary Hitler fared...
...Dzugashvili), Soviet statesman...
...This organization not onJ. David Hoeveler, Jr...
...But then the two world wars made things German unpopular in America...
...Lewis took Chesterton just right-as an inspiration, not a model...
...premier (1941-53), 1879-1953...
...Here is the Milwaukee Drum Corps, nearby the Milwaukee Indian Club Swingers, and down a way Lincoln's Turners Bodyguard, present for the 1861 Inauguration, and thirteen of the group still surviving in 1911...
...Brookhiser compares G.K...
...Leaded stainedglass and hardwood elegance prevail throughout--no neon lights and jukeboxes here...
...The Turners have even gone a bit modern--saunas, "slimnastics" for weightwatchers, and aerobics...
...Recently I purchased Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary as advertised in your magazine...
...In Milwaukee, this "German Athens," Old World customs flourished, and not only gymnastics...
...Lewis, and yet that great Christian writer deeply admired Chesterton's Everlasting Man...
...But that's a rare thing...
...On Fourth Street between State and Highland is a three-story structure built o f ' 'Cream City" brick, designed by the same architect who gave us the City Hall...
...During the winter months look for Don Nelson and some of the Milwaukee Bucks, and you may also see an occasional derelict off the streets...
...It is the home of the Milwaukee Turners...
...Tour the perimeter and study the framed photographs to catch the spirit and pride of nineteenth-century urban life...
...Indeed, The Turners remains very much a family affair, of which the Friday night "Fish Fry" is one small measure...
...Stop in during the day to have lunch or to enjoy some Pschorr Brau dark...
...Leafing through the "Dictionary of Biography" in the supplements section I happened upon the name of: Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich (b...
...Singing societies, debate clubs, theater and coffee houses, and beer gardens--all gave Milwaukee its singular flavor of high culture and frivolity...
...I reach for my copy of Orthodoxy, the Image Books paperback, and find, on the back cover: "I wish to set forth my faith as particularly answering.., the need for that mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar which Christendom has rightly named romance . . . . We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome...
...Mao Tse-tung...
...Yankee Puritans east of the Milwaukee River were not amused...
...But few know how radical was the Turner past...
...But visit the rest of the building, the larger dining room with the painted murals of Austrian and German landscapes, and especially the gymnasium on the east side of the building...
...Paul N. Arnold, M.D...
...But you don't have to be a health-nut to enjoy the Turners...
...Rather than this Calvinist doctrine, Chesterton urges us to see Orthodoxy as a " p e r i l o u s . . . whirling adventure...
...For this is a place the Germans made...
...For the first time [I] saw the whole a form that seemed to me to make sense . . . . You will remember that I already thought Chesterton the most sensible man alive 'apart from his Christianity.'" So much for the "tawdry thoughts" behind G.K.'s "tawdry rhetoric," evident as such only to Brookhiser...
...Iowa City, Iowa Richard Brookhiser replies: Leave aside the question of style, especially since I didn't damn all of Chesterton's books, only some of the most popular...
...Lawyers from the D.A.'s office mix with schoolteachers...
...It is this achievement of my creed that I shall chiefly pursue in these pages...
...Rick Brookhiser is a fine writer guilty of a superficial, "weak and shoddy" review of the jolliest of journalists...
...This aroused my curiosity, so in addition to Stalin and Hitler I looked up: Castro...
...ly stood for "'Sans Mens in Corpore Sano'" ("A Sound Mind in a Sound Body"), as its motto still reminds us...
...No special clientele dominates the lunchtime crowd...
...Business groups enroll for instruction...
...But the revolutions three decades later renewed their spirit and their activism...
...For the Turners defies the conventional wisdom that views today's public drinking house as the home of drifters and jaded swingers...
...and Tito...
...Take the family to the exercise room and go back to the bar for the Pschorr Brau dark...
...We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable...
...Journalists and business women stop in, as do painters and construction workers...
...He was classified (among other things) as a "dictator...
...The Turners ceased to conduct their meetings in German and in 1940 the "Turn Verein Milwaukee" became "The Milwaukee Turners," a change as it turned out that helped this landmark (listed with the City and National Register of Historic Places) preserve its public character...
...Mussolini...
...Chesterton does not defend the Faith on the basis of some post hoc ergo propter hoc rationale as Brookhiser alleges, because its adherents "lead happier, sturdier, and more wholesome lives" ("The Power of Papal Thinking...
...But don't miss a closer look...
...What about the question of fact: Is his characteristic apologetic procedure to reason backwards from effects...
...unfavorably with C.S...
...40 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1984...
Vol. 17 • April 1984 • No. 4
