Correspondence
a local Solomon has awarded him more than $I 1 million in damages. In Caldwell, Idaho, Miss Verna Simons was charged with second-degree manslaughter for dragging a gentleman from her car along...
...in the early nineteenth century the Turners linked that spirit to political reform in their homeland-parliamentary government and national unity...
...Stein's article induced a strange sense of d~.j~ vu: Somewhere, I was sure, I had read all of this before...
...In addition the Internal Revenue Service withheld about 26 percent for a total of 39.4 percent of my pay going to the federal government...
...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...
...And, the gentle admonitions are printed in five different languages...
...Then I wondered how his contemporary Hitler fared...
...But you don't have to be a health-nut to enjoy the Turners...
...The "long, precise gait of someone who has spent a lifetime climbing through mountain passes," however, though it rivets my imagination, persistently eludes definition t h e r e . . . would Mr...
...For this is a place the Germans made...
...That's a cavil...
...And when he invokes the (by Orwell condemned) "typical intellectual's stratagem, namely linguistic innovation," hasn't the tactic become so dishonest as to amount to linguistic neology...
...Theodore J. Rosinski Schenectady, New York THE GREAT AMERICAN SALOON SERIES THE MILWAUKEE TURNERS by J. David Hoeveler, J r . Schlitz is gone...
...Then it hit me--Walker Percy...
...No special clientele dominates the lunchtime crowd...
...I am primarily interested in serious literary references (such as the reference from the journals of Andr~ Gide quoted above, and stanza 4 from Galway Kinnell's poem "There Are Things I Tell to No One...
...Burr is offering he has not said, but rumor has it he will personally accompany the winner to a service presided over by the Archbishop of Indianapolis, Indiana, a violent opponent of every sort of capitalist indulgence and a gentleman whose legs hold up a monument weighing upwards of 21 stone...
...ly stood for "'Sans Mens in Corpore Sano'" ("A Sound Mind in a Sound Body"), as its motto still reminds us...
...Recently I purchased Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary as advertised in your magazine...
...This is the same wishful thinking that led another recent candidate to promise he would" cut taxes, increase defense spending, and balance the budget...
...and Tito...
...May I assure the condescending Mr...
...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...
...But no, I'm being too harsh...
...This aroused my curiosity, so in addition to Stalin and Hitler I looked up: Castro...
...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...
...Journalists and business women stop in, as do painters and construction workers...
...I have re-read Orthodoxy since Mr...
...Singing societies, debate clubs, theater and coffee houses, and beer gardens--all gave Milwaukee its singular flavor of high culture and frivolity...
...This organization not onJ. David Hoeveler, Jr...
...Thus the agency with the vested interest in seeing the number of poor be maximized would be reducing its own budget...
...Glass attests, "dirt has a fine sour taste...
...Edward Peters Claremont, California The J o l l i e s t o f J o u r n a l i s t s All praise to Richard Brookhiser for bursting the bubble that was Chesterton ("The Everlasting Bore," TAS, February 1984...
...Rather than this Calvinist doctrine, Chesterton urges us to see Orthodoxy as a " p e r i l o u s . . . whirling adventure...
...Stevenson...
...Tour the perimeter and study the framed photographs to catch the spirit and pride of nineteenth-century urban life...
...Buckley Camden, South Carolina Poor P o l l s Kudos to Tom Bethell for another great demolition job--this time on those pretentious hucksters and their contrived "polls" ("Entrail Reading," TAS, January 1984...
...Mr...
...Lawyers from the D.A.'s office mix with schoolteachers...
...In Milwaukee, this "German Athens," Old World customs flourished, and not only gymnastics...
...Certainly the tax system, the federal judiciary, and the monetary system need reforming but they will never be significantly altered under our present constitution...
...Stevenson elucidate...
...More bothersome is Mr...
...But few know how radical was the Turner past...
...According to the Times story, "For generations, the eating of clay-rich dirt has been a curious but persistent custom in some rural areas of Mississippi and other Southern states, practiced over the years by poor whites and b l a c k s . " _9 In religious news The American Spectator's renowned publisher, Mr...
...Rick Brookhiser is a fine writer guilty of a superficial, "weak and shoddy" review of the jolliest of journalists...
...Burr at his office in Bloomington, Indiana no later than April 30...
...Ronald Burr, is responding to the clergy's repeated expressions of concern over world poverty by auspicating a contest, "Find the Fattest Bishop...
...Chesterton in the February issue...
...Stevenson for reawakening us to a tragedy that national policy has all but closed its eyes to...
...Brookhiser compares G.K...
...Thank goodness, I sighed in relief, it's not just me...
...Simplistic suggestions about tinkering with this or that only deludes people into thinking the present setup is workable...
...Brookhiser are Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man...
...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...
...My employer paid another 6.7 percent...
...Business groups enroll for instruction...
...It is the home of the Milwaukee Turners...
...Mao Tse-tung...
...I find him scintillating and provocative...
...We need a constitutional convention to draw up new rules...
...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...
...Salted peanuts is a better metaphor for that likable man: tasty in moderation, otherwise cloying...
...For such sentiments they were outlawed in 1819...
...Take the family to the exercise room and go back to the bar for the Pschorr Brau dark...
...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...
...No more will I joke about old women who try to sweep back the sea with a broom...
...premier (1941-53), 1879-1953...
...Brookhiser's surprise that G.K...
...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...
...Those "well-respected" and "authoritative" national polls have about as much credibility as still another declaration by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops...
...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...
...The exemption would help government revenues be self-limiting...
...Citations to or copies of references should be sent to me at the address below...
...Lewis, and yet that great Christian writer deeply admired Chesterton's Everlasting Man...
...40 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1984...
...No way...
...I think not...
...Mussolini...
...Biographical Insights Here is an item that may qualify for your "Current Wisdom" section...
...The present home is one hundred years old...
...F.R...
...lnsley Warden, Louisiana I would add to Lewis Lehrman's discussionof the flat tax that the taxpayer's personal exemption should be set by the welfare technocrats at Health and Human Services to correspond with the poverty level at a given family size...
...The only "dictators" in this group were Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, and Tito...
...RET C O R R E S P O N D E N C E Transcendental Journalism "Traveling the Afghan Archipelago," by Matthew Stevenson (TAS, February 1984), would cause anyone to weep for the plight of the resistance fighters were there not an exhaustion of sorrow, pity, and rage from so many other victims of the Soviet "evil empire," which is a description lapidary in its exactitude...
...Brookhiser's lamentable foray into religious cri~cism and believe he has (continued on page 40) Author's Query I am engaged in the task (both joyful and tearful) of collecting literary references pertaining to either the horror of abortion or, in the words of Gide, the "extraordinary beauty" or essential humanity of the unborn child...
...He transcends journalism: "Nor could there be a better cover for both sides than a city of bazaars and narrow, cobbled streets through which intrigue passes as quietly as small boys with bare feet...
...For example, some area public elementary schools are distributing a coloring book to their students explaining that nice boys and girls don't spray paint the walls or throw rocks into classroom windows...
...The Turners flourished through the nineteenth century and their gymnasts won in international competition...
...In Caldwell, Idaho, Miss Verna Simons was charged with second-degree manslaughter for dragging a gentleman from her car along Interstate M. The Ku Klux Klan has expelled the number two Kluxian of the Chickasaw, Alabama klavern for inviting blacks to join in a local march and for employing a black lawyer to obtain a parade permit...
...Thank you...
...We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable...
...And according to the New York Times, Mrs...
...Family exercise programs and classes start for children at the age of four...
...Turners activities began here in 1853 and members did their tumbling at Bielfeld's Beer Garden...
...In Milwaukee the German center city was breaking up and forming its modernday diaspora...
...Ted Humes Phoenix, Arizona Taxes and Conservatism I don't know how long it has been since Lewis Lehrman ("A New Conservatism," TAS, January 1984) drew a paycheck...
...Indeed, The Turners remains very much a family affair, of which the Friday night "Fish Fry" is one small measure...
...Ewin H. Barnett Ashland, Missouri I t ' s True What They Say Having lived in the Los Angeles area for only about a year (and hailing, prior to that, from the Show Me state) I read with special delight Benjamin J. Stein's "The Derationalized Zone" (TAS, January 1984...
...Here are situations and conversations in which, I thought, only Binx Bolling, Will Barrett, or Tom More might find themselves...
...I would appreciate the assistance of Americ'an Spectator readers in uncovering more of these literary references...
...unfavorably with C.S...
...W.T...
...Brookhiser that G.K...
...Alas, Stein fact is stranger than Percy fiction...
...Fannie Glass of Cruger, Mississippi says that it is after a rainfall that she most "misses having some dirt to eat...
...For the Turners defies the conventional wisdom that views today's public drinking house as the home of drifters and jaded swingers...
...He thinks Chesterton writes "laboriously" and "is intensely tiring...
...Neii McCaffrey Pelham Manor, New York Having followed the career of Richard Brookhiser since his first articles appeared in National Review, I was startled by his sophomoric sundering of G.K...
...Dzugashvili), Soviet statesman...
...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...
...Burr asks that each entrant weigh his candidate on a scale certified by the National Livestock Grower's Association and send the results plus a picture of the reverend entrant along with one of his recent outbursts on behalf of the world's poor and against the capitalist vice to Mr...
...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...
...Two examples of the "tawdry rhetoric accompanying tawdry thought" adduced by Mr...
...Stop in during the day to have lunch or to enjoy some Pschorr Brau dark...
...It is not...
...Leafing through the "Dictionary of Biography" in the supplements section I happened upon the name of: Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich (b...
...Franco...
...But the revolutions three decades later renewed their spirit and their activism...
...What about the question of fact: Is his characteristic apologetic procedure to reason backwards from effects...
...is professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee...
...is not "admired for what is weak and shoddy," at least not by t~is real admirers...
...And it is full of history...
...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...
...Lewis took Chesterton just right-as an inspiration, not a model...
...But there is hope...
...Yankee Puritans east of the Milwaukee River were not amused...
...Indebted, mayhap, to Emily D., yet marvelous just the same...
...Lehrman thinks we can give every family a $10,000 exemption, tax the remainder at 10 percent, and "produce the same revenue as our present system...
...The Turners have even gone a bit modern--saunas, "slimnastics" for weightwatchers, and aerobics...
...He was classified (among other things) as a "dictator...
...instead I will recall Californians who hire grown men to blow leaves off the sidewalk with gasoline powered engines...
...My congratulations to Mr...
...But then the two world wars made things German unpopular in America...
...Is he suggesting that the oldest and largest body of Christians is historically not...
...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...
...When it's good and dug from the right place," Mrs...
...Professor Richard F. Duncan University of Nebraska College of Law Lincoln, NE 68583-0902 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1984 7 CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 7) plainly misunderstood the book...
...What rewards Mr...
...Turners, victims again of a losing cause, were numerous among the '48ers who came to the United States and found its tolerant atmosphere congenial...
...His criticism is like that of the dandy--his distaste for Chesterton's "tawdry rhetoric" is simply a matter of Brookhiser's personal stylistfc preference, and not one "tawdry thought" is in fact shown to be tawdry...
...But that's a rare thing...
...God bless Mr...
...would consider Catholicism "interchangeable" with Christianity...
...But don't miss a closer look...
...Leaded stainedglass and hardwood elegance prevail throughout--no neon lights and jukeboxes here...
...Ho Chi Minh...
...My check stubs show that the federal government took 6.7 percent (of the first $35,700) for social security alone...
...secretary of the Communist party...
...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...
...Paul N. Arnold, M.D...
...Will Bob Tyrrell now hire me to write a piece on "The Everlasting Manic...
...Mr...
...It is this achievement of my creed that I shall chiefly pursue in these pages...
Vol. 17 • April 1984 • No. 4
