The Rich Don't Always Win

Polls now show that two-thirds of Americans believe that the nation's enormous wealth ought to be "distributed more evenly." But almost as many Americans—well over half—feel that protests against inequality will ultimately have "little impact." The rich, millions of us believe, always get their way.
Except they don't.
A century ago, the United States hosted a super-rich even more domineering than ours today. Yet fifty years later, that super-rich had almost entirely disappeared. Their majestic mansions and estates had become museums and college campuses, and America had become a vibrant, mass middle class nation, the first and finest the world had ever seen.

http://catalog.sevenstories.com/products/rich-dont-always-win

John D. Rockefeller and Scarsdale Vibe

John D. Rockefeller

John D. Rockefeller was born July 8, 1839. From a young age—approximately 12—he started working to earn money and saved the money that he made until he had a fare sum. It was at this time when he made his first loan to a neighbor farmer. This farmer borrowed the money from young Rockefeller with a 7% interest rate that had to be paid in full the following year. It was at this time that Rockefeller became fascinated with what money could do for him and how he could manipulate it.

When Rockefeller entered the work force at the age of 16, he quickly became an asset to his employer because he was useful in collecting overdue money and saving the company from losing too much money. He continued to flourish with his business transactions—including his own business that he started when he was 20—and became incredibly successful.

In 1863 Rockefeller saw an opportunity for turning his small businesses into a larger, more successful entrepreneurship—oil. It was found in 1859 that oil could be pumped from the ground like water and used for a variety of useful products. Rockefeller saw the usefulness of drilling for oil in Cleveland because of the nearby railroads as well as the waterways; he saw the opportunity for large expansion and demand of goods by the public. Rockefeller, however, did not simply just want to drill for oil and sell it, he wanted to run every aspect of the process of drilling, storing, refining, and shipping so as to create the least amount of waste possible at the best possible prices. He was a man who wanted to do a lot with little money so as to multiply his productivity and overall costs.

Rockefeller was in business with many, including his own family particularly his brother William. William was included in many of John D.’s business deals/plans and investments (later John’s son, John D. Jr., would also play a great part in the family business). However, as the corporation—Standard Oil as it would later be known as—grew, so did those involved with the management and owning of it. With 10 years, many stockholders, business partners and what the corporation did as a whole was kept a secret. This secrecy allowed for further development of the company without their needing to worry about the competition. Since the competition did not know what was happening and who was involved, they could not worry about their own spot in the economic world of oil. Rockefeller had people—investors, businessmen, and management—everywhere and wherever he turned he could find someone who was doing business with him. This secrecy would later be his demise of reputation that he would strive to reconcile for the rest of his life but would never fully recover.

By 1904 80% of the American people were served by Standard Oil either to businesses or homes. Standard Oil aimed to dominate every aspect related to the oil world, and so, it became highly disliked by the American public. It had very quickly turned into a monopoly.

With this monopoly and secrets came acts that were misunderstood and misinterpreted by the American public. While Rockefeller realized in the late 1890’s that he had done enough for the corporation, he was asked to stay on as simply the “primus inter pares” or the “first among his peers.” This meant that he did not dictate policy; he was simply there as someone the rest could look up to as somewhat of a big brother. This, however, was not publicly known and his official retirement was also not known. Therefore, the turn of Standard Oil and the rise of prices by John Archibold were credited to Rockefeller inaccurately. Rockefeller had no hand in the negative turn of the company but he would become the greatest oil and business villain of America and the time. His later good works and philanthropic deeds would not fully wipe clean the darkened taint of the villain.

Scarsdale Vibe and Rockefeller

It is important to note—before delving into the comparison of Scarsdale Vibe to John D. Rockefeller—that Scarsdale seems to be borrowed from the town of Scarsdale, New York. According to CNN Money, Scarsdale was third on the list of “top earning towns” in 2011 and makes it one of the wealthiest communities in the entire United States.

Scarsdale Vibe is portrayed by Thomas Pynchon to be the “most ruthless of the mine owners” in all of the novel/time and seems to have his hand in just about all business that is taking place. He—or one of his many relatives—seems to pop up in the most unlikely of all places, always shrouded in secrecy and disliked by the general public. This is, in some ways, similar to Rockefeller. Rockefeller also hand his hand in many venues—all facets dealing with oil; the University of Chicago; Rockefeller Sanitary Commission—and brought his family along to partake in the business—including his brother and his eldest son—to aid in the management and growth of the family fortune.

While John D. Rockefeller is not blatantly credited with any harmful actions—unlike Scarsdale who blatantly shoots a woman in the first 100 pages—he was seen as a villain who had his hand in far too many places. Scarsdale is similar in this way because he is generally disliked by the public and not trusted because of the power that comes with who he is and what he can do.

In both cases, money is power and this power has great repercussions. Although the public feared/disliked both men, there was little they could do because they were nowhere near the level of power of these men. Villains can always reign because of the power they secure and continue to maintain. 

The Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency

    The Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency enforced public law for the coal industry. There methods, though, were far from humane. This was not necessarily because of the members, but that they worked for the coal operators themselves. They often used brutal repressive policies to keep miners in order. Founded in the early 1980s by William G. Baldwin and Thomas L. Felts, the original reason the agency was established was to police and protect railroads. With the booming coal industry, the agency quickly expanded its business. When coal mine operators hired these guards, their main focus was to prevent miner’s from organizing unions.

These Guards, called “thugs” by the miners, managed to break up a miner strike at the New River Field in 1902. However in 1912, when they tried to stop the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike, the miners resisted violently. The fight resulted in deaths of not only miners and bystanders, but also many guards. Following this event, in 1920, the union organization (United Mine Workers of America) began striking along the Tug Fork. The agency acted again in what would be know as the Matewan Massacre of May 19th. Guards began evicting families from their homes, much to the miner’s distaste. Led by police chief Sid Hatfield, the angry miners killed seven detectives. Two of them were members of the Felt’s family (Al and Lee Felts). 

After the accused were tried and found not guilty, Baldwin-Felts agents brutally shot and killed Hatfield and deputy Ed Chambers. The miner’s response was immediate and they organized a march of over 10,000 miners in september of 1921. This march led to the Battle of Blue mountain, which really resulted in little to no success for the union miners. The Baldwin-Felt’s guards were also involved in the 1914 Ludlow Massacre, known for the burning of women and children in a union tent colony. This event is what truly began showing the agency in a negative light. The use of guards rapidly declined from the 20s to the 30s. The agency finally closed in 1937 after the death of Felts. (Baldwin had died a year prior).

How it relates to Pynchon

Stray and Ewball are heading to the Coalfields of Colorado during the Ludlow Masscre, something that Stray mentions often on page 976. This is a brief mention, but it is clear that Stray is in Ludlow and we will be seeing more of what is going on.

Following this the next time were hear about Ludlow is on page 1004 when Frank is thinking about his future meeting up with Stray. In the scene, Frank brings up how it seemed that there were more dogs around than usual, later saying it was as if they were being brought away from the canyons so they were not exposed to the violence coming in the canyons, aka the massacre. 

     Shortly after this we see a scene directly discussing the agency. On pages 1008-11 there is discussion of a camp at Ludlow. The brutality of the guards is discussed in vivid and graphic detail. It discusses how they would rape women and beat up children who made fun of them, much like what we hear the Baldwin-Felts Agency took part in. It also mentions what seems like a tank that the agency created to keep large unruly crowds at bay. Jesse finds out that there are many of these tanks and finds it ironic that the guards speak of it as if it is the victim. Pynchon also mentions the Paint Creek-Cabin strike directly on page 1009. 

Sources:
http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/333
http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/532
http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

http://www.appalachianhistory.net/2008/01/lengthiest-murder-trial-in-wv-history.htm

The Palmer Raids

Background:
The U.S. Department of Justice attempts to arrest and deport radical leftists, and anarchists especially, is known as the Palmer Raids. Immediately following World War I, the raids occurred largely during the Red Scare. This term refers to the time immediately after the war, meaning "fear of and reaction against political radicals in the U.S.". Witnessed during the First World War, the United States saw the immigrants and ethnic groups campaign against divided loyalties. Specific targets were Germans whose sympathies lay with their homeland and Irish whose countrymen were in revolt against America's ally, the United Kingdom. Instantly seeing this as a threat, President Wilson warned against these "hyphenated" Americans, stating they had "poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life.". In this statement made in 1916, Wilson continues to say that "such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out.". Three years later, after the anarchist bombings in April and June of 1919, it was made known that the threats Wilson feared had now become real. Palmer told the House Appropriations Committee in June of 1919 that all evidence was clear that the radicals would one day rise up and destroy the government. Having addressed this concern and potential fatal issue, General Attorney Palmer requested a increase in budget from $1,500,000 to $2,000,000 to fund his investigations of the radicals, but only received and increase of $100,000. After his first attempt in a July 1919 raid, where the judge threw out the case because the radicals that were arrested only attempted to change the government by using their free right to speech, Palmer realized it was time to hunt down and exploit the more powerful immigration statues who authorized the deportation of alien anarchists, whether they were violent or not.

Alexander Mitchell Palmer

Born on May 4, 1872, Palmer is best known for his role as Attorney General of the United States from March 5, 1919 to March 4, 1921. Though Palmer faced contest with other candidates who attained stronger legal credentials, President Woodrow Wilson was backed up by party officials and Palmer's colleagues on the Democratic National Committee to appoint him into office. They argued that while the office had "great power politically", they should not trust it to anyone who is not fully with them, heart and soul. The one who pressed the president most with this fact was his private secretary, Joseph Tumulty. Reminding the President several times of his encouragement to appoint Palmer into office as Attorney General, Wilson agreed by saying that Palmer was a "young, militant, progressive, and fearless man."Certainly well liked and thought highly of by President Woodrow Wilson, Palmer was nominated by the President to the Senate in February of 1919 and assumed his office position in March. 

Against the Day:
As the end of the novel mentions the Palmer Raids activity during the Red scare, we can see how Pynchon keeps up his views of war as a struggle between those who pursue power versus those who transcend it. A period of time immediately following WWI, proving there was unresolved conflict, the Palmer Raids are mentioned in relation to what is going on in the last scenes of the novel. From the beginning of Against the Day, Pynchon has given numerous, blunt indications on how he views war, or perhaps how he thinks others view war. In any case, the mention of the Palmer Raids as a reference to what Lew witnesses (pages. 1057-1058) shows us that same power struggle between the pursuers and the transcenders. As Lew reaches Carefree Court, he surprised to find people of all cultures, religions and ethnicity's gathered together in a way he never thought possible. In a state of shock, Lew questions whether these people could possibly be those same ones he once  spent his life chasing after, longing to capture.He goes on to realize that the one thing all the people of such diverse backgrounds have in common was their survival of some cataclysmic tragedy that neither of them spoke about in detail. He relates such tragedies to the Palmer Raids. It can be assumed that Pynchon does this as a way to reflect how all these people are anarchists themselves. Showing his readers how he believes in the anarchist movement, Pynchon continues his theme of war even to the very end of the story. 

References:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USApalmerR.htm

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Mitchell_Palmer

The Most Dangerous Woman

Mother Jones was a legend of the labor

movement in America as much for her

work as for her legend; both were large.

We are told that every American boy has the chance of

being president. I tell you that these little boys in the

iron cages would sell their chance any day for

good square meals and a chance to play.

Little is known about Mary Harris’ life in Cork, where she was born. Her exact birthplace and even the schools she attended are only left to conjecture now, but we know that she emigrated with her family to Canada in the early 1850s, soon after the Famine. This is in direct contrast to her historical life in the United States.
It’s hard to put a timeline on her life because we are not sure even exactly when she was born, but events begin to take shape chronologically as Mary Harris obtains teaching credentials in Toronto, and when her family moves to the United States she begins teaching at a convent in Monroe, Michigan. Soon after, she tired of the teaching profession and began a trek to find herself, first in Chicago, then on to Memphis. In Memphis, she met and married George E. Jones, a member and organizer of the National Union of Iron Moulders, which became the International Molders and Foundry Workers Union of North America in 1861. She opened a Memphis dress shop just as war was breaking out between the States. 

I have been in jail more than once and I expect to go again.

If you are too cowardly to fight, I will fight. 

The yellow fever came to Memphis, on steamers from New Orleans and points south, before the war in 1855 and again in 1867. Each time was worse than the last, leading up to an 1873 outbreak that overall cost Memphis half its population to disease and flight from the disease, but in 1867 it was confined to the section of the city where it first appeared. It would also claim the lives of Mary’s husband and four children. All four children were under the age of five.

Left with nothing, Mary went back to Chicago and opened another dressmaking business, only this time to lose everything in The Great Chicago Fire, which burned from Sunday, October 8, to early Tuesday, October 10, 1871.

From this loss was born Mother Jones, if not the nickname, the woman who joined an early version of the International Workers of the World, or IWW, not yet in its most famous form. The Knights of Labor, as they were known then, became associated with revolution and anarchy, two issues America was not ready to deal with so soon after Civil War, and Mary eventually wound up with the United Mineworkers Union. Workers were more frequently now hoping to be associated with Unions and not Knights or International images. 

Your organization is not a praying institution.

It's a fighting institution. It's an educational institution

right along industrial lines.

Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!



Many events shaped her work and determination, from a religious upbringing to the Haymarket Riots and railroad strikes. The unions and workers by natural metamorphosis became involved with the American Socialist Party, and so did Mother Jones, which she was referred to for the first time in 1897 (Eric Arnesen, "A Tarnished Icon," Reviews in American History 30, no. 1 (2002): p.89).

 

Reese Blizzard, a West Virginia district

attorney, at her trial in 1902 for ignoring an

injunction banning meetings by striking miners:

“There sits the most dangerous woman in America. She crooks her

finger—twenty thousand contented men lay down.”

She spent her adult life involved in child labor laws through her connection to the Socialist Party, which at the time was at the forefront of the movement to outlaw child labor and put limits on the power of the corporations.   

When she was denounced on the

floor of the United State Senate

as the "grandmother of all agitators."

I hope to live long enough to be

the great-grandmother of all agitators.

She also spent her life moving from one labor strife location to another, when she wasn’t in court standing up for her right to have done so. She left an indelible mark on the corporations she went up against and an inescapable mark on every movement she encouraged.

She will live forever in song, history and hymn.

 

At a 1916 address to a mass meeting of the wives of the striking

streetcar-men in New York City

If they want to hang me, let them. And on the scaffold

I will shout "Freedom for the working class!

 

In this photograph from her autobiography, Mother Jones leads a labor protest march in the heavy snow of the winter of 1914 to

the steps of the state capitol in Denver.



She celebrated her self-proclaimed 100th birthday on May 1, 1930 with her friends Walter and Lillie May Burgess, on their farm where she lived in what is now Adelphi, Maryland. She was filmed making a statement for a newsreel:  

 

She died at the age of 93 (as near as history can determine her age) on November 30, 1930, and was buried in the Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, Ill.

I have never had a vote, and I have

raised hell all over this country.

You don't need a vote to raise hell!

You need convictions and a voice!

Mother Jones in Against The Day
When Frank returns to Denver by way of a caffeine-drenched boat trip to Texas, a state through which the ladies beg him to stay, he looks up from a drink to see his sister Lake’s long ago rejected suitor, Dr. Willlis Turnstone. His partner Dr. Zhao is engaged to Wren, who tells Frank that Estrella is “involved in some mysterious project down in the coalfields.” (996) This reawakens Frank’s revolutionary sensibilities, so of course he heads straight toward the conflict when others would head directly opposite.

The striking mine workers are beginning to swell ranks, and slowly surrounding the area around Ludlow and Walsenburg. Frank makes his way through the “Pinkerton-infested Denver & Rio Grande” (998) railroad highways through backwoods trails into Fort Garland.
Scarsdale Vibe is giving a speech alarmingly prescient of a certain recent “47% speech” to the robber barons at a retreat in the mountains. As Frank and Ewball pull him into their gunsights in Trinidad, they see what might not have been Mother Jones, herself being “invited” to leave town on this next train out. They know she will utilize her friendships to make a show of leaving long enough to “turn around and come right back.” (1004) The description Pynchon provides of her is through Frank’s judge of character, a refined and practiced art Frank came to live by and stay alive by. Frank and Ewball wind up flipping a quarter to decide who will shoot Vibe and who will shoot his bodyguard.

Mother Jones’ presence in Against The Day is Pynchon’s way of letting us know the shit is ready to hit the fan in Ludlow. Mother goes where she needs to be.

Mother with a none too comfortable-looking President Calvin Coolidge in 1924.

 

Sources:

 
http://motherjones175.wordpress.com/about/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/fever/peopleevents/e_1878.html
http://www.poemhunter.com/quotations/famous.asp?people=Mother%20Jones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84vSVvaGsE4
http://www.aflcio.org/About/Our-History/Key-People-in-Labor-History/Mother-Jones-1837-1930
http://notmytribe.com/2009/mother-jones-at-denver-capitol-steps-87481.html

A Car Around The Corner

Madero Revolution

Porfirio Diaz:

 was the President of Mexico from 1876 to 1911,  Commonly considered by historians to have been a dictator, he is a controversial figure in Mexican history. His leadership was marked by significant internal stability but this stability only existed within his inner circle. Modernization and economic growth occurred but most of it did not benefit the majority of the Mexican population. A lot of the wealthy friends of Diaz forcibly acquired acres of land by the thousands, forcing many Mexicans into poverty. Diaz stayed in power for over 30 years by imprisoning or assassinating his opponents. Díaz's regime grew unpopular due to repression and political stagnation, and he fell from power during the Mexican Revolution, after he had imprisoned his electoral rival Francisco Madero and declared himself the winner of an eighth term in office.

Francisco Madero: 

was one of the strongest believers that President Díaz should resign from power and not seek re-election.  He created a political pamphlet entitled The Presidential Succession with the central idea of not re-electing Diaz. Madero traveled all across the country campaigning for his ideas and for his presidency.

Francisco I. Madero was a firm supporter of democracy and of making government subject to the strict limits of the law, and the success of Madero's movement made him a threat in the eyes of President Díaz. Shortly before the elections of 1910, Madero was apprehended in Monterrey and imprisoned in San Luis by Diaz and once imprisoned Diaz declared himself the winner. With his fathers influence and money Madero was released from prison on the grounds that he could not leave the city of San Luis. But Madero met a man who was friends with Doroteo Arango, better known as Pancho Villa. With the help of Villa Madero fled to the United States in October of 1910. In exile, he issued the ''Plan of San Luis,'' a manifesto which declared that the elections had been a fraud and that he would not recognize Porfirio Díaz as the legitimate President of the Republic.

Instead, Madero made the daring move of declaring himself President Pro-Temp until new elections could be held. Madero's call for an uprising on November 20th, 1910, marked the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. 

Pancho Villa:

 A commander of the north division for Madero and played a huge role in Madero’s escape from San Luis as well as the growth in Madero’s following. Many of the followers for Madero were there because of Pancho Villa, militarily or otherwise. With the help of Villa Madero was able to overthrow Diaz and take over as President of Mexico. this gave Villa a lot of power.

Without Villa one could argue that Madero would have never overthrown Diaz, and possibly never have started a Revolution in the first place.

Against The Day

The book chronicles some of the aftermath of the Battle at Casa Grandes. Casa Grandes  was a big loss for Madero and showed his lack of military experience. There also seems to possibly be some type of time travel going on, because it would be hard to believe that archaeologists would set up a site right where a war is going on. I also wonder if this is a flashback (pg 377) or a dream sequence for Frank. It is interesting to note that the battle is going on near a church during holy week, again bringing religion into the conversation. Its interesting that Pynchon picked the Casa Grandes battle because it wasnt a major battle in terms of the whole revolution. In fact, the only significance to it is that it was more of Pancho Villa’s battle because the majority of the soldiers were his. The Casa Grandes battle was the first battle of the Madero Revolution and also had the most casualties for Madero.

Sources:

http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch03mex.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Villa

http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/2824-the-mexican-revolution-1910

The Tunguska Event: An Enduring Mystery

The Tunguska Event refers to the so- far unexplained explosion that occurred on Jun 30 1908 in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. Because of its remote locale there were few casualties but its area of devastation extended for miles and its aftermath can be seen today. One of its most peculiar aspects, and one which has given rise to a host of speculative theories, is its lack of an identifiable impact crater. Scientists disagree on how powerful the blast was, but even conservatively, it would have been tremendous. One scholarly article posits that, “The Tunguska Event has been variously estimated as liberating between 4 X 10 ²³ (ref 14) to 4 X 10 ²⁵ erg. (ref. 12) or 10 X 10 ³ megatons.” (Chyba, Thomas, etc.)   So how big is that? About 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. (Wikipedia). The Tunguska Event was more than capable of wiping out a major metropolitan area.

Possible Explanations for the Tunguska Event are:

Celestial Body explosion: Either a meteoroid, comet or asteroid that exploded in Earth’s low atmosphere that produced devastating effects for miles around without leaving a visible (or so far undiscovered) impact crater. This is the generally agreed upon scientific theory, with a meteoroid being the most likely candidate as to what exploded.

Spontaneous Nuclear explosion: Some scientists theorize that a comet containing deuterium underwent a nuclear reaction as it burned up in the Earth's atmosphere. While this conceivably explains the blast radius, the lack of radioactive isotopes found at the site limits this theory's general acceptance. 

Other Explanations: Black Holes, Antimatter, Mirror Worlds, and UFO's. Obviously, the absence of hard scientific data limits these theories to the fringes of scientific debate concerning the Tunguska Event. Essentially, none of the above theories can be ruled out, which undoubtedly is one of the reasons for the lasting curiosity regarding this mysterious occurrence.  

What it means to the novel:

It is not surprising that Pynchon uses the Tunguska Event in his fiction. It has the Pynchon hallmarks of being mysterious in origin, little known historically, and open to endless interpretation. Pynchon’s descriptions from his novel touch on these themes, as when he writes, “…, the error of the seismographs recordings more than embraced the “instant” in which a hitherto unimagined quantum of energy had entered the equations of history.” (AGAINST THE DAY 797). What this means is that here is something new, in a novel that is all about viewing the traditional in nontraditional ways, and is bound to have greater significance as the story continues.

            A Pynchon novel, however, is more than a collection of scientific observations, and so to Pynchon the Event may have human origins, as hard as that is to comprehend. Pynchon writes, “Was it, to be blunt, the general war which Europe this summer and autumn would stand at the threshold of, collapsed into a single event?” (AGAINST THE DAY 797). This interpretation is especially interesting, because it is very close to the so called Mirror World theory, which theorizes that an immense explosion in a parallel, yet close dimension was the cause of the Tunguska Event. 

         The human element can also be seen in Hunter Penhallow's following observation“…, as if to make sure it had not moved or disappeared, this gift from far away, perhaps another Krakatoa, no one knew, perhaps the deep announcement in the Creation, with nothing now ever to be the same,…” (AGAINST THE DAY 798). Here we see Pynchon’s enduring theme of hope for redemption, in which the characters daily wage a battle between wanting a better future with the intrusion of the past into their present lives.  

Sources

wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

http://www.igpp.ucla.edu/public/mkivelso/refs/PUBLICATIONS/Chyba%20Tunguska.pdf

 AGAINST THE DAY Thomas Pynchon