Coffee Under the Buttonwood Tree

By Art Cashin

This particular May 17th of which I speak is a lovely day indeed in Manhattan.  And this being 1792 and New York being the new capital of the new U.S., there are many citizens out and about to catch the spring airs.  And more than a few of them are milling about a very popular joint, just off Wall Street, called the Merchants Coffee
House.

Personally, I believe this establishment owes its popularity less to its famous cheesecake (which is rather okay for New York City) and more to the beverage in its name. For, while they actually do much of their beverage traffic in liquids other than coffee, it is quite helpful, upon arriving home, to be able to declaim to "she who suspects everything" that you have had a tough day at the Coffee House.  (Somehow, even in 1792, "Honey, I had a tough day at the Ale House" smacks of underperformance.) Another feature of this bistro is one that  I particularly like.  They have a table and bench on the lawn, under a large Buttonwood Tree.  So, I am headed there on this particular morning for a flagon or two of "coffee".

However, before I can eyeball Priscilla to bring me the usual, I find 24 citizens around this outdoor bench which I fancy somewhat.  These two dozen gents are folks of some substance (both physically and financially) so I hold back a bit before claiming my usual spot.  It is then that I see that one of the 24 gents is a merchant and fellow "coffee" drinker whom I know as "Verily, Verily".  He gets this tag because this is
what he says whenever a client doubts his word.  (This happens so frequently that he repeats the phrase so often that whenever a citizen sees him, said citizen immediately says - "Verily, Verily".)

Anyway, "Verily, Verily" says to me - "Art, do you have perhaps a spare $200 with which to join this venture?"  He then explains that each of these merchants puts up $200 apiece to join something they will call "The New York Stock and Exchange Board".  "Verily, Verily" says the boys think this is a very good investment for several reasons: 1) A guy named Napoleon Bonaparte was at this time making all European Bonds as unpredictable as a turf race in a rainstorm; 2) Certain gents were making plans for various ventures like canal companies and private turnpikes.

Well, these are nice thoughts indeed but personally even if I have $200 (a very unlikely event), I do not see much vig in this Stock Exchange idea. "But" says "Verily, Verily", "do not scoff, for a story goes with it" (over the years I learn this can often be a very expensive sentence). It seems these guys are onto a deal that a certain Alexander Hamilton has cooked up.  He wishes to change the large revolutionary debt into Publick Stock.

The aforementioned debt is such a palooka that many citizens shun these "Continentals" as having very little value.  In fact in graffiti school, kids are writing "Not worth a Continental" on walls and such. In further fact, this colonial money is so bad that almost all business is done using a Viennese coin that looked like a Spanish "pieces of eight" (called "the Thaler" at this  time but with a New York City accent it is pronounced "dollar" and this is where this word comes from.)  P.S. - said coin is cut like a pizza so you can break off an eighth or 12 1/2 cents.  If you broke off 2 such "bits", you have a quarter - get it?)

Anyway, Hamilton is having difficulty getting the votes he needs to convert to Publick Stock.  So he strikes a deal with a certain Thomas Jefferson who wishes to move the U.S. capital to Virginia (to be closer to home).  And to prove they were honest, these two citizens decide to build said capital on some swampland owned by a gent named George Washington.

Anyway, the deal is struck and suddenly there is lots of Publick Stock to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange.  Naturally, shy the $200, I miss out on the Buttonwood Agreement but I sign up shortly thereafter and am here since then.  Another day, I'll explain why they call it "a seat" when everybody stands up at the Stock Exchange.

Many thanks to Mr. Cashin and UBS Financial Services who graciously allow his historical musings to be republished on this site. To enjoy more of Art's posts simply click on "Cashin's Comments" in the label section on the sidebar.

How Curley Kept His Hair

On this day in 1923, Curley was buried. He wasn't one of the three stooges, although in his later years many people thought he acted like one.

No, the Curley of this story was the last guy on the losing side of a little tiff called "Custer's Last Stand" to see the flowing hair of the dim-witted Lieutenant Colonel before it was used as an ornament on a Sioux lodge-pole.

Curley (one can only speculate on the origins of his name) was a Crow Indian, an avowed enemy of the Sioux, and it was a slam dunk for him to be on the side of the American army when it came to fighting them in the summer 1876. He had been fighting them himself since he was a youth.

His job as a cavalry scout would have been more useful to the army if Custer had only listened to what he and the other scouts were telling him about the size of the enemy force ahead. Instead, he became the last observer to the slaughter.

The problem was that Custer's ego was twice the size of his IQ and he wasn't big on correcting his mistakes. Curley, on the other hand, knew how to spot an error in judgment and rectify it. So after making the initial mistake of staying with the troops when Custer dismissed the Crow scouts just before the battle, he thought better of it after the poo-poo began to hit the fan. He decided to join his other four friends and rode east inside the ravines as fast as his pony could go. After getting about a mile and a half away, he found a vantage point from which he could observe the carnage through his field glasses.

Suspicions confirmed, he beat a trail back to warn the other contingents, led by Generals Terry and Gibbons, who were riding right into the mess themselves. So Curley was able to witness history, without becoming history. At least not the fatal kind.

Over the years, anxious writers were successful in getting him to embellish his story a bit to make for more exciting reading. That led to him being considered by some to be a stooge, but his first reports are now thought to be a very accurate account of what took place that day at Little Big Horn.

So Curley's decision to beat feet allowed him to be buried at the Little Big Horn Battlefield some forty seven years later, after dying from pneumonia, instead of being planted there on that crazy day, after dying from "lack of hair."

Hey Chris, This Ain't China!

http://www.christopher-columbus.eu/

On this day (-1) in 1506, one of the most famous  failures in history passed into the ages.

Christopher Columbus has been celebrated for centuries as the man who discovered America, even though he did no such thing. In fact he failed spectacularly at almost everything he set out to accomplish on his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. As one historian, Bill Bryson, has opined, "It would be hard to name any figure in history who has achieved more lasting fame with less competence."

Columbus was an Italian-born sailor with a knack for getting the opportunity to make sales pitches to European royalty. The product he was selling was his vision of a trade mission to the far east via a faster and cheaper route. After being shown the door by the King of Portugal, he was somehow able to make multiple presentations to the King and Queen of Spain, who finally bought in and sent him on his voyage to the east (by sailing west) to procure spices with which to flavor the royal treasury, if not their royal palates.

But his sailing prowess was eclipsed by his poor geographical skills and he underestimated the size of the globe by a large margin. Only about two months after setting sail he "discovered" the Orient after blundering into an island in the Caribbean. He promptly hopped ashore and claimed that everything thereabouts belonged to Spain. (Which is rather like getting out of your canoe on the opposite side of the lake and claiming you now own someone else's lake front cottage.)

A few weeks thereafter he discovered Cuba but never quite figured out that it was an island instead of a continent. He thought it was the coast of China. Soon enough he discovered Hispaniola, which he thought was probably Japan. He never even conceived of North America much less set foot upon it. To be fair, it's not his fault that people screwed up the history later on. He probably would have been shocked (and delighted) to learn how he set the stage for all that followed.

But his real failures are in what he brought back to his benefactors in Spain. You see, he wasn't much of a botanist or mineralogist either. He brought back a whole lot of good-for-nothing tree bark thinking it was cinnamon and a lot of what he thought were peppers. He was partially correct on the peppers, but it turned out they were actually chili peppers, which was somewhat of an eye opening experience for the folks back home when they first chomped down on one.

What he thought was gold was actually iron pyrite. He filled the holds with it.  He also brought back some "Indian captives", which is a polite way of saying he kidnapped some local people and made them into slaves.

But back in Spain the royalty (not wanting to admit how much money they wasted on the folly) declared him a hero, gave him the title of  "admiral of the ocean sea" and doubled down on their bet. They sent him back ASAP, and quite a few more times after that. He spent eight years drifting around the Caribbean screwing up one thing after another.

In all fairness, he did bring back gold on some occasions, and not everything he brought back was useless. But of all the things he brought back from the place that wasn't the Orient, the most lasting one seems to have been a gift that keeps giving, syphilis.

Source material:   At Home, A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson. 
                                          History.com

The Day Harry Truman Lost His Bet

On this day in 1980, Harry Truman and sixteen of his best friends went missing after realizing that they had lost the biggest bet of their lives. Oh, they paid up alright, they had no intention of reneging on the bet. It's just that they were a "little under" at the moment. Actually, they still are.

You see, the Harry Truman of this story is not the US President who had the same name. And the reason he is still a "little under" is that he "went with the flow," of pyroclastic ash. Their bet was with Mt. St. Helens and when they lost they were buried under 150 feet of it. The explosive tantrum proved Harry was wrong about being too far away from her to be affected by her temper.

Our Harry was none other than Harry R Truman, 83, the proprietor of a lodge that was named after the mountain and sat on the shores of Spirit Lake. His best friends and fellow gamblers were his sixteen cats. (They basically just went along with Harry's bet.) He had been on that site for fifty six years and had no intention of leaving just because some folks said it wasn't safe there.

It wasn't the first time Harry's plans were torpedoed. When he went off to fight in WWI, the troop transport he was on, the USS Tuscania, was sunk from under him by a torpedo in 1918. But he won that bet because he was among the survivors.

This time though, Harry maintained that the mountain: was too far away from his lodge (about a mile), was protected by huge numbers of trees, and had an entire lake to overcome before it could reach him. When the mountain began to grumble a loud warning to him shortly before the event, his only concession was to move his mattress to the basement. (For safety's sake, it's assumed.)  It's clear that Truman was a better caretaker than a volcanologist.

To say that he was surprised that he lost his bet is an understatement. He was blown away.

Learn more about the legendary Harry and the Mt. St. Helens eruption in this video.

Unintelligible At Any Speed

Image-Ask Mr. Music

On this day 1965, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced its findings on a matter of grave national concern.

What was threat that had been taking up so much of the time of the national police force? Why, it was that extra dangerous Louie, of course! More specifically, it was "Louie Louie", the hit song that was sweeping the nation and threatening to undermine the moral purity of every high school kid in America.

The lyrics of the song were said to be so pornographic and obscene that when the concerned citizens wrote letters to the US Attorney General demanding federal intervention they claimed the words couldn't be included in the text due to their vile nature. Actually, the problem was no one knew what the words really were.

As one historical account has it, lyrics like - "A fine little girl, she wait for me..." - came out sounding like "A phlg mlmrl hlurl, duh vvvr me." Such was the quality of the performance by the group "The Kingsmen" when they recorded the song in 1963 in one take.

So the feds began their investigation by interviewing the writer of the song, Richard Berry, who scribbled the words back in 1955.  He claimed that the lyrics referred to conversation between a Caribbean sailor and his bartender (you guessed it, a dude named Louie) about how much he missed his girlfriend back home. They also interrogated the record producers, with similar benign results.

That's when they really got down to business and went forensic. The crack lawmen and their scientific associates began to listen to the record over and over again at various speeds, going slower each time to see if the vile contents could be discerned so the evil doers could be brought to justice for violating the federal "Interstate Transportation of Obscene Material law."

In the end, they were forced to admit what anyone who ever heard it already knew, it was impossible to tell what the heck was being sung. I'm guessing they did come to one inescapable conclusion though: no matter how many people were buying the record, the song really sucked.

Their final report declared that it was "Unintelligible At Any Speed."  Which, come to think of it, is rather like almost every federal law.

She Turned His World Upside Down

Image-JoeNovak.com

By Art Cashin

On this day (-1) in 1918, the U.S. Postal Service (then known as the U.S. Post Office Department) issued the first "Airmail Stamps."  Of course, there was no airmail service available yet (it would not start for several days - but you'd need stamps wouldn't ya). The stamps came in 6 cent, 16 cent and 24 cent denominations.

On the second day of sale (that would be May 14 if you are an MBA), a certain Bill Robey bought a sheet of a hundred of the 24 cent types at the local post office.  As he walked toward the door, he noticed that in each stamp on the sheet the plane (a biplane Curtiss "Jenny") was printed upside/down.  Robey knew he had a hot item but he assumed hundreds of similar sheets would be running off the presses.  (Actually only 8 other sheets had been run off before they caught the error and they destroyed every one of those - but Robey didn't know that).

He quickly sold the sheet to a philatelist (that would be a stamp collector if you are a PHD).  The price was $15,000.  Nice trade you think.  So did Robey.  But the guy he sold it to was already sitting on a $20,000 resale bid.

About 60 years later, one single stamp traded for $198,000 which would make Robey's sheet worth $19,800,000 (that would be $19.8 million if you an economist). Circumstance (or the Twilight Zone) may have added to the value of the stamps.

When actual airmail service began on May 15th, the first flight was of course a Curtiss "Jenny" bearing the same markings (JN-4H) as the Jenny in the stamp.  After a lot of bravado on the takeoff, in mid-flight the pilot ran into turbulence and crash-landed.  The pilot (with the mail) walked away but the first airmail plane ironically ended up in a field...you guessed it...just like the plane in Robey's sheet - upside/down.

Many thanks to Mr. Cashin and UBS Financial Services who graciously allow his historical musings to be republished on this site. To enjoy more of Art's posts simply click on "Cashin's Comments" in the label section on the sidebar.

This Boxing Match Was a Real Gem

Image-WearetheEnglish.com

On this day (perhaps -1) in 1871 (or was it 1870?), one of the most unusual fights in boxing history was fought. The prize was to be the Heavyweight Championship of America. Also to be decided was the Heavyweight Championship of the World, which would seem to make the first title just a tad superfluous.

It was said that the fight lasted one hour and seventeen minutes. But given the the historical confusion about the date of the contest, I'm not super confident about that particular stat. The thing that made the fight so unusual was that during the bout, no punches were landed by either contestant. 

It seems the boxers waited a little too long to stop dancing and actually get to the point because soon enough the cops showed up. Of course they intervened, and the whole thing was called off. No decision was rendered and the champ retained his crown.

However, the defending champion's life is a more interesting story than the actual event was. His name was Jem Mace. (That wasn't a ring name, even though he could hardly have made up a better one.) His opponent in the match was an Irishman named Joe Coburn, who was a pretty fair fighter himself, but not nearly as interesting.  Coburn hated Jem, and later (it is said), he tried to have him assassinated.

Jem was an Englishman, and a violinist. In fact, his fighting career actually started when three drunken sailors emerged from a seaside bar just as he was entertaining an appreciative crowd outside. They saw his instrument and broke it into several pieces just for grins. So, as any self respecting violinist would do... Jem kicked all their asses.

Word got around, Jem got a little tutelage from a well known bare-fisted fighter, and his career path was set. After the English people, ( particularly their police) lost their sense of sport, and their sense of humor about fist fighting, he traveled to America where many folks still were happy to pay good money to watch two guys knock each other senseless.

He became the first ever world champion. Today he is known as "The Father of Modern Boxing."  That designation came largely because he was the first to use fancy footwork, a dancing style, and intelligent defensive maneuvers. Oh yeah, and his punch wasn't bad either.

But mostly it's because he pioneered the training methods of today: skipping rope, running distances, and practicing the left jab. Mace was the principle influence in the transition from bare knuckle fighting to gloved contests and was instrumental in the development of ten second counts, time limits to bouts, and uniform ring sizes.

Always the nomad, Mace journeyed the world most of his life. Along the way he got married three times (twice as a bigamist), had numerous affairs, and fathered fourteen children by five different women. (None of whom seemed to resent it.) He made a ton of money in his life, but he was a better fighter than a gambler, so all of it disappeared. In 1910 he died a pauper back in his native England.

If life is a diamond, Mace's life might be described as rough cut. But you have to admit, the guy was a gem.

Learn more about Jem Mace at WearetheEnglish.com