Sir: The December article “A Flier’s Journal,” by General Kenney, was of special interest to me as the former Commanding Officer of the 2nd Photo Section assigned to the gist Observation Squadron (I succeeded the Lieutenant Suydam who is mentioned).
Perhaps you might be interested to know the story behind the gist insignia accompanying the article. This design was taken from the drawing used on the masthead of the editorial page of the old Life magazine and was adopted as their official insignia. This design was painted on each side of the squadron’s planes, and for every German plane officially confirmed as being brought down by the pilot-observer crew, a black German cross was painted on the shield of their plane. Four or five crosses were not uncommon. …
William A. Barnhill Gainesville, Florida
STRIP MINING: THREE STATES
Sir:… For years now newspapers and television documentaries have reported in horrifying detail that central Appalachia—and eastern Kentucky in particular—is being shredded by strip mining. [See AMERICAN HERITAGE, December, 1969.] The truth of this reporting has been verified by both state and federal studies. Multitudes of worried and compassionate people have visited the region and deplored the heartless assaults against the land and the men, women, and children who call it their home. Scores of politicians (including Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy) have come to see the devastation and poverty, and editorial writers have used barrels of ink denouncing the exploitation. But despite all the outrage and hand-wringing, the strip mining goes on. The trees continue to fall, the streams continue to die as valley after valley is gutted, and the impoverished and demoralized people continue to flee to Michigan and Illinois. Exposés and public outrage count for nothing against the money and prestige of the corporate destroyers. They are, apparently, too big and too rich to check.
For example, Kentucky appropriates no money to police strip miners. The companies pay fees for permits to dismember mountains, and if no permits are issued, no funds will be available to pay the salaries of enforcement officers. Consequently, a steady flow of licenses is guaranteed no matter how steep the terrain or beautiful the doomed forest. Strict enforcement would shrink and eventually destroy the Reclamation Commission, and no one who understands the nature of bureaucracy can suppose the agency will ever enforce its way into oblivion and joblessness.
Then, too, the commission is indecently cozy with the companies. In the fall of 1969 the Louisville Courier-Journal disclosed that Elmore Grim, the state’s reclamation director, was permitting his office to be used to wring political contributions from the operators. …
The operators naturally have few fears after their money flows to the state’s capital, and such conventional “rights” as freedom of the press can be safely trampled by them and their hirelings in and out of public office. When Miss Jean Martin, a photographer for Whitesburg’s Mountain Eagle, sought to make pictures of land stripped for Bethlehem Steel she was attacked, her film was forcibly taken, and her life was threatened …
Here in Pike County we wait in vain for an answer to our letter to the president of Bethlehem asking for information as to their plans for stripping the mountains above our homes. For two years we have been asking Bethlehem to clean up the mess they left as a result of previous mining operations, and for two years our requests have been met with indifference and contempt. …
Tom Ramsay Director Pike County Citizens Association Hellier, Kentucky
STRIP MINING: THREE STATES
Sir:… To show that strip mining need not ruin the landscape, you might take a look at Pennsylvania. To my knowledge this is the only state that requires complete restoration of coal-stripping operations. Since the passage of our bituminous strip-mine law in 1963 coal operators have had to restore their operations to original contour concurrent with mining, prevent the discharge of acid water, and successfully plant the restored land.
These requirements are being carried out on mountain slopes as well as on rolling farmland. Our experience is that total restoration is both economically and technically feasible. The law is strongly enforced. …
Fred Jones Conservation Editor Pittsburgh Press Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
STRIP MINING: THREE STATES
Sir:… In southern and central Illinois, for example, a “New Land” program has long been sponsored by the United Electric Coal Companies, now a subsidiary of General Dynamics. Since 1938 U. E.G. has actively sought to improve the land from which coal has been extracted. Today, there are some eighteen thousand acres of New Land with forests, pastures, orchards, and over two hundred lakes. Some of the areas are wildlife preserves for deer, quail, rabbits, beaver, and wild game. Others are grazing ground for cattle or forests for future timber. The orchards produce twenty-seven thousand bushels of apples as well as a crop of peaches. …
Typical of the New Land policy has been reforestation. Recognizing the need for a timber crop that could be harvested within a man’s lifetime, seedlings of southern pine were imported. Despite criticism that the area was too cold and rocky and the competition from the native hardwoods too severe, these pines today are seeding themselves and helping to create attractive lake and forest areas. …
One of the major reasons for the success of this reclamation program is the manner of mining. U.E.C. was the first coal company to develop the wheel type of excavator. This removes the overburden by digging upward so that the dirt and shale are deposited on the land in such a way that the earth can be regraded and easily planted.
Coal is still the most important commodity around a strip-mine area. But after the coal is gone, the New Land remains with ever-increasing abundance and opportunity for recreation. …
Paul Seastrom Land Manager The United Electric Coal Companies Du Quoin, Illinois
EARLIEST FACE?
Sir: Recently, in the course of some research for a book, I arrived at a conclusion which I would like to expose to your readers. It requires a brief explanation:
Sometime in 1844 or 1845, on a trip up the Hudson to photograph Martin Van Buren and Washington Irving for his “Gallery of Illustrious Americans,” Mathew Brady paid a call on Major John Livingston, veteran of the Revolutionary War and a member of the distinguished Livingston family (his brother Robert was an author of the Declaration of Independence; Chancellor of New York State; the Minister to France who negotiated the Louisiana Purchase; and patron of Robert Fulton, who named his steamboat Clermont for the Livingston estate). Brady’s daguerreotype of Major Livingston was made when the old gentleman was in his ninety-first year (he was born in 1755, the year of Braddock’s defeat, and lived until 1851).
I believe that this extraordinary daguerreotype shows us the likeness of a man who was born before any other American of whom we have a photograph. Indeed, it is possible that Major Livingston antedates anyone whose photograph survives.
It would be interesting to know if any of your readers have information indicating that a photographic likeness exists of anyone born earlier than 1755.
Richard M. Ketchum Mr. Ketchum, Managing Director of the American Heritage Book Division and author of several books, has completed a book, Faces from the Past, based on the familiar series of that name in these pages. It has just been published by the American Heritage Press.
IRONSIDES INDEED
Sir: “Old Ironsides” lived up to her name during the hurricane that hit New England in 1938. [“A Memorandum to Oliver Wendell Holmes,” February, 1970].
As the daughter of a naval officer living in the Boston Navy Yard, I remember my father being called out during the height of the storm. Old Ironsides’ stern lines had parted. Her stern swung over and dented the then new, all steel destroyer U.S.S. Phelps, tied up at an adjacent dock. As I recall, there was not a scratch on the old Constitution! …
She is priceless and must be preserved.
Jean Kell Steer Athens, Georgia
VANISHING FOREST
Sir: Having received a ballot for the American Heritage Society Awards to preservation projects, we wish to commend your organization on the remarkable foresight and concern shown for our vanishing environment and historical heritage.
We certainly hope that the leadership shown by publications such as yours in providing not only space but also money for citizen groups struggling to reverse the current destructive trends will generate a real awakening in this country.
The Thorn Creek Preservation Association is a group involved in an attempt to preserve the last sizable undeveloped forest in a three-hundred-square-mile area south of Chicago in eastern Will County, Illinois. It is directly in the path of urban growth, and part is included in the plans of a new community. A new university is to be built adjacent to the site, Chicago’s third airport can possibly go near here, and an east-west freeway is proposed to run through the forest.
There is a change in the climate of public opinion on environmental problems, due in a large measure to the responsible leadership of the news media. If the elected officials can only catch up to the public demand, perhaps there will be some hope for projects such as ours. …
Marvin Harr Chairman Thorn Creek Preservation Association Richton Park, Illinois
FAUNTLEROY LANDMARK
Sir: The February feature “A Wrecker’s Dozen” included a photo of the Franklin School of Washington, D.C., slated for demolition. It is an interesting coincidence that this school was the alma mater of Vivian Burnett, “The Real Little Lord Fauntleroy,” who was the subject of my article in the same issue. Vivian and his brother, Lionel, both attended Franklin School. They were together in the eighth grade at the school with Miss Ella Morgan as their teacher when “Fauntleroy’s” brother was stricken with his fatal illness.
Tom McCarthy Goshen, New Hampshire
MOUNT MONADNOCK REVISITED
Sir: Nine years ago, in the December, 1960, issue of AMERICAN HERITAGE, at the close of a spread on stereopticon slides, you printed a picture of Mount Monadnock. Since that time we have had a desire to see if we could find the exact spot that the picture was taken from. Last week we had an opportunity and spent some four hours cruising the roads west of the mountain with the pictures in hand, checking and comparing views.
As you can see from the accompanying photographs, we were successful. The area has grown up so much that it is no longer possible to see the mountain clearly, but a number of the rocks in the stone wall can be identified, particularly two in the lower left-hand corner of the AMERICAN HERITAGE picture. Our photograph was taken from a spot probably no more than six feet from where Mr. French set up his tripod. The spot is in the township of Marlboro, New Hampshire, on the Old Dublin Road, about 150 yards northeast of its junction with the Old Monadnock Road. By walking about one hundred yards to the left down the road we found a clearing from which we could see Monadnock clearly. All four of the trees visible in the picture can be found in the woods, now hoary old sugar maples. …
All this classifies as useless information, but we were interested, and we thought that you might be too. At one point during our search we were stopped by two men who thought that we looked like burglars preparing to rob some of the summer houses in the area.
Richard V. Upjohn Seaver R. Gilcreast, Jr. Fay School Southboro, Massachusetts
We congratulate Messrs. Upjohn and Gilcreast for their perseverance; the New England back country is often a tangle of old stone walls that run right through the woods. Once they separated fields and meadows of hardscrabble Yankee farms, but now they disappear into the second growth that has been rising for the century and more since the farmers went away forever to pioneer in the West. —Ed.
