Sears

Martin Luther once said that a ploughboy, in a close relationship with God, could interpret and do God’s will better than a theologian.  Perhaps that is why there are more Lutheran small-businessmen than in any other denomination.

            Richard Warren Sears was born in 1863 in Stewartville, Minnesota, a rural town near Rochester that is just 5000 people even today.  The family moved to Spring Valley soon thereafter.  His dad was a wagon maker and blacksmith who did well and was on the town council.  But he lost his life savings in a market collapse, died 2 years later, forcing the teenage Richard to go to work for a railroad to help support family.  One day, his rail station had a merchant customer refuse a large order of watches.  Watches were considered a city luxury by farmers.  Richard made a deal to try to sell all those watches.  In six months, the super-salesman had sold every one and signed on a partner, Alvah Roebuck, who repaired watches.  They made money, moved to Chicago, then sold out.  Sears had observed that rural folks will buy only if it is cheap, the same observation of Sam Walton 80 years later.  He and Roebuck went into a mail-order business with Sears writing the catalog copy.  By 1896 it was 140 pages of folksy description.  Sometimes he was too glowing in his product descriptions and it came back to haunt him. “Honesty is the best policy,” he would say.  “I’ve tried it both ways.”

            Sears was targeting the most overworked market segment—farm wives.  His catalog held everything from dishes to clothes to kit houses (1904).  Using the postal system, he allowed them to buy things rarely seen in rural areas.  And by pressuring suppliers, he got prices very low.  And example is the cream separator.  They were typically $100.  Sears found one for $26 that was acceptable and came out with catalog models for $14 and $22.  Within a few years dairymen all over the country, formerly selling only whole milk, were selling cream separately with Sears separators. 

            But organizing and fulfilling orders was problematic.  When Roebuck fell into poor health and sold his share back to Sears (1895), Richard found a venture capitalist in his brother-in-law Rosenwald, who transformed Sears, Roebuck & Co. from a shapeless, inefficient, rapidly expanding corporate mess into the retailing titan of much of the twentieth century. He set up an assembly line to fill sales and a returns department. Richard Sears developed failing health in 1909 and quit his active role in the company.  He died in 1914 at his farm near Milwaukee.  His marketing genius lived on in the company through the 1970s. At its height around WW I, 5 million catalogs of 1200 pages held 100,000 items.  A good example of Sears’ impact was in refrigerators. There were once spring houses farmers dug to keep milk a second day, then ice boxes, but that required ice delivery. In 1918 Kelvinator invented a gas-cycle refrigerator.  Sears began to market it in the 20s and by 1930 was the leading marketer of refrigerators in America.  By the 20s the once rural marketing had turned urban as well with stores. FDR quipped that the way to cure a communist was to hand him a Sears catalog.  But the best indication of how influencial the company became was a story related by a Sunday School teacher.  The kids were asked, “Where did the Ten Commandments come from?” Answer: “From the Sears, Roebuck catalog!”

Queen Victoria's 200th is a big deal

Friday, May 24 was the 200^th birthday of Queen Victoria of The United Kingdom.  Canadians say that Queen Victoria’s B-Day is the day when you can safely put away your coat.  The media quips that she was the longest reigning monarch, but now eclipsed by Elizabeth II.  The real significance of V. was that she was the first Britsh monarch to make the monarchy wholly ceremonial, hence a great tourist draw without the political backlash.  Her mother, Victoria of Saxe-Coburg was married to George III’s fourth son.  George III was the king who lost USA, then went mad and had a long reign to 1820. His aging sons George and William were terribly unpopular.  George IV was known as Prince of Whales because he was fat and drank to excess, ruled 1820-30.  Then William IV ruled from 1830-37.  He never grew up and was always a adolescent drunk and womanizer. Neither had children. When Edward died, V’s mom, also ‘Victoria’, kept her daughter under close supervision and away from her ‘wicked uncles’.  Victoria was just 8 when she became heir apparent.  If William IV did anything correct it was to pack the House of Lords with forward thinking nobles who wanted to reform British politics so that the House of Commons Members would represent equal numbers of people. (Former landed system divided things weirdly so that some had hardly any constituents and others had industrial cities).  In 1832 it passed.  Duchess Victoria was quite German and her sister was great grandmother of my German great grandmother.   But young Victoria was thoroughly British. Her uncle Leopold became King of the Belgians and he had been sort of a surrogate father to her.  He constantly wrote back home advising her how to become a good queen.  When she did become queen, she put herself under the wing of Lord Melbourne, and amiable and avuncular Whig.  Perhaps because she trusted him, perhaps because the British were so disgusted and sour over her two uncles’ reigns, she began to quiet the monarch’s role in governing, especially war.  Then she fell in love with her cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.  They married in 1840. He was too German for the Brits, too spendthrift and too intellectual.  Parliament distrusted him.  So the couple retreated from politics even more.  Museums like South Kensington and publicity for charitable and worthy causes were their work instead.  When Europe exploded in revolution 1848 against dictatorial monarchs, Britain was quite content.  Then in 1851Albert conceived a Great Exhibition to show new technology of the machine age.  With Victoria and Albert the lead hosts, the entire exhibition was a spectacular success.

.     Victoria and Albert were a devoted couple and had 9 kids.  V. didn’t like child-rearing and used nannies.  But Albert put the best construction on it with pictures of the royal family around the Christmas tree and other familial photos .  It was a huge hit with the public.  All the while this was going on, wars and politics were in an uproar--Mines Act forbid child labor, a law limiting working hours to 13, Crimean War, Opium Wars with China and Indian Mutiny.  Had Victoria played a part in this, her popularity would have surely shrunk. 

.     When Albert died in 1861, Victoria was only 42, and she wore black-mourning  the rest of her life. She loved Disraeli  and disliked Gladstone, but advised them both.  And under them, England transformed from a colonial power to an empire upon which the sun never sets.  (Perhaps, someone said, God doesn’t  trust an Englishman in the dark.) Victoria became the symbol of this empire trying to rule justly and she was the “Grandmother of Europe.” When she died in 1901 she had begun the ‘century of the common man.’ But her initative to make the monarchy ceremonial and a force for good would live on to influence most of the First Ladies of USA in the 20^th century.  For just as there is a place for the rough-and-tumble of politics, there is also a place for civilization and good-will. So while we celebrate Memorial Day this weekend, realize that the British Commonwealth celebrates the queen who made democracy under constitutional monarchy possible.

Walt Disney

Walt Disney was born in Chicago but the Disneys moved to Marceline, Missouri when he was age 4 where his father farmed with Walt’s uncle.  Two years after Walt started school, they moved again to Kansas City.  The family was poor.  He and brother Roy led a grueling life of paperboys both morning and evening distributing the Kansas City Star and KC Times. There was literally no time for play.  Many of the houses they delivered had rich residents, and one day another boy saw Walt throwing their paper.  He showed Walt his bicycle.  Walt’s eyes grew big and he could only dream of having toys and a bike. He was too painfully shy to talk. The other kid befriended him and began to put out toys near the door so that his chance friend, Walt, could pause for a few seconds and admire the forbidden toys, try one or two, and fantasize.

            Walt and Roy didn’t get very good grades in school because they were tired.  But Walt loved to draw, had a talent for it, and studied art in the upper grades. The family was strictly Protestant and patriotic.   He lied about his age in 1918 and got into the army but the war was over by the time he got to France.  He drove an ambulance. His hastily drawn cartoons were printed in “Stars and Stripes.”  Back home after the war, he got work at a commercial art studio, then at a film animation company.  He started his own studio which promptly went bankrupt like those prior companies.  But he had produced his first film, a 12 minute animation, Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland.  In 1923, He and Roy moved to Los Angeles, eventually opening up a studio for cartooning.  There they created Mickey Mouse.

            His humble character and unswerving Protestantism (We are Saints and Sinners: Walt chain-smoked and drank) led him to produce not only comedy but moral plays, rich with fantasy. As a child he loved Aesop’s Fables. As a filmmaker, he made delightful anthropomorphic animals.  Employing a separate script department they wrote family-oriented, optimistic screenplays with lessons of life.  And during the hard times of the 1930’s these were keenly accepted.  Mickey Mouse was introduced as Steamboat Willie, a character always getting into a scrape but escaping harm by doing right.  The Three Little Pigs depicted pigs who worked hard in defiance of adversity taunting a Big Bad Wolf (the Depression).  Snow White shows that a true princess’s character is her real beauty as she teams with little people who work diligently. Pinocchio illustrates that lies get you in trouble but truth wins. 

            When labor costs after WW II made cartoon animation expensive, Disney started doing nature documentaries and live action pictures.  Disney recognized the potential of television as well.  But deep down inside Walt was still the kid who’d had no toys but lots of fantasies.  So in 1951 he began plans for a grandiose toy explosion in Disneyland amusement park. Main Street was patterned after his memories of Marceline, Walt’s fascination with trains produced a train that ran through the park.  Disneyland soon became a mecca for tourists from all over the world.  And the lessons-on-life films continued. Lady and the Tramp (sowing your oats is fun but finding a partner, doing your duty bravely even when unappreciated, is the greater joy), Song of the South (even clever people do very stupid things and get stuck, but you can still win), and Bambi (growing up is scary and full of scars, but nobility awaits in real adulthood).  Critics have said that Walt Disney’s films indoctrinated the world with American Protestant values.  Perhaps, but Christianity seems to have a global resonance. Maybe it is an unusual way for Jesus Christ to get a foot in their door. Oh, and don’t forget to be the other kid who shared his toys with the paperboy.  You never know who he might grow up to be.

                                     

The Revival that started Independence

                             

The Great Awakening was a phenomenal religious revival in Colonial America.  Oddly. it started through spiritual poverty.

            Unlike the French and Spanish who directed colonies in a planned format, with an omnipresent state, professional bureaucracy, and little local representation, the Brits had no money to spend. So they let adventurers and businessmen do it.  Colonies were established as charters by investors, or proprietary by important men of means.  Thus England got colonies largely for nothing but that meant colonies had to be self-supporting.  By the 1680s the crown began to wrest back control. 9 of 13 became crown colonies via revoked charters.  That failed. English meanness of appointed governors was matched by colonials demanding local parliaments.  Advisors, picked from the House of Lords never left England. American colonies had written constitutions which Britain never had.  British law only had precedents.  Constitutions inevitably made one think of rights, natural law, and absolutes.  British practicality, abhorred such things--“abstract stuff”. And so gradually common men of the lower houses began to take power in the colonies.  A bad royal proclamation would not stick.  A mob would oppose it, whose leaders were likely popular officials of the local government.

            Colonial government was kept very, very limited. Psalm 146:3 says “Trust not in princes.” Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s.” (i.e., some things don’t belong to Caesar.)  It was hard to collect from backwoodsmen. American colonies were the least taxed perhaps in all history.  A few colonies had no tax at all until 1760, raising all funds by criminal fines and a few small fees.  No taxes meant people had 100% disposable income.  The colonial economy grew by 500% from 1700 to 1750 as population doubled every generation. This 4% growth rate might seem logical.  After all it was free land with many resources.  But it was also extremely remote and 4000 miles to a cash market.  People were sparse and skilled craftsmen far more so. Frontiers were dangerous. These sorts of conditions are why places like New Zealand never had rapid growth. With the good economy, many grew rich and secular. A German immigrant remarked, “Pennsylvania is heaven for farmers, paradise for artisans and hell for preachers.” America was spiritually impoverished.  But it was among Penn’s German refugees from the Thirty Years War, who saw nothing but God’s grace at work.  In 1719, a Reformed German pastor Theodore Frelinghuysen, led a series of “revival meetings” in the Raritan valley.  The movement began not in cities, but in the countryside, where it was a rare treat to hear a sermon.  The few pastors were anxious to have the illiterate listeners read the Bible for themselves and so reading programs and Bible [printing] Societies boomed.  William Tennent, a NJ Presbyterian pastor in the 1720s, started travelling to remote areas where he and his son practiced “firey preaching and rip-roaring hymn-singing.” His Log College later moved and became Princeton. Jonathan Edwards of Massachusetts was intrigued by this.  But he de-emphasized preaching the Puritan message of “God chose some, not others” with hellfire sermons.  He added more Gospel to the Law and instructions on how to have a fruitful life.  Finally it was George Whitefield who caused a sensation. He was a Billy Graham-style preacher who went on the first continental tour stopping daily to tent preach two stirring sermons a day.

            The country exploded with faith. In 20 months, 1740-1742, church attendance tripled. In every church there seemed to be town drunks who found a new life of faith or known thieves who paid people back. Bibles abounded in homes.  This same Whitefield reaction happened in Catholic Maryland, Lutheran Delaware and Anglican Virginia.  People read it in the papers and began to say, ‘Look! We are all alike!’  “The United States” was uttered for the first time. America had become a country of religious tolerance where free will, moral purity, personal faith, help thy neighbor, and appreciation of God’s word superseded European wars. John Adams put it, “The Revolution was effected before the War…in the minds and hearts of people; and change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations.”

Tom and the Pirates

Tom came home from the war and just weeks after he had come home, his wife died leaving him with 3 young daughters.  It broke his heart and nearly broke his mind.  He would hitch up the horses to the wagon and he and his ten year old daughter, Margaret, would ride around the farm endlessly saying nothing.  Neighbors noticed and they appealed to his neighbor, George, who maybe could do something.  And so George Washington asked Thomas Jefferson if he would be his ambassador to France.  Tom knew he needed a change of scenery and agreed.  He Margaret with him intending to send for the two younger girls, Mary who was six and Lucy who was just 2 when he was settled in in Paris.  A month after he got to France he got a letter from Aunt Eppie who was taking care of the girls.  Lucy had contracted whooping cough and died.  Now Tom was really broken up and determined to get Mary over to France to be with him. 

            But there was a problem.  The Muslim Barbary States of northern Africa had fleets of pirates who preyed on shipping.  They would take over a ship for a prize and then hold the passengers and crew for ransom or worse enslave them.  The things they did to children were unspeakable, making little girls sex slaves in harems and castrating little boys and making them eunuchs, forced conversions to Islam. One day Tom had dinner with the Ambassador of Tripoli and he asked him, “Sir, our country means no harm to yours.  Is there any possibility you could stop pirating our ships?” And the ambassador said, “No.”  According to his holy book, the Quran,” Abdrahaman said, “all nations who have not acknowledged the Prophet are sinners and subhumans, whom it is the Right and Duty of the Faithful to plunder and enslave.” Jefferson couldn’t believe what he was hearing!  But being an intellectual, he thought, I will check it out, get a copy of the Quran to read to see if Abdrahaman knows what he is talking about. So Tom found a Quran, translated into French, and read it. “Wow!  That Muslim is correct!” Therefore, we can only deal with the Barbary Pirates with force.  We must build a navy and go after them.  This was ironic because Jefferson was the pacificist who had argued to disband the army just a couple years before.  So he wrote a letter asking Congress to build a navy when he returned home to the job of Washington’s Secretary of State.  USA did build a navy and then as President, Thomas Jefferson built a bigger navy and the rest is history.  Stephen Decatur and the Marines burned Tripoli harbor and tiny USA put the Barbary Pirates out of business. The emirates stopped all pirate activity, even against other countries. 

            One of the great indicators of the truth of the gospel is that it points to eternal truth instead of getting bogged down in some in a mindset of the moment.  Much of Islam is steeped in Arab culture’s faults—cruelty, polygamy, slavery.  Quran, Sura 9:3 says “terrorize the infidels and beleaguer them.  Cut off their heads and cut off their fingers.” Hard as it may be for some to accept, Islam is at war with us. Yet we have the Eternal Savior. I’ve read the end of His book. We will win.

Paddy's Day

 You know you live in a small town when you still can't find corned beef during St. Patrick's week. Here's something to chew on. I ran it last year.                         

Patricius was 12 years old. One day he and his buddies decided to go swimming instead of going to school.  It was about the year 397, a long time ago. And Patrick lived in Britain.  At that time, the Roman Empire, which had protected everyone, no longer did it very well. What Pat and his friends didn’t know was that some fierce Irish Celts were waiting to capture them and take them across the ocean to Ireland as slaves.  And so Patrick and friends just disappeared and their parents were heartbroken.  As a slave Patrick had only a gunny sack to wear, hardly anything to eat and he had to watch and herd of a hundred head of cattle in the pastures.  He had to herd and guard the cows, day and night, winter snows, summer heat, rain, come what may, Patrick was out in it.  If he lost calves, he was beaten. What do you do when you are in an impossible situation?  Patrick began to pray.  He didn’t simply pray about what he wanted, but he began to talk to God as if God was his last friend on earth.  He would pray hundreds of times a day telling about all his troubles and just trying to remember the Christian faith he had been taught.  The Irish weren’t Christians.  They worshiped a sun god and thought that spirits were everywhere in plants and rocks and animals. So everything in nature was important to the Irish. Patrick knew he was going to be a slave for the rest of his life. He learned his job and all about the land he now found himself in, a green country of clover (shamrock) pastures and lots of rain.  Patrick had truly become Irish by the end of 10 long years.  He talked to God continually and had dreams.  Finally one night, a dream came with orders to leave. If he was caught he’d be killed!  Though not knowing where he was, Pat just started walking.  It was amazing that no one saw or bothered to stop this runaway slave! Eventually he walked to the seashore.   Patrick saw a merchant ship and went to talk to the sailors, telling them plainly that he was from Breton and wanted to go home.  Sure, said the crafty sailors, thinking they would just sell him again when they got to another place.  So they invited Patrick aboard and set sail first for the coast of Gaul (France), to trade a few things. 

     When they got to Gaul, it was disaster everywhere.  The seaport had been burned to the ground and no longer existed. There were no people or animals.  It was the year 408 AD and the previous winter had been a record cold one.  The Rhine River rarely freezes but it had frozen so solidly that thousands of barbarian Germans could walk across the river.  Over a quarter million German Franks swarmed into Gaul. They were fiercer than the even the Irish.  They stole everything they could from the towns, ate the food and killed most of the people.  This is what the surprised sailors now saw.  After finding nothing to eat, the starving sailors taunted Patrick about praying to his Christian God.  Patrick looked them squarely in the eye and said that if they would pray with him, then God would provide for them as He had done so many times before.  So the hungry sailors tried a moment of faith, and in the midst of the prayer, a herd of hogs came running over the hill and down the road straight at the men.  A feast.  Hogs were killed and they held a barbecue. At that point the sailors began to say maybe they should take this slave kid home since he had some sort of power they feared.

     Home in Britain, Patrick struggled to catch up in school and didn’t do very well.  He became a priest but wasn’t very good at just holding church on Sunday.  Still he prayed tirelessly and had dreams.  One night an old Irish friend appeared in his dream begging him to come to Ireland again.  If he did that, would they capture him and make him a slave again?  Despite his fears, Patrick wanted to share the good news about Jesus Christ and all it meant with the Irish.  So he left for Ireland.  He walked right into the leading king’s judgment hall and told his story bravely.  Why didn’t the King of Limerick have him arrested and enslaved?  In a warrior society, bravery, a good storyteller, generosity, and loyalty were the signs of a tremendous warrior.  Here was Patrick, coming fearlessly and ardently wanting to give the king the secret to all of life.  Now that’s generous! He told a fascinating story of how God led him to freedom. Now he was here, more loyal to Ireland than to Breton his home.  That was quite impressive to the Irish Celts.  Right there and then, the king decided that he wanted to be a Christian like Pat.  Patrick went out with the king’s blessing and traveled to his former owner, who was so astonished by Patrick that it moved him to praise Patrick’s God and ask if he could have such faith.  From one end of Ireland to the other, Patrick traveled preaching the message and God converted the Irish.  They asked a lot of questions.  How could there be one God yet 3 persons?  Patrick reached down and pulled up a shamrock leaf.  See, there are three leaves but one shamrock leaf, he told them, and all of the pastures of Ireland tell us this.  How could Mary have been a virgin and yet have given birth?  It was God’s miracle, just like a cow having twins, Patrick said.  But was this God of Christ as important as the old Irish Sun god, whose symbol was a ring? Patrick drew a cross overlapping the ring and told them that God in heaven is both the creator (ring) and the One who sent his Son to die because he loved them so much (cross). Surely, such love is the greatest of all things. Eventually, Patrick also taught them how to read and farm as well.  And so a strange thing happened.  As the Roman Empire collapsed and barbarians took over, Ireland became more civilized.  By the time Patrick died, the Irish, had built churches and monasteries around the country and were copying not only the Bible but also other old books eagerly.  Much of the classic Roman literature we have today comes from books saved and recopied by the Irish.  Some decided they wanted to be like Patrick and take the gospel message back to the continent and convert those bloodthirsty German barbarians.  Over about 200 years, the Irish saved European civilization. 

           Patrick of Ireland was the first Christian missionary after Paul. A one-time slave brought civilization and salvation to the Celts who in turn saved much of Europe in the Dark Ages. Green, national color of Ireland, is the color of new life in Jesus Christ, Patrick explained.  Thus we wear green to commemorate the day he died, March 17, 461, St. Patrick’s Day.

Mae West

In 1925, a young vaudeville jazz singer, Mildred Mae Westerly, had a nearly tragic run-in with the Firemen’s mascot monkey in a place called Ponca City, Oklahoma. The train carrying the show arrived at the depot and following tradition of vaudeville shows--the cast had a parade down Grand Ave. to announce the show and drum up interest. Mildred was a jazz singer who had 10 little Spitz dogs on leashes with doggie coats to herald her act.  As they turned into the firehouse adjacent the Ponca City Theatre, the dogs encountered a caged monkey the firemen had been given by the 101 Ranch.  The monkey and dogs went wild.  In the ensuing melee, the monkey got hold of Westerly’s hair. It tore out a patch and bruised her face.  As the firemen were putting on some bandages, Mildred took it in stride.  “You know everything crazy happens to me.  I should change my act and do comedy.”  She went home to New York for recovery thinking about what she had said, and she did just that.  Already a Shakespearian actress, she wrote comedy vaudeville skits and changed her stage name back to her real name, Mary Jane Mae West.

            Mae’s dad was Bavarian Catholic and his mother was Irish Catholic-Jewish. But they joined a Presbyterian church at Greenpoint (part of New York City today).  Mae had done stage since the age of 5. In 1926, at 34 she wrote, produced and directed a broadway play, Sex. She wrote scenes about the male-female chase, full of absurdity of what characters really thought.  Men were obsessed with women’s looks and women were half-smart in manipulating. The production did not go over well with city officials, who had received complaints from some religious groups and the theater was raided, with West arrested along with the cast. Her skits were so filled with sexual innuendo it scandalized the Eastern audiences.  She was banned in Boston (that is where we get the term) and run out of New York.  Dejected, she wrote her brother that she hadn’t meant to offend people’s faith, just poke fun of the battle of the sexes and sex of the battle. He told her to hang tough.  So when sentenced to 10 days in jail or pay a fine for “corrupting the morals of youth” she chose jail and played it to the hilt for publicity. West emerged more popular than ever. She wrote Diamond Lil in 1928. And then a funny thing happened. The shows were sellouts in the Midwest. Farm couples, trying to raise large families and used to seeing animal sex all day long, thought her plays, full of double entendres and breezy flirtation a hoot, not a scandal. She went to Hollywood and by 1932 was the best paid actress in film—making dull lines memorable by being outrageously suggestive.

            What Mae really disliked was hypocrisy.  Introduced to William Randolph Hearst and his mistress, she made a comment over their relationship that got her in trouble. Hearst went on the warpath. At one point, he asked aloud, "Isn't it time Congress did something about the Mae West menace?" Paramount executives felt they had to tone down the West characterization, or face further recrimination. This may be surprising by today's standards, as West's films contained no nudity, no profanity and very little violence. Though raised in an era when women held second-place roles in society, West portrayed confident women who were not afraid to use their wiles to get what they wanted. "I was the first liberated woman, you know. No guy was going to get the best of me. That's what I wrote all my scripts about." In 1940 her double entendres got her into trouble amazingly enough with Edgar Bergen’s ventriloquist dummy, Charlie McCarthy, on the radio, no less. Her career began to languish in the backlash. 

            But raised a Presbyterian, Mae attended church often, took care of her mother, brother and many others for years. She tithed and picked up Scot investment savvy.  “I need God more than anyone else,” she is to have said.  As her career waned, her wealth grew and she spent a long retirement as a philantropist.  Which I suppose proves that Christians aren’t perfect, we are redeemed.