by Erik Randall

Voter Discrimination and the Shelby County v. Holder Decision

The first page of the Voting Rights Act (1965).

On June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision in the case Shelby County v. Holder that had broad implications involving The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (referred to as the VRA). The VRA was enacted by the United States Congress due to discriminatory acts that were conducted throughout the South including literacy tests. These tests (as well as poll taxes and grandfather clauses) were designed in order to prohibit African Americans from voting and existed in the South since the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1870.

These roadblocks were extraordinarily effective in the South. Prior to the passage of this bill, for example, only seven percent of African Americans had been registered to vote in Mississippi by 1965.[1] The VRA and its subsequent enforcement enabled the federal government the ability to inhibit discriminatory practices. Not only did the bill prohibit racial discrimination, but it also required districts with a history of discrimination to seek clearance from the federal government if they sought to make any changes that affected voting procedure. The bill had been renewed twice, most recently in 2006 (for a span of 25 years). Continue reading →

06.24.13

by Erik Randall

Lou Gehrig: Hero and Icon in Turbulent Times

June 19, 2013 was the 167th anniversary of the first organized and recorded baseball game (1846) as well as Lou Gehrig’s 110th birthday. As a celebration of these events, I will be publishing posts that analyze the importance of Baseball and Lou Gehrig in particular on American Culture.

A young Lou Gehrig in his Columbia University uniform (1921).

When it comes to sports figures, there have been few who by virtue of their character transcend their physical talent and the sporting world itself and become American cultural icons. In his illustrious career shortened by tragedy, Lou Gehrig embodied the American cultural values of the era in which he thrived. While he spent much of his career in the incredible shadow of Babe Ruth, eventually Lou Gehrig would emerge from his Ruthian shadow and personify the values of the 1930’s. Amidst a world of uncertainty caused by the threat of war and a continuing economic depression, Lou Gehrig stood as a testimony of certainty- playing in 2,130 games until Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) put a sudden and tragic end to his playing days. His rise from a modest upbringing coupled with his moral fiber and adherence to copybook maxims would serve both as a rags-to-riches story and a testimony to what hard work and personal strength could accomplish. Through his determination, diligence, strength, and moral fiber, Gehrig became an American hero.

During the 1920s, the brilliance of Gehrig’s game – and anyone else’s game for that matter- was overshadowed by Ruth’s booming drives and personality. Describing Ruth, baseball historian Donald Honig wrote, “He was a one-man circus, born and molded to entertain, dominate, captivate, and altogether flourish in the imagination…Everything about Ruth was big, big, big, from the statistics to the personality to the impact. He was Moby Dick in a goldfish bowl.”[1] In the 1920s, the United States emerged from World War I as a word power, a forced to be reckoned with. The decade, which would go on to be known as “the Roaring Twenties,” was one where the United States experienced vast economic growth. The stock market soared as people rushed to buy stock on credit, the automobile was mass produced, and radio production went through the roof as the medium flourished. Fresh off of the labor unrest and progressive movements of the early twentieth century, wages were higher than ever before, and hours were lower than ever before. There was more money to be spent for the average consumer, and the working and middle classes had a lot of time on their hands. Coupled with an escapism fueled by the bitterness of the scientific killing of World War I and the glorification of science, the increase in both free time and money to spend lead to a growth in both consumption and a mass culture, and no one epitomized this more than Babe Ruth. The people of America craved as much as they could get and Babe Ruth was the poster child for excess. “To whatever engaged him he was the mightiest: hitter, pitcher, womanizer, drinker, eater.”[2] Writing on him in 1921, F.C. Lane wrote, “Babe Ruth excels all competition by a margin so wide that there is simply no comparison.”[3] Continue reading →

06.20.13

by Erik Randall

The Rise of Baseball as an Expression of Cultural Values Part Two: Baseball’s Post Civil War Boom to FDR’s “Green Light” Letter

The Hall of Fame Plaque of Henry Chadwick, baseball’s iconic promoter and first beat writer who was instrumental in creating the statistics and record keeping still used in today’s game. (Source: http://baseballhall.org/hof/chadwick-henry).

While the NABBP suffered in organization and attendance during the Civil War, the end of hostilities resulted in baseball being more popular than ever. Many veterans, most notably Hall of Fame Member and first National League President Morgan G. Bulkeley, would advance the promotion and organization of both professional leagues and interest in baseball in the decades following the Civil War. Notable clubs continued barnstorming tours throughout the United States. On September 6, 1867, the Walla Walla Statesman advertised a game between a local club and the Brooklyn Excelsiors. “”The Excelsiors having challenged the Walla Wallas to play a match game of baseball, the challenge has been accepted and the game will come off at the ball grounds to-morrow …Clubs will bring out their crack players, and hence an interesting game may be expected.”[1] More than 259 miles away, the Vancouver register noted “Base ball mania” had reached its African American townspeople who were buying equipment at a local town stores.[2] Traveling clubs from the north east as well as soldiers returning to the west and south spread the popularity of baseball beyond its pre-Civil War market. This spread helped reduce the class and race barriers that existed in the early years of baseball, thereby allowing a wide variety of Americans to enjoy the game. At Vassar College, women formed baseball clubs, encouraging other colleges to follow suit with women’s teams. In 1867, the Dolly Vardens of Philadelphia were formed with a membership consisting entirely of African American women.

With the return of peace the popularity of baseball soared. The Arizona Weekly Miner reported games being played by mining teams throughout the state on immigrant heavy baseball teams. In 1868, historian Jules Tygiel estimates 200,000 baseball enthusiasts had attended a baseball game.[3] Books such as Beadle’s Dime Base-Ball Player and children’s fiction Changing Base were popular. Americans were following, discussing, and reading about baseball like never before. Commenting on the era, the Chicago Tribune would call the post civil war era “the arrival of the age of baseball,” a sentiment which was shared by publications throughout America.[4]
Continue reading →

06.19.13

by Erik Randall

The Rise of Baseball as an Expression of National Values Part One: the Colonial Period Through the Civil War

June 19, 2013 is the 167th anniversary of the first organized and recorded baseball game (1846) as well as Lou Gehrig’s 110th birthday. Over the next few days, I will be publishing posts that analyze the importance of Baseball and Lou Gehrig in particular on American Culture. This is Part One.

“Baseball Match at the Elysian Fields, Hoboken.” Harper’s Weekly, October 15, 1859. (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/british/brit-7.html)

In 1845, a group of middle class New Yorkers known as the Knickerbockers began organizing and standardizing the rules to a sport that would become baseball. Shortly thereafter, amateur baseball clubs and organization sprang up around the greater New York area. The outbreak of the Civil War and troop movements furthered the spread of the game, and by the 1870s professional teams and organizations were promoting baseball as a spectator sport.

As baseball spread in popularity, the game itself became a representation of American values. Promoters of the sport hailed it as a democratic institution[1] where players act “like a gentleman on all occasions” never taking “an ungenerous advantage of his opponents.”[2] Baseball’s sensibility and reputation was opined by enthusiasts as uniquely American, and immigrants soon adopted the game through acculturation. Its impact was felt across both class and racial lines (although leagues segregated very early on to reflect the sensibilities of society) as the sport spread through the stadiums and sandlots of America.

In times of both calm and crisis the American public has turned to baseball for entertainment. Its star players have become household names, and baseball’s imagery and language has become part of our national culture. American biographer Gerald Early once remarked, “I enjoy the game… principally because it makes me feel American. And I think there are only three things that America will be known for 2,000 yeas from now… the Constitution, jazz music, and baseball.”[3] While baseball’s rules and scope have changed over the years, its cultural impact has remanded a constant.

Long before baseball became an organized sport in the 19^th century, ball and bat games were played throughout the American Colonies. As early as 1773, Southern African Americans began playing ball games on Sundays, although participation in such games could lead to punishment.[4] More commonly played in the North however, these games, referred to as “trap,” “townball,” or “base,” were largely informal with rules that varied depending on where they were played. Teams usually played on a square field and all batted balls were considered in play (even balls that went backward). The English game of Cricket was also frequently played in the United States throughout the Nineteenth Century. While baseball has many similarities to cricket, early baseball has much more in common with the aforementioned games. However, many of the skills transferred between both games, and often skilled players could excel at both. Historical drawings and accounts show these games continued throughout the 18^th and 19^th Centuries.
Continue reading →

06.15.13

by Erik Randall

Tweaking Soliders: the Nazis and Methamphetamine

As leader of the Third Reich, it is commonly known Adolf Hilter advocated for Lebensreform (life reform). Chief among this belief was that members of the Aryan Race should abstain from drug and alcohol use in order to create a pure and strong race. However, at the same time Lebensreform was being advocated by Hilter and party officials like Heinrich Himmler, Nazi military men were nonetheless being fed the methamphetamine Pervitin in massive quantities during World War II.

Referred to as “pilot’s salt” or “tank chocolate” by members of the Wehrmacht (German armed forces), Pervitin was seen as a wonder drug by officials who freely distributed it to military men.[1] The drug increased German soldiers’ alertness and endurance, and gave them confidence and euphoric feelings No member of the Wehrmacht was immune from the drugs effects: pilots, infantrymen, and civil defense soldiers, were consuming large quantities of methamphetamine by order of the Nazi high command.

The use of amphetamine was not uncommon throughout industrialized countries during the 1930s and 40s. Indeed, Dexedrine and other amphetamines would be given to allied pilots during the War to maintain alertness. However, in the 1938, German paramedical company Temmler Werke began working on Pervitin, a new drug that was structurally different then previous “pep” pills on the market. The Academy of Military Medicine in Berlin, decided to study methamphetamine to determine if it could be beneficial in combat situations. In tests, the academy noticed that subjects dosed with Pervitin were able to perform better in mathematical and memory tests in a controlled environment. As a result, 3 mg tablets of Pervitin were included in medical supplies for German military units during the invasion of Poland in 1939.[2]
Continue reading →

06.08.13

by Erik Randall

Defining Freedom of Expression and the Supreme Court (Part Three): Nixon, Obsenity, Adult Content, the Internet, and My Conclusions

This is part three of an examination of the limits of freedom of expression established by key Supreme Court decisions. Please read the first part here and the second part here.

Richard Nixon, who tried (in vain) to prevent the publishing of the Pentagon Papers by the New York Times.

Seven years after the Sullivan case, the New York Times found itself in another landmark case related to freedom of the press. In 1971, the New York Times received classified intelligence that detailed American involvement and decision making in Vietnam from 1945-1967. On June 13^th of the same year, the New York Times published selections of the document in their Sunday edition. Days later, the New York Times received a district court order to stop further publishing of the Pentagon Papers (similar requests were also made to the Washington Post, who also began publishing articles related to the papers). The Nixon Administration felt that publishing the papers would interfere with national security interests. Despite the fact that many justices felt it would be against the nation’s best interest to allow publishing the papers, they ruled 6-3 in favor of the New York Times, allowing them to continue to publish the Pentagon Papers.[1] While the justices felt the articles could be damaging, they followed the precedent regarding prior restraint set in the Near case. In writing his concurring opinion, Justice Potter stated that prior restraint of publications should be used only when it will “result in direct, immediate, and irreparable damage to our Nation or its people.”[2] Since there was no proof that anything of that nature would result, freedom of the press as guaranteed by the First Amendment trumped the Administration’s security concerns.

The Supreme Court has had several cases that have had to deal with obscenity and pornography. While the court has been careful to not permit outright censorship, it has placed limits on the distribution of materials that have been deemed obscene. The courts first case involving pornography was Roth v. United States (1957). The previous year, Samuel Roth was accused of mailing out obscene images as advertising for his book store. While he was found guilty of a federal obscenity statue, Roth appealed his decision believing that it was a violation of his freedom of expression. When his case was appealed to the Supreme Court, its ruling was combined with Alberts v. California (1957), a case where a book seller was arrested for selling obscene books. The court ruled 6-3 in favor of the United States and California in both decisions. In the majority opinion, Justice Brennan wrote that it was the opinion of the court that pornographic images and obscene material were not protected by either the freedom of speech nor press. Reiterating that the First Amendment had limitations, he stated lewd material is utterly without redeeming social importance” and wrote the definition of obscenity as “whether to the average person applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material is taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest.”[3] Therefore, the decision of what was made obscene was declared as something that most people would find objectionable. Sixteen years later, the U.S. Supreme Court would modify the definition of obscenity, but they would still keep the “contemporary community standards’ test to define what is or is not protected speech.
Continue reading →

06.06.13

by Erik Randall

Defining Freedom of Expression and the Supreme Court (Part Two): Fighting Words, Libel, Hustler Magazine, Public Schools and Symbolic Speech

Jerry Falwell, who unsuccessfully attempted to sue Hustler Magazine in 1988, establishing that parody is protected speech.

This is part two of an examination of the limits of freedom of expression established by key Supreme Court decisions. Please read the first part here.

Over two decades after the Schenk decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a case relating to “fighting words” – words spoken at close range in intent to provoke physical action. In November 1941, a man by the name of Walter Chaplinsky was arrested for calling a Rochester, New Hampshire police officer a “damned fascist” and a racketeer on a public street in close proximity to the officer.[1] While he was fined and not imprisoned, Chaplinsky appealed the ruling on the grounds that his rights to freedom of speech were violated. In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942) the Supreme Court reached a unanimous decision upholding the New Hampshire law. The Supreme Court established a precedent that speech, “likely to provoke the average person to retaliation, and thereby cause a breach of peace”[2] is not constitutionally protected. While freedom of speech is hallmark to any democracy, the Supreme Court has determined that fighting words do not need to be constitutionally protected because they can potentially bring disorder to society.

In the turbulent 1960s, several important cases involving the freedom of expression were appealed and argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. In New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), an elected police commissioner sued the New York Times for an advertisement in their paper that was critical of police in Montgomery, Alabama. The advertisement made a series of statements about police treatment of civil rights leaders, some of which were not factual. Despite the fact that he was never mentioned by name, L.B. Sullivan felt the article libeled him because to be critical of the police was to, in turn, be critical of the commissioner. A case without precedent, Sullivan’s lawsuit against the New York Times traveled all the way to the Supreme Court.

Sullivan’s lawsuit was symbolic of something much greater at the time. “Many Southerners bitterly resented northern efforts to promote civil rights of African American in the South. To many in Alabama, the New York Times symbolized all that they disliked.”[3] Rather than have the case tried in New York (as that is where the New York Times was based), Sullivan had the case tried in the Alabama Supreme Court. Sullivan was awarded a sum of a half million dollars based on Alabama’s libel law. Disagreeing with the ruling, the New York Times appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court – an unprecedented action at that time because state law had always handled libel cases.[4]

Unlike the Alabama State Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in the New York Time’s favor. In the eyes of the justices, the factual errors that were made in the advertisement were of “mere negligence and not actual malice.”[5] Their ruling set two precedents. First, the Supreme Court set a precedent that in order to be guilty of libeling public figures, there had to be a deliberate attempt to publish falsehoods or show a “reckless” disregard for the truth. Second, overturning the Alabama Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court Justices applied the First and Fourteenth Amendments (capitalize?) to determine that states cannot award damages to a public official without proving “actual malice.”
Continue reading →

06.05.13

by Erik Randall

Defining Freedom of Expression and the Supreme Court (Part One): Introduction and Early Cases

In recent weeks, the Obama Administration has been taking heat for perceived abuses of the First Amendment after seizing the telephone records of members of the Associated Press and statements which seem to favor increased electronic surveillance. Recently, David Sirota detailed many perceived first amendment violations in regards to freedom of the press and likened Obama to Richard Nixon. While we have seen such criticisms lobbed frequently during the Obama and Bush Administration, it is the Supreme Court (through the process of judicial review) that usually determines if such violations have taken place. The Supreme Court has a long history in defining the parameters and limitations of Freedom of Expression. Over the next few days, I hope to detail them as well as provide some thoughts about Freedom of Expression and the digital frontier. I hope you enjoy! Thanks!

The exchange of ideas and freedom of expression are an essential part of American Democracy. The First Amendment to the Constitution (approved in 1791 along with nine other amendments) protects the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press on American soil. While these rights are well known, they are not absolute. Over time and through court rulings, the Supreme Court of the United States has helped define proper limitations to freedom of expression. According to John R. Vile, speech “Can be so related to action that the First Amendment’s seemingly absolute prohibition on government infringement of the former has been subject to numerous judicial qualifications.”[1] In addition, the function of the press as a watchdog over government transgressions and its correlation to speech has also needed judicial interpretation.

While the courts have certainly aided in the understanding of these freedoms, the rulings are not without controversy. Recent decisions related to cases of flag desecration and freedom on the internet have caused significant concern. Other concerns have been voiced relating to federal encroachment of freedoms correlating to government efforts to promote homeland security and counter terrorist action. The freedoms of both speech and the press have evolved over the years and will continue to evolve as technology and changed circumstances at home and abroad.

In a speech to his Army officers in 1783, George Washington stated, “If freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led to the slaughter.”[2] Eight years before ratification of the First Amendment, Washington demonstrated an understanding of the importance of freedom of speech in the American tradition. While attempts have been made (such as Alien and Sedition Act in 1798 and the shutting down of newspapers critical of Lincoln during the Civil War) to stifle freedom of expression during sensitive times in America’s history, they are usually short lived. The Supreme Court ultimately has always had authority in cases where Constitutional interpretation was needed, but it had not chosen to exercise its rights in regards to the First Amendment during the 19^th Century. During the 20^th Century, however, numerous cases have lead to a better understanding of the constitutional limits on freedoms of speech and press in America.
Continue reading →

05.28.13

by Erik Randall

How Thomas Paine Popularized American Independence

Oil Painting of Thomas Paine by Auguste Milliere (1880)

On January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine anonymously published a pamphlet entitled Common Sense. Identifying himself as “an Englishman,” the recent immigrant to Philadelphia aimed to persuade the common American colonist to believe in the cause of American independence on the account of British tyranny. While the idea of independence was espoused by several members of the Continental Congress and many of the colonial elite, it was Paine who helped spread the idea of independence and colonial unity throughout the American colonies. The historian Robert Ingersoll wrote, “It is but the meager truth to say that Thomas Paine did more for the cause of separation, to sow the seeds of independence, than any other man of his time.”[1]

Thomas Paine was born on January 29, 1737 in the small town of Thetford, County Norfolk,England. The son of a Quaker corset maker, Paine attended grammar school but received his “exceedingly good moral education” from his father, inheriting the belief in “the essential goodness of mankind, as well as a lifelong commitment to public service.”[2] Since Quakers rejected Anglicanism, they were outsiders who were not afforded many of the rights of other citizens. Raised in a Quaker household, Thomas Paine witnessed equalities in the British system that may have shaped his belief in it being a tyrannical government.

As an adult working in London, Paine would meet Benjamin Franklin through his interest in Whig politics. In January 1775, Thomas Paine would arrive in the United States without “money, reputation, or prospects” and with nothing more than letters of recommendation from Benjamin Franklin.[3] Despite only modest writing experience, Paine would shortly become the primary contributor to Pennsylvania Magazine, a magazine which would grow in readership with Paine’s pen. Paine would often write about radical ideas of the time period – the idea of women’s rights or the abolition of slavery. However, “he saved his sharpest quills for the subject increasingly close to his heart – the fundamental corruption, venality, and tyranny of the English system of government.”[4]
Continue reading →