May 24, 2005

• History Time:  Salem and Linkin’
  

  After all those silly entries, time for something a little more serious.  Lots of links.

  To paraphrase one traveler’s kind words (http://www.roadtripusa.com/us_50/illinois.html); Salem, Illinois is not just a plain, dull town…It’s a plain, dull town with a fascinating HISTORY!  One claim to fame is that it was the birthplace of William Jennings Bryan (http://www.thejprgroup.com/toursalem/virtualtour/wjb.htm
  Bryan ran unsuccessfully three times for U.S. president, served briefly
  on Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet, and was widely known as a great orator. 
  But now he is chiefly known as that zany fundamentalist lawyer opposite Clarence
  Darrow in the famous Scopes Monkey Trial, popularized by the
  exceedingly goofy, historically inaccurate “Inherit the Wind” movie (see http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/scopes.html or for more detail:  http://www.gennet.org/facts/scopes.html).  Of course Bryan was far from perfect, but the movie’s portrayal of him comes close to slander.

  The statue of this famous
  statesman and orator, built by Mt. Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum,
  stands along north Broadway (highway 37).  It recently underwent a
  renovation by folks from the Borglum Historical Center, who also took a
  casting to make a replica for their museum.  Here’s a
  photo taken during the process:
  
  The statue was originally in Washington, D.C.  There’s a tale
  that decades ago a colorful character/pillar of the Salem community named Charlie McMackin
  found it there somewhere off to
  the side and fallen over.  In the middle of the night, he and a
  buddy loaded it on their truck and under cover of darkness smuggled it
  away to Salem, where it
  now stands.  The guy in charge of restoring the statue said he
  thought it was just given to Salem as an act of
  Congress back in 1961, but that’s not as exciting, so I’m not sure
  who’s telling the truth here. The preceding links give you an idea how
  the statue looked before the restoration (basically it was
  green).  More details about the restoration can be found at http://www.salem-tc.com/news/2005/0513/Front_Page/001.html   

  Here’s the AFTER picture:

  
  

  Pretty snazzy, huh?  And now I leave you with a strange but
  interesting fact:  At Dayton, TN, the site of the Scopes
  Trial, there is now a Christian college named after Bryan.

  Also, Mr. Bryan is not scratching his bald head,
  as it may appear from this angle.  He’s actually in the
  midst of a fiery speech, thrusting his hand in the air with his index
  finger extended for emphasis.  There’s a big gap between his finger and his head.

  On second thought…I suppose he could be en route to scratching the bald spot and just hasn’t reached it yet.

  • 4:39 pm
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