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French Canadians – Good Americans

FRENCH CANADIANS – GOOD AMERICANS – (PIP #44)

By Raoul H. Beaudreau

     L’Etoile published in French from 1886 to 1957 with English popping up occasionally, in advertisements for example. The following reader’s letter appeared in English and was later reprinted all over New England. Here is the original, with its 100-year-old wording.

– Louise Peloquin

L’Etoile, September 9, 1924

FRENCH CANADIANS – GOOD AMERICANS

      To the Editor of the Herald

      In your issue of Friday Aug. 8 there appeared an article entitled “French Canadians in New England,” reprinted from the Montreal Star. In view of the fact that you printed this article, which is none too complimentary to the Americans of French extraction, I assume that in the same spirit of fairness you always displayed, you will extend to me the courtesy of a reply. Were it not for the fact that the writer of that article states that the official report of the Massachusetts bureau of labor statistics remarks pleasantly, “With some exception the Canadian French are the Chinese of the eastern States,” (1) I would not attempt to dignify that article with a reply, but I am extremely reluctant to allow such an insult to be hurled at the Americans of French descent in New England without a protest.

     This race, of which I am proud to say that I am a descendant, needs no encomium from me. Its history and traditions speak for themselves. Beginning in 1850, when our forefathers began to cross the border and settle in New England up to the present day, I challenge one single example of lack of patriotism, industry, thrift and devotion to American ideals on their part, or on the part of their descendants.

     When President Lincoln issued the call to arms in ’61, there were but few of them there but history records that they answered the call. When President McKinley issued the call in ’98, they did likewise; when President Wilson issued the call in 1917, the enthusiasm displayed by the American boys of French descent in New England was surpassed by no other nationality, and the first boy to lay down his life as a member of the Yankee division was a young man by the name of Moussette, from Quincy. During this span of years, our forefathers have labored in the industrial centres of New England, they have been thrifty, they have helped to build their own communities, and while it is true that they have endeavored to retain their traditions, such as the preservation of the French language and their religion, in respect, they did not differ from other nationalities migrating to our shores. Their loyalty and devotion to the American flag has never been surrendered. Scan the records of your criminal courts and show me a nationality having less criminals in its ranks! How many of them desert their families and then are a burden on the community? How many examples were there of refusal to serve the colors of the country in time of war? How many sacrificed their lives in the field of France? The answer to these questions is the refutation to this ignominious article entitled “Fifty-Fifty Americans.”

     Now what is the explanation of the remark, alleged to be inserted in the official report of the bureau of labor and statistics which says, “That the French-Canadians are the Chinese of the eastern states?” Do these people violate our immigration laws? Is their labor in the industrial centres of our commonwealth below par with other nationalities? Are they trouble makers? Do they work less for less wages than other people! Wherein do they resemble the Chinese? Is this not the venom of a bigoted mind bringing its stupidity to light?

     We Americans of French descent in this commonwealth will resent that insult – if it is inserted in the records of this state. We owe it to the memories of our forefathers and of those boys who made the supreme sacrifice. I call for a retraction of this insult, if such a remark has been made, and if no satisfactory explanation and retraction is made, I shall call upon the Governor of this commonwealth, who has always proven himself a liberal, to cause that insult to be expunged from the records of this commonwealth.

Raoul H. Beaudreau.

Boston, Aug. 26.

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1. Click on the link below – “The Chinese of the eastern states,” communication given in Boston on November 19, 1924 at a Société Historique Franco-Américaine convention by Arthur J. Favreau and published in 1925 by L’Avenir National Publishing Company of Manchester, N.H.

The publication contains Favreau’s communication and other protests against the epithet “Chinese of the east” first bestowed upon the French Canadians in the “Twelfth annual report of the Massachusetts Bureau of statistics and labor” published in 1881.

https://archive.org/details/chineseofeastern00favr

Two books of non-fiction for different audiences by Marjorie Arons Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog.

The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict with Itself by senior BBC correspondent Nick Bryant is a frigid splash of icy water on the notion of American exceptionalism. It may help us to understand Donald Trump’s enduring, if frightening appeal to a large swathe of Americans voters.

Australian journalist Bryant spent more than a decade living in Washington, covering D.C., New York and the wider geography of United States political history.  Do you think that Donald Trump is a new phenomenon, emerging out of nowhere (or from down the golden escalator) in 2016, creating a host of troublesome problems, including savage internecine divisions in the body politic?  Think again. In identifying the problems we face today, Bryant goes back thematically to the founding of our country, its endemic problems many enshrined in our Constitution and never solved.

As writer William Faulkner wrote nearly 75 years ago, “the past is never dead, it is not even past.”  Bryant documents the fragility of our democracy from its inception, reminding us of Thomas Jefferson’s and Alexander Hamilton’s distrust of democracy.  Bryant’s succinct history reminds us of the many examples of the nation’s resort to violence, the racism written into our Constitution, longstanding culture wars and divisions between urban and rural groups,  the love of guns and moving them out of the hands of the militia to become household items, raging xenophobia despite the centrality of immigrants in building our nation, our intolerance, incivility and periodic intoxication with authoritarian types.

In criticizing MAGA ways and memes, President Biden has always said, “That’s not who we are.” Think again. Far more truthful to say, perhaps, that’s not who we aspire to be.

The author certainly gives the lie to the vision embodied in Make America Great Again. Bryant does write about America’s strengths, but his purpose in doing so is not to reinforce our mythology or make us feel better. It is, I think, to be clear-eyed in recognize the challenge of amending centuries-long problems and to remind us that, to respond to our better angels, to heal our fractious federal system, will require very hard work.

In Consent,  author Jill Ciment gets a redo of the memoir she wrote about her April/September relationship with her art history professor, Arnold Mesches.  The relationship started when the two slept together. She was barely 17 years old; he was 47, married with two children. Her first memoir , Half a Life, written in 1996,  was also about their scandalous relationship. Although their hooking up was in the newly sexually liberated  1970’s, she was underage, and he was guilty of statutory rape even though she had lusted after him before their sexual relationship.  Jill was the daughter of an equally wild single mother (roughly the same age as the art professor) and a mentally disturbed father, who had abandoned his wife and daughter.  Was she just looking for a father figure?  It’s a valid question.  That first memoir ends with the beginning of that ill-considered relationship, a time when Jill’s mother called Mesches a perv, and the couple was relegated to sneaking around.

Ciment revisits the relationship in Consent, in which we learn that Mesches eventually left his wife and kids and that he and Ciment actually got married.  That marriage actually lasted for decades, until he died at the age of 90. She was 60. They supported each other in their careers. Mesches became established as a painter. Ciment abandoned her early aspirations to become an avant-garde artist herself and instead became a published author.

Though always aware of the gap between their ages, their relationship matured into a tender, caring and long-term marriage.  Mesches and Jill’s mother became confidantes (she died several years before he did). In the updated memoir, Ciment now acknowledges the implications of the disproportionate power relationship she and Arnold had when she was so much younger. Consent is a thoughtful reflection on what gives a marriage staying power, and how what started out as an illicit hot sexual relationship matures into a deep, caring, mutually respectful one,  a tender and enduring bond. This book is a thoughtfully written second take on one person’s experience. It raises many questions about how we rationalize our youthful behavior, the decisions we make as we mature, and the uncertain way in which relationships can evolve. A very provocative read.

Lowell Politics: October 20, 2024

Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting was largely uneventful, which is often the case these days. “Uneventful” is not necessarily a bad thing for a city council meeting to be. Functioning properly, the city council is supposed to develop a strategic vision for the city, communicate that vision to the city manager, and then assess whether the city manager is effectively implementing that vision. That means giving the city manager time and space to manage.

But that’s not how it works in Lowell. Instead, this council is all about micromanaging through an endless stream of detailed motions that have the city manager and the city’s managers on a hamster wheel cycle of responding to council motions with little time left for tackling the bigger picture.

If you asked this council whether park benches should be painted green or brown, you’ll get 30 minutes of passionate debate and (self-proclaimed) expert testimony. But put a half dozen critical finance-related votes on the agenda and they’ll be speedily bundled together and voted on without comment. This inverse relationship between the strategic importance of the issue and the time spent on it will eventually become a big problem.

I suspect that the free-spending ways of this council are being carried by the enormous amount of Covid era ARPA funding the city received. While the Covid pandemic seems like it happened long ago, much of the money intended to help recover from that is still available and is still easing the strain on city finances. But the Covid money won’t last forever. Without a detailed plan of how to taper the spending that’s relied on that bonus money, the city will suddenly face major cuts that will be painful to endure. That crisis will be exacerbated by the school department, which has also been heavily subsidized by Covid funds, and which has consistently shown a lack of fiscal nimbleness when it comes to budgetary matters.

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As for the things the council did talk about, perhaps most important was a response to a Councilor Kim Scott motion asking about the cost of the April 2023 cyber-attack on city computers and what remedial measures have been taken to keep it from happening again.

According to Chief Information Officer Miran Fernandez, the total cost to the city of that attack has been $4.25 million. As for what new defenses have been emplaced, the memo sidestepped that issue, understandably, because publicly advertising the city’s cyber defenses would just make the job of the next cybercriminal that much easier.

But that does not mean the council should not dig into this. If it’s a sensitive topic, discuss it in executive session. Presumably the city’s cyber security is in a better posture now than it was 18 months ago, but other than an occasional memo like this one, how can the council be sure? Other than Scott, who was the only one who spoke on this motion, no one seemed to care much which is astounding given the high price tag from the cyber-attack.

Beyond that, greater cybersecurity, while a necessity, has a price that transcends any dollar amount. Tighter security has a way of tamping down initiative and experimentation which causes the use of technology in an organization to become stagnant. That in turn makes the organization less efficient. With the cost of government soaring, the only way to meet the expectations of taxpayers is to do more with less and greater reliance on tech is the best way to achieve that. But if the question of how much tech to use is left solely to the cybersecurity people, not much will get done since new things present new vulnerabilities. That’s why a successful organization needs constant friction between those pushing to do more with tech and those seeking to keep it as secure as possible. That doesn’t seem to be happening in Lowell.

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It wouldn’t be a Lowell City Council meeting without at least one motion on homelessness. This week we had one plus a motion response and a proposed ordinance.

The new motion was by Councilor Paul Ratha Yem who asked the city manager to look for an alternate site for the Lowell Transitional Living Center. Councilor Yem explained that he filed the motion on behalf of people who own businesses in the area. While the council seems unanimous that it would be best if the shelter went elsewhere, there was equal recognition that’s not likely to happen.

The motion response was to a past motion by Councilor Erik Gitschier about prohibiting camping on public space within 1000 feet of a school, and the proposed ordinance would prohibit camping in public spaces in most circumstances.

The ordinance is drafted to meet the requirements set out in the recent US Supreme Court decision in the City of Grants Pass v. Johnson case which held that arresting a homeless person for sleeping overnight on public property when shelter space was available did not violate the US Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The Lowell ordinance will apply to “all campsites and camping on public property, including, but not limited to streets, sidewalks, and public rights-of-way.” This prohibition shall not apply when a public shelter is unavailable.

As for the consequences of violating this rule, the ordinance states, “Individuals in violation of this Ordinance who refuse to remove or allow for the removal of Campsite or Camp material as described in Section E, or who reestablish a Campsite following removal pursuant to Section E, shall be subject to penalties.”

Except there are no penalties. There is no fine to be imposed for a violation, likely because it would be laughable to impose a fine on someone who circumstances require to sleep outside. Also, there is no possibility of incarceration because the city does not have the legal authority to make incarceration a penalty for violating a city ordinance.

However, by incorporating several state statutes, most notably, General Laws chapter 40, sections 21 and 21D; and chapter 272, section 59, the ordinance does permit the police to arrest an induvial who is in violation of the ordinance. A person so arrested would be brought to the police station and held until the next sitting of the Lowell District Court, likely the next morning. The person would then be brought to the court and then immediately released. They will then go to the police station to reclaim what is left of their belongings, and then look for some place to sleep that night.

Such an arrest would also provide Constitutional justification for the police to search the person and their belongings, so maybe illegal drugs or a weapon would be found which might bring more substantive charges, but even that is unlikely to keep the person off the street for more than a few hours.

Although this ordinance was scheduled to be voted on Tuesday night, it wasn’t tough enough for councilors so they sent it back to the City Solicitor to redraft it to eliminate the police may arrest “only when there is space in a shelter” language for spaces within 1000 feet of a school.

The redrafted ordinance will be back before the council this coming Tuesday.

While I’m cognizant of the need to get homeless encampments and the health and safety issues that accompany them away from schools in particular but also from public parks, this ordinance won’t be much help.

That seems to be the message from the Lowell Police Department. Saturday’s Lowell Sun reported on a press release issued Friday by the Police Department. Here’s the headline in the Sun: “Cracking down on South Common: LPD surpasses 200 arrests, responds to over 600 incidents since June.” Granted, I’m reading between the lines here, but I see this as a subtle message from the police department that over the past five months they’ve made an abundant number of arrests without improving the situation, so having councilors enact a feel good ordinance that will result in even more arrests won’t make any difference and, if anything, will divert resources from more effectively addressing the problem.

Finally, while the US Supreme Court may have said it’s Constitutional to arrest homeless people for outdoor camping, that only applies to the US Constitution. The Massachusetts Declaration of Rights (i.e., the state constitution) as interpreted by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, might come to a very different conclusion. Arrests under this ordinance will undoubtedly be challenged as violating the State Constitution and will likely result in a costly (to the city) legal challenge.

As for what to do about homelessness in Lowell, Mayor Dan Rourke spoke for many of us when, during this overall discussion on Tuesday night, he frustratingly uttered that the council should forego further motions on homelessness to give the city manager time to deal with the issue.

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I’m a big advocate of voting by mail so I’ve already received, cast, and returned my ballot for the November 5, 2024, election. If you vote by that method, check out the Secretary of State’s “Track My Ballot” app which allows you to check the status of your ballot.

If you want to vote in person but don’t want to wait until election day, the state’s Early Voting period began yesterday. Each day until Friday, November 1, 2024, Lowell voters may cast their ballots at City Hall in the Mayor’s Reception Room. The times each day vary, so check out the online schedule to see when it is available.

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I recently stumbled upon a headline about a new exhibition in New York City featuring the art of the movie actor Johnny Depp. Titled “A Bunch of Stuff,” the exhibit features paintings, collages, scraps of paper, and other “stuff” from the artist. (The reviewer hinted that the exhibit, while credible, has more to do with Depp’s stature as an actor and his related wealth, than it does with his talent as an artist.)

Why do I mention this? Because, like everything else in the world, there is a Lowell connection.

Just last Saturday as part of the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Festival, I attended a reading at the Pollard Memorial Library that featured Paul Marion discussing his new book, Portraits Along The Way: 1976-2024. The book compiles biographical sketches written by Paul over the past 50 years. Many of the people depicted are from Lowell; others have some connection to the city.

One person in that latter category, and one who Paul chose to talk about on Saturday, is Johnny Depp. Turns out the star of more than 40 films including Edward Scissorhands and Pirates of the Caribbean is a longtime Kerouac fan. That attraction brought Depp to Lowell in 1991 to acquire a Kerouac memento.

Paul’s story, Johnny Depp: Hollywood is a Small Town, tells how Depp contacted Kerouac’s literary executor and arranged to meet in Lowell to view some of the artifacts left by the late author who died in 1969. Paul, having just edited and published Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings by Kerouac, was invited to attend the Depp meeting.

The story recounts sitting at a dining room table for hours as the actor reviewed photos, letters, and documents. That was followed by dinner out at La Boniche, a French bistro which was then on Central Street near Appleton in a space that once housed one of Kerouac’s favorite Lowell taverns.

The evening ended with the Lowell contingent dropping Depp at his chauffeured limousine and watching the actor depart with his Kerouac artifact, an old raincoat once worn by the author. A balled-up tissue lingering in the pocket likely increased the purchase price.

Portraits Along The Way is available locally at lala books at 189 Market Street, and online from Loom Press.

Did Poe Transform History?

Did Poe Transform History?

By David Daniel

Among the themes that recur in the work of Edgar Allan Poe —madness, the death of a beautiful woman, the doppelgänger, the idea of the perverse—one of most insistent is revenge. Noodling on the Internet recently, thinking ahead to the upcoming Poe in Lowell events, which will feature two of Poe’s most powerful tales of vengeance, “The Black Cat” and “The Cask of Amontillado,” I came across an intriguing post on the site Quintus Curtius: Fortress of the Mind (links below).

Using Boston history and details that regional author and historian Edward Rowe Snow (1902-1982) liked to weave into his tales, the post offers a tantalizing possible genesis for “Cask.” Its author, Quintus Curtius (George Thomas) has kindly granted permission to reprint the text:

“Most readers will be familiar with Edgar Allan Poe’s macabre tale ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’  It is a dark tale of revenge, in which one man deliberately intoxicates a hated enemy and then walls him up alive in a crypt.  Like most writers, Poe took his inspiration from his life experiences, and then mixed those with the creative power of his imagination.  Was ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ based on an actual incident?  The answer appears to be yes, at least in part.

Poe was born in Boston but had spent his early years in Virginia.  As a young man, he had made a reputation for himself as a hell-raiser, and was a source of constant anguish for his father.  He gambled, drank, got into fights, and generally lived a dissolute life.  By 1827 he had racked up large gambling debts, had dropped out of the University of Virginia, and literally had nowhere to go.  So, after giving a false name and age to recruiters (probably to dodge creditors who might try to find him), he joined the army in May of that year under a five-year enlistment.  He was stationed at Fort Independence on Castle Island in Boston Harbor.  Military life actually agreed with Poe, as it often does to young men of ability who are looking for discipline and structure in their lives.

It was while he was at Castle Island that Poe, after reading some of the burial plaques and markers at the fort, learned of a violent episode that had occurred there many years before.  A duel had taken place between two lieutenants, Robert Massie and Gustavus Drane, on the grounds of the fort on Christmas day in 1817.  According to the story, Drane was a bragging, hateful bully who had already killed several men in duels based on trumped-up pretexts.  Drane had focused on Massie as a victim, and had accused him of cheating at cards; based on this false accusation, he ‘demanded immediate satisfaction.’  Massie unfortunately complied, not wanting to look like he was backing down from a fight.  Swords were named as the weapon.

Attempts at last-minute reconciliation failed.  So within the inner walls of the fort, the duel actually took place.  Massie was not able to hold his own against Drane, and was killed.  Massie had been a popular officer and his brethren mourned his loss bitterly; he was buried on the fort’s grounds with military ceremony, and a marker was erected to his memory.  According to legend, Drane vanished soon after this and was never seen again; his fellow officers had supposedly abducted him and walled him up alive in the fort.

But is this story true?  No, not entirely.  Gustavus Drane did not die in 1817:  he was promoted to captain and later died in 1846.  Massie’s grave was moved several times in the many decades following his death. For many years the Massie-Drane duel on Castle Island was considered just another tall tale of Boston Harbor that may have had some grains of truth, but had been wildly exaggerated by the unfortunate credulity of the locals.

But a new twist to the old tale came to light in 1905, eighty-five years after the duel had taken place.  When Boston workmen were repairing parts of the old fort, they came across a section of the old cellar that their original diagrams showed was a small dungeon, but in reality was entirely walled off.  The blueprints of the fort simply did not match what actually existed.  Why had the dungeon been sealed up?  No one seemed to know.  The workers secured permission to explore the area further, and the wall was broken down.  It was thick with layers of brick and mortar.  Shining a light within the dank and fetid recess, the workmen made a strange discovery.  Within was a skeleton shackled to the floor of the dungeon, with ragged scraps of an ancient US army uniform still draped over its bones.

Who this was, no one could tell.  But if it was not Drane, then who was it?  Some speculated that it may have been a convict or prisoner, since the fort had once been used as a prison.  But if so, why had the person been chained to the floor and left there?  Why had not the body been removed?  And why would the dungeon cavity have been sealed up so completely?  The more one thought about it, the more it seemed that only one conclusion could be possible:  the occupant had been deliberately left there to die, with all evidence of his existence obliterated by sealing up the tomb.  There must have been some truth to the old stories Poe had been told, after all.  But after all this time, it is unlikely we will ever learn the details of how this sinister murder took place.

The skeleton was buried in the Castle Island cemetery in an unmarked grave.”

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Kind thanks to Quintus Curtius (George Thomas) for permission to reprint. Herewith a link to the original story, which includes illustrations:

https://qcurtius.com/2017/06/30/edgar-allan-poes-sinister-inspiration-for-the-cask-of-amontillado/

Here’s a link to the Edward Rowe Snow Wikipedia page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Rowe_Snow

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David Daniel will be one of the readers at the Poe in Lowell Short Story Brunch, this Sunday 11 – 1 at Lala Books.