He was not what today we would call a charismatic leader; for strength of personality, it is his wife) Dolley, who comes to mind. He was only five feet, six inches tall and in his early years was often in poor health. He lacked the majestic presence and martial prowess of George Washington. His prose, while copious and competent, had none of the bite of Thomas Paine's pam- phlets or the elegance of Thomas Jefferson's letters. In an age when public speaking was a prized political asset, his voice...
Benjamin Disraeli or Mark Twain is still disputed), the industrializing nations were just beginning to become addicted to statistics-figures on popula- tion, the economy, and other matters of concern to the state. As scholars note, even accurate numbers can obfuscate as well as illu- minate. "I still think that a familiarity with the best that has been thought and said men of letters," critic Joseph Wood Krutch wrote in 1963, "is more helpful than all the sociologists' statistics."...
began when early civilizations learned to count their populations. The Romans, who for a time held a census every 5% years on aver- age, revered numbers. This marble frieze of about 100B.C. shows a gathering for a post-count Ceremony of the Census, which included the sacrifice of animals to the gods.
The Wilson Quarterly/Summer 1985
92
Statistics
"Lies, damn lies, and statistics." During the 19th century, when that denunciation was first uttered (whether by Benjamin Disraeli or M...
TISTICS
WHO'S WHAT:
I
DEFINING 'AMERICANS'
Even two centuries ago, this was no easy task. Though largely of English stock, the people of the young country lacked the characteristics of a "nation." They had a varied ancestry and spoke different languages. Many had come to the New World to practice freely their own religions. In Letters from an American Farmer (1782)) J. H. S. de Crevecoeur, an immigrant to New York State from France, wryly observed that an American is "a Europ...
public agencies and private institutions
"CETA: Politics and Policy, 1973-1982."
University of Tennessee Press, 293 Communications Bldg., Knoxville, Term.
37996.272 pp. $24.95.
Authors: Grace A. Franklin and Randall B. Ripley
Few federal programs have been more controversial than the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA). Charges of local waste, mud- die, and fraud plagued the program al- most from its inception in 1973.
Franklin and Ripley, Ohio State University political s...
A few things remain constant in every major national and interna- America-death, taxes, baseball, tional health group-including the and since 1950, widespread, often American Medical Association, the successful efforts by a passionate mi- American Dental Association, the nority to keep fluoride out of the U.S. Public Health Service, and the public drinking water. World Health Organization-and
Why has there been such recurring campaigned to keep fluoride out of popular resistance to a simple the...
Nature placed Ireland exactly the wrong distance from Great Britain.
Had the island been somewhat closer to its larger sister, the Irish people might well have become more fully assimilated into the British family, much as the Scots and Welsh have been. Had Ireland been placed farther out in the Atlantic, it might have been allowed to develop in relative peace, as Iceland was, with- out the incessant interference of a powerful neighbor.
As it happened, Ireland was just close enough to keep Lon-...
Sidney W. Mintz, one of 11 pamphlets in the Focus Caribbean series, published the Wilson Center's Latin American Program.
Beyond the beaches and modern hotels that beckon American tourists to the 15 island-nations and 17 depen- dent territories of the Caribbean lie endangered rural peasant societies.
On their reinvigoration, says Mintz, a Johns Hopkins anthropologist, may depend the political health of the is- lands themselves.
In an unusual way, the Caribbean's peasants are products of European...
Army, Navy, and Air Force, together with their spouses, could sit comfortably inside Dublin's 50,000-seat Croke Park, where the national hurling and Gaelic football matches are played every autumn. There are more sheep in Ireland than peo- ple, and twice as many cows, and both enjoy the right of way on rural Irish roads. Life in Ireland is played on a very small stage-one reason, perhaps, why Irish newspapers feature no gossip columns, and why journalists have no tradition of inves- tigative reporting....