A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Kevin: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH'S POTRAYAL...
- Hank Morgan blames the unified Church for many of the problems in medieval society and claims that its teachings are the source of the strict social stratification in the monarchical system of government. While he admits it has some good effects on society, he feels that these few positive impacts could be better accomplished by a variety of Christian sects, which would not have the political power and potential for corruption found in the Catholic Church.
- "The Church" is the evil that prevails over Hank's Americanized Camelot, as the priests plot against him in secret and then push their followers into war against his republic. There's no Arthurian precedent for that plot development, but it does mirror fears about Catholicism that were widely shared in MT's America.
QUOTES...
1.) Hank refers to the church as "that awful power, the Roman Catholic Church. In two or three little centuries it had converted a nation of men to a nation of worms. Before the day of the Church's supremacy in the world, men were men, and held their heads up, and had a man's pride and spirit and independence; and what of greatness and position a person got, he got mainly by achievement, not by birth. But then the Church came to the front, with an axe to grind."
2.) I stood with my hand on the cock, so to speak, ready to turn it on and flood the midnight world with light at any moment. But I was not going to do the thing in that sudden way. I should have had the Established Roman Catholic Church on my back in a minute.
3.) All the nobles of Britain, with their families, attended divine service morning and night daily, in their private chapels, and even the worst of them had family worship five or six times a day besides. The credit of this belonged entirely to the Church. Although I was no friend to that Catholic Church, I was obliged to admit this. And often, in spite of me, I found myself saying, "What would this country be without the Church?"
4.) "I had two schemes in my head which were the vastest of all my projects. The one was to overthrow the Catholic Church and set up the Protestant faith on its ruins -- not as an established Church, but a go-as-you-please one."Cristin:
I found it very interesting that until A Connecticut Yankee was published in 1889, stories were not written about time travel. It is hard to think this due the vast diversity of literature that is out there now. People write about everything whereas in the 1800s people did not encourage such playful thoughts.
MT really goes into detail when describing scenes from his book. In chapter one he described a young girl: “Presently a fair slip of a girl, about ten years old, with a cataract of golden hair streaming down over her shoulders, came along. Around her head she wore a hoop of flame-red poppies. It was as sweet an outfit as ever I saw, what there was of it. She walked indolently along, with a mind at rest, its peace reflected in her innocent face.”
Also he described a town: “In the town were some substantial windowless houses of stone scattered among a wilderness of thatched cabins; the streets were mere crooked alleys, and unpaved; troops of dogs and nude children played in the sun and made life and noise; hogs roamed and rooted contentedly about, and one of them lay in a reeking wallow in the middle of the main thoroughfare and suckled her family.
“Presently there was a distant blare of military music; it came nearer, still nearer, and soon a noble cavalcade wound into view, glorious with plumed helmets and flashing mail and flaunting banners and rich doublets and horse-cloths and gilded spearheads; and through the muck and swine, and naked brats, and joyous dogs, and shabby huts, it took its gallant way, and in its wake we followed.” I found this quote funny because when I think of this time period I picture the king arriving with military and having their metal armor on with a trumpet being played to announce their arrival.
I like how Mark Twain wrote about someone going back in time to the period of the Knights of the Round Table and King Arthur. I feel this story has been done many times since MT wrote it. There have been many movies where someone from modern time somehow ends up in King Arthur’s Court.
Industrializing the Sixth Century ~ “…inventors like Watt, Whitney and Bell were the creators of this world -- after God." This quote caught my eye because it is true. God created Earth and every living thing on it, yet man was the one to invent and create they way we live today. Society has evolved from just wondering the earth as care free like Adam and Eve to having electricity, computers, and greater technology to produce thing more efficient.
Story of a Great Monopoly-Henry Demarest Lloyd
Jen:
- Lloyd states that the incidents of injustice in railroad history “show most of the points where we fail, as between man and man, employer and employed, the public and the corporation, the state and the citizen, to maintain the equities of “government”-and employment- “of the people, by the people, and for the people” (p.g. 319). I think this quote is interesting because it shows that one cause to the railroad problem is the unequal relationships and the fact that one half of every relationship is usually taken advantage of, such as the relationships between employees and employers, the public and the corporation etc.
- I also find it interesting that during the railroad strikes of 1877 meat rose 3 cents a pound in one day, hogs and poultry died on the side of the road as they couldn’t be shipped, and since petroleum and grain couldn’t be shipped, merchants couldn’t sell, manufacturers couldn’t work, and banks couldn’t lend. The strikes affected 12 states, with insurrections in 10 of those states, 20,000 miles of railroad were stopped, and one million men were unemployed as a result. It is interesting to see how dependent the country was on the railroads and how the world stopped when the rail lines stopped moving.
- It is also interesting to see how the Standard Oil Company rose to monopoly through the illegal and unfair deals it made. It made special contracts with the railroads to transport oil cheaply, and it also got truck lines to refuse to carry its competitors. The contract between the Pennsylvania Railroad and Standard Oil, (under the name of the South Improvement Company), agreed to double the freights on oil to everyone, and to pay Standard Oil $1.00 for every barrel it shipped, and $1.00 for every barrel its competitors shipped on the line. The railroad paid Standard Oil 10% back of its freight bills and when it charged other companies $1.40 for service, they only charged Standard Oil 80 cents. The railroads refused shipment to a rival oil producer, and the producer had to sell its product to the Standard Oil Company at 25 cents below the market value to get it shipped. Lloyd said people only had two choices: financial ruin or catering to Standard Oil Company.
- Questions
- Lloyd says that a monopoly system to that extent couldn’t be created in Europe, but why?
- What were the railroad companies getting in return for catering to Standard Oil?
- Why did the courts turn their heads and let this occur for so long?
Frank:
"Progress and Poverty" is a literary work by Henry George that encompasses what he believes to be the crisis of his times. George goes into great detail listing and explaining problems that have affected, are affecting, and will affect civilization in the near future. Below are some of George's statements that not only grabbed my attention while I was reading, but also summarized a majority of his striking arguments.
"It was natural to expect, and it was expected, that laboursaving inventions would lighten the toil and improve the condition of the labourer; that the enormous increase in the power of producing wealth would make real poverty a thing of the past (Chapter 1)."
"Now, however, we are coming into collision with facts which there can be no mistaking. From all parts of the civilized world come complaints of industrial depression; of labour condemned to involuntary idleness; of capital massed and wasting; of pecuniary distress among business men; of want and suffering and anxiety among the working classes. There is distress where large standing armies are maintained, but there is also distress where the standing armies are nominal; there is distress where protective tariffs are applied, but there is also distress where trade is nearly free; there is distress where autocratic government yet prevails, but there is also distress where political power is wholly in the hands of the people; in countries where paper is money, and in countries where gold and silver are the only currency. Evidently, beneath all such things as these, from local circumstances but are in some way or another engendered by progress itself (Chapter 1)."
"This association of poverty with progress is the great enigma of our times. It is the central fact from which spring industrial, social, and political difficulties that perplex the world, and with which statesmanship and philanthropy and education grapple in vain. From it come the clouds that overhang the future of the most progressive and self-reliant nations. It is the riddle that the Sphinx of Fate puts to our civilization, which not to answer is to be destroyed. So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent (Chapter 1)."
Where this course leads is clear to whoever will think. As corruption becomes chronic; as public spirit is lost; as traditions of honour, virtue and patriotism are weakened; as law is brought into contempt and reforms become hopeless; then in the festering mass will be generated volcanic forces which will shatter and rend when seeming accident gives them vent. Strong, unscrupulous men, rising up upon occasion, will become the exponents of blind popular desires or fierce popular passions, and dash aside forms that have lost their vitality. The sword will again be mightier than the pen, and in carnivals of destruction brute force and wild frenzy will alternate with the lethargy of a declining civilization (Chapter 25)."
"As the decline goes on, the return to barbarism, where it is not in itself regarded as an advance, will seem necessary to meet the exigencies of the times...What change may come, no mortal man can tell, but that some great change must come, thoughtful men begin to feel. The civilized world is trembling on the verge of a great movement. Either it must be a leap upward, which will open the way to advances yet undreamed of, or it must be a plunge downward, which will carry us back towards barbarism (Chapter 25)."
"The fiat has gone forth! With steam and electricity, and the new powers born of progress, forces have entered the world that will either compel us to a higher plane or overwhelm us - as nation after nation, as civilization after civilization, have been overwhelmed before. Between democratic ideas and the aristocratic adjustments of society there is an irreconcilable conflict. We cannot go on permitting men to vote and forcing them to tramp. We cannot go on educating boys and girls in our public schools and at the same time refuse them the right to earn an honest living. We cannot go on prating of the inalienable rights of man and at the same time deny the inalienable right to the bounty of the Creator (Chapter 26)."
[Chapter 27 I found to be mostly a reiteration of what has already been stated. In this particular section of his writings, Henry George emphasizes the importance of truth and justice - and the eventual benefits and successes that can arise from holding these concepts with the utmost regard.]
Cait:
What I found to be the most impressive with Henry Lloyd was the work sited in the main Blackboard page. I think it is important that he declares morals to be a strong pillar to support America,
“We have given competition its own way, and have found that we are not good enough or wise enough to be trusted with this power of ruining ourselves in the attempt to ruin others. Free competition could be let run only in a community where every one had learned, to say and act "I am the state." We have had an era of material inventions. We now need a renaissance of moral inventions, contrivances to tap the vast currents of moral magnetism flowing uncaught over the face of society. Morals and values rise and fall together. If our combinations [i.e., trade associations] have no morals, they can have no values.” http://blackboard.assumption.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_1063_1
This is very important because Lloyd is calling for accountability in an era filled with monopolies. Essentially, he is going up against the most powerful Americans- politically and financially- and demanding that the American public expect more from their business leaders to ensure that freedom exists everywhere in the US.Lloyd points out:
“In anticipation of the arrival of the cold wave from Manitoba, a cold wave was sent out all over the United States, from their parlors in New York, in an order for halftime work by the miners during the first three months of this year, and for an increase of prices. These are the means this combination uses to keep down wages the price of men, and keep up the price of coal the wages of capital.”
http://blackboard.assumption.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_1063_1
I wonder if this is how prices are set today with oil? Even if not, the Vanderbilt family was able to build a fortune big enough to still be living off of today as a well known aristocratic family based on this principal.In regards to Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company, they had, at one point, people in charge of the China, European, and United States trade. http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?root=%2Fmoa%2Fatla%2Fatla0047%2F&tif=00329.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABK2934-0047-44&coll=moa&frames=1&view=50 By having control of everything, Rockefeller was able to control the oil markets, and could extort entire nations, making them pay inflated prices he set.